Francis Grose
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Francis Grose (born before 11 June 1731 – 12 May 1791) was an
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
antiquary An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...
,
draughtsman A draughtsman (British spelling) or draftsman (American spelling) may refer to: * An architectural drafter, who produced architectural drawings until the late 20th century * An artist who produces drawings that rival or surpass their other types ...
, and
lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries. * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoreti ...
. He produced ''A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' (1785) and ''A Provincial Glossary, with a Collection of Local Proverbs, and Popular Superstitions'' (1787).


Early life

Grose was born at his father's house in Broad Street, St-Peter-le-Poer, London. His parents were
Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...
immigrant and jeweller Francis Jacob Grose (d. 1769), and his wife, Anne (d. 1773), daughter of Thomas Bennett of
Greenford Greenford () is a suburb in the London Borough of Ealing in west London, England, lying west from Charing Cross. It has a population of 46,787 inhabitants, or 62,126 with the inclusion of Perivale. Greenford is served by Greenford Station (Lo ...
in
Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...
. Grose was baptised on 11 June 1731 in the parish of St Peter-le-Poer. The eldest of seven children, Grose probably received a classical education but first aimed at a career in the
Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
. In 1747, he was in Flanders, apparently as a volunteer in Howard's (later 19th) regiment of foot: later he received a commission as cornet in Cobham's (later 10th) regiment of dragoons. Posted to Kent on excise duties in 1750, he met and married Catherine Jordan of
Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...
. They were eventually to have ten children, six of whom survived to adulthood. Their eldest son, also called
Francis Grose Francis Grose (born before 11 June 1731 – 12 May 1791) was an English antiquary, draughtsman, and lexicographer. He produced ''A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' (1785) and ''A Provincial Glossary, with a Collection of Local Pr ...
, was the
Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales The Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales is a government position in the State of New South Wales, Australia, acting as a deputy to the Governor of New South Wales. The office was first created in October 1786, before the arrival of the Fir ...
,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
from 1792 to 1794. Grose left the army in October 1751, possibly to avoid his regiment's posting to Scotland. In 1755, his father bought him the post of
Richmond Herald Richmond Herald of Arms in Ordinary is an officer of arms of the College of Arms in England. From 1421 to 1485, Richmond was a herald to John, Duke of Bedford, George, Duke of Clarence, and Henry, Earl of Richmond, all of whom held the Honour ( ...
but Francis showed little interest in
heraldry Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch ...
and was to sell it again in February 1763. In 1757, Grose was elected a member of the Society of Antiquaries, and 1759 he resumed his soldiering career, this time in the
militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
, which meant he could avoid distant postings. He was commissioned into the Surrey Militia as
lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often sub ...
and
adjutant Adjutant is a military appointment given to an officer who assists the commanding officer with unit administration, mostly the management of human resources in an army unit. The term is used in French-speaking armed forces as a non-commission ...
, and it was his subsequent promotion to
captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
in 1765 that led to his adoption of the familiar title "Captain Grose". The Surrey militia was disembodied in 1762 but this hardly affected Grose, who continued to receive a salary as paymaster and adjutant even in peacetime. With bequests from his parents and from his wife, who died in 1774, added to the salary he drew as a militia captain, Grose at this time was able to live reasonably well despite the demands made on his purse by the need to raise, educate and provide for his children.


