Francis Dobbs (1750–1811) was an Irish barrister, politician and writer on political, religious and historical topics.
Life
He was second son of Richard Dobbs of Castletown, and nephew of Arthur Dobbs, the governor of North Carolina. He was born on 27 April 1750, and took a degree at Trinity College, Dublin. He was in the 63rd Regiment of Foot for around five years, leaving in 1773.[1]
He was called to the Irish bar in 1773, In Dublin he took a leading part in social life, but was noted for growing eccentricity.[2]
A leading Volunteer and friend of James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont, Dobbs was the representative of a northern volunteer corps at the Dungannon Convention in 1782.[2] There he presented an ambitious plan of reform in Ireland, including a simplified liturgy.[3] On the granting of the Constitution of 1782, at the prompting of Henry Grattan, Dobbs wrote in his History "it was on the plains of America that Ireland obtained her freedom", attributing the legislative powers now given to the Irish Parliament to the outcome of the American War of Independence.[4]
He was completely opposed to legislative union with England, and believed it was impious. Caulfield and others leaders decided to make use of him, and in 1797 he was returned to the Irish House of Commons for the borough of Charlemont.[2]
Dobbs soon delivered a parliamentary speech, and submitted five propositions for tranquillising the country, which were published in 1799. His major speech was delivered against the Union Bill on 7 June 1800;[2] supporting a motion to postpone the third reading of the Bill, he commented on the current state of Europe, in the light of the Book of Daniel, to the effect that the Union would never be operative.[5] David V. Erdman wrote that Dobbs's interpretation of the Bible and history was Swedenborgian.[6]
With the passing of the Act of Union 1800. Dobbs sank into obscurity; he could not get any more of his books published, and his eccentricities increased to mental illness. He died in poverty on 11 April 1811.[2]
Works
In 1773 Dobbs's tragedy, The Patriot King, or the Irish Chief was played in Dublin.[7] It was published in London in 1774, and besides the Smock Alley Theatre was put on in Rathfarnham and Belfast.[1] He published his first political pamphlets during the Volunteer agitation:[2]
- A Letter to Lord North, 1780;
- Thoughts on Volunteers, 1781;
- A History of Irish Affairs from 12 Oct. 1779 to 15 Sept. 1782, 1782; and
- Thoughts on the present Mode of Taxation in Great Britain, 1784.
Dobbs then published in 1787 four large volumes of a Universal History, commencing at the Creation and ending at the death of Christ, in letters from a father to his son, in which he tried to prove historically the exact fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies.[2] The Monthly Review wrote of the first volume that he stuck rigidly to the chronology of Isaac Newton.[8] He also published in 1788 a volume of poems, most of which had appeared in periodicals.[2]
His major speech was published as Substance of a Speech delivered in the Irish House of Commons 7 June 1800, in which is predicted the second coming of the Messiah. It is said that 30,000 copies were immediately sold. He argued that the Union was forbidden by scripture, by quoting texts from Daniel and the Revelation. He published in the same year his Concise View of the Great Predictions in the Sacred Writings, and his Summary of Universal History, in nine volumes.[2]
Views
Dobbs as an interpreter of Biblical prophecy was a futurist. He placed Armageddon in Ireland.[9] It has been suggested that Dobbs might have been alluding to the prophecies of Joanna Southcott.[10]
Richard Popkin compared Dobbs's religious views to those of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed; and contradicted the interpretation that his reading of the Book of Genesis was pre-Adamite or in line with Serpent Seed.[11] A comment on Dobbs's View was in the Spirit of the English Magazines in 1821. It placed some names in a gathering of 30 people he mentioned there in Hoxton, with the bookseller J. Dennis and other Behmenists and followers of William Law. The group included John Bell "the Life Guardsman", a Wesleyan who had predicted the end of the world for 1757.[12]
Family
Dobbs married Jane Stewart in 1773, and they had at least seven children. She was the daughter of Alexander Stewart of Ballintoy; and Dobbs moved onto Stewart property at Acton, County Armagh to manage it.[13][1] His father-in-law, nicknamed "Graceless" for his extravagance, moved to Acton after losing the Ballintoy property where he had opened up the coastal coal trade.[14]
References
- ^ a b c Lammey, David. "Dobbs, Francis". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/7712. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ Tony Claydon, Ian McBride (editors), Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c.1650-c.1850 (2007), pp. 255–6; Google Books.
- ^ David A. Valone, Jill Marie Bradbury (editors), Anglo-Irish Identities 1571-1845 (2008), p. 18; Google Books.
- ^ William Conyngham Plunket, John Baptist Cashel Hoey (editor), Speeches at the Bar and in the Senate (1865), p. 79; archive.org.
- ^ David V. Erdman, Blake: Prophet against Empire (1977), p. 430 note 15.
- ^ Samuel Carlyle Hughes, The Pre-Victorian Drama in Dublin (1904), p. 63;archive.org .
- ^ The Monthly Review, vol. 79 (1788), p. 263; Google Books.
- ^ David Brady, The Contribution of British Writers between 1560 and 1830 to the Interpretation of Revelation 13.16-18: (the number of the beast): a study in the history of exegesis (1983), note 84 on pp. 205–6; Google Books.
- ^ Eugen Weber, Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages (2000), p. 113; Google Books.
- ^ Richard Henry Popkin, Isaac La Peyrère (1596-1676): his life, work, and influence(1987), p. 131; Google Books.
- ^ Spirit of the English Magazines, vol. 9 (1821), p. 478; Google Books.
- ^ thepeerage.com, Francis Dobbs.
- ^ Ulster Journal of Archaeology January 1901, vol. 7, pp. 11–2; archive.org.
External links
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Dobbs, Francis". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.