BARROW, Sir John, Bart., F.R.S., LL.D., was born near Ulverston, in Lancashire, June 19. 1764. His early opportunities of instruction were limited; but by self-education he matured those powers which eventually were turned to so good an account. He displayed, at an early age, a decided inclination for mathematical pursuits. Some of his earlier years were passed as superintending clerk of an iron foundry at Liverpool; and he afterwards taught mathematics at an academy in Greenwich. While in this latter situation he was fortunate in obtaining, through the interest of Sir George Staunton, a place in the first British embassy to China. He was thus enabled to put his foot on the first step of the ladder of ambition; but each step in his subsequent career may be fairly said to have been achieved by himself. The account of the embassy, published by Sir George Staunton, records many of Mr Barrow's valuable contributions to literature and science connected with China. This work, together with his own subsequently published volume of travels, is ample evidence how well his time had been employed. Few persons could within the space of a few months overcome all the practical difficulties of such a language as the Chinese; but Mr Barrow soon began to converse in it, and acquired a complete knowledge of its theory. His papers on this subject in the Quarterly Review (to which periodical he was for many years a very frequent contributor) contain the best and most popular account of that singular language ever presented to the British public.
Barrow's Straits. Although Mr Barrow ceased to be personally connected with our affairs in China after the return of the embassy in 1794, he always continued to take a lively interest in the varying circumstances of our relations with that empire. On the occasion of the second embassy under Lord Amherst in 1816, he was of course consulted by the ruling powers; but unfortunately his advice was not taken; and in consequence of the injudicious rejection of the proposal which he had suggested for getting rid of the vexatious question of the Chinese ceremony, Lord Amherst and his colleagues were compelled to abandon the personal reception of the mission for the sake of preserving the honour and interests of the English in China, which would have been essentially damaged by the acceptance of the terms upon which it was offered. Mr Barrow was likewise consulted on the occasion of our recent conflict with China, which, it is to be hoped, has secured our future peace with that country.
Lord Macartney was naturally anxious to secure the aid of such a man as Mr Barrow in his next public service, his important and delicate mission to settle the government of our newly-acquired colony of the Cape of Good Hope. Mr Barrow was entrusted with our first communication with the Caffre tribes; and it would have been well if the spirit, judgment, and humanity, which he then displayed had more uniformly governed our subsequent transactions with that remarkable race. The two volumes of his history of the colony made the public at once fully acquainted with the extent, capacities, and resources of that important, but till then little understood, acquisition of the British crown.
There is little doubt that it was the perusal of this valuable work which mainly decided Lord Melville to accept Lord Macartney's recommendation of a perfect stranger to him, as Mr Barrow then was, as his second secretary of the admiralty. Mr Barrow's subsequent career for forty years at the admiralty, embracing the whole period of the last war, will be for ever historically associated with the civil administration of our navy for the same period. He enjoyed the uniform esteem and confidence of the eleven chief lords who successively presided at the admiralty board during that period, and more especially of King William IV., while lord high admiral, who honoured him with tokens of his personal regard. Mr Barrow received the honour of the baronetcy during the short administration of Sir Robert Peel in 1835; and the information was communicated to him by Sir Robert in a letter acknowledging, in highly gratifying terms, his literary and scientific eminence, and his "long, most able, and most faithful public service."
Sir John Barrow, besides the works already mentioned, published the lives of Lord Macartney, Lord Anson, Lord Howe, and Peter the Great; and he was also the author of several valuable contributions to the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Sir John retired from public life in 1845, in consideration of his advanced years, although still in vigorous possession of all the mental and bodily powers required for the due discharge of the functions of his office. In the course of the succeeding three years his vital energies gradually declined, but he nevertheless continued so fully in the enjoyment of his faculties, writing a history of the modern arctic voyages of discovery, of which he was a great promoter, as well as his autobiography, that his friends and relatives entertained no apprehension that his end was so near. He expired suddenly on the 23d November 1848, in the 85th year of his age, much honoured and respected by his friends and the public at large.