OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ainger, Thomas

1904 Errata appended.
​AINGER, THOMAS (1799–1863), clergyman, was born on 1 Aug. 1799 at Whittlesea and educated at the Norwich grammar school and St. John's College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1821, became curate at St. Giles's, Reading, in 1822, and afterwards assistant minister at St. Mary's, Greenwich. He married Frances Barnard in 1828, and left a family. In 1841 he was presented by Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson to the perpetual curacy of Hampstead, which he held till his death on 15 Nov. 1863. In 1861 he became honorary prebendary of St. Paul's. Mr. Ainger was energetic as a parish clergyman and poor-law guardian; he enlarged his church, and helped to found schools and a dispensary and to provide new churches in the rapidly developing district round Hampstead. His performance of the divine services is said to have been very impressive. His publications consisted of a few sermons.
[Last Sermons of Rev. T. Ainger, with Memoir, 1864.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.3 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 188 | i | 14 | Ainger, Thomas: for 1861 read on 19 Feb. 1859 |
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Aikman, William

​AIKMAN, WILLIAM (1682–1731), a portrait painter, who attained celebrity in his day, was born at Caerney, Forfarshire, on 24 Oct. 1682. He was the only son of William Aikman, advocate, sheriff of Forfarshire, and a man of eminence at the Scottish bar. Designed by his father for the law, Aikman preferred art and studied for three years under Sir John Medina at Edinburgh. In 1707 he went to Rome, after selling his paternal estate near Arbroath. Here he remained three years, and then visited Constantinople and Smyrna. Returning by Rome and Florence, he reached Scotland in 1712. He practised in Edinburgh with much success till 1723, when he was persuaded by John, Duke of Argyll, to come to London, where he resided till his death, well employed and the friend of many of the most distinguished men of his time. He was fond of poetry and poets. At college he formed the acquaintance of Allan Ramsay, who wrote an eclogue to his memory. He interested himself much in favour of Thomson, introducing that poet to Sir Richard Walpole, Arbuthnot, Swift, Pope, and Gray. Thomson wrote verses bewailing his loss, Somervile addressed to him an epistle in rhyme, David Mallet wrote the epitaph on him and his son, Smollett also praised him in verse, and Samuel Boyse composed some lines eulogising his art. He painted a portrait of Allan Ramsay, engraved by G. White; one of Thomson as a young man, now at Hagley, engraved for Andrew Millar's edition of Thomson; one of Gay, engraved by T. Kyte; and one of Somervile. Amongst others whose portraits he is known to have painted were John, Duke of Argyll, the Countess of Burlington, and Lady Grissell Baillie. A number of full-length portraits by Aikman were painted for the Earl of Buckinghamshire, of Blickling Hall, Norfolk. He painted some portraits of himself, one of which is in the Uffizzi at Florence, and two others belonged in 1793 to his daughter, Mrs. Forbes of Edinburgh, one of which was engraved by R. Scott for James Anderson's ‘Bee.’ In the National Portrait Gallery is a portrait of Duncan Forbes ascribed to Aikman, and the Duke of Devonshire possesses a large unfinished picture by him of the royal family in three compartments. He was acquainted with Sir Godfrey Kneller, whose manner he imitated. Two portrait etchings by his hand are known, and there is an etching by him in the print room of the British Museum of several slightly executed heads, one of them after Van Dyck. His death took place at his house in Leicester Fields on 7 June 1731, and is said to have been caused by grief at the death of his only son at the age of 17. Both were buried in one grave in the Grey Friars Church, Edinburgh. Two daughters survived him.
C. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gerard, Gilbert (1760-1815)

​GERARD, GILBERT, D.D. (1760–1815), theological writer, son of Alexander Gerard, D.D. [q. v.], was born at Aberdeen 12 Aug. 1760, and studied at Aberdeen and Edinburgh. On being licensed he became minister of the Scotch church at Amsterdam, and during his residence there acquired a considerable knowledge of modern languages and literature, which he turned to account in contributions to the ‘Analytical Review.’ In 1791 he returned to Aberdeen to occupy the chair of Greek in King's College, which he filled admirably. On his father's death, in 1795, he succeeded him in the chair of divinity, and in 1811 he added to his professorship the second charge in the collegiate church of Old Aberdeen. He prepared for publication ‘A Compendious View of the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion’ (Lond. 1828), the joint production of himself and his father, being the substance of the lectures delivered by them from the chair of divinity. The only contribution to literature exclusively his own was ‘Institutes of Biblical Criticism’ (Edinburgh, 1808), in which he discussed elementary questions in connection with the interpretation of the sacred scriptures. The language of scripture, the text, the versions, the ordinary rules of interpretation, were considered, but the book does not even hint at the much more vital questions raised by modern critics. He was a king's chaplain, and filled the chair of the general assembly in 1803. He became minister of Old Machar 19 Sept. 1811, and died 28 Sept. 1815.
Gerard married, 3 Oct. 1787, Helen, daughter of John Duncan, provost of Aberdeen, by whom he had six sons and five daughters. Three sons, all Indian explorers and writers on geographical science, Alexander, James Gilbert, and Patrick, are separately noticed.
W. G. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gerard, James Gilbert