Books and publications

Grose had early on shown a keen interest in drawing, having attempted sketches of medieval buildings as far back as 1749, and having taken formal instruction at a drawing school in the mid-1750s. He was not a particularly gifted draughtsman but he mixed in the London artistic milieu and began to exhibit, first at the Society of Artists in 1767–8 and then at the
Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
. His interest was in the field of medieval remains, which were beginning to exercise an increasing grip on the public imagination. In 1772, he published the first part of ''The Antiquities of England and Wales'', a work which he unashamedly aimed at the popular market. Essentially, it targeted those who wanted to know about antiquities but had neither time nor means to visit them in person, and contained small panoramas of medieval ruins, together with an informative text on a separate page. Sometimes the text was taken from books already published, or from information supplied by other antiquaries (both acknowledged); sometimes Grose collated material himself from which he could work up an article. From 1772 onwards, he also toured the country to visit and draw sites for inclusion in ''The Antiquities''. The fourth and last volume came out in June 1776, and Grose almost immediately began work on a supplement. His publishing career was interrupted however, when the Surrey militia was again called into service between 1778 and 1783. This was not a happy experience for him. Where previously Grose had been able to spend his summers visiting and sketching ancient sites, he was now obliged to attend his regiment in various training camps. He did not get on well with his new commanding officer, and he handled regimental finances in a slipshod manner. The result was that he incurred debts towards fellow officers that would take years to straighten out. The financial pressure forced him to increase both the rate and the range of his publications. The Supplement to ''The Antiquities'' was resumed in 1783, this time with a higher proportion of the illustrations being done by other artists. Drawing on his own fieldwork, Grose also branched out into producing
dictionaries A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, p ...
, including the famous ''A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' (1785) and ''A Provincial Glossary, with a Collection of Local Proverbs, and Popular Superstitions'' (1787). Though intended to amuse, they give an unusually vivid picture of the speech of the day which would not normally find inclusion in standard dictionaries, and contained, in all, about 9,000 terms which more scholarly works of the time habitually overlooked. He produced books on military antiquities and armour, as well as satirical essays, and in 1788 began the first of several tours of Scotland in order to produce ''The Antiquities of Scotland''. It was on the second of these tours, in summer 1789, that he met and immediately formed a friendship with the poet
Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...
. Burns met him while he was staying with
Robert Riddell Captain Robert Riddell (1755–1794), Laird of Friar's Carse, near Dumfries. A friend of Robert Burns, who made him a collection of his poems which later became famous, and wrote a poem 'Sonnet On The Death Of Robert Riddell' in memory of him ...
at the
Friar's Carse Friars' Carse is a mansion house and estate situated (NX 926 850) southeast of Auldgirth on the main road (A76) to Dumfries, Parish of Dunscore, Scotland. The property is located on the west bank of the River Nith and is known for its strong a ...
, collecting material for his Scottish work. Burns suggested to him that he should include
Alloway Kirk The Alloway Auld Kirk, which dates back to the 16th Century, is a ruin in Alloway, South Ayrshire, Scotland, celebrated as the scene of the witches' dance in the poem " Tam o' Shanter" by Robert Burns. Robert Burns William Burnes, father of the ...
in his Scottish ''Antiquities'', and Grose agreed on condition that Burns provided a witch tale to go with his drawing. In June 1790, Burns sent Grose a prose tale with a variant in a letter to Grose, following it up with a rhymed version, " Tam o' Shanter". Grose was the first art critic to affirm, in his "Rules for drawing caricaturas: with an essay on comic painting" (1788), published in
William Hogarth William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like s ...
's ''
The Analysis of Beauty ''The Analysis of Beauty'' is a book written by the 18th-century artist and writer William Hogarth, published in 1753, which describes Hogarth's theories of visual beauty and grace in a manner accessible to the common man of his day. The "Li ...
'' (1791 edition), that aesthetic emotions emerge from a specific "cultural" environment, and that aesthetics are neither innate nor universal, but formed by their cultural context. Grose therefore has a claim to be considered as the first critical "aesthetic regionalist theorist" in proclaiming the anti-universality of aesthetics.


Death

While on an expedition to
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
to collect antiquarian material, Grose died in
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
at the house of
Horace Hone Horace Hone (11 February 1754 – 25 May 1825) was an English painter of miniatures. Life and family Horace Hone was born in 1754 in Frith Street, London. His parents were Nathaniel and Mary Hone (née Earle) of York, England. His father w ...
, of an apoplectic stroke. His father had built a house, known as Richmond, in Drumcondra before his death. He was buried on 18 May 1791, at Drumcondra cemetery. His nephew Daniel and a Dr. Edward Ledwich, who had already published a book on Irish antiquities, completed the final volume of Grose's ''Antiquities of Ireland'' in 1791.
Máire de Paor Máire is the Irish language form of the Latin Maria, which was in turn a Latin form of the Greek names Μαριαμ, or Mariam, and Μαρια, or Maria, found in the New Testament. Both New Testament names were forms of the Hebrew name or Mir ...
(1993), "Irish Antiquarian Artists," p. 124, in ''Visualizing Ireland,'' ed. Adele M. Dalsimer, Faber and Faber,


Other works

In addition to the books above mentioned, Grose wrote a ''Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons''. Additionally, it is noted that he was the (anonymous) author of ''Advice to the Officers of the British Army: With the addition of some Hints to the Drummer and Private Soldier'', which was published in 1783 as a mocking look backwards on the conduct of the war against the American Colonies. Every instance of corruption, disregard and vice are suggested for every rank of the army. Tongue in cheek, but obviously rooted in truth, it is a great companion to ''Vulgar Tongue''. It also contains a satirical portrait of Jeremiah Hodges, Grose's erstwhile commanding officer in the Surrey militia. Two parodies by Thomas Bridges, ''A Travestie of Homer'' and ''The Battle of the Genii'', were formerly erroneously attributed to Francis Grose.


List of works

A list of works ordered by original year of the publication of the first volume: * * * * * * * * * () * * * * * * Others: * * * * * *


References and sources

;References ;Sources * *
Capt John Davis, ''Historical Records of the Second Royal Surrey or Eleventh Regiment of Militia'', London: Marcus Ward, 1877.


See also

* John Henry Grose


External links

* * * "A dictionary of the slang of the British underworld produced in 1811. This was based on an earlier book by Francis Grose..." * {{DEFAULTSORT:Grose, Francis 1731 births 1791 deaths English lexicographers English people of Swiss descent Burials at Drumcondra Church Graveyard Surrey Militia officers 18th-century lexicographers