DELANY, MARY GRANVILLE
an Eng lishwoman of literary tastes, was born at Coulston, Wilts, on May 14, 1700, and died on April 15, 1788. She was a niece of the
Lord Lansdowne. In 1 718 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
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. At this time Mrs. Delany was a charming and sweet old lady, with a reputa tion for cutting out and making the ingenious "paper mosaiks" now in the British Museum; she had known everyone worth knowing in her day, had corresponded with Swift and Young, and left an interesting picture of polite society in her Autobiog raphy and Letters, 1700-88, an abridged version of which was compiled by G. Paston, 1900. Burke calls her "a real fine lady"— "the model of an accomplished woman of former times." See Mrs. Delany at Court and among the Wits. Arranged from the "Autobiography and Correspondence. . . " With an introduction by R. Brimley Johnson (1925).
Boer general, was born in the Lichtenburg district in what is now the Orange Free State, and in his youth and early manhood fought in the Kafir wars. In 1893 he entered the Volksraad of the South African Republic, where he supported the policy of Gen. Joubert. At the outbreak of the war with Great Britain in 1899 De La Rey was made a general, and fought in the western campaign against Lord Methuen and Lord Roberts. He won his first great success at Nitral's Nek on July 11, 1900, where he compelled the sur render of a strong British detachment. In the second or guer rilla stage of the war De La Rey was conspicuously successful. He was assistant to Gen. Louis Botha and a member of the gov ernment 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 cap ture of Lord Methuen at Klerksdorp (March 7, 1902). The Brit ish general was severely wounded in the action, and De La Rey re leased him at once, being unable to afford him proper medical assistance. This humanity and courtesy marked De La Rey's con duct throughout the war. After the conclusion of peace De La Rey, who had shared in the negotiations, visited Europe with other Boer generals to raise funds for resettlement. In Dec. 1903 he went on a mission to India, and induced the Boer prisoners of war detained at Ahmednagar to accept the new order of things and to take the oath of allegiance. In Feb. 1907 Gen. De La Rey was returned unopposed as member for Ventersdorp in the legislative assembly of the first Transvaal parliament under self government. At the outbreak of the World War he was implicated in Maritz's rebellion, and was shot dead by a police patrol at Johannesburg on Sept. 16, 1914.
Swiss physicist, was born at Geneva on Oct. 9, 18o1. He was the son of Charles Gaspard de la Rive (1770-1834), who became professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the Academy of Geneva in 1802 and rector in 1823. In 1823 de la Rive was appointed to the chair of natural philosophy in the Academy of Geneva. He devoted himself specially with Francois Marcet (1803-83) , 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. His experiments on the voltaic cell were of importance in the development of electrical theory; the results were published in 1836. In common with Faraday, de la Rive held the theory that voltaic electricity was due to chemical action. In 184o he described a process for the electro-gilding of silver and brass, for which in the following year he received a prize of 3,00o 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 con siderable 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 186o, 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 secur ing a declaration from the English Government, which was com municated privately to that of France. Later (1867) he carried out a series of researches on the discharge of electricity through gases, with observations on the critical pressure and the conduc tivity of the cathode dark space. He died suddenly at Marseille on Nov. 27, 1873.
