OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilson, John Mackay

​WILSON, JOHN MACKAY (1804–1835), author of the ‘Tales of the Borders,’ was the son of a millwright, and was baptised at Tweedmouth, Berwick-on-Tweed, on 15 Aug. 1804. After receiving elementary education at Tweedmouth he completed his apprenticeship as a printer in Berwick, and then settled for a time in London. Here he experienced hardship, and is said to have paid his last two shillings on one occasion to see Mrs. Siddons in Covent Garden Theatre. Leaving London, he lectured in the provinces for a time on literature with indifferent success. In 1832 he became editor of the ‘Berwick Advertiser,’ working thereafter steadily in the cultivation of his literary talent and the advocacy of political reform. He died at Berwick on 2 Oct. 1835, and was buried in Tweedmouth churchyard.
Wilson wrote various lyric and dramatic poems of little consequence. ‘The Gowrie Conspiracy,’ a drama, appeared in 1829. There was another drama, ‘Margaret of Anjou,’ besides several poetical publications—‘The Poet's Progress,’ ‘The Border Patriots,’ &c.—of smaller account. On 8 Nov. 1834 Wilson began the weekly publication, in threehalfpenny numbers, of ‘The Tales of the Borders,’ which speedily attained an extraordinary popularity both in Great Britain and in America. Realistic narratives of simple sentiment and impressive situations, these stories made a direct appeal to the general reader, and the weekly circulation steadily rose from two thousand to sixteen or seventeen thousand. Wilson published in all forty-eight numbers, comprising seventy-three tales. Favourites among his stories are: ‘The Poor Scholar’ (with manifest autobiographical touches), ‘Tibbie Fowler,’ ‘The Vacant Chair,’ and ‘My Black Coat, or the Breaking of the Bride's Chain.’ The series was continued by Wilson's brother, and much prolonged by Alexander Leighton (1800–1874) [q. v.] Several collected editions have been published. In 1834 appeared Wilson's ‘Enthusiast; a metrical tale, with other pieces.’
[Berwick Advertiser, 3 Oct. 1835; Border Magazine, 1863; Irving's Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen; information from Rev. James Kean, Berwick-on-Tweed.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilson, John (d.1751)

​WILSON, JOHN (d. 1751), botanist, was born at Longsleddal, near Kendal, Westmorland, and began life as a journeyman shoemaker, or, according to another account, as a stocking-maker. Being asthmatic, however, he required an outdoor life, and acted as assistant to Isaac Thompson, a well-known land surveyor of Newcastle-on-Tyne, while his wife carried on a baker's shop. Probably in connection with this last trade he obtained the nickname of ‘Black Jack.’ He possibly learnt his botany in part from John Robinson or FitzRoberts of the Gill, near Kendal, a correspondent of Ray and Petiver; but with ‘uncommon natural parts’ he made himself ‘one of the most knowing herbalists of his time’ (Newcastle Journal, 27 July 1751), and is said at one time to have earned 60l. a year by giving lessons in botany once a week at his native place and at Newcastle, many pupils coming to him from the south of Scotland. It is recorded of him that, being anxious to possess Morison's ‘Historia Plantarum,’ he determined to sell his cow, almost the sole support of his family, but a lady in the neighbourhood, hearing of the circumstance, gave him the book. This anecdote and the character of his work show that Wilson must have acquired a knowledge of Latin. In 1744 he published ‘A Synopsis of British Plants, in Mr. Ray's Method: … Together with a Botanical Dictionary. Illustrated with several Figures’ (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 8vo). This book is based upon, but not a mere translation of, Dillenius's edition of Ray's ‘Synopsis Stirpium Britannicarum’ (1724), but is the first systematic account of British plants in English, and shows considerable original observation and thought (Pulteney, Sketches of the Progress of Botany, ii. 264–9). The introduction of the artificial Linnæan system led to Wilson's work being overlooked; but Robert Brown, in his ‘Prodromus Floræ Novæ Hollandiæ’ (p. 490), dedicated the convolvulaceous genus Wilsonia ‘in memoriam Johannis Wilson auctoris operis haud spernandi.’ The descriptions of trees, grasses, and cryptogams, which were to have formed a second volume, were left in manuscript, which, in 1762, it was, according to Pulteney (op. cit. p. 269), proposed to publish. Wilson died at Kendal on 15 July 1751, the last three or four years of his life having been spent in so debilitated a state of health as to entirely unfit him for work.
[Hone's Year-Book, p. 827; Nicholson's Annals of Kendal, p. 343.]
G. S. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilson, Margaret

