OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Torrens, Robert Richard

​TORRENS, Sir ROBERT RICHARD (1814–1884), first premier of South Australia and author of the 'Torrens Act,' was son of Lieutenant-colonel Robert Torrens [q. v.] He was born at Cork in 1814, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1840 he went out to South Australia, and on 1 Jan. 1841 became collector of customs, with a seat in the legislative council. On 3 Jan. 1852 he became colonial treasurer and registrar-general. On the introduction of responsible government in 1855 he took his seat in the house of assembly for Adelaide, and was during September 1857 premier and colonial treasurer.
On 27 Jan. 1858 Torrens's great measure for the reform of the land laws, known as the Torrens Act, became the law of South Australia. The intention of the act was to substitute title by public registration for the cumbrous system of the old conveyancing. In June 1858, in order that he might assure himself of the act having a fair trial, Torrens resigned his seat in the house and became the head of the department charged with carrying it out. About 1860, by request, he visited Victoria and New South Wales in order to explain the new system of land transfer. By 1862 it was adopted practically throughout Australia.
In 1863 Torrens retired on a pension, and, after being entertained at a series of banquets to celebrate his great work, returned to England. In 1865 and 1866 at by-elections he unsuccessfully contested Cambridge in the liberal interest. He was returned for that borough in 1868, and sat through that parliament without finding much opportunity of advocating the land-law reform which he had at heart. In 1874 he failed to secure re-election. He was created K.C.M.G. on 1 Aug. 1872, and G.C.M.G. on 24 May 1884.
Torrens resided latterly at Hannaford, Ashburton, Devonshire; he was a magistrate of the county, and a lieutenant-colonel of volunteer artillery. He died at Falmouth on 31 Aug. 1884.
He married, in 1839, Barbara, daughter of Alexander Park of Selkirk, writer to the signet; she was the widow of Augustus George Ansor, and a niece of Mungo Park [q. v.]
Torrens was the author of several pamphlets dealing chiefly with the principle of the act which bears his name. They include:
* 'Speeches,' Adelaide, 1858, 8vo.
* 'The South Australian System of Conveyancing,' Adelaide, 1859, 8vo.
* 'Handy Book on the Real Property Act of South Australia/ Adelaide, 1862, 8vo; a paper read before the Society for the Amendment of the Law.
* 'Transfer of Land by "Registration of Title" as now in operation in Australia under the "Torrens System,"' Dublin, 1863, fol.
* 'Transportation considered as a Punishment,' London, 1863, 12mo; read before the British Association.
* 'An Essay on the Transfer of Land by Registration ' (Cobden Club publ.), London, 1882, 8vo.
In 1895 Dr. W. A. Hunter published a volume of 'Torrens Title Cases … to which is prefixed a summary of Torrens Title Legislation,' London, 8vo.
[Mennell's Dict. of Australasian Biography; Times, 3 Sept. 1884; Burke's Peerage, 1884; South Australian Register, 11 Sept. 1884; Men of the Time, 1884; Rusden's Hist, of Australia, iii. 621-3.]
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thew, Robert

​THEW, ROBERT (1758–1802), engraver, was born in 1758 at Patrington, Holderness, Yorkshire, where his father kept an inn. He received but little education, and for a time followed the trade of a cooper; but, possessing great natural abilities, he invented an ingenious camera obscura, and later took up engraving, in which art, although entirely self-taught, he attained to a high degree of excellence. In 1783 he went to Hull, where he resided for a few years, engraving at first shop-bills and tradesmen's cards. His earliest work of a higher class was a portrait of Harry Rowe [q. v.] the famous puppet-show man, and in 1786 he etched and published a pair of views of the new dock at Hull, which were aquatinted by Francis Jukes [q. v.] Having executed a good plate of a woman's head after Gerard Dou, he obtained from the Marquis of Carmarthen an introduction to John Boydell [q. v.], for whose large edition of Shakespeare he engraved in the dot manner twenty-two plates after Northcote, Westall, Opie, ​Peters, and others. Of these the finest is the entry of Cardinal Wolsey into Leicester Abbey, after Westall. Thew also engraved a few excellent portraits, including Master Hare, after Reynolds, 1790; Sir Thomas Gresham, after Sir Anthony More, 1792; and Miss Turner, with the title ‘Reflections on Werter,’ after Richard Crosse. He held the appointment of historical engraver to the Prince of Wales, and died at or near Stevenage, Hertfordshire, shortly before August 1802.
[Gent. Mag. 1802 ii. 971, 1803 i. 475; Dodd's manuscript Hist. of English Engravers in Brit. Mus. (Addit. MS. 33406); Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Therry, Roger

