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

​SPENCE, GEORGE (1787–1850), jurist, born in 1787, second son of Thomas Richard Spence, surgeon, of Hanover Square, London, was educated at a private school at Richmond, Surrey, and at the university of Glasgow, where he matriculated in 1802, and graduated M.A. on 11 April 1805. After some time spent in the office of a London solicitor, he was admitted in 1806 a student at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar on 28 June 1811, elected a bencher in 1835, reader in 1845, and treasurer in 1846. A pupil of the eminent equity draughtsman, John Bell (1764–1836) [q. v.], he rapidly acquired an extensive practice, most of which he lost on taking silk (27 Dec. 1834). He was returned to parliament in the tory interest for Reading on 20 June 1826, but was unseated on petition (26 March 1827). He afterwards (2 March 1829) secured the Ripon seat, which he retained until the dissolution of December 1832. Both in and out of parliament he made some ineffectual attempts to ventilate the question of chancery reform (Hansard, new ser. xxv. 463, 3rd ser. i. 1411, iv. 550, ix. 251, xiii. 467, xiv. 819). In the divisions on the parliamentary reform bill he voted against his party; he did not, however, seek election to the new parliament.
Spence was a pioneer in the cause of legal education and an original member of the Society for promoting the Amendment of the Law, founded in 1844. The last years of his life he consecrated almost exclusively to his opus magnum, ‘The Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery; comprising its Rise, Progress, and final Establishment,’ &c., London, 1846–9, 2 vols. 8vo. The work is still the standard authority on the abstruse and intricate subject of which it treats; but the labour involved in its composition damaged his health, and on 12 Dec. 1850 he died of wounds inflicted by himself in a fit of insanity at his residence, 42 Hyde Park Square.
Spence married, in 1819, Anne Kelsall, daughter of a solicitor at Chester, who with issue survived him. He was author of, besides the great work already noticed: 1. ‘An Essay on the Origin of the English Laws and Institutions, read to the Society of Clifford's Inn in Hilary Term, 1812,’ 1812. 2. ‘An Inquiry into the Origin of the Laws and Political Institutions of Modern Europe, particularly those of England,’ London, 1826, 8vo. 3. ‘The Code Napoléon, or the French Civil Code literally translated, by a Barrister of the Inner Temple,’ 1827. 4. ‘Reform of the Court of Chancery,’ London, 1830, 8vo. 5. ‘An Address to the Public, and more especially to the Members of the House of Commons, on the present unsatisfactory state of the Court of Chancery,’ London, 1839, 8vo. 6. ‘Second Address,’ &c., same place and year. 7. ‘Documents and Propositions relating to the Masters' Offices,’ &c., London, 1842, fol.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Spence, Elizabeth Isabella

​SPENCE, ELIZABETH ISABELLA (1768–1832), authoress, was born on 12 Jan. 1768 at Dunkeld. She was the only child of Dr. James Spence, a physician at Dunkeld, by his wife Elizabeth, youngest daughter of George Fordyce, provost of Aberdeen (d. 1733), and sister of James Fordyce [q. v.] Losing her parents early, Miss Spence went to live in London with an uncle and aunt, and was by their death left destitute of relatives. She had already commenced writing as a pastime, and now carried it on for a livelihood. Her works consist of novels and ​accounts of travel. Her first book, published in 1799, was ‘Helen Sinclair,’ a novel, in 2 vols. Her books of travel include ‘Summer Excursions through part of England and Wales,’ published in 2 vols. in 1809, and ‘Sketches of the Present Manners, Custom, and Scenery of Scotland,’ of which the second edition, in two volumes, bears date 1811. The latter work was ridiculed in ‘Blackwood’ (vol. iii.) in an article entitled ‘Miss Spence and the Bagman.’
Among her friends were Lady Anne Barnard, Miss Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger [q. v.], the Porters, Miss Landon, and Sir Humphry Davy. She died at Chelsea on 27 July 1832. There is an engraved portrait of Miss Spence in ‘La Belle Assemblée’ (No. 185).
Other works by Miss Spence are: 1. ‘The Nobility of the Heart,’ 3 vols. 1804. 2. ‘The Wedding Day,’ 3 vols. 1807. 3. ‘Commemorative Feelings,’ 1812. 4. ‘The Curate and his Daughter: a Cornish Tale,’ 1813. 5. ‘The Spanish Guitar,’ 1815. 6. ‘A Traveller's Tale of last Century,’ 3 vols. 1819. 7. ‘Old Stories,’ 2 vols. 1822. 8. ‘How to be rid of a Wife,’ 2 vols. 1823. 9. ‘Dame Rebecca Berry,’ 3 vols. 10. ‘Tales of Welsh Society and Scenery,’ 2 vols.
E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Gore, John Ellard

