Dibdin, THOMAS FROGNALL, the bibliographer, was nephew of Charles Dibdin, the writer of sea-songs, and was born at Calcutta in 1776. He lost both parents when hardly four years of age, his father's death at sea having given Charles Dibdin the subject for his famous song, Tom Bowling. He was brought up by a maternal uncle, studied at St John's College, Oxford, tried law, but took orders in 1804. He proceeded D.D. in 1825. Of his preferments the chief were the vicarage of Exning near Newmarket, and the rectory of St Mary's, Bryanston Square, London. He died 18th November 1847. His first contribution to bibliography was an Introduction to the Greek and Roman Classics (1802), which was followed by an unfinished new edition of Ames and Herbert's Typographical Antiquities (4 vols. 1810-19); Bibliomania (1809); The Bibliographical Decameron (1817); Bibliotheca Spenceriana (1814-15); Bibliographical, Antiquarian, and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany (1821); The Library Companion (1824); Bibliophobia (1832); Reminiscences of a Literary Life (1836); and Bibliographical, Antiquarian, and Picturesque Tour in the Northern Counties of England and Scotland (1838). All Dibdin's books are valuable and interesting, but whimsical and flip-pant in style, and unhappily abounding in errors. Dr Dibdin was one of the founders of the 'Roxburgh Club' (1812).
Dibraanchiata. See CEPHALOPODA.