OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Owen, Edward Campbell Rich

​OWEN, Sir EDWARD CAMPBELL RICH (1771–1849), admiral, born in 1771, son of Captain William Owen of the navy (d. 1778), and first cousin of David Owen, senior wrangler in 1777, was borne on the books of the Enterprize in the Mediterranean when he was barely four years old, and 1780–2 he was similarly borne on the books of ships in the West Indies. His actual entry into the navy seems to have been 1786, on board the Culloden, guardship at Plymouth. He afterwards served on the home, Mediterranean, North American, and West Indian stations; and on 6 Nov. 1793 was promoted to be lieutenant of the Fortunée. Afterwards, on the home station, in the summer of 1796, he was acting-captain of the Impregnable with Rear-admiral Sir Thomas Rich, his godfather, and of the Queen Charlotte with Sir John Colpoys; and on 19 Sept. was promoted commander. In May 1797 he had charge of a division of gun-brigs at the Nore, under the command of Sir Erasmus Gower. On 23 April 1798 he was posted to the Northumberland, from which he was moved to the Irresistible, in the Medway. In 1801 he commanded the Nemesis in the North Sea and off Dunkirk or Boulogne. In May 1802 he was appointed to the Immortalité, in which, on the renewal of the war, he was actively employed on the coast of France, capturing or destroying a very great number of the enemy's gunboats or privateers, more especially, on 20 July 1804, when, in conjunction with four brigs and a northerly gale, he insured the destruction of many gunboats and several hundred soldiers between Boulogne and Étaples (James, iii. 227–8; Chevalier, iii. 107). In October 1806 he was moved to the Clyde and ordered to hoist a broad pennant. In 1809 he was attached to the Walcheren expedition. He afterwards commanded the Inconstant in the North Sea, and in 1813 the Cornwall. In 1814 he commanded the Dorset yacht, and on 2 Jan. 1815 was nominated a K.C.B. In 1816 he was appointed to the Royal Sovereign yacht, which he commanded for the next six years; and from 1822 to 1825 was commander-in-chief in the West Indies, with a broad pennant in the Gloucester. On 27 May 1825 he was promoted to be rear-admiral; in 1827 he was surveyor-general of the ordnance; in March 1828 was appointed on the council of the lord high-admiral; and from December 1828 to 1832 was commander-in-chief in the East Indies. On his return he was nominated a G.C.H. on 24 Oct. 1832. He became a vice-admiral on 10 Jan. 1837, and from 1841 to 1845 was commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, with his flag in the Queen and afterwards in the Formidable. He was nominated a G.C.B. on 8 May 1845; became admiral on 11 Dec. 1846, and died on 8 Oct. 1849. He married, in 1829, Selina, daughter of John Baker Hay, captain in the navy.
[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biogr. iii. (vol. ii.) 126; O'Byrne's Nav. Biogr. Dict.; Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xx. p. xxxiv; Gent. Mag. 1849, ii. 647.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Owen, Edward Pryce

​OWEN, EDWARD PRYCE (1788–1863), artist, born in March 1788, was the only son of Archdeacon Hugh Owen (1761–1827) ​[q. v.] He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1810, M.A. 1816. After officiating for some time at Park Street Chapel, Grosvenor Square, London, he became vicar of Wellington, and rector of Eyton-upon-the-Wildmoors, Shropshire, holding these livings from 27 Feb. 1823 (Foster, Index Eccles.) till 1840. While travelling in France and Belgium, and (in 1840) in Italy, the Levant, Germany, and Switzerland, he made numerous drawings, from which he afterwards produced etchings and pictures in oils. He contributed several plates to the ‘History of Shrewsbury,’ 1825, by Hugh Owen (his father) and J. B. Blakeway, and issued the following:
* ‘Etchings of Ancient Buildings in Shrewsbury’ (with letterpress), Nos. 1 and 2 only, London, 1820–1, fol.
* ‘Etchings’ (portrait and forty-five plates), London, 1826, royal fol.; privately printed.
* ‘The Book of Etchings,’ vol. i. 1842; vol. ii. 1855.
In the latter part of his life Owen lived at Bettws Hall, Montgomeryshire. He died at Cheltenham on 15 July 1863.
[Gent. Mag. 1863, pt. ii. pp. 244, 380; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Cooper's Biogr. Dict.; Seubert's Allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Owen, Ellis

