OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Paulet, Amias (d.1538)

​PAULET or POULET, Sir AMIAS or AMYAS (d. 1538), soldier, was son of Sir William Paulet of Hinton St. George, Somerset, by Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of John Deneland of Hinton St. George. Connected with his family were the Paulets of Nunney Castle, Somerset. The common ancestor, Sir John Paulet of Paulet, lived in the time of Edward III. John Paulet (d. 1470?) of Nunney had, by Eleanor, daughter and coheiress of Robert Roos of Gedney and Irton, Lincolnshire, a son, Sir John Paulet (fl. 1500), who was a commander at the battle of Blackheath in 1497 (cf. Rot. Parl. vi. 541), and was made a knight of the Bath at the marriage of Prince Arthur on 14 Nov. 1501. He married Alice, daughter of Sir William Paulet of Hinton St. George, and by her had, among other children, William, marquis of Winchester [q. v.], who is separately noticed (Collins, Peerage, ed. Brydges, ii. 369; Metcalfe, Knights, p. 35).
Amyas Paulet was brought up a Lancastrian. He was attainted after Buckingham's rebellion in 1483, and duly restored in 1485 (Rot. Parl. vi. 246, 273); on 5 Nov. 1485 he was appointed sheriff for Somerset and Dorset, and he was frequently in the commission of the peace. He was a very active and officious country gentleman, and there is doubtless truth in the tradition that when Wolsey came to take possession of the benefice of Lymington in Hampshire, Paulet clapped him in the stocks (Cavendish, Wolsey, ed. Singer, i. 6). He was knighted on 16 June 1487, after the battle of Stoke. When Perkin Warbeck's rebellion had failed, he was employed in collecting the fines of those implicated. He was one of the west-country gentlemen who had to meet Catherine of Arragon at Crewkerne on 17 Oct. 1501, when she was on her way to London.
In Henry VIII's time he began a military career, and commanded twenty-five men in the expedition to the north of France in 1513. But he seems to have been called to the bar, for in 1521 he was treasurer of the Middle Temple. Wolsey, now chancellor, in revenge for the indignity which Paulet had once put upon him, ordered Paulet not to quit London without leave; and so he had to live in the Middle Temple for five or six years. To propitiate Wolsey, when the gateway was restored, he placed the cardinal's badges prominently over ​the door. He was free in 1524, as in that year he was a commissioner to collect the subsidy in Somerset. He greatly improved the family mansion at Hinton St. George, and must have been rich, though he is said to have been in debt both to Henry VII and to Henry VIII. It is for this reason, perhaps, that on 30 April 1509 he appears as one who was excepted from the general pardon; he was pardoned, however, on 28 Aug. Paulet died in 1538. His will is printed in ‘Testamenta Vetusta.’ He married, first, Margaret, daughter of Sir John Paulet of Nunney Castle, Somerset, and sister of Sir John Paulet, mentioned above (by her he left no issue); secondly, Laura, daughter of William Kellaway of Roeborne, Hampshire. By her he left Sir Hugh Paulet [q. v.] and other children.
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Paulet, Harry (d.1804)