​THERRY, Sir ROGER (1800–1874), judge in New South Wales, born in Ireland on 22 April 1800, was third son of John Therry of Dublin, barrister-at-law. He was admitted student at Gray's Inn on 25 Nov. 1822 (Foster, Reg. p. 426), was called to the Irish bar in 1824, and to the English bar in 1827. He found his chief employment in politics, actively connecting himself with the agitation for Roman catholic emancipation. At this time he made the acquaintance of George Canning, whose speeches he edited.
Through Canning's influence Therry was appointed commissioner of the court of requests of New South Wales, and went out to the colony in July 1829, arriving in November. In April 1830 he became a magistrate; but his path was not smooth, partly because of his active intervention in ​matters affecting the Roman catholic church (New South Wales Magazine, 1833, p. 300). In 1831 he was violently attacked in regard to his part in a deposition made by the wife of the attorney-general of the colony against her husband, and it was alleged that he had used undue influence to bring the children into the Roman catholic church. In 1833 by his action respecting the treatment of servants by one of the unpaid magistrates (Mudie) he brought upon himself a storm of opposition, and was violently attacked in print along with the governor, Sir Richard Bourke [q. v.], whose champion he was asserted to have made himself (Mudie, Felonry of New South Wales, pp. 104 sqq.) At the close of 1835 the post of chairman of quarter sessions was added to his other appointments. In May 1841 he was promoted to be attorney-general. In 1843 he was elected to the legislative council for Camden amid some indignation due to his close connection with the governor's projects (Lang). In January 1845 he became resident judge at Port Phillip; in February 1846 a puisne judge of the supreme court and primary judge in equity.
On 22 Feb. 1859 Therry retired on a pension and returned to England. In 1863 he published ‘Reminiscences of Thirty Years' Residence in New South Wales,’ the first edition of which was suppressed because of its personalities. Towards the close of his life he was much out of health, and resided chiefly at Bath, where he died on 17 May 1874.
Therry was married and left children, one of whom was in the army. Besides the ‘Speeches of George Canning, with a memoir,’ London, 1828, 6 vols., and a pamphlet entitled ‘Comparison of the Oratory of the House of Commons thirty years ago and at the present time’ (Sydney, 1856, 8vo), several of his public letters to ministers and others are extant.
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thesiger, Alfred Henry

​THESIGER, ALFRED HENRY (1838–1880), lord justice of appeal, third and youngest son of Frederick Thesiger, first baron Chelmsford [q. v.], by his wife Anna Maria, youngest daughter of William Tinling of Southampton, was born on 15 July 1838. He was educated at Eton, and matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 15 May 1856, graduating B.A. in 1860 and M.A. in 1862. Both at school and at college he was distinguished as a cricketer and as an oarsman. He was a student of the Inner Temple, and was called to the bar in 1862. He joined the home circuit, and rapidly obtained a large London practice. For a time he was ‘postman’ of the court of exchequer, and on 3 July 1873 he became a queen's counsel.
He was slight and youthful in appearance, extremely industrious, and extremely honourable as an advocate. He was lucid in statement and sound in counsel. After he retired from parliamentary work his practice lay chiefly in commercial and compensation cases. In January 1874 he was elected a bencher of his inn of court, and on 10 Sept. 1877 attorney-general to the Prince of Wales. In 1876 he was a member of the commission upon the fugitive slave circular, and in 1877, on the recommendation of Lord Cairns and to the surprise of the public, he was appointed to succeed Sir Richard Paul Amphlett [q. v.] as a lord justice of the court of appeal, though only thirty-nine years old, and was sworn of the privy council. During his brief tenure of a seat on the bench he showed great judicial ability. He died in London of blood-poisoning on 20 Oct. 1880. On 31 Dec. 1862 he married Henrietta, second daughter of the Hon. George Hancock, fourth son of the second Earl of Castlemaine, but left no issue.
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Therry, John Joseph

