MARY

See also:

• GRANVILLE
• GRANVILLE, GRANVILLE
• GRANVILLE, JOHN CARTERET, EARL (1690-1763)

GRANVILLE

See also:

• MARY GRANVILLE DELANY (1700-1788)

DELANY (1700-1788)  , an English-woman of literary tastes, was born at Coulston, Wilts, on the 14th of May 1700 . She was a niece of the 1st Lord Lansdowne . In 1717 or 1718 she was unhappily married to Alexander Pendarves, a rich old Cornish landowner, who died in 1724 . During a visit to Ireland she met Dean Swift and his intimate friend, the Irish divine, Patrick Delany, whose second wife she became in 1743 . After his death in 1768 she passed all her summers with her bosom friend the dowager duchess of Portland —Prior's " Peggy "—and when the latter died George III. and Queen Charlotte, whose affection for their " dearest Mrs Delany " seems to have been most genuine, gave her a small house at Windsor and a pension of £300 a year . Fanny Burney (Madame D'Arblay) was introduced to her in 1783, and frequently visited her at her London home and at Windsor, and owed to her friend-ship her court appointment . At this time Mrs Delany was a charming and sweet old lady, with a reputation for cutting out and making the ingenious " paper mosaiks " now in the British Museum; she had known every one worth knowing in her day, had corresponded with Swift and Young, and left an interesting picture of the polite but commonplace English society of the 18th century in her six volumes of Autobiography and Letters . Burke calls her " a real fine lady "—" the model of an accomplished woman of former times." She died on the 15th of April 1788 . DE LA REY, JACOBUS HERCULES (1847– ), Boer soldier, was born in the Lichtenburg district, and in his youth and early manhood saw much service in savage warfare . In 1893 he entered the Volksraad of the South African Republic, and was an active supporter of the policy of General Joubert . At the outbreak of the war with Great Britain in 1899 De La Rey was made a general, and he was engaged in the western campaign against Lord Methuen and Lord Roberts . He won his first great success at Nitral's Nek on the 11th of July 1900, where he compelled the surrender of a strong English detachment .

In the second or

guerrilla stage of the war De La Rey became one of the most conspicuously successful of the Boer leaders . He was assistant to General Louis Botha and a member of the government, with charge of operations in the western Transvaal . The principal actions in which he was successful (see also TRANSVAAL: History) were Nooitgedacht, Vlakfontein and the defeat and capture of Lord Methuen at Klerksdorp (March 7, 1902) . The British general was severely wounded in the action, and De La Rey released him at once, being unable to afford him proper medical assistance . This humanity and courtesy marked De La Rey's conduct throughout the war, and even more than his military skill and daring earned for him the esteem of his enemies . After the conclusion of peace De La Rey, who had borne a prominent part in the negotiations, visited Europe with the other generals, with the intention of raising funds to enable the Boers to resettle their country . In December 1903 he went on a mission to India, and induced the whole of the Boer, prisoners of war detained at Ahmednagar to accept the new order of things and to take the oath of allegiance . In February 1907 General De La Rey was returned unopposed as member for Ventersdorp in the legislative assembly of the first Transvaal parliament under self-government . DE LA RIVE, AUGUSTE ARTHUR (1801-1873), Swiss physicist, was born at Geneva on the 9th of October 1801 . He was the son of Charles Gaspard de la Rive (1770–1834), who studied medicine at Edinburgh, and after practising for a few years in London, became professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the academy of Geneva in 1802 and rector in 1823 . After a brilliant career as a student, he was appointed at the age of twenty-two to the chair of natural philosophy in the academy of Geneva . For some years after his appointment he devoted himself specially, with Francois Marcet (1803–1883), to the investigation of the specific heat of gases, and to observations for determining the temperature of the earth's crust .

Electrical studies, however, engaged most of his attention, especially in connexion with the theory of the voltaic cell and the electric discharge in rarefied gases . His researches on the last-mentioned subject led him to form a new theory of the aurora borealis . In 1840 he described a process for the electro-gilding of silver and brass, for which in the following year he received a prize of 3000 francs from the French Academy of Sciences . Between 1854 and 1858 he published a Traite de l'electricite theorique et appliquee, which was translated into several languages . De la Rive's birth and fortune gave him considerable social and political influence . He was distinguished for his hospitality to literary and scientific men, and for his interest in the welfare and independence of his native country . In 1860, when the annexation of Savoy and Nice had led the Genevese to fear French aggression, de la Rive was sent by his fellow-citizens on a special embassy to England, and succeeded in securing a declaration from the English government, which was communicated privately to that of France, that any attack upon Geneva would be regarded as a cases belli . On the occasion of this visit the university of Oxford conferred upon de la Rive the honorary degree of D.C.L . When on his way to pass the winter at Cannes he died suddenly at Marseilles on the 27th of November 1873 . His son, LucIEN DE LA RIVE, born at Geneva on the 31d of April 1834, published papers on various mathematical and physical subjects, and with Edouard Sarasin carried out investigations on the propagation of electric waves .