​OWEN, ELLIS (1789–1868), Welsh antiquary and poet, son of Owen Ellis and Ann Thomas his wife, of Cefnymeusydd, in the parish of Ynys Cynhaiarn, Carnarvonshire, was born on 31 March 1789. He went to school at Penmorfa, and was afterwards sent to Shrewsbury; on returning home he settled at Cefynmeusydd, and on his father's death took charge of the farm. He spent the rest of his life at Cefnymeusydd as a prosperous farmer of much local influence, and died there on 27 Jan. 1868. He was chiefly remarkable as a writer of ‘englynion’ (stanzas), as a local antiquary and genealogist, and as the friend and tutor of the young poets of the district. The ‘Literary Society of Cefnymeusydd,’ the precursor of many a society of the kind in Wales, met fortnightly at his house and under his presidency for eleven years (1846–57). His poetical and prose writings were published, with a biographical notice, under the title of ‘Cell Meudwy’ (‘The Hermit's Cell’) in 1877 (Tremadog). Four days before his death he had been elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
[Cell Meudwy.]
J. E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Pearce, William George

​PEARCE, Sir WILLIAM GEORGE, second baronet, of Carde (1861–1907), benefactor to Trinity College, Cambridge, born at Chatham on 23 July 1861, was only child of Sir William Pearce [q. v.] by his wife Dinah Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Sowter of Gravesend. Educated at Rugby (1876–1878), he matriculated in 1881 at Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. and LL.B. in 1884, proceeding M.A. in 1888. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1885. On the death of his father in December 1888 he succeeded him in the chairmanship of the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Glasgow, an undertaking the development of which had been the principal work of his father's life. Under Pearce's chairmanship, which lasted from 1888 until his death, the company maintained its high reputation [see Elgar, Francis, Suppl. II. Pearce was returned to parliament in 1892 as conservative member for Plymouth along with Sir Edward Clarke, but did not seek re-election in 1895. He was honorary colonel of the 2nd Devon volunteers Royal Garrison Artillery. He was a keen sportsman, and his estate of Chilton Lodge, Hungerford, was noted for the excellence of its shooting. He died after a short illness on 2 Nov. 1907 at 2 Deanery Street, Park Lane, and was buried at Chilton Foliat near Hungerford.
He married on 18 March 1905 Caroline Eva, daughter of Robert Coote. There was no issue of the marriage. By his will he left the residue of his property, estimated at over 150,000l., subject to his wife's life interest, to Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he had remained a member, although he had maintained no close association with the college after his life there as an undergraduate. Lady Pearce only survived her husband a few weeks. The college thus acquired probably the most valuable of the many accessions which have been made to its endowments since its foundation by Henry VIII.
[The Times, 4 and 8 Nov. 1907; History of the Fairfield Works.]
H. M'L. I.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Pease, Joseph Whitwell

