r.AUONKT. 



IIAKICA' K. 



One pa-age in UM preface to the Baronage contains a striking 

 liuth : " A* this hUtorical discourse will .iff.-nl at a distance some, 

 though but dim. project of the magnificence and grandeur wherein 

 tin- moot ancient and noble fatnilie* o( England did heretofore liv.-. - 

 will it briefly mantle* how abort, uncertain, and transient earthly 

 gTMtnmi fa : fur of no less than two hundred and neveuty in number, 

 touching which thu firat volume doth take notice, there will hardly be 

 found abore eight which do to this day continue ; and of those not 

 any whoae estate*, compared with what their ancestors enjoyed, are 

 not a little .KiT.ini.K~l ; nor of that number, I mean two hundred and 

 seventy, above twenty-four who are by any younger male branch 

 demoded from them, for aught I can discover." 



BARON KT, an English name of dignity, wliich in its etymology 

 import* a Little Baron. But we must not confound it with the 

 liani baron of the middle age* [BABOX], with which the rank of 

 baronet ha* nothing in common ; nor again with the banneret of those 

 age* [RAHTERBT] ; though it doe* appear that in some printed books, 

 and even in contemporary manuscripts, the state and dignity of a 

 banneret is sometimes called the state and dignity of a baronet, by a 

 mere error, as Selden assert* ('Titles of Honour,' p. 354), of the 

 scribe. 



The origin of this rank and order of persons is quite independent of 

 any previous rank or order of English society. It originated with 

 Jama I., who, being in want of money for the benefit of the province 

 of Ulster in Ireland, hit upon the expedient of creating this new 

 dignity, and required of all who received it the contribution of a sum 

 of money, as much as would support thirty infantry for three years, 

 which was estimated at 1095/., to be expended in settling and im- 

 proving the province of Ulster. 



The principle of this new dignity was to give rank, precedence, and 

 title without privilege. He who was made a baronet still remained a 

 commoner. He acquired no new exemption or right to take his seat in 

 any assembly in which he might not before have been seated. What 

 he did acquire we can best colleet from the terms of the patent which 

 the king granted to all who accepted the honour, to them and the heirs 

 male of their bodies for ever : 1. Precedence in all commissions, writs, 

 companies, Ac., before all knights, including knights of the bath and 

 banneret*, except such knight* banneret as were made in the field, the 

 king being present; 2. Precedence for the wives of the baronet to 

 follow the precedence granted to the husband ; 3. Precedence to the 

 daughters and younger sons of the baronet, before the daughters 

 and younger sons of any other person of whom the baronet him- 

 self took precedence; 4. The style and addition of Baronet to be 

 written at the end of his name with the prefix of Sir ; 5. The wife of 

 the baronet to be styled Lady, Madam, or Dame. It was stipulated 

 on the part of the king, that the number of baronets should never 

 exceed two hundred ; and that, when the number was diminished by 

 the natural process of extinction of families, there should be no new 

 .creations to supply the places of those extinct, but that the number 

 -should go on decreasing. Several baronets are nevertheless created 

 every year. Further, the king bound himself not to create any new 

 order which should lie between the baron and the baronet 



Another distinction was soon after granted to them. A question 

 arose respecting precedency between the newly created baronet* and 

 the younger sons of viscount* and barons, which the king disposed of 

 by his own authority, in favour of the latter ; and in the same instru- 

 ment in which he declared the royal pleasure in this point, he directed 

 that the baronet* might bear, either on a canton or in an escutcheon on 

 their shield of arms, the arms of Ulster, which, symbolical it seems of 

 the lawless character of the inhabitant* of that province, as is set forth 

 in the preamble of the baronet's patent, was a bloody hand, or in the 

 language of heraldry, a hand gules in a field argent. And further, the 

 lung " to ampliate his favour, this dignity being of his majesty's own 

 creation, and the work of his hands," did grant that every baronet, 

 when he had attained the age of twenty-one years, might claim from 

 the king the honour of knighthood (a privilege entirely obsolete) ; that 

 in armies they should have place near about the royal standard ; and 

 lastly, that in their funeral pomp they should have two assistant* of 

 the body, a principal mourner, and four assistants to him, being a 

 mean betwixt a baron and a knight. 



HAKONY. [BAB.OS.] 



BAROSCOPE, the ptmirtr of irciykt, is a term which has sometimes 

 been applied to the barometer. It may, however, be well applied to all 

 . such barometers as, from badness in their principles or construction, 

 show a change of the air's weight, without furnishing any good means 

 of measuring it. Such are the conical and Hooke's barometer. The 

 human body is sometimes, to a certain extent, a baroscope. 



BARRACK, originally a hut or little lodge for soldiers in a camp 

 from UM Spanish barnuxu, meaning small cabins, such a* fishermen 

 build upon the sea-coast. Temporary constructions of this sort for the 

 ban* were formerly called barrarkt ; those for the foot, Au/; the 

 word barrack was afterwards indifferently used for both. Barracks of 

 this d ascription are generally made by fixing four forked poles in the 

 ground, and laying four others across them ; the walls being after- 

 wards built up with sods, wattlen, or what the place may afford, and 

 the top planked, thatched, or covered with turf. Modern camps, 



22* 



' for winter quarters, are often formed of such 

 in streets. 



