DEPRETIS, AGOSTINO (1813-1887), Italian statesman, was born at Mezzana Corte, in the province of Stradella, on Jan. 31, 1813. He belonged to the Giovane Italia, and was nearly cap tured by the Austrians while smuggling arms into Milan. Elected deputy in 1848 he founded the journal Il Diritto. In 186o he was sent on an abortive mission to Sicily to find a compromise between the Cavour and the Garibaldi policies. As a member of the Rat tazzi cabinet of 1862 he arranged with Garibaldi the expedition which ended in disaster at Aspromonte. He was a member of the Ricasoli cabinet of 1866, and on the death of Rattazzi (1873) became the leader of the Left, and was premier in 1876-78, and for a brief period in 1879. Minister of the interior in the Cairoli cabinet of 1879, he was again prime minister from 1881 until his death on July 29, 1887. He reconstituted his cabinet four times alternately bestowing portfolios upon Ricotti, Robilant and other Conservatives, so as to complete the political process known as tras f ormismo. A few weeks before his death he repented of his transformist policy, and again included Crispi and Zanardelli in his cabinet. During his long term of office he abolished the grist tax, extended the suffrage, completed the railway system, aided Mancini in forming the Triple Alliance, and initiated colonial policy by the occupation of Massawa; but, at the same time, he vastly increased indirect taxation, corrupted and destroyed the fibre of the several parliamentary parties, and, by his uttter ex travagance in public works, impaired the stability of Italian finance.
See Breganze, Agostino Depretis e suoi tempi (1894) • DEPTFORD, a south-eastern metropolitan borough of Lon don, England, bounded by Bermondsey, the river Thames, Green wich, Lewisham and Camberwell. The name is connected with a ford over the Ravensbourne, a stream entering the Thames through Deptford creek. The borough (pop. 1931, io6,886) com prises only the parish of Deptford St. Paul, that of Deptford St. Nicholas being included under Greenwich. All the northern part of Deptford adjoining the Thames is low-lying, but the southern, on a low gravel terrace, rises to 154 ft. in Telegraph hill. It is a district of poor streets inhabited by a large industrial population employed chiefly in railway, engineering and other riverside works. On the river front is the royal victualling yard which supplies the navy with provisions, medicines, furniture, etc., manufactured there or stored in the large warehouses. Henry VIII. established a royal naval dockyard at Deptford, and the shipbuilding industry flourished for a long time, persisting when wooden ships gave place to iron, and is still carried on. The old dockyard, however, ceased to be used in 1869, and was filled up and converted into a foreign cattle market by the City corporation. At the present time engi neering and boiler-making are among the more important indus tries of Deptford.
Deptford shares in the great timber import of the adjoining district of Rotherhithe and the New Baltic and other timber wharves front the Surrey canal. In connection with this timber trade furniture, casks and packing cases are made. There are also works for tar, chemicals, asphalt, oil and whiting, a tea ware house, cocoa and coffee works, bronze, brass and copper, gal vanized iron and zinc works. Deptford creek, with coal and timber wharves, is 1,56o yd. long, and is crossed by a road bridge near the entrance. Of public buildings the chief are St. Paul's church, the Municipal buildings and the hospital for master mariners, main tained by the Corporation of the Trinity house. Other institutions are the Goldsmith's college, New Cross;. and the South-eastern fever hospital. Sayes Court, demolished 1729, was the residence of the duke of Sussex in the reign of Elizabeth, was occupied in the next century by John Evelyn, and in 1698 by Peter the Great during his stay in Deptford. The site of its gardens is occupied by Deptford park, i i ac. in extent, and Sayes Court gardens. Other open spaces are on Telegraph hill. The parliamentary bor ough of Deptford returns one member.