​PEASE, Sir JOSEPH WHITWELL, first baronet (1828–1903), director of mercantile enterprise, born at Darlington on 23 June 1828, was elder son of Joseph Pease (1799–1872), by his wife Emma, daughter of Joseph Gurney of Norwich. Edward Pease [q. v.] was his grandfather. In January 1839 he went to the Friends' school, York, under John Ford (in January 1900 he laid the foundation stone of extensive new buildings at Bootham). Entering the Pease banking firm at Darlington in 1845, he became largely engaged in the woollen manufactures, collieries, and iron trade with which the firm was associated. He was soon either director or chairman of the Owners of the Middlesbrough Estate, Ltd., Robert Stephenson & Co., Ltd., Pease & Partners, Ltd., and J. & J. W. Pease, bankers. In 1894 he was elected chairman of the North Eastern railway, having been deputy chairman for many years. He also farmed extensively, and read a paper on the 'Meat Supply of Great Britain' at the South Durham and North Yorks Chamber of Agriculture, 26 Jan. 1878.
In 1865 Pease was returned liberal M.P. for South Durham, which he represented for twenty years. After the Redistribution Act of 1885 he sat for the Barnard Castle division of Durham county until his death. He strongly supported Gladstone on all questions, including Irish home rule, and rendered useful service to the House of Commons in matters of trade, particularly in regard to the coal and iron industries of the North of England. He was president of the Peace Society and of the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Traffic, and a champion of both interests in parliament. On 22 June 1881 he moved the second reading of a bill to abolish capital punishment, and his speech was separately printed. In 1882 Gladstone created him a baronet (18 May). No quaker had previously accepted such a distinction, although Sir John Rodes (1693–1743) inherited one.
At the end of 1902 the concerns with which Pease and his family were identified became involved in financial difficulties. Liabilities to the North Eastern railway amounted to 230,000Z. Voluntary arrangements were made by various banking firms of quaker origin with whom the Peases had intimate connection, and the actual loss to the railway was reduced at least one-half. Heavy losses fell on the companies with which Pease was associated and on several London banks.
He died at Kerris Vean, his Falmouth residence, of heart failure, on 23 June 1903 and was buried at Darlington.
He married in 1854 Mary, daughter of Alfred Fox of Falmouth (she died on 3 Aug. 1892), and by her left two sons and six daughters. The elder son, Alfred Edward Pease, second baronet, M.P. for York (1885- 92), and for the Cleveland division of Yorkshire (1897–1902), was resident magistrate in the Transvaal in 1903. The second son, Joseph Albert Pease, who sat as a liberal in the House of Commons from 1892, became president of the board of education in 1911. A cartoon portrait by 'Spy' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1887.
[The Times, 24 June 1903; Who's Who, 1902; Hansard; private information.]
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Peel, James

​PEEL, JAMES (1811–1906), landscape painter, born on 1 July 1811 in Westage Road, Newcastle-on-Tyne, was son of Thomas Peel, woollen draper (d. 24 April 1822), partner in the firm of Fenwick, Reid & Co. Educated at Bruce's school, he had as schoolfellows there Sir Charles Mark Palmer [q. v. Suppl. II] and John Collingwood Bruce, the antiquary. Edward Dalziel, father of the wood engravers the Dalziel Brothers [see Dalziel, Edward, Suppl. II], first taught him drawing, and in 1840 he came to London to paint portraits. Among his early work were full-sized copies of Wilkie's 'Blind Fiddler' and 'The Village Festival,' in the National Gallery, as well as portraits and miniatures. Eventually he confined himself wholly to landscape painting, in which he exhibited at the ​Royal Academy from 1843 to 1888 and at the Royal Society of British Artists from 1845 onwards. His pictures made their mark by their sincere feeling for nature and their excellent drawing, especially of trees. Three of his pictures, 'A Lane in Berwickshire,' 'Cotherstone, Yorkshire,' and 'Pont-y-pant, Wales,' are in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, where a loan exhibition of his works was held in 1907. Several were bought for other provincial galleries at Glasgow, Leeds, and Sunderland, and for clients in Newcastle. He resided at Darlington from 1848 to 1857, when he again settled in London.
In 1861 he was admitted a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, of which he became a leading supporter. In association with Madox Brown, William Bell Scott [q. v.], and other artists he was an active organiser of 'free' exhibitions like those of the Dudley Gallery and of the Portland Gallery, of which the latter ended disastrously. Working to the end with all the vigour of earlier years, he died at his residence, Elms Lodge, Oxford Road, Reading, on 28 Jan. 1906. Peel married at Darlington, on 30 May 1849, Sarah Martha, eldest daughter of Thomas Blyth, and left issue.
[The Times, 5 Feb. 1906; Newcastle Weekly Chron., 20 March 1897 (with photographic reproduction); Illustr. Cat. of Exhib. of Works by James Peel, Laing Art Gall., Newcastle, March 1907 (with portrait); private information.]
F. W. G-n.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Pearson, Charles John