​GERARD, JAMES GILBERT, M.D. (1795–1835), surgeon on the Bengal establishment, son of Gilbert Gerard, D.D. [q. v.], brother of Alexander [q. v.] and of Patrick Gerard [q. v.], was born in 1795. Probably he is the ‘Gerard, Jacobus, Aberdoniensis,’ who entered the King's or Marischal College as in 1807, but there is some doubt. On 27 Nov. 1814 he was appointed assistant-surgeon on the Bengal establishment and became surgeon 5 May 1826. He accompanied his brother Alexander in several of his Himalayan journeys, and was author of ‘Observations on the Spité Valley and the circumjacent Country within the Himalayas’ in ‘Asiat. Researches’ (1833), xviii. 238–79, and of the ‘Account of a Visit to the Shotool and Borendo Passes’ in Sir William Lloyd's book. His regimental service was chiefly in the hills with the 1st Nusseerabad battalion. In 1831 he volunteered to accompany Sir Alexander Burnes [q. v.] in his expedition across the Hindu Khoosh to Bokhara. Sufficient credit has not been given to Gerard for the scientific accuracy which his assistance lent to the geographical information collected by Burnes (Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc. Lond. xii. 133). From his notebooks his brother Alexander prepared a map of the return route from Herat to Peshawur. His brother writes: ‘His trip to Bokhara with Colonel Sir Alexander Burnes was a mad-like expedition for him, as he had long been unwell and was obliged to leave his bed to go, and could only travel in a palkee [palanquin]. It was … at his own particular request that Burnes applied for him. The trip killed him, for he had several attacks of fever on his way to Bokhara, and Burnes again and again urged him either to return or stop at Cabool until he recovered, but he would do neither. … On his return he was detained three months at Meshed, and no less than eight at Herat, by fever, so that on his arrival at Subathoo his constitution was completely worn out. He … gradually declined. Patrick and I were with him the whole time he survived, which was just a year, for I got leave of absence to prepare a map of the route from his notes; for he observed the bearings, estimated the distances, and noted the villages all the way from Herat to the Indus. … It was a splendid map, 10 ft. long by 3 ft. wide, on a scale of 5 in. to the mile. At my brother's dying request I presented it to Sir Charles Metcalfe, then governor-general, from whom I received a thousand thanks. The map is now [1840] with the army on the Indus, and … they have found the position of the roads wonderfully correct, considering the distances were estimated by time and the bearings taken with a small pocket-compass.’ Gerard died at Subathoo 31 March 1835.
The German geographer, Ritter, has noticed the valuable services rendered by the three brothers Gerard to the cause of geographical science (Ritter, Der Erdkunde von Asien (1829), Band ii. S. 546).
[See under Gerard, Patrick.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gerard, John (1632-1654)