​THERRY, JOHN JOSEPH (1791–1864), ‘the patriarch of the Roman catholic church’ in New South Wales, was born at Cork in 1791 and entered Carlow College in 1807; there he originated a society bound to devote itself if need be to foreign mission work. He was trained for the priesthood under Dr. Doyle, and ordained at Dublin in April 1815 to a curacy at Cork.
Therry was one of the priests sent out by the government to New South Wales in December 1819. He reached Sydney in May 1820, and ministered at first in a temporary chapel in Pitt Street, and at Paramatta often in the open air. For several years he was the only Roman catholic priest in the colony; but he was a devoted pastor, travelling great distances to his services. He came into collision with the governor, Sir Ralph Darling [q. v.], in 1827, and was for a time deprived of his salary as chaplain, but his work was continued with unabated vigour. On 29 Oct. 1829 he laid the foundation stone of St. Joseph's Chapel, which is now part of Sydney Roman catholic cathedral. In 1833 he was made subordinate to William Bernard Ullathorne [q. v.] and then to John Bede Polding [q. v.], and was sent by the latter in 1838 to Tasmania. Having returned to Sydney, he became priest at St. Augustine's, Balmain, where he died rather suddenly on 25 May 1864.
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Tuathal

​TUATHAL (d. 544), king of Ireland, called Maelgarbh, Roughcrown, to distinguish him from Tuathal Teachtmhar, to whom the Irish historians attribute the subjugation of the Aithech Tuatha and restoration of the Milesian line in a. d. 76, was son of Cormac the blind, son of Cairbre, son of Niall Naighiallach [q. v.], and was therefore second cousin of Muircheartach Mor [q. v.], whom he succeeded in 533 as king of Ireland. His power was resisted by the Cianachta, a tribe in the east of Meath and Louth, but he defeated them at the battle of Cluanailbhe in Meath. They had probably supported Dermot's claim to be ardrigh; Dermot was son of Cearbhall, son of Conall Cremthain, son of Niall Naighiallach, and, after the defeat of the Cianachta, he was obliged to live as a fugitive, and as such took part in the foundation of Clonmacnoise [see Ciaran]. According to a story in the English version of the ‘Annals of Clonmacnoise,’ Tuathal offered a reward for Dermot's heart. Dermot's foster brother Maelmordha rode into Tuathal's presence with an animal's heart on a spear, as if to claim the reward, and when close to the king stabbed him with the spear and was himself slain. This assassination is said to have taken place in 544 at a spot called Greallach, but which of the several localities called by this Irish equivalent of Slough is not clear in the chronicles. Dermot succeeded Tuathal as king of Ireland.
[O'Donovan's Annala Rioghachta Eireann, i. 181, Dublin, 1851; Hennessy's Annals of Ulster (Rolls Ser.), i. 48.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Yeats, Grant David

​YEATS, GRANT DAVID (1773–1836), medical writer, born in Florida in 1773, was the son of David Yeats, a physician of East Florida. He matriculated from Hertford College, Oxford, on 21 Jan. 1790, graduating B.A. on 15 Oct. 1793, M.A. on 25 May 1796, M.B. on 4 May 1797. He was incorporated M.B. at Dublin in 1807, and graduated M.D. from Trinity College, Oxford, on 7 June 1814. He spent two winter sessions in Edinburgh and one in London, and then commenced to practise at Bedford, where he assisted in the establishment of the Bedford general infirmary, and at a later period of the lunatic asylum near the town. He was nominated physician to each of these institutions. While at Bedford he acquired the friendship of Samuel Whitbread [q. v.] and of John Russell, sixth duke of Bedford [see under Russell, Lord John, first Earl Russell].
Yeats's most important work, ‘Observations on the Claims of the Moderns to some Discoveries in Chemistry and Physiology’ (London, 8vo), was published in 1798, after he had settled at Bedford. In it he called attention to the experiments of John Mayow [q. v.], whose merits Thomas Beddoes [q. v.] had discovered two years before. Like most of Mayow's admirers, Yeats applauded with too little discrimination, but he assisted to rescue his achievements from oblivion.
On the Duke of Bedford's nomination to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland Yeats accompanied him to Dublin in March 1806 as his private physician. While at Dublin he was instrumental in establishing the Dublin Humane Society, and was made a member of Trinity College. On the duke's return to England in 1807 he resumed his position at Bedford. About 1814 he removed to London, where he was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians on 30 Sept. 1814, and a fellow on 30 Sept. 1815. He was Gulstonian lecturer in 1817, censor in 1818, and Croonian lecturer in 1827. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 1 July 1819, and died at Tunbridge Wells on 14 Nov. 1836. He married a daughter of Patrick Colquhoun [q. v.]
Yeats was the author of:
* ‘An Address on the Nature and Efficacy of the Cowpox in preventing the Smallpox,’ London, 1803, ​8vo.
* 'A Statement of the Early Symptoms which lead to Water on the Brain, London, 1815, 8vo; 2nd edit., London, 1833, 8vo.
* 'A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Writings of Patrick Colquhoun,' London, 1815, 8vo.
He also published many papers in 'Annals of Medicine,' the 'Medical and Physical Journal' and in 'Medical Transactions.'
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 137-8; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1716-1886; The Pantheon of the Age, 1825; Gent. Mag. 1836, ii, 886; Biogr. Dict of Living Authors, 1815.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Yeamans, John

