[1] The spelling "gait" is confined to this meaning--the only
literary one surviving. In the form "gate" it appears dialectally in
this sense and in such particular meanings as a right to run cattle
on common or private ground or as a passage way in mines. The
principal survival is in names of streets in the north and midlands
of England and in Scotland, e.g. Briggate at Leeds, Wheeler Gate and
Castle Gate at Nottingham, Gallow Tree Gate at Leicester, and
Canongate and Cowgate at Edinburgh.
GATEHOUSE. In the second half of the 16th century in England the
entrance gateway, which formed part of the principal front of the
earlier feudal castles, became a detached feature attached to the
mansions only by a wall enclosing the entrance court. The gatehouse then
constituted a structure of some importance, and included sometimes many
rooms as at Stanway Hall, Gloucestershire, where it measures 44 ft. by
22 ft. and has three storeys; at Westwood, Worcestershire, it had a
frontage of 54 ft. with two storeys; and at Burton Agnes, Yorkshire, it
was still larger and was flanked by great octagonal towers at the angles
and had three storeys. At a later period smaller accommodation was
provided so that it virtually became a lodge, but being designed to
harmonize with the mansion it presented sometimes a monumental
structure. On the continent of Europe the gatehouse forms a much more
important building, as it formed part of the town fortifications, where
it sometimes defended the passage of a bridge across the stream or moat.
There are numerous examples in France and Germany.
GATES, HORATIO (1728-1806), American general, was born at Maldon in
Essex, England, in 1728. He entered the English army at an early age,
and was rapidly promoted. He accompanied General Braddock in his
disastrous expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1755, and was severely
wounded in the battle of July 9; and he saw other active service in the
Seven Years' War. After the peace of 1763 he purchased an estate in
Virginia, where he lived till the outbreak of the War of Independence
in 1775, when he was named by Congress adjutant-general. In 1776 he was
appointed to command the troops which had lately retreated from Canada,
and in August 1777, as a result of a successful intrigue, was appointed
to supersede General Philip Schuyler in command of the Northern
Department. In the two battles of Saratoga (q.v.) his army defeated
General Burgoyne, who, on the 17th of October, was forced to surrender
his whole army. This success was, however, largely due to the previous
manoeuvres of Schuyler and to Gates's subordinate officers. The
intrigues of the Conway Cabal to have Washington superseded by Gates
completely failed, but Gates was president for a time of the Board of
War, and in 1780 was placed in chief command in the South. He was
totally defeated at Camden, S. C., by Cornwallis on the 17th of August
1780, and in December was superseded by Greene, though an investigation
into his conduct terminated in acquittal (1782). He then retired to his
Virginian estate, whence he removed to New York in 1790, after
emancipating his slaves and providing for those who needed assistance.
He died in New York on the 10th of April 1806.
GATESHEAD, a municipal, county and parliamentary borough of Durham,
England; on the S. bank of the Tyne opposite Newcastle, and on the North
Eastern railway. Pop. (1891) 85,692; (1901) 109,888. Though one of the
largest towns in the county, neither its streets nor its public
buildings, except perhaps its ecclesiastical buildings, have much claim
to architectural beauty. The parish church of St Mary is an ancient
cruciform edifice surmounted by a lofty tower; but extensive restoration
was necessitated by a fire in 1854 which destroyed a considerable part
of the town. The town-hall, public library and mechanic's institute are
noteworthy buildings. Education is provided by a grammar school, a large
day school for girls, and technical and art schools. There is a service
of steam trams in the principal streets, and three fine bridges connect
the town with Newcastle-upon-Tyne. There are large iron works (including
foundries and factories for engines, boilers, chains and cables),
shipbuilding yards, glass manufactories, chemical, soap and candle
works, brick and tile works, breweries and tanneries. The town also
contains a depot of the North Eastern railway, with large stores and
locomotive works. Extensive coal mines exist in the vicinity; and at
Gateshead Fell are large quarries for grindstones, which are much
esteemed and are exported to all parts of the world. Large gas-works of
the Newcastle and Gateshead Gas Company are also situated in the
borough. The parliamentary borough returns one member. The corporation
consists of a mayor, 9 aldermen, and 27 councillors. Area, 3132 acres.