1904 Errata appended.
​GERARD, JOHN (1632–1654), royalist colonel, was second son of Lieutenant-colonel Ratcliffe Gerard and first cousin to Charles Gerard, lord Brandon, d. 1694 [q. v.] (Dugdale, Baronage, p. 418). He entered the king's army as an ensign, and speedily rose to the rank of colonel, commanding both in England and France. There were seven colonels besides himself of the name of Gerard in the army. In November 1653 he appeared as a witness at the trial of Don Pantaleone, a brother of the Portuguese ambassador, for the murder of an Englishman. The night before the murder Gerard had overheard Pantaleone and his friends talking of English affairs in the street and had given them the lie, whereupon they had attacked him, and, though a little man, yet ‘he threw him off that was upon him, and so was hustling with him a good while,’ but was rescued by a passer-by, after he had received a stab in the shoulder (Cobbett, State Trials, v. 462). Early in 1654 Gerard went over to France, where he was presented to Charles II by his cousin, Lord Gerard. Soon after his return to England (May) he was arrested, with two others, on a charge of conspiring against the government. In company with a royalist major, one Henshaw, whom he had met in France, Gerard and others were to attack the Protector with a band of thirty horse as he rode to Hampton Court, and, after killing him, to besiege Whitehall (State Papers, Dom. 1654, pp. 219, 233–40, 274–436), seize the Tower, and proclaim Charles king. The trial began on 3 June before the high court of justice. Gerard declared that he had been to Paris on private business, and that Charles had desired his friends not to engage in plots. The reluctant evidence of his younger brother Charles, to whom he sent his forgiveness from the scaffold, pointed to treasonable conversations with Henshaw and the rest in taverns. Gerard and Vowell, a schoolmaster, were sentenced to death. Gerard successfully petitioned to be beheaded instead of hanged. The royalist writers published his dying ​speech, and affirmed that he fell into a trap set by Cromwell. This view has been elaborately restated by Mr. Reginald Palgrave in the ‘English Historical Review’ for October 1888, in the course of a controversy between that writer and Mr. C. H. Firth. But no certain proof has been adduced of Cromwell's complicity. Gerard died with undaunted courage on 10 July 1654, the same day as Don Pantaleone.
E. T. B.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.134 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 224 | i | 4 | Gerard, John (1632-1654): for 'Quarterly Review,' March 1886, read 'English Historical Review,' Oct. 1888, |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gerard, Patrick

​GERARD, PATRICK (1794–1848), writer on geographical science, son of Gilbert Gerard, D.D. [q. v.], and brother of Alexander [q. v.] and of James Gilbert Gerard [q. v.], was born 11 June 1794. He probably entered the King's or Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1808, and received a Bengal cadetship in 1812. He was appointed ensign in the 8th Bengal native infantry on 19 Aug. 1812; became lieutenant therein on 16 Dec. 1814, and brevet captain on 19 Aug. 1827. He became captain in the 9th native infantry on 11 April 1828, and was placed on the invalid establishment in India on 8 Aug. 1832. Most of his service was regimental, part of it attached to the hill corps, of which his brother James Gilbert [q. v.] was surgeon, the 1st Nusseerabad battalion. He died at Simla on 4 Oct. 1848.
Gerard was author of ‘Observations on the Climate of Subathoo and Kotguhr’ in ‘Asiat. Res.’ xv. 469–88, meteorological observations made hourly for the space of nearly two years; of ‘Account of the Climate and Agriculture of Subathoo and Kotguhr’ in ‘Edinburgh Journal of Science’ (1828), ix. 233–41, cf. Froriep's ‘Notizen’ (1829), xxiii. cols. 65–71; and of ‘Remarks on some Mineral Products of the Himalayas’ in ‘Delhi Medical Journal’ (1844), i. 62–71. A joint paper by Alexander and Patrick Gerard, entitled ‘Account of a Journey through the Himalaya Mountains,’ appeared in ‘Edinburgh Philos. Journal’ (1824), x. 295–305. ‘A Journal of Meteorological Observations made in India from 1817 to 1829,’ by Patrick Gerard, forms British Museum Addit. MSS. 24017–22.
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Christopherson, Michael

Michael Walpole in the ODNB. Same person as Walpole, Michael.
​CHRISTOPHERSON, MICHAEL (fl. 1613), catholic divine, received his education in the English college of Douay. He wrote ‘A Treatise of Antichrist, conteyning the defence of Cardinall Bellarmines arguments, which invincibly demonstrate that the pope is not Antichrist, aginst Dr. George Downam, who impugneth the same,’ first part, no place, 1613, 4to. This was a reply to ‘A Treatise concerning Antichrist,’ 1603, by George Downame, afterwards bishop of Derry.
[Dodd’s Church Hist. ii. 886; Cat. Lib. Impress. in Bibl. Bodl. (1848), i. 518.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chubb, Charles

