he was appointed the successor of that prelate, by letters patent dated 17 Aug. 1595. Two days later he received restitution of the temporalities. In the writ of privy seal directing his appointment, it was alleged that he was very fit to communicate with the people in their mother tongue, and a very meet instrument to retain and instruct them in duty and religion; and that he had also taken pains in translating and putting to the press the Communion Book and New Testament in the Irish language, which her majesty greatly approved of. It is asserted by Teige O'Dugan, who drew up a pedigree of the Donellan family, that he was never in holy orders, but probably the genealogist may have been led to make this startling assertion simply by an unwillingness to acknowledge the orders of the reformed church. In addition to his see the archbishop held by dispensation the rectory of Kilmore in the county of Kilkenny, and the vicarages of Castle-doagh in the diocese of Ossory, and of Donard in the diocese of Dublin. He voluntarily resigned his see in 1609, and dying shortly afterwards at Tuam, was buried in the cathedral there.
By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Nicolas O'Donnell, he had issue John; James, who was knighted, and became lord chief justice of the common pleas in Ireland; Edmund, of Killucan in the county of Westmeath; Teigue, of Ballyheague in the county of Kildare; and Murtough, who received holy orders in the Roman catholic church.
Donellan was a master of the Irish language, and continued the version of the New Testament which had been commenced by John Kearney and Nicholas Walsh, bishop of Ossory, and which was completed by William O'Donnell or Daniell, who was afterwards raised to the archiepiscopal see of Tuam. It was published in 1602 at Dublin, under the title of ‘Tiomna Nuadh ar dtighearna agus ar slanaightheora Iosa Criosd, ar na tarruing gu firinneach as Gréigis gu gaoidheilg. Re Huilliam O Domhnuill.’ It was brought out at the expense of the province of Connaught and of Sir William Usher, the clerk of the council in Ireland. Great expectations were formed of this undertaking, and it was confidently believed that it would be the means of destroying the Roman church in Ireland. It is a noteworthy fact that of the four scholars engaged in translating the New Testament into the Irish vernacular, three—Kearney, Walsh, and Donellan—received their education in the university of Cambridge.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. iii. 15; Cotton's Fasti, iv. 12, v. 271; Gilbert's Dublin, i. 386; Irish and English prefaces to the Irish New Testament (1602); Mason's Life of Bedell, 284; Murdin's State Papers, 306; O'Donovan's Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many, 171; Ware's Bishops (Harris), 615; Ware's Writers (Harris), 97.]
DONKIN, BRYAN (1768–1855), civil engineer and inventor, was born at Sandoe, Northumberland, 22 March 1768. His taste for science and mechanics soon showed itself, and as a child he made thermometers and ingenious contrivances connected with machinery. He was encouraged by his father, who was agent for the Errington estates and an intimate acquaintance of John Smeaton. On leaving home the son was engaged for a year or two as land agent to the Duke of Dorset at Knole Park, Kent. By the recommendation of Smeaton, he next apprenticed himself to Mr. Hall of Dartford, and was soon able to take an active part in Mr. Hall's works, so that in 1801–2 he was entrusted with the construction of a model of the first machine for making paper. The idea of this machine originated with Louis Robert, and formed the subject of a patent by John Gamble, 20 April 1801, No. 2487, which was assigned to Messrs. Bloxam and Fourdrinier. This model did not, however, produce paper fit for sale, but Donkin in 1802, under an agreement with Bloxam and Fourdrinier, made a machine which in 1804 he erected at Frogmore in Kent. A second machine was made by him and put up at Two Waters, Hertfordshire, in 1805, which although not perfect was a commercial success. By 1810 eighteen of these complex machines had been supplied to various mills, and the original difficulties having now been overcome they rapidly superseded the method of making paper by hand. Although the original idea was not Donkin's, the credit of its entire practical development is due to him. In 1851 he constructed his 191st machine. The merit of his work was recognised by the award of the council medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851 (Official Catalogue of Great Exhibition, 1851, i. 218, 282, 314, and Reports of Juries, 1852, pp. 389, 420, 433, 938). He was one of the earliest to introduce improvements in printing machinery. On 23 Nov. 1813 he, in conjunction with Richard Mackenzie Bacon, secured a patent, No. 3757, for his polygonal machine, and one was erected for the Cambridge University. He then also invented and first used the composition printing roller, by which some of the greatest difficulties hitherto experienced in printing by machines were overcome. With the polygonal machine from eight hundred to a thousand impressions were produced per hour, but it never came