Gateshead (Gateshewed) probably grew up during late Saxon times, the
mention of the church there in which Bishop Walcher was murdered in 1080
being the first evidence of settlement. The borough probably obtained
its charter during the following century, for Hugh de Puiset, bishop of
Durham (1153-1195), confirmed to his burgesses similar rights to those
of the burgesses of Newcastle, freedom of toll within the palatinate and
other privileges. The bishop had a park here in 1348, and in 1438 Bishop
Nevill appointed a keeper of the "tower." The position of the town led
to a struggle with Newcastle over both fishing and trading rights. An
inquisition of 1322 declared that the water of the Tyne was divided into
three parts: the northern, belonging to Northumberland; the southern to
Durham; and the central, common to all. At another inquisition held in
1336 the men of Gateshead claimed liberty of trading and fishing along
the coast of Durham, and freedom to sell their fish where they would. In
1552, on the temporary extinction of the diocese of Durham, Gateshead
was attached to Newcastle, but in 1554 was regranted to Bishop Tunstall.
As compensation the bishop granted to Newcastle, at a nominal rent, the
Gateshead salt-meadows, with rights of way to the High Street, thus
abolishing the toll previously paid to the bishop. During the next
century Bishop Tunstall's successors incorporated nearly all the various
trades of Gateshead, and Cromwell continued this policy. The town
government during this period was by the bishop's bailiff, and the
holders of the burgages composed the juries of the bishop's courts leet
and baron. No charter of incorporation is extant, but in 1563 contests
were carried on under the name of the bailiffs, burgesses and
commonalty, and a list of borough accounts exists for 1696. The bishop
appointed the last borough bailiff in 1681, and though the inhabitants
in 1772 petitioned for a bailiff the town remained under a steward and
grassmen until the 19th century. As part of the palatinate of Durham,
Gateshead was not represented in parliament until 1832. At the
inquisition of 1336 the burgesses claimed an annual fair on St Peter's
Day, and depositions in 1577 mention a borough market held on Tuesday
and Friday, but these were apparently extinct in Camden's day, and no
grant of them is extant. The medieval trade seems to have centred round
the fisheries and the neighbouring coal mines which are mentioned in
1364 and also by Leland.
GATH, one of the five chief cities of the Philistines. It is frequently
mentioned in the historical books of the Old Testament, and from Amos
vi. 2 we conclude that, like Ashdod, it fell to Sargon in 711. Its site
appears to have been known in the 4th century, but the name is now lost.
Eusebius (in the _Onomasticon_) places it near the road from
Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrïn) to Diospolis (Ludd) about five Roman miles
from the former. The Roman road between these two towns is still
traceable, and its milestones remain in places. East of the road at the
required distance rises a white cliff, almost isolated, 300 ft. high and
full of caves. On the top is the little mud village of Tell es-Safi
("the shining mound"), and beside the village is the mound which marks
the site of the Crusaders' castle of Blanchegarde (Alba Custodia), built
in 1144. Tell es-Safi was known by its present name as far back as the
12th century; but it appears not improbable that the strong site here
existing represents the ancient Gath. The cliff stands on the south side
of the mouth of the Valley of Elah, and Gath appears to have been near
this valley (1 Sam. xvii. 2, 52). This identification is not certain,
but it is at least much more probable than the theory which makes Gath,
Eleutheropolis, and Beit Jibrïn one and the same place. The site was
partially excavated by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1899, and
remains extending in date back to the early Canaanite period were
discovered.
GATLING, RICHARD JORDAN (1818-1903), American inventor, was born in
Hertford county, North Carolina, on the 12th of September 1818. He was
the son of a well-to-do planter and slave-owner, from whom he inherited
a genius for mechanical invention and whom he assisted in the
construction and perfecting of machines for sowing cotton seeds, and for
thinning the plants. He was well educated and was successively a school
teacher and a merchant, spending all his spare time in developing new
inventions. In 1839 he perfected a practical screw propeller for
steamboats, only to find that a patent had been granted to John Ericsson
for a similar invention a few months earlier. He established himself in
St Louis, Missouri, and taking the cotton-sowing machine as a basis he
adapted it for sowing rice, wheat and other grains, and established
factories for its manufacture. The introduction of these machines did
much to revolutionize the agricultural system in the country. Becoming
interested in the study of medicine through an attack of smallpox, he
completed a course at the Ohio Medical College, taking his M.D. degree
in 1850. In the same year he invented a hemp-breaking machine, and in
1857 a steam plough. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was living in
Indianapolis, and devoted himself at once to the perfecting of
fire-arms. In 1861 he conceived the idea of the rapid fire machine-gun
which is associated with his name. By 1862 he had succeeded in
perfecting a gun that would discharge 350 shots per minute; but the war
was practically over before the Federal authorities consented to its
official adoption. From that time, however, the success of the invention
was assured, and within ten years it had been adopted by almost every
civilized nation. Gatling died in New York City on the 26th of February
1903.