​PAULET, HARRY (d. 1804), master-mariner, is said to have been the master of a small vessel trading to North America; to have been captured by the enemy in 1758, and taken to Quebec; and, being known as a good pilot for the St. Lawrence, to have been sent a prisoner to Europe. The ship in which he sailed put into Vigo, and Paulet, being allowed access to the cabin, laid hold of a packet of despatches, carelessly left within his reach, and dropped overboard. There were two English men-of-war in the river, and Paulet, with the packet of despatches in his mouth, swam to one of these and was taken on board. The despatches proved to be of great value, and Paulet was sent with a copy of them to Lisbon, and thence in a sloop of war to England. In London he was examined by the authorities, and, on the information which he gave and that which was contained in the despatches, the expedition of 1759 was organised, Paulet being rewarded with ‘the pay of a lieutenant for life.’ This annuity of 90l. a year enabled him, it is said, to purchase a vessel, in which he ran cargoes of brandy from the French coast. On one voyage he fell in with the French fleet which had escaped out of Brest ‘while Hawke lay concealed behind the rocks of Ushant.’ Paulet, risking his brandy for the love of his country, ran to find the English fleet, and demanded ​to speak with the admiral. He was ordered on board the flagship, and, having told his story, was assured by Hawke that if it was true, he would make his fortune; if false, he would hang him at the yard-arm. The fleet then got under way, and Paulet, at his special request, was permitted to stay on board. In the battle which followed he behaved with the utmost gallantry, and was sent home ‘rewarded in such a manner as enabled him to live happily the remainder of his life.’
Such is Paulet's own story, which he very probably brought himself, in his old age, to believe. But wherever it can be tested it is false, and no part of it can be accepted as true. If, in the end of 1758, the admiralty had had a first-rate pilot for the St. Lawrence at their disposal, that pilot would have been sent to the St. Lawrence with Saunders; and, if he had been examined either by the admiralty or the secretary of state, there would be some record of the examination; but there is no such record. We may be quite sure that if he had been granted the pay of a lieutenant for life, the amount would be charged somewhere; but it does not appear. Again, when Conflans came out of Brest on 14 Nov. 1759, the English fleet was not ‘concealed behind the rocks of Ushant;’ nor was it ever at anchor there. Hawke learned of the escape of Conflans from the master of a victualler, which, on its way from the squadron in Quiberon Bay, saw the French fleet making for Belle Isle. It is barely possible that Paulet was the victualler and gave the information. In some way or other he certainly made money, and in his old age was generous to the poor of his neighbourhood. He is said to have been an admirable narrator of his own adventures or of Hawke's battle. He died in Lambeth in 1804.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Halghton, John de

​HALGHTON, JOHN de (d. 1324), bishop of Carlisle. [See Halton.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Haliburton, George (1616-1665)

​HALIBURTON, GEORGE (1616–1665), bishop of Dunkeld, was the son of George Haliburton, minister of Glenisla, Forfarshire, from 1615 to 1651 (Scott, Fasti, vi. 748). Graduating at King's College, Aberdeen, in 1636, he was on 1 Aug. 1642 presented by the general assembly to the parish of Menmuir in his native county, and in the year following attended the Scots army at Newcastle. He was translated to the second or collegiate charge at Perth in 1644, and was at Perth when it surrendered to Montrose after his victory at Tippermuir (1 Sept. 1644). For ‘conversing, eating, drinking, and asking a grace at dinner with’ the excommunicated marquis he was deposed by the commission of the general assembly on 27 Nov. 1644. The assembly ratified the sentence (26 Feb. 1644–5), but on making submission on his knees to the presbytery he was reponed by the assembly in June of the same year. In December 1651 he was silenced by the English garrison at Perth, and forbidden to preach ‘for preaching in the king's interest notwithstanding his defeat at Worcester.’ On the Restoration he was nominated (1661), along with James Sharp and others, a parliamentary commissioner for visiting the universities and colleges of Aberdeen. He was spoken of for the see of the Isles, but was appointed to that of Dunkeld, to which he was consecrated (without re-ordination, though he was only in presbyterian orders) at Holyrood on 7 May 1662. He had no liking for harsh measures, but strictly enforced the law, depriving his own kinsman, George Halyburton, minister of Aberdalgie, Perthshire, the father of Thomas Halyburton [q. v.] He died at his own house in Perth on 5 April 1665, leaving two sons, James and George, by his marriage with Catherine Lindsay. Keith calls him ‘a very good, worthy man;’ writers of the other side admitted he was a ‘man of utterance,’ but inferred insincerity from his frequent changes. He had been a zealous covenanter, and ended by accepting a bishopric, but he was all along a royalist.
J. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Haliburton, Thomas (1674-1712)