​WILSON, MARGARET (1667–1685), the ‘martyr of the Solway,’ elder daughter of Gilbert Wilson (d. 1704), a yeoman of Penninghame, Wigtownshire, was born at Glenvernock in that parish in 1667. Though her parents conformed to episcopacy, Margaret and her younger sister Agnes refused to do so. On 18 April 1685 the sisters, together with a much older person, Margaret MacLachlan (aged 63), were tried at Wigtown assize, before the sheriff-depute, David Graham (brother of Claverhouse), and three other judges, upon a charge of rebellion and attendance at field conventicles. All three having refused the abjuration oath, they were sentenced to be tied to stakes fixed within the flood-mark in the water of Bladenoch, where the sea flowed at high water, so that they should be drowned by the incoming tide. The prisoners were confined in the tower of Wigtown church. Agnes, who was but thirteen, was bailed out by her father upon a bond of 100l. (duly exacted upon her non-appearance), but on the other two sentence was carried out on 11 May 1685. Major Windram guarded them to the place of execution, whither they were attended by a throng of spectators; Margaret appears to have taken the lead throughout. ‘The old woman's stake,’ says Wodrow, ‘was a good way in beyond the other, and she was the first despatched …’ but Margaret ‘adhered to her principles with an unshaken steadfastness.’ After the water had swept over her, but before she was dead, another chance of taking the oath was afforded her. ‘Most deliberately she refused and said, “I will not. I am one of Christ's children: let me go.” Upon which she was thrust down again into the water, where she finished her course with joy. She died a virgin-martyr, about eighteen years of age.’ An elaborate effort has been made (NAPIER, Case for the Crown) to show that the sentence was never really executed, but that a recommendation to pardon, made by the lords of the privy council (which appears in the council registers), was carried into effect. Wodrow himself refers to the signature of a letter of reprieve, but there is abundant evidence to prove that the death sentence was carried out in all its barbarity—probably before the notice of remission had time to be conveyed from Edinburgh to Wigtown. A horizontal slab, upon which Margaret's name and seven rude couplets were inscribed, was set up in Wigtown cemetery early in the eighteenth century, and a monumental obelisk was erected on Windy Hill to the memory of the martyrs in 1861. Millais's well-known picture, ‘The Martyr of the Solway’ (1871), was purchased by Agnew for 472 guineas, and was subsequently given by Mr. George Holt to the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (1895). A statue of Margaret Wilson was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1889 by C. B. Birch, A.R.A.
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilson, John (1800-1849)

​WILSON, JOHN (1800–1849), Scottish vocalist, son of John Wilson, coach-driver, was born in Edinburgh on 25 Dec. 1800. At the age of ten he was apprenticed to a printing firm, and was subsequently engaged with the Ballantynes, where he helped to set up the ‘Waverley Novels.’ During the building of Abbotsford he was often chosen as one of the armed messengers who had to ride weekly to Tweedside with money to pay the workmen. He conceived an early liking for music, studied under John Mather and Benjamin Gleadhill of Edinburgh, and was a member of the choir of Duddingston parish church during the ministry of John Thomson (1778–1840) [q. v.], the painter. For some time he was precentor of Roxburgh Place relief church, where his fine tenor voice drew great crowds, and from 1825 to 1830 he held the same post at St. Mary's Church, Edinburgh. After this he devoted himself entirely to music teaching and concert giving. He studied singing in Edinburgh under Finlay Dun [q. v.], and afterwards in London under Gesualdo Lanza [q. v.] and Crivelli, taking harmony and counterpoint lessons from George Aspull [q. v.] In March 1830 he appeared in Edinburgh as Harry Bertram in ‘Guy Mannering,’ and was subsequently engaged in other operas—notably in Balfe's, in some of which he created the principal part—at Covent Garden and Drury Lane. His acting was, however, somewhat stiff, and he abandoned the stage to become an exponent of Scottish song; in that character he appeared before the queen at Taymouth Castle in 1842. His Scottish song entertainments, both in this country and in America, were an immense success, and brought him a large fortune. He died of cholera at Quebec on 8 July 1849. David Kennedy [q. v.], the Scottish vocalist, restored his tomb there, and made a bequest for its permanent preservation. Wilson published an edition of ‘The Songs of Scotland, as sung by him at his Entertainments on Scottish Music and Song,’ London, 1842, 3 vols.; and ‘A Selection of Psalm Tunes, for the use of the Congregation of St. Mary's Church, Edinburgh’ (1825), in which appears the popular tune ‘Howard,’ generally attributed to him, although it is anonymous. He composed several songs, notably ‘Love wakes and sleeps,’ and at his entertainments introduced many which, though unclaimed, are understood to be his own.
[Love's Scottish Church Music; Baptie's Musical Scotland; Dibdin's Annals of the Edinburgh Stage; Grove's Dict. of Music; Hadden's George Thomson, the Friend of Burns, p. 249; Baird's John Thomson of Duddingston; Records of Canongate Parish, Edinburgh; information from the late James Stillie, Edinburgh.]
J. C. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilson, John (1720-1789)