​YEAMANS, Sir JOHN (1610?–1674), baronet, colonial governor, eldest son of John Yeamans (d. 1645), brewer, of Bristol, was born at Bristol and baptised at St. Mary Redclyffe on 28 Feb. 1611. He attained the rank of colonel in the royalist army, and about 1650 migrated to Barbados. In July 1660 he was on the council of that colony. In 1663 a number of planters in Barbados made arrangements with the proprietors of Carolina for establishing a colony at Cape Fear. The proprietors, by the exercise of their influence at court, secured a baronetcy for Yeamans, conferred on him 12 Jan. 1664–5, and on 11 Jan. 1665 they appointed him governor of their colony, with a jurisdiction extending from Cape Fear to San Mateo. The country was called Clarendon. Yeamans was also instructed to explore the coast south of Cape Fear. He sailed with three vessels from Barbados in January 1665, and reached Cape Fear, but sustained heavy loss by the way from rough weather. Accordingly he soon returned to Barbados, leaving the management of the new settlement to a deputy, Captain Robert Sandford. When in 1667 Locke drew up for Carolina a fantastic paper constitution entitled the ‘fundamental constitution,’ which was never exactly applied, Yeamans was created a landgrave. In 1669 Yeamans was again commissioned by the proprietors and attempted a settlement, but without success; and in the following year he, under authority given by the commissioners, nominated William Sayle [q. v.] to the governorship. Sayle died in March 1671. Before his death he nominated as his successor the deputy governor, Joseph West (Cal. State Papers, America and West Indies, 1669–74, p. 472), and this appointment was approved by the colonists. The proprietors, however, on 21 Aug. 1671, to the great dissatisfaction of the people, appointed Yeamans to the governorship. He was proclaimed at Charles Town on 19 April 1672. The colony during his governorship suffered from internal dissensions, and was threatened both by the Spaniards and the Indians. The proprietors found fault with Yeamans as extravagant and indifferent to their interests. The colonists objected to his profits as an exporter of food-stuffs from Barbados. In April 1674 the proprietors superseded Yeamans in favour of his predecessor West, and in the same year he returned to Barbados, where he died in August. His connection with the colony is still commemorated by the ancient mansion of Yeamans Hall, on Goose Creek, near Charles Town. Sir John's considerable wealth in Barbados passed to his son, Major Sir William Yeamans, second baronet, and great-grandfather of Sir John Yeamans of Barbados, whose son, Sir Robert (d. 19 Feb. 1788), was the last baronet.
J. A. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Yearsley, James