​PEARSON, Sir CHARLES JOHN, Lord Pearson (1843–1910), Scottish judge, born at Edinburgh on 6 Nov. 1843, was second son of Charles Pearson, chartered accountant, of Edinburgh, by his wife Margaret, daughter of John Dalziel, solicitor, of Earlston, Berwickshire. After attending Edinburgh Academy, he proceeded to the University of St. Andrews, and thence to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he distinguished himself in classics, winning the Gaisford Greek prizes for prose (1862) and verse (1863). He graduated B.A. with a first class in the final classical school in 1865. He afterwards attended law lectures in Edinburgh, and became a member of the Juridical Society, of which he was librarian in 1872–3, and of the Speculative Society (president 1869–71). He was called to the English bar (from the Inner Temple) on 10 June 1870, and on 19 July 1870 passed to the Scottish bar, where he rapidly obtained a large practice. Though not one of the crown counsel for Scotland, he was specially retained for the prosecution at the trial of the City of Glasgow Bank directors (Jan. 1879), became sheriff of chancery in 1885, and procurator and cashier for the Church of Scotland in 1886. In 1887 he was knighted, and was appointed sheriff of Renfrew and Bute in 1888, and of Perthshire in 1889. Pearson was a conservative, though not a keen politician, and in 1890 was appointed solicitor-general for Scotland in Lord Salisbury's second administration, and was elected (unopposed) as M.P. for Edinburgh and St. Andrews Universities. In the same year he became Q.C. In 1891 he succeeded James Patrick Bannerman Robertson, Lord Robertson [q. v. Suppl. II], as lord advocate, and was sworn of the privy council. At the general election of 1892 he was again returned unopposed for ​Edinburgh and St. Andrews Universities. After the fall of Lord Salisbury's ministry in 1892 he ceased to be lord advocate, and was chosen dean of the Faculty of Advocates. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Edinburgh University in 1894, and on the return of the conservatives to power in the following year became again lord advocate, and resigned the deanship. In 1896, on the resignation of Andrew Rutherfurd Clark, Lord Rutherfurd Clark, he was raised to the bench, from which he retired, owing to bad health, in 1909. He died at Edinburgh on 15 Aug. 1910, and was buried in the Dean cemetery there.
Pearson married on 23 July 1873 Elizabeth, daughter of M. Grayhurst Hewat of St. Cuthbert's, Norwood, by whom he had three sons. A painting, by J. Irvine, belongs to his widow.
[Scotsman, and The Times, 16 Aug. 1910; Roll of the Faculty of Advocates; Hist. of the Speculative Soc., p. 156; Records of the Juridical Soc.; Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1886; Foster, Men at the Bar.]
G. W. T. O.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walker, James (1748-1808?)

​WALKER, JAMES (1748–1808?), mezzotint engraver, son of a captain in the merchant service, was born in 1748. He became a pupil of Valentine Green [q. v.], but not in his fifteenth year, as has been alleged, for in 1763 Green himself had not begun to engrave in mezzotint. Walker's earliest published plate bears the date 2 July 1780. During the following three years he published a number of good portraits after Romney and others, some domestic scenes, ‘The Spell,’ and ‘The Village Doctress,’ after Northcote; a scene from ‘Cymbeline,’ after Penny. In 1784 he went to St. Petersburg, being appointed engraver to the Empress Catharine II. He remained in Russia till 1802, engraving numerous portraits of the imperial family and of the Russian aristocracy, as well as pictures by the old masters in the imperial collection. Walker's appointment as court engraver was renewed by the Emperor Alexander I, and he was a member of the Imperial Academy ​of Art at St. Petersburg. He returned to England with a pension in 1802, when many of his plates were lost by shipwreck off Yarmouth. A list of these is given in the catalogue of a sale of his remaining plates and of impressions from the lost plates, at Sotheby's, on 29 Nov. 1822. A portrait of Alexander I was published after his return, on 1 May 1803. Walker is said to have died about 1808, and this is not necessarily inconsistent with the fact that a number of his mezzotints were published for the first time in 1819, and one, ‘The Triumph of Cupid,’ after Parmegiano, in 1822.
C. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walker, James (1770?-1841)