​GORE, JOHN ELLARD (1845–1910), astronomical writer, born at Athlone in Ireland on 1 June 1845, was son of John Ribton Gore, archdeacon of Achonry. After being educated privately he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained his engineering diploma with high distinction in 1865. Three years later, passing second in the open competition, he joined the Indian government works department and worked as assistant engineer on the construction of the Sirhind canal in the Punjab. There he began his observation of the stars, which had for first result the publication in 1877 of a small book entitled 'Southern Objects for Small Telescopes.' Gore retired from the Indian service in ​1879 with a pension. Thenceforth he lived first at Ballisodare, co. Sligo, with his father until the latter's death, and afterwards in Dublin. He devoted himself to observations of the stars, principally with a binocular, for he never had a large telescope, and to writing on astronomy. Variable stars were chiefly the subject of his observations. In 1884 he presented to the Royal Irish Academy a 'Catalogue of Known Variable Stars' (enlarged and revised edit. 1888). A similar compilation by him, giving a list of the then computed orbits of binary stars, was published by the Irish Academy in 1890. At the same time Gore wrote much on astronomy for general reading. In some of his popular books he discussed with much judgment the theories of structure of the universe. 'Planetary and Stellar Studies' appeared in 1888; 'The Scenery of the Heavens' in 1890 {2nd edit. 1893); 'Astronomical Lessons' in 1890; 'Star Groups' in 1891; 'An Astronomical Glossary' in 1893; 'The Visible Universe' in 1893; 'The Worlds of Space' in 1894; and 'The Stellar Heavens' in 1903. In Studies in Astronomy' (1904) and in 'Astronomical Essays' (1907) he collected articles and essays that had appeared in magazines. His latest work, 'Astronomical Facts and Fallacies,' came out in 1909. Gore published many papers in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society on 8 March 1878, was a member of council of the Royal Dublin Society, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He was at one time a leading member of the Liverpool Astronomical Society, and was chosen a vice-president of the British Astronomical Association on its foundation, and director of the variable star section. He died unmarried in Dublin from the effects of a street accident on 18 July 1910.
[Who's Who, 1910; Monthly Notices, Roy. Astr. Soc, Feb. 1911.]
H. P. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Gough-Calthorpe, Augustus Cholmondeley

