ROMILLY 



6689 



ROMNEY MARSH 



1st Baron Romilly 

 British lawyer 



and London, Tilbury and Southend 

 Rlys. Tho principal building is the 

 modern church of S. Edward the 

 Confessor, the successor of a much 

 older one. The main industry is 

 brewing, but there are engineer- 

 ing and other works. Cattle and 

 corn markets are held. The 

 Romans had a station called Duro- 

 litum here, and in the Middle Ages 

 Romford was the chief place in 

 the liberty of Havering, which 

 ceased to exist in 1892. An arterial 

 road from Woodford and Wanstead 

 to Romford was begun in 1921. 

 Market day, Wed. Pop. (1921), 

 19,448. 



Romilly, JOHN ROMILLY, IST 

 BARON (1802-74). British lawyer. 

 Son of Sir Samuel Romilly, he 

 was born Jan 

 10, 1802, grad- 

 u a t e d at 

 Trinity Col- 

 lege, C a m - 

 bridge, 1823, 

 and was called 

 to the bar in 

 1827. He en- 

 tered the 

 House of Com- 

 mons, 1832, 

 became solicitor-general, and was 

 knighted in 1848. Attorney -general, 



1850, he became master of the rolls, 



1851. He introduced various chan- 

 cery reforms and was the last 

 master of the rolls to sit in the 

 House of Commons. Created Baron 

 Romilly of Barry in 1865, he re- 

 signed his mastership of the rolls in 

 1873, and died in London on Dec. 

 23, 1874. 



Romilly, SIR SAMUEL (1757- 

 1818). British legal reformer. 

 Born, of Huguenot descent, in 

 London, March 

 1, 1757, he had 

 a private edu- 

 cation and 

 entered Gray's 

 Inn in 1778, 

 being called to 

 the bar in 1783. 

 He was deeply 

 influenced by 

 his study of 

 Rousseau, the 

 Encyclope- 

 distes, and Beccaria, and became a 

 strong advocate of humanitarian 

 principles in criminal law. In 1806 

 he became solicitor-general, and sat 

 in Parliament, 1806, 1812, and 1818. 

 He secured the abolition of the 

 death penalty for certain classes of 

 petty theft, and consistently sup- 

 ported measures of reform and 

 emancipation. ^ An able speaker 

 and a learned lawyer, he cut short 

 a distinguished career by suicide, 

 Nov. 2, 1818, following on the 

 death of his wife. See his Memoirs, 

 eel. by his sons, 1840. 



Sir S. Romilly, 

 British lawyer 



Sir T. Laurence 



New Romney 

 borough seal 



Romilly-sur-Seine. Town of 

 France, in the dept. of Aube. It 

 stands on the left bank of the 

 Seine, 23 m. N.W. of Troyes. 'It 

 has locomotive works, stocking and 

 needle factories. In the Cistercian 

 abbey of Scellieres, 2 m. N.W. of 

 the town, the body of Voltaire was 

 interred in 1778, but was trans- 

 ferred to the Pantheon in Paris, 

 1791. Pop. 10,000. 



Romney, New. Mun. borough 

 of Kent, England, one of the Cinque 

 Ports. It is 75 m. from London and 

 8 m. from Hythe, 

 with a station on 

 the S.E. & C. 

 RIy. The chief 

 buildings are the 

 church of S. 

 Nicholas, mainly 

 Norman, and the 

 town hall con- 

 taining a collec- 

 tion of docu- 

 ments relating to the Cinque Ports. 

 In the Middle Ages Romney was 

 the chief of the Cinque Ports and 

 a corporate town governed by 

 jurats. In the 13th and 14th cen- 

 turies the encroachments of the sea 

 destroyed its fine harbour, and it is 

 now about a mile from the coast. 

 It sent two members to Parliament 

 1266-1832. A large sheep fair is 

 held. Littlestone-on-Sea is part of 

 Ihe borough. It is called New 

 Romney to distinguish it from 

 Old Romney, a village 2 m. to the 

 W. Pop. 1,500. 



Romney, EARL OF. British title 

 borne since 1801 by the family of 

 Marsham. Sir John Marsham, who 

 belonged to an old Kentish family, 

 was a clerk in the court of chancery. 

 He became an M.P., and in 1663 a 

 baronet. His descendant, Sir 

 Robert Marsham, the 5th baronet, 

 governor of Dover Castle and M.P. 

 for Maidstone, was made a baron in 

 1716. His grandson Charles, the 

 3rd baron, also an M.P. before suc- 

 ceeding to the title, was made earl 

 of Romney in 1801. In 1905 

 Charles Marsham (b. 1864) became 

 the 5th earl. His eldest son is 

 called Viscount Marsham. 



There had been an earlier earl of 

 Romney, Henry Sidney (1641- 

 1704), a son of Robert Sidney, 2nd 

 earl of Leicester. He was a cour- 

 tier in the time of Charles II, who 

 sent him to represent him at The 

 Hague. Afterwards he supported 

 William of Orange, and was made 

 a baron in 1689. Under William 

 he was a secretary of state, lord- 

 lieutenant of Ireland, and master- 

 general of the ordnance. Created 

 earl of Romney in 1694, he died 

 unmarried, April 8, 1704. 



Romney, GEORGE (1734-1802). 

 British painter. Born at Dalton-in- 

 Furness, Dec. 15, 1734, he had a 



scanty education, and for a time 

 worked with his father, a cabinet- 

 maker, studying drawing in spare 

 moments. Apprenticed to Edward 

 Steele, a portrait painter, in 1755, 

 he worked at various places in the 

 north of England, and in 1762 

 settled in London. His first pic- 

 tures of note were The Death of 

 Wolfe, 1763, purchased for the 

 council chamber at Calcutta, and 

 The Death of King Edmund, 1765. 

 In 1764 he stayed for a short time 

 in Paris. Slowly building up a 

 connexion as a portrait and subject 

 painter, he prospered sufficiently to 

 visit Italy, 1772-74, where he made 

 copies of many famous pictures, 



George Romney, British painter 



From a elf -portrait in the National 

 Portrait Gallery, London 



especially of Raphael's Trans- 

 figuration, the altar-piece at Mon- 

 torio. On his return he became 

 fashionable and a rival of Rey- 

 nolds, painting, among others, the 

 duke of Richmond, then president 

 of the Society of Arts, Lady 

 Warwick and her Children, " Per- 

 dita" Robinson, and Lady Russell 

 and Child. 



From 1782-85 most of his at- 

 tention was devoted to Lady 

 Hamilton, of whom he painted 

 many character portraits. After 

 her departure for Naples he turned 

 out a great quantity of work until 

 1789, when ill-health caused him to 

 retire. He died at Kendal, Nov. 1 5, 

 1802. Romney's best known pic- 

 tures were the portraits of Lady 

 Hamilton, and examples of his 

 work are in the National and the 

 National Portrait Galleries, Lon- 

 don. See Cumberland, R. ; Craven, 

 Lady ; Jordan, D. ; Newdigate, 

 Sir B. ; Paine, T. ; Parker, Sir H. ; 

 consult also Lives, W. Nayley, 

 1809 ; H. E. Maxwell, 1902 ; Rom- 

 ney and His Art, H. Gamlin, 1894. 



Romney Marsh. Extensive 

 level tract of rich pasture land in 

 Kent, England. It is protected 



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