​YEARSLEY, JAMES (1805–1869), aural surgeon, was born in 1805 of a north-country family settled in Cheltenham. Adopting a medical career, he became a pupil of Ralph Fletcher of Gloucester, a surgeon of considerable eminence in his profession, and of some note as a collector of pictures. Thence Yearsley proceeded to London, where he entered himself a student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1827; later in life he added to these qualifications the licentiateship of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh (1860), and he graduated M.D. at St. Andrews University in 1862. After practising for a short time in Cheltenham, he established himself about 1829 as a general practitioner at Ross in Herefordshire. He removed to London about 1837, and commenced to practise as an aural surgeon. He opened an institution for the relief of diseases of the ear in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, and in 1846 he became surgeon to the Royal Society of Musicians.
He was the originator and proprietor of the ‘Medical Circular’ from 1852 until it was consolidated with the ‘Dublin Medical Press’ in January 1866. Jointly with two other members of his profession (Dr. Tyler Smith and Dr. Forbes Benignus Winslow [q.v.] ) he founded that most useful work the ‘Medical Directory,’ becoming its sole proprietor upon the retirement of his two partners.
Yearsley died at his house in Savile Row, London, on 9 July 1869, and was buried at Sutton Bonnington, in Nottinghamshire. He married the daughter of Ralph Fletcher, his old master, and by her had issue.
Yearsley deserves recognition as one who assisted in bringing aural surgery out of the degraded position it held at the beginning of the present century. He insisted strongly upon the connection between deafness and disease of the naso-pharynx. At first he practised freely the removal of the tonsils as an aid to recovery from deafness, but in later life experience led him to modify his views, and he performed tonsillotomy much less often. Yearsley learnt, too, the value of an artificial tympanum in the relief of certain forms of deafness, and he very justly recommended the use of the simplest form of film in preference to the more complex tympana employed by some of his contemporaries.
Yearsley was less scientific than either George Pilcher [q. v.] or Joseph Toynbee [q. v.], and, though original in his views and bold in expressing his opinions, he too often spoilt his cause by his controversial temperament.
Yearsley's works were: 1. ‘Improved Methods of treating Diseases of the Ear,’ London, 1840, 12mo. 2. ‘Contributions to Aural Surgery,’ London, 1841, 12mo. 3. ‘Stammering,’ &c., London, 1841, 8vo; 3rd edit. 1841. 4. ‘A Treatise on Enlarged Tonsils,’ London, 1842, 8vo; 3rd edit. 1848. 5. ‘On Throat Deafness,’ London, 1853, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1868. 6. ‘Deafness practically illustrated,’ London, 1854, 12mo.
D’A. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Yeardley, George

​YEARDLEY, Sir GEORGE (1580?–1627), governor of Virginia, son of Ralph Yeardley, merchant-taylor of London, was born about 1580; his brother Ralph was a London apothecary. Having served in the Low Countries, he sailed with Sir Thomas Gates [q. v.] to Virginia in June 1609 on board the Deliverance, and was shipwrecked in the Bermudas. He eventually reached Virginia in May 1610. In April 1616 Sir Thomas Dale, the governor, returned to England and appointed Yeardley his deputy. Yeardley relaxed the exceedingly severe system of government adopted by Dale; at the same time he showed firmness in his dealings with the Indians, and under him the colony seems for the first time to have prospered. In May 1617 he was superseded by (Sir) Samuel Argall [q. v.] In the following year Yeardley visited England. On 18 Nov. 1618 he was appointed governor of Virginia for a term of three years; on the 24th was knighted at Newmarket by James I, who had a long conversation with him upon the religion of the Indians; and in the following ​January he sailed to the colony. In July he, acting under instructions from the Virginia Company, summoned the first colonial assembly. On 8 Nov. 1621 Yeardley was succeeded by Sir Francis Wyatt [q. v.]; when, however, early in 1626, Wyatt retired from office, Charles I appointed Yeardley his successor, and he held the reins of government from 17 May until his death on 10 Nov. 1627.
During his three administrations important events in the life of the colony had taken place. The ‘first representative assembly in the western hemisphere’ had met at Jamestown on 30 July 1619. In 1620 a Dutch man-of-war had landed twenty negro slaves for sale, the first brought into the English colonies, while in the last year of his governorship a thousand new emigrants from England had arrived.
The colonists in a letter to the privy council committed to record a glowing eulogy of Yeardley's virtues. By his will, made on 12 Oct. 1627, Yeardley left his plate, linen, and household stuff to his wife, Temperance (born West), and ordered his notes, debts, servants, and ‘negars’ to be sold, and the moneys therefrom to be divided into three parts—one for his widow, one for his elder son Argall, and the third to be divided between his daughter Elizabeth and his younger son Francis, who migrated about 1650 into what is now North Carolina, where he traded with and evangelised the natives. An elaborate table of Yeardley's descendants, drawn up by T. T. Upshur, was reprinted from the ‘American Historical Magazine’ in October 1896.
J. A. D.