Disney, John (1779-1857), barrister and collector of classical antiquities, was born at Flintham Hall, Nottinghamshire, the home of his paternal uncle, Lewis Disney, on 29 May 1779, the eldest son of seven children of the Revd John Disney, D.D. (1746-1816) [q.v.], a Unitarian clergyman, and his wife Jane (1745/6-1809), eldest daughter of Ven. Francis Blackburne (1705-87) [q.v.], Rector of Richmond, Yorks., and Archdeacon of Cleveland. The Disney family could trace its descent back to the Norman's. The focus for the family was Norton D'Isney (Norton Disney) and Swinderby, both between Newark-on-Trent and Lincoln; Disney's father was vicar of Swinderby until he resigned his living in 1782.

In December 1782 the Disney family had moved to London, when the Revd Disney became the first secretary of the Unitarian Society for Promoting the Knowledge of the Scriptures, and in 1783 minister of the Essex Street chapel with Revd Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808) [q.v.]. Lindsey had married Archdeacon Blackburne's stepdaughter, and Revd Disney's daughter, Frances Mary, married another Unitarian minister, Revd Thomas Jervis (1748-1833) [q.v.]. By 1785 the family had moved to Sloane Street in Chelsea, and Disney received his education at home. In April 1796 Disney was admitted, aged 16, as pensioner to his father's Cambridge college, Peterhouse; his younger brother Algernon (1780-1848) followed him to Peterhouse in October of the same year. Two years later, in April 1798, Disney was admitted to the Inner Temple, following a legal career which his father had been forced to abandon through ill health. In May 1803 Disney was called to the Bar.

On 22 September 1802 Disney married at St George's, Hanover Square, his first cousin Sophia (b. 1777), youngest daughter of Lewis Disney-Ffytche (1738-1822), of Swinderby, Lincolnshire, and Danbury Place, Essex, and of Elizabeth, daughter of William Ffytche, governor of Bengal; there were three children, John (1808-29), Edgar (his successor, 1810-81), and Sophia.

Disney's family had stayed in London until March 1805 when Disney's father retired to the Hyde, near Ingatestone, Essex. The Hyde, designed by Sir William Chambers [q.v.], had been bequeathed (in a will of 2 Nov. 1792), along with land in Dorset at Corscombe, Halstock and Netherstoke, by Thomas Brand Hollis (d. 9 Sept. 1804), the friend of the 'republican' Thomas Hollis (1720-74) [q.v.]. Hollis himself had helped to publish Disney's father-in-law's Confessional (1766). In this way the Disney family acquired a significant income from both estates (estimated at around £5000 a year) as well as the substantial collection of classical sculptures displayed at the Hyde which had been largely acquired, often through Thomas Jenkins [q.v.] in Rome, by Hollis and Brand during the Grand Tour in a series of journeys made from 1748 to 1753. The display included a portrait of Marcus Aurelius once in the Palazzo Barberini at Rome. Other pieces were acquired on their return to England, such as from the sale of Dr Richard Mead's [q.v.] antiquities. This Dorset interest may have influenced Disney's appointment in September 1807 as Recorder of Bridport, a position held until 1823; in 1818 he was appointed Sheriff of Dorset. During this period he resided at Corscombe.

On the death of his father on 26 December 1816, Disney inherited the Hyde and its contents, as well as land in Dorset. One of his first actions was to dispose of the libraries of his father, Thomas Hollis and Thomas Brand-Hollis (Sotheby's, 22 April 1817). Disney also seems to have taken more interest in affairs in Essex and around 1820 sold part of his Halstock estate; in 1822 his wife inherited part of the estate of her father (and Disney's uncle). In 1818 Disney started work on a major catalogue of the collection of antiquities at the Hyde; his father had prepared Essex (1807), an earlier catalogue of the collection, A Catalogue of sonie marbles, bronzes, pictures and gems, at the Hyde, near Ingatestone. A study by Revd James Tate of the inscriptions in the collection was added to the second impression (1809). Disney's research was interrupted by a visit to Italy and in particular Rome in 1827. Disney himself added to the collection, in part through a relative who provided small antiquities said to come from Pompeii, and also during his travels in Italy. He also received gifts of antiquities from Charles Callis Western [q.v.] and James Christie [q.v.]. Among Disney's acquisitions was a Latin inscription said to have been found in March 1821 on the site of County Hospital at Colchester, but almost certainly an acquisition made on some Grand Tour.

After relinquishing his position in Dorset, Disney continued to pursue his legal interests and published Outlines of a Penal Code (1826). By 1832 he was Chairman of the Quarter Sessions of the Justices of the Peace for the County of Essex. Disney seems to have had a long-standing desire to become a Member of Parliament. He edited A Collection of Acts of Parliament, relative to County and Borough Elections, with reference to several reported cases, containing the determinations of the House of Commons (1811), and contested the constituencies of Harwich (1832) and North Essex (1835), but without success. These expenses, as well as the upkeep of the Hyde, may have led Disney to dispose of the Corscombe estate in 1836.

The catalogue of the Hyde, illustrated with engravings, was to appear in 1846 as Museum Disneianun', being a description of a collection of Ancient Marbles, in the possession of John Disney, Es q., F.R.S. F. S.A., at the Hyde, near Ingatestone. A second edition followed with supplements on ii, 'Specimens of ancient art' (1848), and iii, 'Various ancient fictile vases' (1849). Most of the collection of sculptures was given to the fledgling Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in 1850, initiating the Greek and Roman collection. Along with the collection of marbles made by E.D. Clarke (q.v.) and presented to the university of Cambridge in 1803, the Disney marbles continue to form the core of the Fitzwilliam 5 ancient sculpture collection. The remaining antiquities were left at the Hyde, and were subsequently dispersed at auction by Christie's (1 May 1884, 28 Jan. 1886) after the death of his son Edgar; in 1885 the Fitzwilliam acquired the marble 'Apollo of Miletus', restored under John Flaxman [q.v.] and Antonio d'Este. Adolf Michaelis (Ancient Marbles in Great Britain (1882) was to comment that Disney showed 'more zeal than knowledge or criticism' and that the collection itself was 'trash rather than treasure'. Disney's generosity to the university of Cambridge continued when in 1851 he gave an endowment of £1000 to create a chair of archaeology. The endowment was augmented to £3500 by bequest.

Disney was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 9 June 1832; his nomination was supported by the traveller W.M. Leake (q.v.], whose collection of Greek pottery and his cabinet of coins and gems was also to find its way to the Fitzwllliam Museum. This was to be followed on 20 June 1839 by Disney's election as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; he was to serve on its council in 1845 and 1850, and acted as one of the auditors in 1850. Disney was awarded an Honorary D.C.L. from the University of Oxford in 1854(28 June), and was incorporated with an LL.D. from the University of Cambridge in the same year. Disney died at the Hyde on 6 May 1857.

DAVID GILL