​HALIBURTON, THOMAS (1674–1712), professor of divinity at St. Andrews. [See Halyburton.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Haliburton, George (1628-1715)

​HALIBURTON, GEORGE (1628–1715), bishop successively of Brechin and Aberdeen, son of William Haliburton, A.M., minister of Collace, Perthshire, was born at Collace in 1628. His father was brother-german to James Haliburton of Enteryse, and was connected with the notable family of the Haliburtons of Pitcur, while his mother was a daughter of Archbishop Gladstanes of St. Andrews. Having studied at St. Andrews University, George took his degree as master of arts in 1646, and two years afterwards he was presented to the parish of Coupar-Angus. His strong episcopalian proclivities brought about his suspension from this charge in September 1650; but this sentence was reversed in November 1652, and he continued to retain his position as minister of Coupar-Angus long after he had gained high ecclesiastical preferment. In 1673 the degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by the university of St. Andrews, and he was promoted by Charles II to the bishopric of Brechin on 30 May 1678. The revenues of this bishopric, though once very extensive, had been greatly reduced at the Reformation, and it appears from the ‘Register of the Privy Seal’ that on 28 Jan. 1680 the king presented Haliburton to the additional parish of Farnell in Forfarshire, on the ground of the poverty of the bishopric. Haliburton retained this plurality of benefices until he ​was translated from Brechin to the bishopric of Aberdeen on 15 July 1682. He remained in Aberdeen till the abolition of episcopacy by the estates in April 1689, when he retired to the small estate of Denhead, Coupar-Angus, which he had purchased. He resisted the appointment of the presbyterian minister to the church of Halton of Newtyle, which was in the neighbourhood of his residence, and from 1698 till 1710 he conducted services there according to the episcopal ritual in defiance of the authorities, until age and infirmity compelled him to desist. He died at Denhead on 29 Sept. 1715, being then in his eighty-seventh year, leaving a widow and a family of three sons and one daughter.
[Wodrow's Hist. of the Kirk of Scotland; Keith's Cat. of Scottish Bishops; Hew Scott's Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ; Millar's Roll of Eminent Burgesses of Dundee.]
A. H. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Haliday, Alexander Henry

​HALIDAY, ALEXANDER HENRY, M.D. (1728?–1802), physician and politician, son of Samuel Haliday [q. v.], the nonsubscribing divine, was born at Belfast about 1728. He was educated at Glasgow as a physician, and practised with great repute at Belfast, where for nearly half a century he was one of the most influential of public men. On 23 Dec. 1770 Belfast was invaded by some twelve hundred insurgents belonging to the society known as ‘Hearts of Steel,’ who marched from Templepatrick, co. Antrim, to rescue one David Douglas, imprisoned on a charge of maiming cattle. The ‘Hearts of Steel’ were animated by agrarian discontent, and their immediate grievance was that Belfast capitalists had purchased leases from the Marquis of Donegall over the tenants' heads. Haliday's prompt interposition between the rioters and the authorities saved the town from destruction by fire. His house in Castle Street was the headquarters of James Caulfeild, earl of Charlemont [q. v.], on his annual visits to Belfast from 1782 in connection with the volunteer conventions. His correspondence with Charlemont (of which some specimens are given in Benn) lasted till the earl's death, and is full of information on the politics of the north of Ireland, enlivened by strokes of humour. He died at Belfast on 28 April 1802. ‘Three nights before he died,’ writes Mrs. Mattear to William Drennan [q. v.], ‘Bruce and I played cards with him, and the very night that was his last he played out the rubber. “Now,” said he, “the game is finished, and the last act near a close.”’ He was buried in the Clifton Street cemetery, then newly laid out. His will leaves to his wife (an Edmonstone of Red Hall) ‘a legacy of 100l. by way of atonement for the many unmerciful scolds I have thrown away upon her at the whist table,’ also ‘the sum of 500l. in gratitude for her never having given on any other occasion from her early youth till this hour any just cause to rebuke or complain of her,’ and ‘a further sum of 100l.’ for her goodness in amusing him with ‘a game of picket’ when his eyesight had decayed. His fine library, rich in classics, was sold after his death; part of it is now the property of the First Presbyterian Church, Belfast. Haliday wrote, but did not publish, a tragedy, submitted to Charlemont, and many satirical verses. His grandson and namesake published anonymously a volume of original hymns, Belfast, 1844, 16mo.
[Benn's Hist. of Belfast, 1877, i. 520 sq., 615, 631 sq., 663 sq., 1880 ii. 35; Belfast News-Letter, 30 April 1802; Benn's manuscripts in the possession of Miss Benn, Belfast.]
A. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reid