​WILSON, JOHN (1720–1789), author of ‘The Clyde,’ son of William Wilson, farmer and blacksmith, was born in the parish of Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, on 30 June 1720. He was educated at Lanark grammar school till the age of fourteen, when the death of his father and the straitened circumstances of his family constrained him to teach for a living. In 1746 he was appointed parish schoolmaster of Lesmahagow, whence he was invited in 1764 to superintend the education of certain families in Rutherglen, near Glasgow. In 1767 he was appointed master of the Greenock grammar school, a stipulation of his engagement being that he was to forsake ‘the profane and unprofitable art of poem-making.’ Referring to this in 1803 as a survival of the puritanical covenanting spirit, Scott writes, ‘Such an incident is now as unlikely to happen in Greenock as in London’ (Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ii. 176 n.) Wilson, burning his manuscripts, faithfully observed the conditions of his appointment, though conscious of passing ‘an obscure life, the contempt of shopkeepers and brutish skippers’ (Letter to his son, 21 Jan. 1779). He was a diligent and popular teacher, retaining office till two years before his death, which took place at Greenock on 2 June 1789.
Wilson married, on 14 June 1751, Agnes Browne, by whom he had nine children. James, the eldest son, becoming a sailor, was killed in 1776 in an engagement on Lake Champlain, his heroism on the occasion prompting government to bestow a small pension on his father. A daughter Violet, wife of Robert Wilson, a Greenock shipmaster, supplied matter for Leyden's memoir, 1803.
In 1760 Wilson printed ‘A Dramatic Sketch,’ which he afterwards elaborated into ‘Earl Douglas,’ and issued along with ‘The Clyde’ in 1764. From an imperfectly amended and enlarged copy Leyden published the final version of ‘The Clyde’ in ‘Scotish Descriptive Sketches,’ 1803. The dramatic poem is important mainly as an exercise, exhibiting in its two forms the author's skill and copiousness of expression and his growing sense of style. ‘The Clyde’ is distinctly meritorious. Its heroic couplets are dexterously managed, its historical allusions are relevant and suggestive, and its descriptive passages reveal independent outlook and genuine appreciation of natural beauty. It is, in Leyden's words, ‘the first Scottish loco-descriptive poem of any merit.’
[Biographical sketch of Wilson prefixed to Scotish Descriptive Poems, ed. John Leyden, 1803; Lives of Scottish Poets by the Society of Ancient Scots; Grant Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilson, James Arthur

