on the 4th of December 1810. His letters in The Times were instrumental in exposing many abuses. He was a frequent contributor to the Cornhill, and was a friend of Thackeray, who dedicated to him The Adventures of Philip, and one of his ballads, “Jacob Omnium’s Hoss,” deals with an incident in Higgins’s career. He died on the 14th of August 1868. Some of his articles were published in 1875 as Essays on Social Subjects.
HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH (1823–1911), American
author and soldier, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on
the 22nd of December 1823. He was a descendant of Francis
Higginson (1588–1630), who emigrated from Leicestershire to
the colony of Massachusetts Bay and was a minister of the church
of Salem, Mass., in 1629–1630; and a grandson of Stephen
Higginson (1743–1828), a Boston merchant, who was a member
of the Continental Congress in 1783, took an active part in suppressing
Shay’s Rebellion, was the author of the “Laco” letters
(1789), and rendered valuable services to the United States
government as navy agent from the 11th of May to the 22nd of
June 1798. Graduating from Harvard in 1841, he was a schoolmaster
for two years, studied theology at the Harvard Divinity
School, and was pastor in 1847–1850 of the First Religious Society
(Unitarian) of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and of the Free
Church at Worcester in 1852–1858. He was a Free Soil candidate
for Congress (1850), but was defeated; was indicted with
Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker for participation in the
attempt to release the fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, in Boston
(1853); was engaged in the effort to make Kansas a free state
after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854; and during
the Civil War was captain in the 51st Massachusetts Volunteers,
and from November 1862 to October 1864, when he was retired
because of a wound received in the preceding August, was
colonel of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first regiment
recruited from former slaves for the Federal service. He described
his experiences in Army Life in a Black Regiment (1870).
In politics Higginson was successively a Republican, an Independent
and a Democrat. His writings show a deep love of
nature, art and humanity, and are marked by vigour of thought,
sincerity of feeling, and grace and finish of style. In his Common
Sense About Women (1881) and his Women and Men (1888) he
advocated equality of opportunity and equality of rights for the
two sexes.
Among his numerous books are Outdoor Papers (1863); Malbone: an Oldport Romance (1869); Life of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (in “American Men of Letters” series, 1884); A Larger History of the United States of America to the Close of President Jackson’s Administration (1885); The Monarch of Dreams (1886); Travellers and Outlaws (1889); The Afternoon Landscape (1889), poems and translations; Life of Francis Higginson (in “Makers of America,” 1891); Concerning All of Us (1892); The Procession of the Flowers and Kindred Papers (1897); Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (in “American Men of Letters” series, 1902); John Greenleaf Whittier (in “English Men of Letters” series, 1902); A Reader’s History of American Literature (1903), the Lowell Institute lectures for 1903, edited by Henry W. Boynton; and Life and Times of Stephen Higginson (1907). His volumes of reminiscence, Cheerful Yesterdays (1898), Old Cambridge (1899), Contemporaries (1899), and Part of a Man’s Life (1905), are characteristic and charming works. His collected works were published in seven vols. (1900).
HIGHAM FERRERS, a market town and municipal borough
in the Eastern parliamentary division of Northamptonshire,
England, 63 m. N.N.W. from London, on branches of the London
& North-Western and Midland railways. Pop. (1901), 2540. It is
pleasantly situated on high ground above the south bank of the
river Nene. The church of St Mary is among the most beautiful
of the many fine churches in Northamptonshire. To the Early
English chancel a very wide north aisle, resembling a second
nave, was added in the Decorated period, and the general appearance
of the chancel, with its north aisle and Lady-chapel, is
Decorated. The tower with its fine spire and west front was
partially but carefully rebuilt in the 17th century. Close to the
church, but detached from it, stands a beautiful Perpendicular
building, the school-house, founded by Archbishop Chichele in
1422. The Bede House, a somewhat similar structure by the
same founder, completes a striking group of buildings. In the
town are remains of Chichele’s college. Higham Ferrers shares
in the widespread local industry of shoemaking. The town is
governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area,
1945 acres.
Higham (Hecham, Heccam, Hegham Ferers) was evidently a large village before the Domesday Survey. It was then held by William Peverel of the king, but on the forfeiture of the lordship by his son it was granted in 1199 to William Ferrers, earl of Derby. On the outlawry of Robert his grandson it passed to Edmund, earl of Lancaster, and, reverting to the crown in 1322, was granted to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, but escheated to the crown in 1327, and was granted to Henry, earl of Lancaster. The castle, which may have been built before Henry III. visited Higham in 1229, is mentioned in 1322, but had been destroyed by 1540. It appears by the confirmation of Henry III. in 1251 that the borough originated in the previous year when William de Ferrers, earl of Derby, manumitted by charter ninety-two persons, granting they should have a free borough. A mayor was elected from the beginning of the reign of Richard II., while a town hall is mentioned in 1395. The revenues of Chichele’s college were given to the corporation by the charter of 1566, whereby the borough returned one representative to parliament, a privilege enjoyed until 1832. James I. in 1604 gave the mayor the commission of the peace with other privileges which were confirmed by Charles II. in 1664. The old charters were surrendered in 1684 and a new grant obtained; a further charter was granted in 1887.
HIGHGATE, a northern district of London, England, partly
in the metropolitan borough of St Pancras, but extending
into Middlesex. It is a high-lying district, the greatest
elevation being 426 ft. The Great North Road passes through
Highgate, which is supposed to have received its name from the
toll-gate erected by the bishop of London when the road was
formed through his demesne in the 14th century. It is possible,
however, that “gate” is used here in its old signification, and
that the name means simply high road. The road rose so steeply
here that in 1812 an effort was made to lessen the slope for
coaches by means of an archway, and a new way was completed
in 1900. In the time of stage-coaches a custom was introduced of
making ignorant persons believe that they required to be sworn
and admitted to the freedom of the Highgate before being
allowed to pass the gate, the fine of admission being a bottle of
wine. Not a few famous names occur among the former residents
of Highgate. Bacon died here in 1626; Coleridge and Andrew
Marvell, the poets, were residents. Cromwell House, now a
convalescent home, was presented by Oliver Cromwell to his
eldest daughter Bridget on her marriage with Henry Ireton
(January 15, 1646/7). Lauderdale House, now attached to
the public grounds of Waterlow Park, belonged to the Duke of
Lauderdale, one of the “Cabal” of Charles II. Among various
institutions may be mentioned Whittington’s almshouses, near
Whittington Stone, at the foot of Highgate Hill, on which the
future mayor of London is reputed to have been resting when he
heard the peal of Bow bells and “turned again.” Highgate
grammar school was founded (1562–1565) by Sir Roger Cholmley,
chief-justice. St Joseph’s Retreat is the mother-house of the
Passionist Fathers in England. There is an extensive and
beautiful cemetery on the slope below the church of St Michael.
HIGHLANDS, THE, that part of Scotland north-west of a line
drawn from Dumbarton to Stonehaven, including the Inner and
Outer Hebrides and the county of Bute, but excluding the
Orkneys and Shetlands, Caithness, the flat coastal land of the
shires of Nairn, Elgin and Banff, and all East Aberdeenshire (see
Scotland). This area is to be distinguished from the Lowlands
by language and race, the preservation of the Gaelic speech being
characteristic. Even in a historical sense the Highlanders were
a separate people from the Lowlanders, with whom, during
many centuries, they shared nothing in common. The town of
Inverness is usually regarded as the capital of the Highlands.
The Highlands consist of an old dissected plateau, or block,
of ancient crystalline rocks with incised valleys and lochs
carved by the action of mountain streams and by ice, the
resulting topography being a wide area of irregularly distributed
