OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Strang, John (1795-1863)

​STRANG, JOHN (1795–1863), author of ‘Glasgow and its Clubs,’ was the son of a wine merchant in Glasgow, where he was born in 1795. He received a liberal education, and had special training in French and German. His father died when he was fourteen, leaving him a competency. In due time he succeeded to the business, for which he had but small liking. In 1817 he spent some time in France and Italy, which begot in him a deep love of continental travel. Presently, when at home, he began to contribute to periodicals tales and poems translated from French and German. His youthful translations from the German of Hoffmann and others, when collected into a volume, introduced him to men of letters in London and in France and Germany.
Having artistic as well as literary tastes, Strang sketched some of the outstanding features of Old Glasgow, and he detected the site which his zeal and advocacy ultimately secured for what became the picturesque Glasgow necropolis. In 1831 Strang made a long tour in Germany, writing thence many letters subsequently published. For the first six months of 1832 he edited the ‘Day,’ a literary paper, to which he contributed original articles and translations. In 1834 he was appointed city chamberlain of Glasgow, holding the office worthily for thirty years. He regulated the finances of the city, and helped to improve its architectural features. In recognition of his literary merit and public services, Glasgow University conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D. He spent his last summer in France and Germany, contributing to the ‘Glasgow Herald’ a series of letters from ‘an invalid in search of health.’ He died in Glasgow on 8 Dec. 1863. In December 1842 Strang married Elizabeth Anderson, daughter of a distinguished Glasgow physician, Dr. William Anderson. She survived him.
As ‘Geoffrey Crayon,’ Strang published in 1830 ‘A Glance at the Exhibition of Works of Living Artists, under the Patronage of the Glasgow Dilettante Society.’ In 1831 appeared his pamphlet, ‘Necropolis Glasguensis,’ advocating the site of the new garden cemetery. In 1836 he published, in two octavo volumes, his acute and observant ‘Germany in 1831,’ which soon reached a second edition. Besides reading before the British Association at various meetings papers on the city and harbour of Glasgow, he prepared for the corporation elaborate and accurate reports on the ‘Vital Statistics of Glasgow,’ and on the census of the city as shown in 1841, 1851, and 1861; and he wrote the article ‘Glasgow’ for the eighth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’ His most important work is ‘Glasgow and its Clubs,’ 1855. This is a valuable record of the society and manners of western Scotland in the second half of the eighteenth century. It speedily ran through several editions. In 1863 appeared ‘Travelling Notes of an Invalid in Search of Health,’ the preface to which Strang wrote ten days before his death.
[Glasgow Herald, 9 Dec. 1863; Irving's Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Strange, Richard

​STRANGE, RICHARD (1611–1682), jesuit, born in Northumberland in 1611, entered the Society of Jesus in 1631, and was professed of the four vows on 21 Nov. 1646. After teaching classics in the college of the English jesuits at St. Omer, he was sent to Durham district in 1644, and about 1651 was removed to the London mission, in which he laboured for many years. In 1671 he was appointed rector of the house of tertians at Ghent. He was in 1674 declared provincial of his order in this country, and he held that office for three years. His name figures in Titus Oates's list of jesuits, and also in the narrative of Father Peter Hamerton. Having escaped to the continent in 1679, he became one of the consultors of father John Warner, the provincial, and died at St. Omer on 7 April 1682.
His principal work is ‘The Life and Gests of S. Thomas Cantilvpe, Bishop of Hereford, and some time before L. Chancellor of England. Extracted out of the authentique Records of his Canonization as to the maine part, Anonymous, Matt. Paris, Capgrave, Harpsfeld, and others. Collected by R.S.S.I.,’ Ghent, 1674, 8vo, pp. 333. A reprint forms vol. xxx. of the ‘Quarterly Series,’ London, 1879, 8vo. Strange translated one of Nieremberg's works, ‘Of Adoration in Spirit and Truth,’ Antwerp, 1673, 8vo; and left in manuscript ‘Tractatus de septem gladiis, seu doloribus, Beatæ Virginis Mariæ.’
[De Backer's Bibl. des Écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus (1876), iii. 960; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 313; Foley's Records, v. 623, vii. 743; Oliver's Collections S. J., p. 199; Southwell's Bibl. Scriptorum Soc. Jesu, p. 719.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicol, Alexander