​REID. [See also Read, Reade, Rede, Reed, and Reede.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reid, Hugo

​REID, HUGO (1809–1872), educational writer, born at Edinburgh on 21 June 1809, was third son of Dr. Peter Reid, by Christian, eldest daughter of Hugo Arnot [q. v.], historian of Edinburgh, and younger brother of David Boswell Reid [q. v.] He was a good classical scholar, but was best known in the Scottish capital as an able chemist, mechanician, and writer of popular educational handbooks. He was for some years president of the Hunterian Society of Edinburgh, and afterwards lecturer on chemistry and natural philosophy at the High School, Liverpool. In 1858 he went to the United States, migrated thence to Nova Scotia, and for some years held the post of principal of Dalhousie College, Halifax. He died in London on 13 June 1872. He married, in 1839, Marion, eldest daughter of James Kirkland, a Glasgow merchant, by whom he left one daughter. Reid published, besides ‘Catechisms’ of chemistry (1837), of heat (1840), and of astronomy (1841), and elementary text-books on geography (1849), physical geography (1850), arithmetic (1853), and mathematics (1872):
* ‘Outlines of Medical Botany,’ Edinburgh, 1832, 12mo; 2nd edit. enlarged, 1839.
* ‘Tabular Views of Botanical Classifications,’ Edinburgh, 1833, 8vo.
* ‘Popular Treatise on Chemistry: I. Chemistry of Nature’ (all published), Glasgow, 1834, 12mo; reprinted Edinburgh, 1837.
* ‘Science of Botany,’ Glasgow, 1837, 18mo; Edinburgh, 1838; sixth thousand, 1840.
* ‘The Steam Engine,’ 1828, 12mo; other edit. 1840 and 1851.
* ‘Remarks on Arago's Statements on the Steam-engine,’ 1840, 8vo.
* ‘Chemistry of Science and Art,’ Edinburgh, 1840, 12mo; 2nd edit. 1848.
* ‘Natural Philosophy: Book I. Pneumatics,’ Edinburgh, 1841, 8vo.
* ‘Elements of Astronomy,’ Edinburgh, 1842, 12mo; 2nd edit. 1852; 3rd edit. 1856; 4th edit., by A. Mackay, 1874, 8vo.
* ‘What should be done for the People? An Appeal to the Electors of the United Kingdom,’ London, 1848, 8vo.
* ‘A System of Modern Geography,’ Edinburgh, 1852, 8vo; 3rd edit. 1857.
* ‘The Principles of Education,’ 1853–4, 12mo.
* ‘On Mathematical Geography and easy Methods of teaching it’ (a Society of Arts Lecture), London, 1854, 8vo.
* ‘The Solar System,’ London, 1854, a folio sheet.
* ‘Mental ​Arithmetic,’ London, 1859, 18mo.
* ‘Sketches in North America,’ London, 1861, 12mo.
* ‘The American Question in a Nutshell; or why we should recognise the Confederates,’ London, 1862, 8vo.
* ‘A Handbook of the History of the United States,’ London, 1862, 8vo.
* (Under the pseudonym of Roger Boswell) ‘The Art of Conversation,’ London, 1867, 8vo.
* ‘On Euclid as a School-book,’ London, 1870, 8vo.
Reid was a frequent contributor to ‘Notes and Queries,’ under his initials ‘H. R.’ His wife published ‘A Plea for Women,’ Edinburgh, 1843, 8vo (another edit. New York, 1845, 8vo).
[Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Literature; Edinburgh Courant, 20 June 1872.]
G. S. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reid, Alexander (1747-1823)