; nMH 



The word barrack doe* not occur in <>nr <>Mvr dictionaries, <> 

 it is found in I'lulli)*- 1 - W..rld M., London, 1706. 



Barrack, in a more enlarged sense, is now applied to the permanent, and 

 commodious buildings, in which both officers and men are lodged in 

 fortified towns or other places. 



A writer in a periodical paper entitled ' Common Sense,' No. 105, 

 published in 1739, speaks of permanent barracks for the ImU 

 troops as then junt introduced. Ho states that a few years bcf. 

 1720, when the plague raged at Marseille, an attempt was made to 

 raise such buildings in London, under pretence that if we should u- 

 visited, the sick might be removed to them. But the design was seen 

 through ; the citizens took the alarm, and cried out they would have 

 no rcd-coat-ttvrtei. 



Great opposition was made in parliament, during the French 

 revolutionary war, to the erection of barracks on an extended 

 scale, as inimical to the liberties of the country, a* calculated 

 to estrange the soldier from the citizen, and to render the former 

 a fit tool to enslave the latter, should the people be called upon to 

 submit to unpopular or arbitrary measures. Other argument* had 

 greater weight, however, on the side of these establishments : the 

 system of quartering was, in many instances, vexatious ; the morals of 

 a country town or village were corrupted proixirtionally as soldiers 

 were quartered upon the inhabitants ; and it was found that 

 soldiers and citizens might be too much, as well as too little, 

 mixed. 



Until the middle of the reign of George III., barracks of this last 

 description were not numerous in Great Britain. When wanted, they 

 were built under the direction of the Board of Ordnance, by whom 

 they were supplied with bedding and utensils; but the articles \\liich 

 were extraordinary were under the management of the secreUry-at- 

 war. This system prevailed until the middle of 1792, when the 

 situation of public affairs induced his majesty's ministers to give orders 

 to build, with the utmost dispatch, cavalry barracks in various parts of 

 the kingdom; and Colonel de Lancey, then deputy-adjutant-general, 

 wag requested to undertake the arrangement of the business. In 

 January, 1793, he was appointed superintendent-general of barracks, 

 and on the 1st of May that year the king's warrant was issued for 

 their regulation. More extensive authority was given to him by a 

 warrant dated May 30th, 1794, when he was appointed to the office of 

 barrack-master-general to the forces. But as this seemed to interfere 

 with the duties and powers of the Board of Ordnance, a new warrant 

 was issued in 1795, defining the powers of the barrack-master-general, 

 and those of the Board of Ordnance ; under which warrant Lieutenant- 

 General De Lancey acted in all subsequent transactions. The salaries and 

 extra pay of the barrack-master-general and his officers amounted, in 

 1796, to 95241. 17*. 2rf. The establishment was afterwards considerably 

 increased, in proportion as the number of barracks throughout the 

 kingdom multiplied, and by the creation of new officers. In March, 

 1806, their salaries amounted to 19.32W. 4*. lOrf. 



During this year, the commissioners of military inquiry recom- 

 mended that the offices of barrack-master-general and deputy barrack- 

 master-general should be totally abolished, and that the superintend- 

 ence of the barrack establishment should be vested in commissioners. 

 This suggestion, with some others relative to the mode of transacting 

 the business of the department, and preventing useless and extravagant 

 expenditure, were followed, and the barrack establishment placed 

 under the direction of four commissioners, one of whom was generally 

 a military man. 



On the late Duke of Wellington becoming Master-general of tin- 

 Ordnance, and Commandcr-in-Chicf of the Forces, forty years ago, 

 great changes and improvements were introduced into the barrack 

 department. It was wholly re-organised and placed under the Board 

 of Ordnance. The barracks themselves were placed immediately under 

 the management and care of the resident barrack-master, who had 

 charge of all articles supplied by the barrack-office, such as beds, 

 bedding, sheets, blanket*, house and stable utensils, coal* and < 

 an allowance of money being made in lieu of beer which was formerly 

 supplied liy the barrAck-master. The head of this barrack branch 

 was a member of the board. The charge of execution of all Imrrack 

 building and repairs, was transferred to the corps of Royal Engineers, 

 their head, the Inspector-General of Fortifications being also a in- 

 of the board. 



In 1855, the Board of Ordnance was done away with, and the civil 

 portion of the barrack department placed under the War Office, the 

 executive being still retained by the Royal Engineers, under the. 

 Inspector-General of Fortifications, with a particular staff for that 

 purpose, at Whitehall 



The building and repairs are usually performed by contract, under 

 the supervision of the Royal Engineer Department ; Great Britain and 

 Ireland being divided for this purpose into the following district*, each 

 district under the charge of a Commanding Royal Engineer, with a staff 

 of Royal Engineers, and civil branch of clerks and foremen of works, 

 under him : Camp at Aider-shot, Woolwich, Dover, London, Newcastle, 

 Harwich, Chatham, Shecrness, Exeter, Portland, Pembroke, Birming- 

 ham, Manchester, York, Portsmouth, Devonport, Jersey, Guernsey. 

 Edinburgh, Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and Curragh ' 

 Abroad, at all places where troop* are stationed, these duties are per- 

 formed in the same manner. 



