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Gentleman's Magazine 1849 part 1 p.95
that capacity, forty years, under twelve or thirteen
different naval administrations, Whig and Tory, including
that of the Lord High Admiral, his royal highness the Duke
of Clarence; having reason to believe that I have given
satisfaction to all and every one of these naval
administrations; and I am happy in the reflection that I
have experienced kindness and attention from all."
He was created a Baronet during the short administration of
Sir Robert Peel in 1835.
At length, in 1845, Sir John Barrow retired from public
life, in consideration of his advanced years, although he
was still in vigourous possession of all the mental and
bodily powers required for the due discharge of the
functions of his office. In the course of the succeeding
three years his vital energies became gradually somewhat
weaker, but he seemed on the whole so hearty, and so fully
in the enjoyment of his faculties, that his friends and
relatives entertained no apprehension that his end was so
near.
As an author, Sir John Barrow was exceedingly industrious
and very successful. The general aim of his writings has
been to convey information, to promote and advance the arts
and sciences, and to stimulate research and inquiry; and he
has the great and rare privilege to live to see the most
beneficial effects produced by his honest and faithful
endeavours. In enumerating his works, he modestly "disclaims
all pretensions to the literary character," and says he gave
them "only as a statement of facts; at the same time they
have been more productive of profit than he could have
expected." They may thus be summed up:
Articles in the Quarterly Review, on almost every subject
(excepting political), mostly asked for by Mr. Gifford, 195;
in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, requested by Professor
Napier, ten of twelve; by particular desire of the same, a
"Review of the Life of Admiral Lord St. Vincent," in the
Edinburgh Review; the Life of Lord Macartney, in 2 vols.
4to.; Travels in South Africa, 2 vols, 4to.; Travels in
China, 1 vol. 4to.; Voyage to Cochin China, 1 vol. 4to.; The
Life of Lord Anson, 1 vol. 8vo.; The Life of Lord Howe, 1
vol. 8vo.; in the "Family Library" the Life of Peter the
Great, and the Mutiny of the Bounty; Chronological History
of Arctic Voyages, 1 vol. 8vo.; Voyages of Discovery and
Research within the Arctic Regions, 1 vol. 8vo.
Sir John Barrow was the constant and successful advocate at
the Admiralty of those voyages of discovery which have
enlarged the bounds of science and conferred so much honour
to the British name and nation. Appreciating those services,
the officers who had been employed on the various Arctic
expeditions presented to him, in March 1845, a magnificent
candelabrum, with a suitable inscription on the pedestal.
Sir John Barrow married at the Cape of Good Hope in Aug.
1798, Maria, daughter of Peter John Treutter, esq. member of
the court of justice in that colony, and had issue four sons
and two daughters. The eldest son, now Sir George Barrow, is
a senior clerk in the Colonial Office; the second, John
Barrow, esq. is at the head of a very important department,
the charge of the records in the Admiralty, and the author
of Travels, &c. His third son, Commander Willliam
Barrow, R.N. died at the Cape of Good Hope in Feb. 1838,
after having served for three years on the East India
station in command of H.M. sloop Rose. The youngest, Mr.
Peter Barrow, is British Vice-Consul at Caen. His daughters
are Johanna, who has recently become a widow by the death of
Lieut.-Colonel Robert Batty, and Mary-Jane who is unmarried.
The body of Sir John Barrow was interred in the Camden-Town
cemetery, belonging to the parish of St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields. The mourners were, the three sons,
and Mr. Robert Barrow Batty (a scholar of the London
University,) grandson of the deceased; the Right Hon. John
Wilson Croker, Sir George Staunton, Bart. M.P. and Sir
Benjamin Brodie, Bart.
Sir George Barrow, the present Baronet, married in 1832,
Rosamund, daughter of William Pennell, esq. formerly
Consul-general of the Brazils, and sister to the wife of the
Right Hon. Wilson Croker.
We cannot close this brief memoir of Sir John Barrow more
appropriately than by the following pleasing extract from
the account of his decease in the Ulverston Advertiser, a
provincial journal, published in his native district in
Lancashire: "Sir John never forgot the spot that gave him
birth. By his will the annual subscription which he had been
in the habit of contributing for a long series of years to
the support of the school in which he was educated, is to be
continued, and his cottage at Dragley-beck given over in
perpetuity to trustees, that the rent may be appropriated to
the education of the poor at the same school. His memory
will long survive, and his example be held up for imitation
by all who derive their birth or education from the same
locality. The name of Sir John Barrow is a household word
amongst us; although he who bore it is departed, his memory
still lingers lovingly about our hearths, and will con-
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