[1] _The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication_
(London, 1868), vol. i. pp. 131-224.
DOVER, GEORGE JAMES WELBORE AGAR-ELLIS, BARON (1797-1833), English man
of letters, born on the 14th of January 1797, was the only son of the
2nd Viscount Clifden. He was educated at Westminster school and at
Christ Church, Oxford. In 1818 he was returned to parliament as member
for Heytesbury. He afterwards represented Seaford (1820), Ludgershall
(1826) and Okehampton (1830). He seconded Canning's motion in 1822 for a
bill to relieve the disabilities of Roman Catholic peers, and
consistently supported liberal principles. In party politics, however,
he took little interest, but he zealously advocated in parliament and
elsewhere that state encouragement should be given to the cause of
literature and the fine arts. In 1824 he was the leading promoter of the
grant of L57,000 for the purchase of John Julius Angerstein's collection
of pictures, which formed the foundation of the National Gallery. On the
formation of Lord Grey's administration, in November 1830, he was
appointed chief commissioner of woods and forests, but was compelled by
delicate health to resign it after two months' occupancy. In June 1831,
during the lifetime of his father, he was raised to the House of Lords,
receiving an English peerage with the title of Baron Dover. He was
president (1832) of the Royal Society of Literature, a trustee of the
British Museum and of the National Gallery, and a commissioner of public
records. He died on the 10th of July 1833. Lord Dover's works are
chiefly historical, and include _The True History of the Iron Mask,
extracted from Documents in The French Archives_ (1826), _Inquiries
respecting the Character of Clarendon_ (1827), and a _Life of Frederick
II._ (1831). He also edited the _Ellis Correspondence_ (1829) and
_Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann_ (1833).
DOVER, HENRY JERMYN, EARL OF (c. 1636-1708), was the second son of Sir
Thomas Jermyn, of Rushbroke, Suffolk, elder brother of Henry Jermyn,
earl of St Albans (q.v.). Jermyn surpassed his uncle, St Albans, in
reputation for profligacy, figuring frequently as "the little Jermyn" in
the _Grammont Memoirs_, as the lover of Lady Castlemaine, Lady
Shrewsbury, Miss Jennings and other beauties of the court of Charles II.
He was also a noted duellist and a lifelong gambler. While the court was
in exile, he obtained a post in the household of the duke of York, to
whom he became master of the horse at the Restoration. Being a Roman
Catholic he enjoyed a position of influence with James II., who on his
accession raised Jermyn to the peerage as Baron Dover in 1685, and
appointed him lieutenant-general of the royal guard in 1686. At the
Revolution, Dover adhered to James, whom he followed abroad, and in July
1689 the deposed sovereign created him Baron Jermyn of Royston, Baron
Ipswich, Viscount Cheveley and earl of Dover; these honours being among
the "Jacobite peerages" which were not recognized by the English
government, though Jermyn became generally known as the earl of Dover.
He commanded a troop at the battle of the Boyne; but shortly afterwards
made his submission to William III. He succeeded his brother Thomas as
3rd Baron Jermyn of St Edmundsbury in 1703, and died in 1708. As he left
no children by his wife, Judith, daughter of Sir Edmund Poley, of
Badley, Suffolk, his titles became extinct at his death.
See Samuel Pepys, _Diary_, edited by H. B. Wheatley, 9 vols. (London,
1893); Anthony Hamilton, _Memoirs of Grammont_ (Bohn edition, London,
1846); J. S. Clarke, _Life of James II._, 2 vols. (London, 1816);
Narcissus Luttrell, _Brief Relation of State Affairs 1678-1714_, 6
vols. (Oxford, 1857).
DOVER, ROBERT (1575-1641), English captain and attorney, is known as the
founder and director for many years of the "Cotswold Games," which he
originated as a protest against the growing Puritanism of the day. These
sports, which were referred to by contemporary writers as "Mr Robert
Dover's Olimpick Games upon the Cotswold Hills," consisted of
cudgel-playing, wrestling, running at the quintain, jumping, casting the
bar and hammer, hand-ball, gymnastics, rural dances and games and
horse-racing, the winners in which received valuable prizes. They
continued from about the year 1604 until three years after the death of
Dover, which took place in 1641. They were revived for a brief period in
the reign of Charles II.