​GOUGH-CALTHORPE, AUGUSTUS CHOLMONDELEY, sixth Baron Calthorpe (1829–1910), agriculturist, born at Elvetham, Hampshire, on 8 Nov. 1829, was third son in the family of four sons and six daughters of Frederick Gough Calthorpe, fourth Baron Calthorpe (1790–1868), by his wife Lady Charlotte Sophia, eldest daughter of Henry Charles Somerset, sixth duke of Beaufort. The family descended from Sir Henry Gough (d. 1774), first baronet, of ​Edgbaston, whose heir Henry, by his second wife, Barbara, heiress of Reynolds Calthorpe of Elvetham, succeeded in 1788 to the Elvetham estates, and taking the surname of Calthorpe, was created Baron Calthorpe on 15 June 1796 [see Calthorpe, Sir Henry]. Augustus was educated at Harrow from 1845 to 1847 and matriculated at Merton College, Oxford, on 23 Feb. 1848, graduating B.A. in 1851, and proceeding M.A. in 1855. In adult life he devoted himself to sport, agriculture, and the duties of a county magistrate. He lived on family property at Perry Hall, Staffordshire, serving as high sheriff of that county in 1881. At the general election of 1880 he stood with Major Fred Burnaby [q. v.] as conservative candidate for the undivided borough of Birmingham, near which a part of the family estates lay, but was defeated, P. H. Muntz, John Bright, and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain being returned. On the death on 26 June 1893 of his eldest brother, Frederick, fifth baron (1826–1893), who was unmarried (his second brother, George, had died unmarried in 1843), he succeeded to the peerage as sixth baron. On the family estates at Elvetham he started in 1900 what has become a noted herd of shorthorn cattle, and his Southdown sheep and Berkshire pigs were also famous. He showed generosity in devoting to public purposes much of his property about Birmingham. He made over to the corporation in 1894 the freehold of Calthorpe Park near that city, which his father had created in 1857, and took much interest in the development of the new Birmingham University. In 1900 he and his only son, Walter (1873–1906), presented 27½ acres of land, valued at 20,000l., for the site of the university buildings, and in 1907 he gave another site, immediately adjacent, of nearly 20 acres, of the estimated value of 15,000l., for a private recreation ground for the students. He died after a short illness at his London residence at Grosvenor Square on 22 July 1910, and was buried at Elvetham, after cremation at Golder's Green. He was succeeded in the title by his next brother, Lieut.-general Sir Somerset John Gough-Calthorpe (b. 23 Jan. 1831). He married on 22 July 1869 Maud Augusta Louisa, youngest daughter of the Hon. Octavius Duncombe, seventh son of Charles Duncombe, first Lord Feversham, by whom he had one son, Walter (who predeceased him), and four daughters.
[The Times, 23 and 28 July 1910; Harrow School Reg.; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Burke's Peerage.]
E. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Vendramini, Giovanni

​VENDRAMINI, GIOVANNI (1769–1839), engraver, was born at Roncade, near Bassano, Italy, in 1769, and at the age of nineteen came to England and placed himself under Bartolozzi, one of whose ablest pupils he became, and to whose house at Fulham he succeeded in 1802. Among his early works, which are all in the stipple style, are ‘St. John the Baptist,’ after Raphael; five of the set of ‘Cries of London,’ after Wheatley; and ‘The Power of Love,’ after D. Pellegrini. About 1802 he became associated with Sir Robert Ker Porter [q. v.], whose panoramic pictures of the ‘Storming of Seringapatam,’ ‘The Passage of the Alps by the Russians under Suwarrow,’ and the ‘Death of Sir Ralph Abercromby,’ he engraved on a large scale between 1802 and 1805. At the same period he engraved Porter's ‘Twenty-six Illustrations to Ana​creon.’ In 1805 Vendramini went to Russia, and was for two years in the employment of the czar, by whom his work was so much admired that, when he desired to leave, he was unable to obtain the necessary permission, and was obliged to effect his escape in disguise. After his return to England he produced many fine plates, both in stipple and line, chiefly from pictures by the old masters, including ‘Leda,’ after Leonardo da Vinci; ‘Vision of Saint Catherine,’ after Paul Veronese; ‘St. Sebastian,’ after Spagnoletto; and ‘Raising of Lazarus,’ from the picture by Sebastiano del Piombo now in the National Gallery. He died at his house in Regent Street, London, on 8 Feb. 1839. Vendramini married an Englishwoman of Portuguese origin, by whom he had two daughters.
Francesco Vendramini (fl. 1820), an engraver who was contemporary with Giovanni, and probably his brother, appears to have followed him to Russia and there settled. He practised both in stipple and line, and became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts at St. Petersburg. His finest and best known plate is the ‘Death of Peter Martyr,’ after Titian.
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Venn, Richard