GATTY, MARGARET (1809-1873), English writer, daughter of the Rev.
Alexander Scott (1768-1840), chaplain to Lord Nelson, was born at
Burnham, Essex, in 1809. She early began to draw and to etch on copper,
being a regular visitor to the print-room of the British Museum from the
age of ten. She also illuminated on vellum, copying the old strawberry
borders and designing initials. In 1839 Margaret Scott married the Rev.
Alfred Gatty, D.D., vicar of Ecclesfield near Sheffield, subdean of York
cathedral, and the author of various works both secular and religious.
In 1842 she published in association with her husband a life of her
father; but her first independent work was _The Fairy Godmother and
other Tales_, which appeared in 1851. This was followed in 1855 by the
first of five volumes of _Parables from Nature_, the last being
published in 1871. It was under the _nom de plume_ of Aunt Judy, as a
pleasant and instructive writer for children, that Mrs Gatty was most
widely known. Before starting _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ in May 1866, she
had brought out _Aunt Judy's Tales_ (1858) and _Aunt Judy's Letters_
(1862), and among the other children's books which she subsequently
published were _Aunt Judy's Song Book for Children_ and _The Mother's
Book of Poetry_. "Aunt Judy" was the nickname given by her daughter
Juliana Horatia Ewing (q.v.). The editor of the magazine was on the
friendliest terms with her young correspondents and subscribers, and her
success was largely due to the sympathy which enabled her to look at
things from the child's point of view. Besides other excellences her
children's books are specially characterized by wholesomeness of
sentiment and cheerful humour. Her miscellaneous writings include, in
addition to several volumes of tales, _The Old Folks from Home_, an
account of a holiday ramble in Ireland; _The Travels and Adventures of
Dr Wolff the Missionary_ (1861), an autobiography edited by her;
_British Sea Weeds_ (1862); _Waifs and Strays of Natural History_
(1871); _A Book of Emblems_ and _The Book of Sun-Dials_ (1872). She died
at Ecclesfield vicarage on the 4th of October 1873.
GAU, JOHN (c. 1495-? 1553), Scottish translator, was born at Perth
towards the close of the 15th century. He was educated in St Salvator's
College at St Andrews. He appears to have been in residence at Malmö in
1533, perhaps as chaplain to the Scots community there. In that year
John Hochstraten, the exiled Antwerp printer, issued a book by Gau
entitled: _The Richt vay to the Kingdome of Heuine_, of which the chief
interest is that it is the first Scottish book written on the side of
the Reformers. It is a translation of Christiern Pedersen's _Den rette
vey till Hiemmerigis Rige_ (Antwerp, 1531), for the most part direct,
but showing intimate knowledge in places of the German edition of
Urbanus Rhegius. Only one copy of Gau's text is extant, in the library
of Britwell Court, Bucks. It has been assumed that all the copies were
shipped from Malmö to Scotland, and that the cargo was intercepted by
the Scottish officers on the look out for the heretical works which were
printed abroad in large numbers. This may explain the silence of all the
historians of the Reformed Church--Knox, Calderwood and Spottiswood. Gau
married in 1536 a Malmö citizen's daughter, bearing the Christian name
Birgitta. She died in 1551, and he in or about 1553.
The first reference to the _Richt Vay_ appeared in Chalmers's
_Caledonia_, ii. 616. Chalmers, who was the owner of the unique volume
before it passed into the Britwell Court collection, considered it to
be an original work. David Laing printed extracts for the Bannatyne
Club (_Miscellany_, iii., 1855). The evidence that the book is a
translation was first given by Sonnenstein Wendt in a paper "Om
Reformatorerna i Malmö," in Rördam's _Ny Kirkehistoriske Samlinger_,
ii. (Copenhagen, 1860). A complete edition was edited by A.F. Mitchell
for the Scottish Text Society (1888). See also Lorimer's _Patrick
Hamilton_.
GAUDEN, JOHN (1605-1662), English bishop and writer, reputed author of
the _Eikon Basilike_, was born in 1605 at Mayland, Essex, where his
father was vicar of the parish. Educated at Bury St Edmunds school and
at St John's College, Cambridge, he took his M.A. degree in 1625/6. He
married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Russell of Chippenham,
Cambridgeshire, and was tutor at Oxford to two of his wife's brothers.
He seems to have remained at Oxford until 1630, when he became vicar of
Chippenham. His sympathies were at first with the parliamentary party.