​WILSON, JAMES ARTHUR (1795–1882), physician, son of James Wilson, the surgeon and teacher of anatomy at the Hunterian school in Great Windmill Street, was born in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in 1795. His mother was a daughter of John Clarke of Wellingborough, and sister to Sir Charles Mansfield Clarke [q. v.] He was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster school in 1808, and was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, on 9 May 1812. He graduated B.A. on 6 Dec. 1815, and obtained a first class in both classics and mathematics. On leaving Oxford temporarily, he entered his father's school in Great Windmill Street, and during the winter of 1817 he studied at Edinburgh. He proceeded M.A. at Oxford on 13 May 1818, M.B. on 6 May 1819, and M.D. on 17 May 1823. He was elected a Radcliffe travelling fellow in June 1821, and, having been nominated to a ‘faculty studentship,’ remained a student of Christ Church. In 1819 and 1820 he travelled through France and Switzerland to Italy as physician to George John Spencer, second earl Spencer, and his wife, and in the early part of 1822 he left England for the continent, in compliance with the requirements of his Radcliffe fellowship, and, with occasional intervals, was abroad for the five following years. He was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians on 12 April 1824, a fellow on 28 March 1825, and was censor in 1828 and 1851. He delivered the materia medica lectures at the college in 1829, 1830, 1831, and 1832, the Lumleian lectures in 1847 and 1848 ‘on Pain,’ and the Harveian oration in 1850; the last-named was one of the most original and noteworthy in matter and style of any that have been delivered within the present century. He was elected physician to St. George's Hospital on 29 May 1829, and held the office until 1857, when he was appointed consulting physician. Wilson died at Holmwood, Surrey, on 29 Dec. 1882.
Wilson was author of: 1. ‘On Spasm, Languor, Palsy, and other Disorders termed Nervous of the Muscular System,’ London, 1843, 12mo. 2. ‘Oratio Harveiana in Ædibus Collegii Regalis Medicorum habita die Junii xxix., mdcccl.,’ London, 1850, 8vo. His contributions to periodical literature were valuable and important. Among them were papers on ‘erysipelas and rheumatic fevers,’ published in the ‘Lancet.’ Under the signature of ‘Maxilla’ he contributed to the ‘London Gazette’ of 1833 a series of characteristic and interesting letters addressed to his friend Vestibulus (Dr. George Hall of Brighton). These letters are memorable in the history of the College of Physicians, for they struck the keynote for its reform.
W. W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilson, James (1780-1847)

​WILSON, Sir JAMES (1780–1847), major-general, born in 1780, received a commission as ensign in the 27th foot on 12 Dec. 1798. His further commissions were dated: lieutenant, 31 Aug. 1799; captain, 27 May 1801; major, 20 June 1811; brevet lieutenant-colonel, 27 April 1812; colonel, 22 July 1830; major-general, 28 June 1838. He served with his regiment in the expedition to the Helder in 1799, took part in the action on landing on 27 Aug., in the actions of 10 and 19 Sept., in the battle of Alkmaar or Bergen on 2 Oct., and the action of Beverwyk on 6 Oct. In July 1800 he accompanied the expedition under Sir James Pulteney to Ferrol, and under Sir Ralph Abercromby to Cadiz, and in the following year went with Abercromby to Egypt, took part in the battle on landing in Aboukir Bay on 8 March 1801, in the action at Nicopolis on the 13th, in the battle of Alexandria on 21 March, and in the further operations of the campaign.
Wilson exchanged into the 48th foot on 9 July 1803. He served with Sir John Moore in Leon during the campaign of 1808. In 1809 he accompanied the 48th to the Peninsula, and was at the battle of Talavera on 27 and 28 July, and of Busaco on 27 Sept., took part in the retreat to Torres Vedras, and in the subsequent advance in 1810 in pursuit of Masséna. At the battle of Albuera on 16 May 1811 Wilson succeeded, on the death of Lieutenant-colonel Duckworth, to the command of the 48th, and was twice severely wounded. He again commanded his regiment at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812, taking part in the storm. He commanded the column of assault on the ravelin of San Roque at the storm of Badajoz on 6 April 1812, when he carried the gorge, and, with the assistance of Major John Squire [q. v.] of the royal engineers, established himself in the work. He was particularly mentioned in despatches by Sir Thomas Picton and by the Duke of Wellington.
Wilson commanded his regiment in the advance to the Douro, in the retreat to Castrajon, and in the battle of Salamanca on 22 July 1812, when he succeeded to the command of the fusilier brigade, and was mentioned in despatches. He commanded a light battalion at the battle of Vittoria on 21 June 1813, and during the operations in the Pyrenees, until he was twice severely wounded at the battle of Sauroren on 28 July 1813. He was again mentioned in despatches. In 1814 he commanded the 48th in the advance to the Garonne, and was present at the battle of Toulouse on 10 April, was again wounded, and again mentioned in despatches. For his services he was made a knight commander of the order of the Bath, military division, on 2 Jan. 1815, and received the gold cross, with clasp, for Albuera, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, and Toulouse, and the reward for distinguished service. He was also presented with a sword of honour by the officers of the 48th foot in memory of his having so often led them to victory. He died at Bath in February 1847.
[Despatches; Royal Military Cal. 1820; Gent. Mag. 1847, i. 424; United Service Mag. 1847; Napier's Hist. of the Peninsular War; Wilson's Expedition to Egypt.]
R. H. V.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilson, John (1774-1855)