1904 Errata appended.
​WALKER, JAMES (1770?–1841), bishop of Edinburgh and primus of Scotland, born at Fraserburgh about 1770, was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, whence he proceeded to St. John's College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1793, M.A. in 1796, and D.D. in 1826. In 1793 he was ordained a deacon of the Scottish episcopal church. After his return to Scotland he became sub-editor of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ the third edition of which was then being prepared by George Gleig [q. v.], bishop of Brechin. About the close of the century he became tutor to Sir John Hope, bart., of Craighall, and travelled with him for two or three years. In Germany he made the acquaintance of some of the foremost philosophers and men of letters, and devoted especial attention to metaphysical inquiry. The article on Kant's system in the supplement to the ‘Encyclopædia’ was the result of his researches at Weimar. On his return he was ordained priest and received the charge of St. Peter's Chapel, Edinburgh. On 30 Nov. 1819, during a visit to Rome, he conducted the first regular protestant service held in the city. In 1829 he resigned his charge of St. Peter's to his colleague Charles Hughes Terrot [q. v.], and on 7 March 1830 he was consecrated bishop of Edinburgh, and about the same time was appointed first Pantonian professor at the Scottish Episcopal Theological College, an office which he retained until his death. On 24 May 1837, on the resignation of George Gleig, Walker was elected primus of the Scottish episcopal church. He died at Edinburgh on 5 March 1841, and was buried in the burying-ground of St. John's episcopal chapel. He was succeeded as bishop of Edinburgh by Charles Hughes Terrot, and as primus by William Skinner (1778–1857) [q. v.]
In 1829 Walker published ‘Sermons on various Occasions’ (London, 8vo). He was also the author of several single sermons, and translated Jean Joseph Mounier's treatise ‘On the Influence attributed to Philosophers, Freemasons, and to the Illuminati on the Revolution of France’ (London, 1801, 8vo).
E. I. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.273 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walker, James (1809-1885)

​WALKER, Sir JAMES (1809–1885), colonial governor, son of Andrew Walker of Edinburgh, was born at Edinburgh on 9 April 1809, and educated at the High school and at the university in that city. Entering the colonial office as a junior clerk in 1826, he served with credit under several secretaries of state, and on 11 Feb. 1837 he became registrar of British Honduras, whence he was transferred on 18 Feb. 1839 to be treasurer of Trinidad; here he acted as colonial secretary from June 1839 to September 1840. In January 1841 he accompanied, as his secretary, Sir Henry Macleod, special commissioner to British Guiana, for the purpose of settling the difficulties with the legislature over the civil list. He became in 1842 colonial secretary of Barbados. This colony was at that time the seat of the government in chief for the Windward group, and during his service there Walker was sent in September 1856 to act as lieutenant-governor of Grenada, and in 1857 to fill a similar position at St. Vincent. He acted as governor of Barbados and the Windward Islands from 13 March to 25 Dec. 1859, and as lieutenant-governor of Trinidad from 20 April 1860 to 25 March 1862, when he was appointed governor in chief of the Barbados and the Windward Islands. No special event marked his period of government. On 4 Jan. 1869 he was transferred to the Bahamas, which were then going through a time of severe financial depression; he retired on a pension in May 1871, and lived a quiet country life, first at Uplands, near Taunton, and later at Southerton, Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, where he died on 28 Aug. 1885. He was a careful official rather than an able administrator, became a C.B. in 1860, and K.C.M.G. in 1869.
Walker married, on 15 Oct. 1839, Anne, daughter of George Bland of Trinidad, and had one son and two daughters. His son, Sir Edward Noel-Walker, was lieutenant-governor and colonial secretary of Ceylon.
C. A. H.