He was chaplain to Robert Rich, second earl of Warwick, and preached
before the House of Commons in 1640. In 1641 he was appointed to the
rural deanery of Bocking. Apparently his views changed as the
revolutionary tendency of the Presbyterian party became more pronounced,
for in 1648/9 he addressed to Lord Fairfax _A Religious and Loyal
Protestation_ ... against the proceedings of the parliament. Under the
Commonwealth he faced both ways, keeping his ecclesiastical preferment,
but publishing from time to time pamphlets on behalf of the Church of
England. At the Restoration he was made bishop of Exeter. He immediately
began to complain to Hyde, earl of Clarendon, of the poverty of the see,
and based claims for a better benefice on a certain secret service,
which he explained on the 20th of January 1661 to be the sole invention
of the _Eikon Basilike, The Pourtraicture of his sacred Majestie in his
Solitudes and Sufferings_ put forth within a few hours after the
execution of Charles I. as written by the king himself. To which
Clarendon replied that he had been before acquainted with the secret and
had often wished he had remained ignorant of it. Gauden was advanced in
1662, not as he had wished to the see of Winchester, but to Worcester.
He died on the 23rd of May of the same year.
The evidence in favour of Gauden's authorship rests chiefly on his own
assertions and those of his wife (who after his death sent to her son
John a narrative of the claim), and on the fact that it was admitted by
Clarendon, who should have had means of being acquainted with the truth.
Gauden's letters on the subject are printed in the appendix to vol. iii.
of the _Clarendon Papers_. The argument is that Gauden had prepared the
book to inspire sympathy with the king by a representation of his pious
and forgiving disposition, and so to rouse public opinion against his
execution. In 1693 further correspondence between Gauden, Clarendon, the
duke of York, and Sir Edward Nicholas was published by Mr Arthur North,
who had found them among the papers of his sister-in-law, a
daughter-in-law of Bishop Gauden; but doubt has been thrown on the
authenticity of these papers. Gauden stated that he had begun the book
in 1647 and was entirely responsible for it. But it is contended that
the work was in existence at Naseby,[1] and testimony to Charles's
authorship is brought forward from various witnesses who had seen
Charles himself occupied with it at various times during his
imprisonment. It is stated that the MS. was delivered by one of the
king's agents to Edward Symmons, rector of Raine, near Bocking, and that
it was in the handwriting of Oudart, Sir Edward Nicholas's secretary.
The internal evidence has, as is usual in such cases, been brought
forward as a conclusive argument in favour of both contentions. Doubt
was thrown on Charles's authorship in Milton's _Eikonoklastes_ (1649),
which was followed almost immediately by a royalist answer, _The
Princely Pelican. Royall Resolves--Extracted from his Majesty's Divine
Meditations, with satisfactory reasons ... that his Sacred Person was
the only Author of them_ (1649). The history of the whole controversy,
which has been several times renewed, was dealt with in Christopher
Wordsworth's tracts in a most exhaustive way. He eloquently advocated
Charles's authorship. Since he wrote in 1829, some further evidence has
been forthcoming in favour of the Naseby copy. A correspondence relating
to the French translation of the work has also come to light among the
papers of Sir Edward Nicholas. None of the letters show any doubt that
King Charles was the author. S.R. Gardiner (_Hist. of the Great Civil
War_, iv. 325) regards Mr Doble's articles in the _Academy_ (May and
June 1883) as finally disposing of Charles's claim to the authorship,
but this is by no means the attitude of other recent writers. If Gauden
was the author, he may have incorporated papers, &c., by Charles, who
may have corrected the work and thus been joint-author. This theory
would reconcile the conflicting evidence, that of those who saw Charles
writing parts and read the MS. before publication, and the deliberate
statements of Gauden.
See also the article by Richard Hooper in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._;
Christopher Wordsworth, _Who wrote Eikon Basilike?_ two letters
addressed to the archbishop of Canterbury (1824), and _King Charles
the First, the Author of Icon Basilikè_ (1828); H.J. Todd, _A Letter
to the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning Eikon Basilike_ (1825);
_Bishop Gauden, The Author of the Icôn Basilikè_ (1829); W.G.
Broughton, _A Letter to a Friend_ (1826), _Additional Reasons ..._
(1829), supporting the contention in favour of Dr Gauden; Mr E.J.L.
Scott's introduction to his reprint (1880) of the original edition;
articles in the _Academy_, May and June 1883, by Mr C.E. Doble;
another reprint edited by Mr Edward Almack for the King's Classics
(1904); and Edward Almack, _Bibliography of the King's Book_ (1896).
This last book contains a summary of the arguments on either side, a
full bibliography of works on the subject, and facsimiles of the title
pages, with full descriptions of the various extant copies.