​CHUBB, CHARLES (d. 1846), locksmith, started in business at Winchester in the hardware trade, moved thence to Portsea, and afterwards came to London, where he founded the firm of Chubb & Sons, formerly of St. Paul's Churchyard, but now of Queen Victoria Street, E.C. He was the first patentee of improvements in the well-known form of 'detector' locks, originally patented by his brother, Jeremiah Chubb of Portsea, 3 Feb. 1818. Charles Chubb patented further imnrovements in these locks in 1824, 1828, and 1833, and also took out patents for fire and burglar proof safes. He aied at his residence, Bamsburv Road, Islington, 16 May 1845 (see Oent. ^Moff. new ser. 26, 104, 660).
Chubb, John (1816-1872), his son and successor, and patentee of various improvements in Chubb's locks and safes, was elected a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, in 1846, and in 1851 read before that body a valuable paper on locks and keys, which also contained lists of all British patents relating thereto, and all communications to the Society of Arts (of which he was a member) on the subject up to that date (Proc. Inst. Civil Engineers, London, vol. ix.) For this he was awarded the Telford silver medal of the institution (ib. vol. xiii.) After working up the business so that it attained the reputation it now possesses, John Chubb died at his residence, Brixton Rise, on 30 Oct. 1872, in his fifty-seventh year (Times, 2 Nov. 1872). At first only two or three men were employed at Portsea in lockmaking, and after Charles Chubb removed to London about a dozen more were so employed down to 1830, when a factory was opened at Wolverhampton which gradually increased until it gave work to two hundred hands. He also started a safe factory in London, where one hundred and fifty hands were subsequently employed in the manufacture of fire and burglar-resisting safes. The two factories are now concentrated in the south of London, in a specially constructed building, fitted with all modern improvements in steam machinery, and ​capable of accommodating six hundred hands (information supplied by Messrs. Chubb). Nearly a million and a half of patent locks have been made by the firm, and about thirty thousand safes and steel rooms, varying in price from 8l. to just over 6,000l., the latter being the largest ever made for a bank. After the death of John Chubb, the business was converted into a private company, with branches in all the principal cities of Great Britain, India, and the colonies, his three sons, John C. Chubb, George H. Chubb, and Henry W. Chubb, being the three managing directors and patentees of various further improvements in locks and safes.
[Information supplied by Messrs. Chubb & Co., Queen Victoria Street, E.G.; C. Tomlinson, Cyc. Useful Arts, art. 'Locks;' ditto Treatise on Locks in Weale's Series (1833); Proc. Institution of Civil Engineers, London (see Index vol., under 'Chubb'); Exhibition Reports of Juries, various; Patent Office (London) Lists.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chubbes, William

​CHUBBES, WILLIAM (d. 1505), master of Jesus College, Cambridge (whose name is given in the 'History of Framlingham' as Chubbis, Jubbis, Chubbs, or Jubbs), was born at Whitby, and was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he took his first degree in 1465. He was ordained deacon on 5 April 1460, priest on 19 Sept. 1467, M.A. 1469, D.D. 1491. He seems to have resided in college, and in 1486 was elected to fill a new office, next in rank to that of the master, as president of Pembroke. He was the author of two works: 1. 'Introduction to Logic' 2. A Commentary on Duns-Scotus, which covered a considerable part of the field of education of his day: its title was 'Declaratio Doctoris Shubys Magistri Collegii de Jhesu Cantabrigiae super Scotum in secunde folio.' When Bishop Alcock was taking measures for erecting a college on the site and endowments of the discredited nunnery of St. Rhadegund, he consulted much with Chubbes, and eventually (1497) appointed him first master of the new college, which office he held until his death in November 1505. He was a benefactor both of Jesus and Pembroke.
[Mullinger's History of the University of Cambridge, ii. 425; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabrigienses, i. 10; Hawes and Loder's History of Framlingham, p. 21; Parker's Skeleton Cantabrigæ.]
E. S. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Allestry, Jacob

​ALLESTRY, JACOB (1653–1686), poetical writer, son of James Allestry, a bookseller who lost his property in the great fire, was born in 1653. After being educated at Westminster he proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1671; was ‘music-reader in 1679 and terræ filius in 1682.’ He had the ‘chief hand,’ according to Anthony à Wood, in composing the ‘Verses and Pastoral’ spoken in Oxford Theatre on 21 May 1681, before James, duke of York, and published in ‘Examen Poeticum,’ 1693. From the same authority we learn that ‘being exceedingly given to the vices of poets his body was so much macerated and spent by juvenile ​extravagance that he retired to an obscure house in Fish Row, in St. Thomas' parish, in the suburb of Oxon, which was inhabited by a nurse or tender of sick people, where, continuing incognito about seven weeks, he died in a poor condition and of a loathsome disease on Friday, 15 Oct. 1686.’
A. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Allen, William (1793-1864)