DOVER, the capital of Delaware, U.S.A., and the county seat of Kent
county, on the St Jones River, in the central part of the state, about
48 m. S. of Wilmington and about 9 m. from Delaware Bay. Pop. (1890)
3061; (1900) 3329 (772 negroes); (1910) 3720. Dover is served by the
Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington railway (Pennsylvania system). The
state house, built about 1722 for a court house, was remodelled for its
present purpose in 1791; it contains the state library, which in 1908
had about 50,000 bound volumes. Dover is the seat of the Wilmington
Conference Academy (Methodist Episcopal); and about 2 m. N. is the state
college for coloured students (co-educational; opened in 1892), an
agricultural and manual training school. The surrounding country is
largely devoted to the raising of small fruit. Among the manufactures
are canned fruit and meat (especially poultry), timber, machine shop
products, baskets and crates, and silk. The town was laid out in 1717;
in 1777 it replaced New Castle as the capital of the state, and in 1829
it was incorporated as a town. Dover was the birthplace of the American
patriot, Caesar Rodney (1728-1784), whose home near Dover is still
standing.
DOVER, a seaport and municipal and parliamentary borough of Kent,
England, one of the Cinque Ports, 76 m. E.S.E. of London by the
South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1891) 33,503; (1901) 41,794. It
is situated at the mouth of a small stream, the Dour, whose valley here
breaches the high chalk cliffs which fringe the coast on either hand. It
is an exceptionally healthy locality, and the steep shore and open downs
make it an agreeable summer resort. The better residential quarters lie
along the seaboard and on the higher ground, notably on a western spur
of the Castle Hill. The dominant object of the place is the castle, on
the east height, 375 ft. above sea-level, between which and the
batteries on the western heights lies the old town. The castle occupies
a space of 35 acres. Within its precincts are a Roman _pharos_ or
lighthouse, still exhibiting the Roman masonry; the ancient fortress
church (St Mary in Castro); some remains of the Saxon fort; and the
massive keep and subsidiary defences (such as the Constable's,
Avranche's, and other towers) of the Norman building. The church,
substantially unaltered, forms an almost unique Christian relic. It has
been called Roman, but is later. It is cruciform in shape, and the walls
are built mainly of flint, but jambs and arches are formed of Roman
bricks. At the end of the 12th century it was remodelled and given an
Early English character. In the beginning of the 18th century it was
dismantled and turned into a storehouse; and so continued until 1863,
when, having been restored by Sir G. G. Scott, it was again opened for
divine service, and is now the chapel of the castle garrison.
The view from the castle keep includes on a clear day the line of cliffs
from Folkestone to Ramsgate on the one side, and from Boulogne to
Gravelines on the other side of the strait. The cliffs are honeycombed
in all directions with military works. They are covered by modern works
on the north side known as Fort Burgoyne, and additional works extend
eastwards towards St Margaret's Bay. The western heights, where is the
foundation of another Roman lighthouse, form a further circuit of
fortifications. They are still more elevated than the castle. A military
shaft, locally known as the Corkscrew Staircase, affords communication
between the barracks and the town. Remains were discovered here in 1854
of a round church of the Templars (Holy Sepulchre), 32 ft. in diameter;
the church, doubtless, in which King John made his submission to the
Papal Nuncio in 1213. Archcliffe Fort lies to the south-west of old
Dover. There may further be mentioned the remnant of the Saxon
collegiate church of the canons of St Martin, and the parish church of
St Mary the Virgin. This last was rebuilt and enlarged in 1843-1844, but
preserves the three bays of the Saxon church, with its western narthex,
on which was superimposed the Norman tower, which presents its rich
front to the street. The rest of the church is mainly Norman and Early
English. A later Norman church stands under the Castle Hill, but its
parochial status was transferred to the modern church of St James.
The remains of the splendid foundation of St Martin's priory, of the
12th century, include the great gate, the house refectory, with
campanile, and the spacious strangers' refectory, now incorporated in
Dover College. The college of St Martin for twenty-two secular canons,
which had been established in the castle in 696, was removed into the
town in the beginning of the 8th century, and in 1139 became a
Benedictine priory under the jurisdiction of that at Canterbury, to
which see the lands are still attached. The interior of the refectory is
very fine. In High Street may be seen the noble hall and truncated
fabric of the Maison Dieu founded by Hubert de Burgh in the 13th century
for the reception of pilgrims of all nations. From the time of Henry
VIII. to 1830 it was used as a crown victualling office, but was
subsequently purchased by the corporation and adapted as a town hall.
The new town hall adjoining the old hall of the Maison Dieu was opened
in 1883. The museum (1849) contains an interesting collection of local
antiquities and a natural history collection.