​WILSON, JOHN (1774–1855), sea-painter, son of James Wilson, shipmaster, and Eleonora Masterton, his wife, was born at Ayr on 20 Aug. 1774 (Ayr Parish Register). When thirteen years of age he was apprenticed to John Norie of Edinburgh, who, although by business a house-painter, not infrequently executed landscape panels of some merit in the rooms he decorated. On the completion of his apprenticeship, which was not without influence upon his future, he had some lessons in picture-painting from Alexander Nasmyth [q. v.], and then practised as a drawing-master in Montrose for two years, at the end of which he went to London. There he soon found employment as a scene-painter at Astley's Theatre in Lambeth Road, and his scenery is said to have been good. His name appears for the first time in the Royal Academy catalogue of 1807, but, although he exhibited a good many pictures there, his principal works were sent to the British Institution and the Society of British Artists. In 1826 he was awarded a 100l. premium for a picture of the battle of Trafalgar (purchased by Lord Northwick), painted in competition for a prize offered by the directors of the former society, and in the formation of the latter in 1823–4 he took a leading part. He was also elected an honorary member of the [Royal] Scottish Academy in 1827, and contributed regularly to its exhibitions. His later years were spent at Folkestone, where he found congenial subjects for his pictures, which usually represent coast scenery and the sea with shipping. His work is fresh and vigorous, and, if somewhat lacking in delicacy, pictorial in motive and arrangement, while it is marked by much truth of observation and directness of expression. He was a prolific painter, and between 1807 and 1856 showed 525 pictures at the three London exhibitions already named. There are two pictures by him in the National Gallery of Scotland and one at South Kensington Museum. On 20 April 1855 he died at Folkestone. Wilson, who was familiarly known as ‘Old Jock,’ was of a sociable disposition, a keen observer, a brilliant conversationist, and his stories of Robert Burns [q. v.] and other famous men he had met were in great request among those who knew him.
In 1810 he married a Miss Williams, and their son, John W. Wilson, who died in 1875, followed his father's profession, choosing landscape and farmyard subjects with figures.
J. L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Peter Hibernicus

Peter de Hibernia in the ODNB.
​PETER Hibernicus, de Hibernia or de Isernia (fl. 1224), jurisconsult, was probably of Irish birth. He became a subject of the emperor Frederick II, who sent him in 1224 to teach law in the newly established university of Naples (Lib. iii. Ep. 11, of Petri de Vineis Epistolæ, ed. 1566). Peter de Hibernia taught Thomas de Hibernia, a learned Franciscan [see under Thomas], and Thomas Aquinas before 1243 was taught physical science at Naples by Master Peter de Hibernia (Acta Sanctorum, March 1, p. 660). In some manuscripts of the emperor Frederick's letter appointing the professor of law at Naples his initial appears as B or R, and his surname as de Isernia. It is probable that the jurisconsult is identical with a Master Peter de Isernia, to whom another letter in De Vineis's collection is addressed (Lib. iii. Ep. 10). The second letter is generally (Huillard-Bréholles, Hist. Diplom. Frederici Secundi, ii. 449) ascribed to the pen of Frederick II, and dated, like the first, June 1224. Ficker (Böhmer, Regesta Imperii V, No. 1537) is, however, of opinion that the second letter was written by Conrad IV in 1252, as the writer speaks not of founding but of restoring a university at Naples. The writer states that he has heard good reports of Peter's character, and remembers the faithful services rendered by Peter to his father. He invites Peter to give lectures in Naples, in return for a payment of a certain number of ounces of gold; the number varies in the manuscripts. Another letter in a Berlin manuscript of De Vineis's collection (Lib. iv. Ep. 8) is addressed to scholars, and laments the death of Master Peter de Hibernia, a grammarian. But De Vineis's printed edition of 1566 adds to the obscurity in which Peter's career is involved by substituting in this letter the name of Bernhard in one passage and Master G. in another for that of Peter. Peter de Hibernia, the tutor of Thomas Aquinas, was buried in the convent of Aquila, in the province of Abruzzo Molie (Wadding, Ann. Min. iv. 321, ad an. 1270). According to Tanner, Peter de Hibernia wrote theological works.
M. B.