1904 Errata appended.
​VENN, RICHARD (1691–1740), divine, born at Holbeton, Devonshire, on 7 Jan. 1690–1, was eldest and only surviving son of Dennis Venn, vicar of Holbeton, himself the third in a direct line of clerical ancestors who graduated from Exeter College, Oxford, and held livings in Devonshire. He entered at Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, 1709, with a scholarship from Blundell's school, Tiverton, and graduated B.A. in 1712–13, and M.A. in 1716. He soon went to London, where he was probably curate to Thomas Bennet (1673–1728) [q. v.] He became rector of St. Antholin's in 1725, and was also weekday preacher there, preacher at Paul's Cross, and clerk of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. He acquired the reputation of a learned divine of strong high-church views, and formed close friendships with Francis Hare [q. v.], bishop of Chichester, Edmund Gibson [q. v.], bishop of London, and many of the leading London clergy. He is best known by his opposition to the appointment of Thomas Rundle [q. v.] to the bishopric of Gloucester in 1734, from the belief that Rundle held deistical opinions. The affair caused much public ferment, and government finally appointed Rundle to the bishopric of Derry in Ireland (Whiston, Memoirs, p. 229; Letters by several Eminent Persons deceased, London, 1782, ii. 35). During the controversy Venn was vigorously attacked by Arthur Ashley Sykes [q. v.], who wrote under the title of ‘A Gentleman of the Temple.’
Venn died on 16 Feb. 1739–40, and was buried at St. Antholin's. He married (license dated 2 Nov. 1716) Mary Anna Isabella Margaretta Beatrix (d. 1762), only surviving child of John Ashton [q. v.], and god-daughter of James II's queen. Her father was executed in 1691 for complicity in a Jacobite plot. By her Venn had three sons and a daughter. Of his sons, Edward graduated at St. John's, Cambridge, and became a physician at Ipswich; Richard was in business in London; and Henry [q. v.] is separately noticed. The daughter, Mary, married William James Gambier of Camberwell. A volume of Venn's miscellaneous writings was published by his widow in 1740, under the title ‘Tracts and Sermons.’
J. V.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.270 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Venner, Tobias

​VENNER, TOBIAS (1577–1660), medical writer, was born ‘of honest parents’ at Petherton, Somerset, in 1577. He matriculated from St. Alban Hall, Oxford, on 15 May 1595, graduated B.A. on 1 Feb. 1598–9, and M.A. on 7 July 1603. He then returned to Petherton, where he established himself in practice as a physician. On 31 March 1613 he graduated M.B. and M.D. at Oxford, having obtained a certificate from the regius professor of medicine that he was fit for these degrees, a dispensation for non-attendance on the professor's lectures, and a grace in convocation which relieved him of the necessity of waiting over four congregations for the degrees (Reg. Univ. Oxon. ii. i. 34, 125, 126, 128). He subsequently extended his practice to Bridgewater and Bath, where he resided during the spring and autumn, the seasons for visitors in quest of the Bath waters, which Venner did much to popularise. In 1620 he published his first book, ‘Via Recta ad Vitam Longam; or a Plaine Philosophicall Discourse of the Nature, Faculties, and Effects of all such things as by way of Nourishments and Dieteticall Observations made for the Preservation of Health … with the true use of our Bathes of Bathe’ (London, 4to). The dedication to Francis Bacon, lord Verulam, was changed in the second edition (London, 1622, 4to) to one to Prince Charles; other editions appeared in 1628, 1638, 1650, and 1660, all published in quarto in London. The treatise on the ‘Bathes of Bath’ was issued separately in 1628 with a dedication to Henrietta Maria, and reprinted in the ‘Harleian Miscellany’ (1744, vol. ii.) A second part of the ‘Via Recta’ was published (London, 1623, 4to), ‘wherein the true use of sleepe, exercise, excretions, and perturbations is, with their effects, discussed.’
To these works Venner is said to have owed his large practice at Bath. He followed them up in 1621 with ‘A Briefe and Accurate Treatise concerning the taking of the Fume of Tobacco, which very many in these dayes doe too too [sic] licentiously use …’ (London, 4to); reprinted with the ‘Via Recta’ in 1638, 1650, and 1660. It is interesting as showing the prevalence of tobacco-smoking as early as 1621; Venner ​upbraids those who ‘cannot travel without a tobacco-pipe at their mouth,’ and who smoke between the courses at meals. Venner died at Bath on 27 March 1660, and was buried in the south aisle of St. Peter's Church, where a ‘massie monument of free-stone,’ with an effigy, was erected to his memory (cf. Pepys, Diary, ed. Braybrooke, iv. 471). ‘He lived to see both his wives and all his children die before him, and left his estate to the relations by his second wife, now in Bath’ (Guidott, Lives and Characters of the Physicians of Bath, 1676, pp. 168–73). Two sons, John and Tobias, graduated in medicine at Oxford (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Gardiner, Reg. of Wadham. i. 62). A portrait, engraved by Faithorne, dated 1660, ‘ætat. suæ 85,’ is prefixed to the 1660 edition of the ‘Via Recta.’
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Venner, Thomas