​REID, ALEXANDER (1747–1823), painter, second son of John Reid of Kirkeenan, near Dalbeattie, Kirkcudbrightshire, was born in 1747. He exhibited a portrait of Mr. Ochterlony at the gallery of the ​Society of Artists in 1770. After spending some time in Paris before the revolution, he appears to have had a studio at Dumfries about the end of the last century. He painted miniatures, oil portraits, and landscapes, some of which have been engraved. His name is best known in connection with a miniature of Robert Burns, which he painted at Dumfries in 1796. Allan Cunningham, in his life of Raeburn (Lives, v. 215), speaks of ‘Read, a wandering limner, who found his way on a time to Dumfries, where he painted the heads of Burns and his Jean on ivory.’ Burns wrote to Mrs. W. Riddell from Dumfries on 29 Jan. 1796: ‘I am just sitting to Reid in this town for a miniature, and I think he has hit by far the best likeness of me ever taken. When you are at any time so idle in town as to call at Reid's painting-room, and mention to him that I spoke of such a thing to you, he will shew it to you, else he will not; for both the miniature's existence and its destiny are an inviolable secret’ (Burns, Works, ed. W. Douglas, 1879, vi. 181). All trace of this portrait has been lost, but of a number of miniatures asserted to be the authentic portrait of Burns by Reid, that bequeathed by W. F. Watson to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, has by far the strongest claim. Reid's work is not very accomplished, but he was painstaking and accurate, and his colour is not unpleasing. On the death of his elder brother in 1804 he succeeded to the estate, and settled there. He died unmarried in 1823. A portrait of him, by an unknown artist, passed to the possession of his great-nephew, Mr. G. Corson, architect, Leeds.
[Private information.]
C. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reid, Alexander (1802-1860)

​REID, ALEXANDER (1802–1860), schoolmaster, was born at Thornhill in Dumfriesshire in 1802. His father, a merchant, came from Aberdeenshire. The son was educated at the parish school at Thornhill, and afterwards at Edinburgh University, where, after distinguishing himself in the rhetoric classes, he graduated M.A. From September 1822 onwards he was parish schoolmaster at Dornock, Dumfriesshire, when he prepared himself to enter the church of Scotland. He was licensed by the presbytery of Annan in 1827. Through his connection with Dr. Andrew Thomson (1779–1831) [q. v.], he was appointed (27 July 1827) chief master of St. George's School, Edinburgh. In 1829 he was appointed to the Circus Place school in Edinburgh, formed after the model of an English preparatory school with advanced classes. This school was established about the same time as the Edinburgh Academy. Reid remained connected with it till 1846, except for a short interval in 1832–3, when he took charge of a school in Dublin. Between 1833 and 1846 his smaller school-books were chiefly written. His most important work was his ‘English Dictionary,’ which he issued in 1844. It cost him much labour, and over-work brought on serious illness. In 1849, partially recovered, he was appointed by the Free Church of Scotland inspector of primary schools. In 1850, after receiving from the university of Aberdeen the honorary degree of LL.D., he purchased the proprietary school known as the Edinburgh Institution, the aim of which was to provide a ‘modern’ education of a high-class character. The school was energetically worked, and removed from Hill Street to Queen Street. In 1858 Reid's health gave way entirely. He retired from the school, and died on 29 June 1860.
In 1833 he married the third daughter of J. Greig, parish minister of Dalmeny, Linlithgowshire.
A medallion of Reid was made after his death by Brodie the sculptor. A replica in stucco is in the Edinburgh Institution. Reid's chief publication was ‘A Dictionary of the English Language, containing the pronunciation, etymology, and explanation of all words authorised by eminent writers. To which are added a vocabulary of the roots of English words and an accented list of proper names,’ Edinburgh, 1844, 12mo; 9th ed. 1853; 17th ed. 1863; 18th ed. 1864. Among his other works were: ‘An Outline of Sacred Geography’ (15th ed. 1861); ‘Rudiments of English Composition,’ Edinburgh, 1839, 12mo; 18th ed. 1872 (with Key, 1843, 1872); ‘Rudiments of English Grammar’ (1837, 12mo; 23rd ed. 1874, 16mo); and of Modern Geography (1837, 16mo; 53rd ed. 1893). A third edition of ‘Selection from A. Reid's “Rudiments of Geography,” transliterated into the Nāgarī character for the use of the lower English classes in Indian schools, by Ganesa Mārtanda Srotriya,’ appeared at Poona in 1888, 16mo. Reid also adapted Kitto's ‘History of Palestine’ (1843) and P. F. Tytler's ‘History of Scotland’ (1851).
[Private information from J. R. Reid, esq., late of Bengal Civil Service, son of Dr. Reid, and Dr. R. Ferguson, Principal of the Edinburgh Institution.]
F. W.-n.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reid, Andrew

