DUNCAN, PETER MARTIN (1824-1891), English palaeontologist, was born on the 20th of April 1824 at Twickenham, and was educated partly at the local grammar school and partly in Switzerland. Having entered the medical department of King’s College, London, in 1842, he obtained the degree of M.B. (Lond.) in 1846, and then acted for a short time as assistant to a doctor at Rochester. Subsequently he practised at Colchester (1848-1860), and during this period he served for a year as mayor of the city. Returning to London in 1860 he practised for a few years at Blackheath, and then gave his time entirely to scientific research, first in botany, and later in geology and palaeontology. His attention was directed especially to fossil corals, and in 1863 he contributed to the Geological Society of London the first of a series of papers on the fossil corals of the West Indian Islands in which he not only described the species, but discussed their bearings on the physical geography of the Tertiary period. Corals from various parts of the world and from different geological formations were subsequently dealt with by Duncan, and he came to be regarded as a leading authority on these fossils. He prepared also for the Palaeontographical Society (1866-1872) an important work on British fossil corals, as a supplement to the monograph by Henri Milne-Edwards and Jules Haime. He was elected F.R.S. in 1868. In 1870 he was chosen professor of geology at King’s College. He was president of the Geological Society (1876-1877), and in 1881 was awarded the Wollaston medal. In addition to papers on fossil corals, he dealt with some of the living forms, also with the Echinoidea and other groups, recent and fossil. He edited the six volumes of Cassell’s Natural History (1877, &c.). He died at Gunnersbury on the 28th of May 1891.
DUNCAN, THOMAS (1807-1845), Scottish portrait and historical painter, was born at Kinclaven, in Perthshire. He was educated at the Perth Academy, and began the study of the law, but abandoned it for art. Beginning under the instruction of Sir William Allan, he early attained distinction as a delineator of the human figure; and his first pictures established his fame so completely, that at a very early age he was appointed professor of colouring, and afterwards of drawing, in the Trustees’ Academy of Edinburgh. In 1840 he painted one of his finest pictures, “Prince Charles Edward and the Highlanders entering Edinburgh after the Battle of Prestonpans,” which secured his election as an associate of the Royal Academy in 1843. In the same year he produced his picture of “Charles Edward asleep after Culloden, protected by Flora MacDonald,” which, like many other of his works, has been often engraved. In 1844 appeared his “Cupid” and his “Martyrdom of John Brown of Priesthill.” His last work was a portrait of himself, now in the National Gallery in Edinburgh. He particularly excelled in his portraits of ladies and children. He died in Edinburgh on the 25th of May 1845.
DUNCE, a slow or stupid person, one incapable of learning. The word is derived from the name of the great schoolman, John Duns Scotus, whose works on logic, theology and philosophy were accepted text-books in the universities from the 14th century. “Duns” or “Dunsman” was a name early applied by their opponents to the followers of Duns Scotus, the Scotists, and hence was equivalent to one devoted to sophistical distinctions and subtleties. When, in the 16th century, the Scotists obstinately opposed the “new learning,” the term “duns” or “dunce” became, in the mouths of the humanists and reformers, a term of abuse, a synonym for one incapable of scholarship, a dull blockhead.
DUNCKER, MAXIMILIAN WOLFGANG (1811-1886), German historian and politician, eldest son of the publisher Karl Duncker, was born at Berlin on the 15th of October 1811. He studied at the universities of Bonn and Berlin till 1834, was then accused of participation in the students’ societies, which the government was endeavouring to suppress, and was condemned to six years’ imprisonment, afterwards reduced to six months. He had already begun his labours as a historian, but after serving his sentence in 1837, found himself debarred till 1839 from completing his course at Halle, where in 1842 he obtained a professorship. Elected to the National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848, he joined the Right Centre party, and was chosen reporter of the projected constitution. He sat in the Erfurt assembly in 1850, and in the second Prussian chamber from 1849 to 1852. During the crisis in Schleswig and Holstein in 1850 he endeavoured in person to aid the duchies in their struggles. An outspoken opponent of the policy of Manteuffel, he was refused promotion by the Prussian government, and in 1857 accepted the professorship of history at Tubingen. In 1859, however, he was recalled to Berlin as assistant in the ministry of state in the Auerswald cabinet, and in 1861 was appointed councillor to the crown prince. In 1867 he became director of the Prussian archives, with which it was his task to incorporate those of Hanover, Hesse and Nassau. He retired on the 1st of January 1875, and died at Ansbach on the 21st of July 1886. Duncker’s eminent position among German historians rests mainly on his Geschichte des Alterthums (1st ed., 1852-1857); 5th ed. in 9 vols., 1878-1886; (English translation by Evelyn Abbott, 1877-1882). He edited, with J.G. Droysen, Preussische Staatsschriften, Politische Correspondenz Friedrichs des Grossen, and Urkunden und Actenstucke zur Geschichte des Kurfursten Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg. To the period of his political activity belong Zur Geschichte der deutschen Reichsversammlung in Frankfurt (1849); Heinrich von Gagern (1850), in the series of Manner der Gegenwart; and the anonymous Vier Monate auswartiger Politik (1851). His other works include Origines Germanicae (1840); the lectures Die Krisis der Reformation (1845) and Feudalitat und Aristokratie (1858); Aus der Zeit Friedrichs des Grossen und Friedrich Wilhelms III. Abhandlungen zur preussischen Geschichte (1876); followed after his death by Abhandlungen aus der griechischen Geschichte and Abhandlungen aus der neueren Geschichte (1887).
DUNCKLEY, HENRY (1823-1896), English journalist, was born at Warwick on the 24th of December 1823. Educated at the Baptist college at Accrington, Lancashire, and at Glasgow University, he became in 1848 minister of the Baptist church at Salford, Lancashire. Here he closely investigated the educational needs of the working-classes, embodying the results of his inquiries in an essay, The Glory and the Shame of Britain (1851), which gained a prize offered by the Religious Tract Society. In 1852 he won the Anti-Corn-law League’s prize with an essay on the results of the free-trade policy, published in 1854 under the title The Charter of the Nations. In 1855 he abandoned the ministry to edit the Manchester Examiner and Times, a prominent Liberal newspaper, in charge of which he remained till 1889. For twenty years he wrote, over the signature “Verax,” weekly letters to the Manchester papers; those on The Crown and the Cabinet (1877) and The Crown and the Constitution (1878) evoked so much enthusiasm that a public subscription was set on foot to present the writer with a handsome testimonial for his public services. In 1878 Dunckley, who had often declined to stand for parliament, was elected a member of the Reform Club in recognition of his services to the Liberal party, and in 1883 he was made an LL.D. by Glasgow University. He died at Manchester on the 29th of June 1896.