​VENNER, THOMAS (d. 1661), plotter, a cooper by trade, was admitted a freeman of Massachusetts in March 1637–8 (Winthrop, Hist. of Massachusetts, ed. 1853, ii. 448). He returned to England, and became one of the preachers of the Fifth-monarchy men (Thurloe, v. 272). In April 1657 the Protector's government discovered a plot headed by him for a rising of Fifth-monarchy men in London. A declaration meant to be published by the insurrectionists, and their standard bearing a red lion couchant, with the motto ‘Who shall rouse him up?’ were seized, and exhibited to the parliament by Secretary Thurloe (Commons' Journals, vii. 521; Ludlow, Memoirs, ed. 1894, ii. 38). In Thurloe's narrative to the house he said: ‘The chief and leader of them is one Venner, that was a wine cooper, and about two years since had a place in the Tower, from whence he was removed, being observed to be a fellow of desperate and bloody spirit, and was suspected to have designs to blow up the Tower with powder. … He had also spake at the same time very desperate words concerning the murdering of his Highness' (Thurloe, vi. 163, 185). On 9 April Venner was sent to the Tower, and he was still in confinement there in February 1659 (ib. vi. 188, vii. 598).
When released he returned to his old trade of preaching, and on the night of 6 Jan. 1661, after exhorting his adherents in their meeting-house in Coleman Street, set forth with about fifty men to overthrow the government and set up the Fifth monarchy. Their watchword was ‘The King Jesus, and the heads upon the gates.’ After a skirmish with the trained bands in the city they retired to Highgate, and thence to Caen Wood. On 9 Jan. they appeared again in the city, and those who were not killed were captured by the king's guards in Wood Street, after a very sharp fight (Kennet, Register, pp. 354, 356; Baker, Chronicle, ed. Phillips, p. 756; Pepys, Diary, 10 Jan. 1661; Mackinnon, Coldstream Guards, i. 98). The prisoners were tried on 17 Jan. at the Old Bailey, before Chief-justice Foster, and Venner was hanged and quartered before his meeting-house in Coleman Street on 19 Jan. (Somers Tracts, ed. Scott, vii. 812; State Trials, vi. 106; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, p. 471).
A portrait of Venner is given in Pagitt's ‘Heresiography,’ 1662.
C. H. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Steggall, Charles

​STEGGALL, CHARLES (1826–1905), organist and composer, son of Robert William Steggall, was born in London on 3 June 1826. He was educated at the Royal Academy of Music, principally under Sir William Sterndale Bennett. In 1848, while still a student, he was appointed organist of Christ Chapel, Maida Vale, and in 1849 was consulted by Bennett as to the inauguration of the Bach Society, of which he was honorary secretary till its dissolution in 1870. He was appointed a professor of the organ at the Royal Academy of Music in 1851; and next year graduated Mus.Bac. and Mus.Doc. at Cambridge. In 1855 he was chosen the first organist of Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, being at the same time organist of Clapham grammar school, and in 1864 he became organist of Lincoln's Inn Chapel, where he remained till his death, though for the later years his son, William Reginald Steggall, usually discharged the duties. Between 1850 and 1870 he frequently lectured on musical subjects in London and the provinces. He was one of the founders of the Royal College of Organists in 1864, gave the inaugural lecture, and, with John Hullah and Edward John Hopkins, conducted the first examination in July 1866. In 1884 he joined the board of directors of the Royal Academy of Music; and when Principal Macfarren died, in 1887, he took his place until the election of ​a successor. He resigned his professorship at the Academy in 1903, after fifty-two years' service. He died in London on 7 June 1905. As a composer he is best known by his church music—hymn tunes, anthems, services, carols, chants, organ compositions and arrangements. He wrote an 'Instruction Book for the Organ' (1875) edited 'Church Psalmody' (1848) and six motets of Bach, and succeeded Dr. W. H. Monk as musical editor of 'Hymns Ancient and Modern' (1889).
[Musical Times, July 1905; Musical Herald, July 1905, with portrait; Grove's Dictionary of Music personal knowledge.]
J. C. H.