​REID, ANDREW (d. 1767?), compiler, was perhaps a member of the Reid family of Fifeshire, but migrated to London, probably about 1720, and interested himself in ​literary and scientific subjects. In 1728 he projected ‘The Present State of the Republick of Letters,’ a periodical publication which he edited until 1736, when it ceased; two volumes appeared each year. In 1732 he published an abridgment of Newton's ‘Chronology,’ of which another edition appeared at Dublin in 1782. In 1733, in conjunction with John Gray, Reid edited an ‘Abridgment’ of the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ from 1720 to 1732; it was published in 2 vols. 8vo. In 1747 he published a ‘Letter to Dr. Hales concerning the Nature of Tar,’ &c., and in 1767 an ‘Essay on Logarithms,’ 4to, which he dedicated to his old friend, John Gray, F.R.S. In the same year he was employed by George, first baron Lyttelton [q. v.], to correct for the press the first two editions of his ‘History of the Life of Henry II,’ but he probably died in the same year, as the correction of the third edition, which appeared in 1768, was entrusted to another.
[Works in Brit. Mus. Libr.; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 482, ii. 730, iii. 507, iv. 267, 465, v. 305; Johnson's Works, viii. 492; Hill's Boswell, iii. 32, n 5.]
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Randolph, William

​RANDOLPH, WILLIAM (1650–1711), colonist, son of Richard Randolph, who was half-brother of the poet, Thomas Randolph [q. v.], was born in 1650 at Morton Morrell in Warwickshire. In 1674 he emigrated to Virginia, acquired a large plantation on the James river, and devoted himself to planting with much success, for he left seven or more estates at his death. He lived latterly at Turkey Island, below Richmond, Virginia, where he had built himself a splendid mansion. He was also a shipowner, and his ships plied regularly to Bristol.
Randolph rose to the rank of colonel in the colonial militia. He was member of the house of assembly in 1684, and later a member of council. He is said to have been a man of high character, with wide influence. He was a founder and trustee of the William and Mary College, Virginia; but his chief work was directed to the civilisation of the Indians. He died on 11 April 1711 at Turkey Island.
He married Mary Isham, and had seven sons and three daughters. Six of the sons became prominent colonists; one of them, Sir John Randolph of Tazewell Hall, was knighted in 1730 when on a visit to England.
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rands, Henry

​RANDS, HENRY (d. 1551), bishop of Lincoln. [See Holbeach, Henry.]