Moral Science (1872). See also Sir L. Stephen, English Thought in the 18th Century (3rd ed., 1902); J. S. Mill’s Dissertations, vols. ii. and iv.; T. Huxley, Critiques and Addresses, pp. 320 seq.; G. S. Fullerton, System of Metaphysics (New York, 1904); John Watson, Outline of Philos. (New York, 1898); J. McCosh, Locke’s Theory of Knowledge (1884); T. Lorenz, Ein Beitrag zur Lebensgeschichte G. Berkeleys (1900) and Weitere Beiträge z. Leb. G. B.’s (1901); histories of modern philosophy generally. (R. Ad.; J. M. M.)
BERKELEY, MILES JOSEPH (1803–1889), English botanist, was born on the 1st of April 1803, at Biggin Hall, Northamptonshire, and educated at Rugby and Christ’s College, Cambridge, of which he became an honorary fellow. Taking holy orders, he became incumbent of Apethorpe in 1837, and vicar of Sibbertoft, near Market Harborough, in 1868. He acquired an enthusiastic love of cryptogamic botany in his early years, and soon was recognized as the leading British authority on fungi and plant pathology. He was especially famous as a systematist in mycology, some 6000 species of fungi being credited to him, but his Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany, published in 1857, and his papers on “Vegetable Pathology” in the Gardener’s Chronicle in 1854 and onwards, show that he had a very broad grasp of the whole domain of physiology and morphology as understood in those days. Moreover, it should be pointed out that Berkeley began his work as a field naturalist and collector, his earliest objects of study having been the mollusca and other branches of zoology, as testified by his papers in the Zoological Journal and the Magazine of Natural History, between 1828 and 1836. As a microscopist he was an assiduous and accurate worker, as is shown by his numerous drawings of the smaller algae and fungi, and his admirable dissections of mosses and hepaticae. His investigations on the potato murrain, caused by Phytophthora infestans, on the grape mildew, to which he gave the name Oidium Tuckeri, and on the pathogenic fungi of wheat rust, hop mildew, and various diseases of cabbage, pears, coffee, onions, tomatoes, &c., were important in results bearing on the life-history of these pests, at a time when very little was known of such matters, and must always be considered in any historical account of the remarkable advances in the biology of these organisms which were made between 1850 and 1880; and when it is remembered that this work was done without any of the modern appliances or training of a properly equipped laboratory, the real significance of Berkeley’s pioneer work becomes apparent. It is as the founder of British mycology, however, that his name will live in the history of botany, and his most important work is contained in the account of native British fungi in Sir W. Hooker’s British Flora (1836), in his Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany (1857), and in his Outlines of British Fungology (1860). His magnificent herbarium at Kew, which contains over 9000 specimens, and is enriched by numerous notes and sketches, forms one of the most important type series in the world. Berkeley died at Sibbertoft on the 30th of July 1889. He was a man of refined and courteous bearing, an accomplished classical student, with the simple and modest habits that befit a man of true learning.
A list of his publications will be found in the Catalogue of Scientific Papers of the Royal Society, and sketches of his life in Proc. Roy. Soc., 1890, 47, 9, by Sir Joseph Hooker, and Annals of Botany, 1897, 11, by Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer. (H. M. W.)
BERKELEY, SIR WILLIAM (c. 1608–1677), British colonial governor in America, was born in or near London, England, about 1608, the youngest son of Sir Maurice Berkeley, an original member of the London Company of 1606, and brother of John, first Lord Berkeley of Stratton, one of the proprietors of the Carolinas. He graduated at Oxford in 1629, and in 1632 was appointed one of the royal commissioners for Canada, in which office he won the personal favour of Charles I., who appointed him a gentleman of the privy chamber. During this period he tried his hand at literary work, producing among other things a tragi-comedy entitled The Lost Lady (1638). In August 1641 he was appointed governor of Virginia, but did not take up his duties until the following year. His first term as governor, during which he seems to have been extremely popular with the majority of the colonists, was notable principally for his religious intolerance and his expulsion of the Puritans, who were in a great minority. During the Civil War in England he remained loyal to the king, and offered an asylum in Virginia to Charles II. and the loyalists. On the arrival of a parliamentary fleet in 1652, however, he retired from office and spent the following years quietly on his plantation. On the death, in 1660, of Samuel Matthews, the last parliamentary governor, he was chosen governor by the Virginia assembly, and was soon recommissioned by Charles II. His natural arrogance and tyranny seems to have increased with years, and the second period of his governorship was a stormy one. Serious frontier warfare with the Indians was followed (1676) by Bacon’s Rebellion (see Virginia), brought on by Berkeley’s misrule, and during its course all his worst traits became evident. His cruelty and barbarity in punishing the rebels did not meet with the approval of Charles II., who is said to have remarked that “the old fool has put to death more people in that naked country than I did here for the murder of my father.” Berkeley was called to England in 1677 ostensibly to report on the condition of affairs in the colony, and a lieutenant-governor (Herbert Jeffreys) was put in his place. Berkeley sailed in May, but died soon after his arrival, at Twickenham, and was buried there on the 13th of July 1677. In addition to the play mentioned he wrote A Discourse and View of Virginia (London, 1663).
BERKELEY, a city of Alameda county, California, U.S.A., on the E. shore of San Francisco Bay, named after Bishop Berkeley on account of his line “Westward the course of empire takes its way.” Pop. (1890) 5101; (1900) 13,214, of whom 3216 were foreign-born; (1910) 40,434. It is served by the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fé railway systems, both transcontinental; and is connected by electric lines (and ferry) with San Francisco, and by five electric lines with Oakland. Its attractive situation and pleasant outlooks have made it a favourite residential suburb of San Francisco, which lies at a distance of 7 m. across the bay. Berkeley is the seat of the California state university (see California, University of), opened in 1873; the inter-related Berkeley Bible Seminary (1896, Disciples of Christ); Pacific Theological Seminary (established in 1866 at Oakland, in 1901 at Berkeley, Congregational); Seminary of the Pacific Coast Baptist Theological Union, and Unitarian Theological School—all associated with the University of California; and the state institution for the deaf, dumb and blind. The site of Berkeley was a farming region until its selection for the home of the university. Berkeley was incorporated as a town in 1878.
BERKELEY, a market town of Gloucestershire, England, near the river Severn, in that portion of its valley known as the Vale of Berkeley, on a branch from the Midland railway. Pop. (1901) 774. It is pleasantly situated on a gentle eminence, in a rich pastoral vale to which it gives name, celebrated for its dairies, producing the famous cheese known as “double Gloucester.” The town has a handsome church (Early English and Decorated), a grammar school, and some trade in coal, timber, malt and cheese. Berkeley was the birthplace of Dr Edward Jenner (1749), who is buried in the church. Berkeley Castle, on an eminence south-east of the town, is one of the noblest baronial castles existing in England, and one of the few inhabited. The Berkeley Ship Canal connects Gloucester with docks at Sharpness, avoiding the difficult navigation of the upper part of the Severn estuary.
The manor of Berkeley gives its name to the noble family of Berkeley (q.v.). According to tradition, a nunnery to which the manor belonged existed here before the Conquest, and Earl Godwin, by bringing about its dissolution, obtained the manor. All that is certainly known, however, is that in Domesday the manor is assigned to one Roger, who took his surname from it. His descendants seem to have been ousted from their possessions during the 12th century by Robert fitz Harding, an Angevin partisan, who already held the castle when, in 1153, Henry, duke of Normandy (who became King Henry II. in the following year), granted him the manor. Under an agreement made in the same year, Maurice, son of Robert fitz Harding, married a daughter