Among various charitable institutions are the National Sailors' Home and
the Gordon Boys' and Victoria Seaside Orphanages. Besides the church of
St James, mentioned above, other modern churches are those of Holy
Trinity and Christ church, and further up the valley there are the
parish churches of Charlton (originally Norman) and Buckland (Early
English). Among educational establishments is Dover College, occupying
the site and remaining buildings of St Martin's priory, with additional
modern buildings. It was instituted in 1871, and educates about 220
boys. There is a separate junior school.
Dover is the only one of the Cinque Ports which is still a great port.
It is one of the principal ports for passenger communications across the
Channel, steamers connecting it with Calais and Ostend. The Admiralty
pier was begun in 1847 and practically completed to a length of about
2000 ft. in 1871. In 1888 the gates of Wellington dock were widened to
admit a larger type of Channel steamers; new coal stores were erected on
the Northampton quay; the slipway was lengthened 40 ft., and widened for
the reception of vessels up to 800 tons. In 1891 it was resolved to
construct a new commercial harbour at an estimated cost of about
L700,000. Begun in 1893, the works included the construction of an east
pier ("Prince of Wales's Pier"), running parallel to the general
direction of the Admiralty pier and in conjunction with it enclosing an
area of sheltered water amounting to seventy-five acres. This pier was
completed in 1902. A railway line connected with the South-Eastern and
Chatham system runs to its head, and in July 1903 it was brought into
use for the embarcation of passengers by transatlantic liners. In 1896
and subsequent years funds were voted by parliament for the construction
of an artificial harbour for naval purposes, having an area of 610
acres, of which 322 acres were to have a depth of not less than 30 ft.
at low water. The scheme comprised three enclosing breakwaters--on the
west an extension of the Admiralty pier in a south-easterly direction
for a length of 2000 ft.; on the south an isolated breakwater, 4200 ft.
long, curving round shoreward at its eastern end to accord with the
direction of the third breakwater; on the east, which runs out from the
shore in a southerly direction for a length of 3320 ft. These three
breakwaters, with a united length of rather more than 1-3/4 m., are each
built of massive concrete blocks in the form of a practically vertical
wall founded on the solid chalk and rising to a quay level of 10 ft.
above high water. Two entrances, one 800 ft. and the other 600 ft. in
width, with a depth of about seven fathoms at low water, are situated at
either end of the detached breakwater. The plan also included the
reclamation of the foreshore at the foot of the cliffs, between the
castle jetty and the root of the eastern breakwater, by means of a
massive sea-wall. The construction of three powerful forts was
undertaken in defence of the harbour, which was opened in 1909.
Besides the mail service and harbour trade, Dover has a trade in
shipbuilding, timber, rope and sail making, and ships' stores. Dover is
a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of Canterbury. The parliamentary
borough returns one member. The town is governed by a mayor, six
aldermen and eighteen councillors. Area, 2026 acres.
_History._--Dover (_Dubris_) was one of the ports for continental
traffic in Roman times. In the 4th century it was guarded by a fort
lying down near the harbour, and forming part of the defences of the
Saxon shore (_Litus Saxonicum_). As a Cinque Port, Dover (Dofra,
Dovorra) had to contribute twenty of the quota of ships furnished by
those ports; in return for this service a charter of liberties was
granted to the ports by Edward the Confessor, making the townsmen quit
of shires and hundreds, with the right to be impleaded only at Shepway,
and other privileges, which were confirmed by subsequent kings, with
additions, down to James II. During the middle ages Dover Castle was an
object of contention both in civil wars and foreign invasions, and was
considered the key to England; the constable of the castle, who from the
reign of John was appointed by the crown, was also warden of the Cinque
Ports. The castle was successfully defended in 1216 against the French
under the dauphin Louis by Hubert de Burgh, who was also the founder of
the Maison Dieu established for the accommodation of pilgrims. The title
of mayor as chief municipal officer first occurs about the middle of the
13th century, when the town was governed by a mayor and twelve jurats.
The Cinque Ports were first represented in the parliament of 1265; Dover
returned two members until 1885 when the number was reduced to one. In
1685 Charles II. confirmed to the inhabitants of Dover a fair beginning
on the 11th of November, which had been held of old in the town, and
granted two others on the 23rd and 24th of April and the 25th and 26th
of September.
After the decay of Richborough harbour the passage from Dover to
Whitsand, and later to Calais, became the accustomed route to France,
and by a statute of 1465 no one might ship for Calais except at Dover.
The guardians of the harbour were incorporated by James I. in 1607.
See S. P. H. Statham, _History of the Castle, Town and Port of Dover_
(London, 1899); and _Dover Charters and other Documents_ (London,
1902).