​ALLEN, WILLIAM (1793–1864), naval officer, was born at Weymouth in 1793, entered the navy as a volunteer in 1805, and, as midshipman, was present at the passage of the Dardanelles in 1807. Allen was promoted lieutenant in 1815, commander 1836, and captain 1842. He look part in the Niger expedition of Richard Lander and Oldfield, 1832; but is best known as having commanded the Wilberforce in the elaborately equipped but disastrous expedition under Captain Trotter to the same river in 1841–2. Though Allen cannot be blamed for any of the misfortunes of this expedition, he was on his return placed on half-pay, and retired from the service, as rear-admiral, in 1862, dying at Weymouth 23 Jan. 1864. In 1848, Allen, along with Dr. T. R. H. Thomson, the surgeon, published, in two volumes, ‘A Narrative of the Expedition sent by H.M.'s Government to the River Niger in 1841.’ In 1849 he travelled through Syria and Palestine, and published the results in two volumes (1855) under the title of ‘The Dead Sea, a New Route to India, with other Fragments and Gleanings in the East,’ in which he advocated the construction of a canal between the Mediterranean and Red Sea by the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea, entering into elaborate comparison between that route and the proposed Suez Canal by the Nile. In 1846 he published a pamphlet on ‘Mutual Improvement,’ advocating the institution of good-conduct prizes to be awarded by ballot by the community divided for the purpose into small groups; and in 1849 a ‘Plan for the immediate Extinction of the Slave Trade, for the Relief of the West India Colonies, and for the Diffusion of Civilisation and Christianity in Africa by the co-operation of Mammon with Philanthropy,’ a chimerical scheme of compulsory ‘apprenticeship,’ or ‘temporary bondage.’ Allen also brought out two volumes of ‘Picturesque Views’ on the island of Ascension (1838) and the Niger (1840), and papers by him will be found in the ‘Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,’ vols. vii. viii. xiii. and xxiii. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, and an accomplished musician; some of his landscape paintings were exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1828 to 1847 (Graves's Catalogue).
[O'Byrne's Naval Biography, and Allen's publications; Gent. Mag. 1864, i. 659.]
J. S. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Allenson, John

​ALLENSON, JOHN (fl. 1616), puritan divine, a native of Durham, matriculated as a sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1576; but in November of the same year he migrated to St. John's College, where he obtained a scholarship on Mr. Ashton's foundation, and became a pupil of the famous puritan Dr. William Whitaker, whose religious principles he adopted. He became B.A. in 1579–80, M.A. in 1583, and B.D. in 1590. In 1583 he was suspended from the curacy of Barnwell near Cambridge for refusing to subscribe to the articles. On 20 March 1583–4 he was elected a fellow of St. John's College on the Lady Margaret's foundation. In 1589 he was suspended from the curacy of Horningsea, Cambridgeshire, but he nevertheless continued to preach. He held in succession various offices of trust in his college, becoming senior dean and sacrist in 1602–3, and senior bursar in 1603–4. Allenson edited the following works of his old tutor Dr. Whitaker: 1. ‘Prælectiones,’ 1599. 2. ‘Prælectiones, in quibus tractatur controversia de conciliis contra pontificios, imprimis Rob. Bellarminum,’ 1600. 3. ‘De Peccato Originali contra Stapletonum,’ 1600. It appears that Allenson took notes of Whitakers lectures and prepared them for the press. In 1624 John Ward edited at Frankfort Whitaker's ‘Prælectiones de Sacramentis in Genere et in Specie de SS. Baptismo et Eucharistia,’ and in the dedication to Dr. Tobie Mathew, Archbishop of York, informed him that Dr. Whitaker had not himself published these lectures: ‘quæ tamen de Sacramentis adversus Bellarminum in Scholis Academiæ publicis prælegit, vir diligentissimus D. Allensonius, collegii D. Joannis Evangelistæ socius, fideli calamo ex ore dictantis excepit et post authoris mortem, cum ipsius D. Whitakeri concisis annotiunculis in memoriæ subsidium scriptis, accurate contulit præloque destinabat. Sed ex rerum humanarum vicissitudine, ipse etiam, antequam prælo mandarentur, fatis ​concessit, exemplar prælo destinatum post ejus obitum ad manus meas pervenit.’ Baker, in his ‘History of St. John's College,’ asserts that the life of Whitaker was written by Allenson; but this is certainly a mistake, as the author of the biography was Abdias Assheton.
T. C.