​NICOL, ALEXANDER (fl. 1739–1766), Scottish poet, was, according to his own statement, the son of a packman, and was left fatherless at the age of six. Although only one year at school, he succeeded in so far educating himself that, after for some time following the occupation of packman, he became teacher of English at Abernyte, Perthshire. Afterwards he settled at Collace, Perthshire. He published ‘Nature without Art: or Nature's Progress in Poetry, being a Collection of Miscellaneous Poems,’ 1739; and ‘Nature's Progress in Poetry, being a Collection of Serious Poems,’ 1739. These volumes were reprinted in one volume in 1766, under the title ‘Poems on Several Subjects, both comical and serious.’
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicol, James (1769-1819)

​NICOL, JAMES (1769–1819), poet, son of Michael Nicol, was born on 28 Sept. 1769 at Innerleithen, Peeblesshire. Receiving his elementary education at the parish school, and originally destined to be a shoemaker, he qualified at Edinburgh University for the ministry of the church of Scotland. After acting as tutor in private families he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Peebles (25 March 1801); became assistant to John Walker, parish minister of Traquair, near Innerleithen (15 May 1802), and succeeded to the charge, on the death of the incumbent, on 4 Nov. following. In the same year he married Agnes, sister of his predecessor, whose virtues he had previously celebrated in verse. Besides contributing poems to the ‘Edinburgh Magazine,’ Nicol, who was a close student of ecclesiastical history and forms, wrote various articles for the ‘Edinburgh Encyclopædia.’ In matters of law and medicine he was an authority among his parishioners; he regulated their disputes, and a knowledge of medicine acquired at the university enabled him to vaccinate and to prescribe satisfactorily for ordinary ailments. In 1808 he founded the first friendly society at Innerleithen. Owing to changes in his religious views he contemplated resigning his charge, when he died, after a short illness, on 5 Nov. 1819. By his wife, who survived till 19 March 1845, he had three sons and three daughters; his son James became professor of civil and natural history in Marischal College, Aberdeen.
Nicol published at Edinburgh in 1805, in two volumes 12mo, ‘Poems, chiefly in the ​Scottish Dialect,’ and he is represented in Whitelaw's ‘Book of Scottish Song,’ 1844. He has a good grasp of the Scottish idiom; his estimate of character is penetrating, and his idyllic sense is pure. Burns is doubtless responsible for much of his inspiration. ‘An Essay on the Nature and Design of Scripture Sacrifice’ appeared in London in 1823.
[Rogers's Scottish Minstrel; Whitelaw's Book of Scottish Song; Hew Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. pt. i. p. 258.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicolas

​NICOLAS. [See also Nicholas.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicol, John

​NICOL or NICOLL, JOHN (fl. 1590–1667), diarist, was, according to statements in his ‘Diary,’ born and brought up in Glasgow, the year of his birth being probably 1590. He became writer to the signet and notary public in Edinburgh, where he seems to have enjoyed the confidence of the covenanting party. Not improbably he was the John Nicoll who was nominated as clerk to the general assembly at Glasgow in November 1638, when Sir Archibald Johnstone [q. v.] of Warriston was elected. Wodrow, who in his ‘Sufferings of the Kirk’ makes large use of the manuscript of Nicoll, described it in the list of his papers as ‘The Journals of John Nicol, writer to the signet, containing some account of our Scots Kings, with some Extracts as to China and the West Indies, and a Chronicle from Fergus the ffirst to 1562. And an Abbreviāt of Matters in Scotland from that time to 1637; from which it contains full and large accounts of all the Occurrences in Scotland, with the Proclamations and Public Papers every year. Vol. i. from 1637 to 1649, original; vol. ii. from 1650 to 1657.’ Vol. i. has been lost. Vol. ii. was purchased for the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, and was printed by the Bannatyne Club in 1836, under the title ‘A Diary of Public Transactions and other Occurrences, chiefly in Scotland, from June 1650 to June 1667.’ The ‘Diary’ seems to have been composed partly from notes of what happened within his immediate experience, and partly from accounts in the newspapers and public intelligencers of the time. His political bias varies with the changes of the government, the proceedings and conduct of those in power being always placed in the best light. He probably died not long after 1667.
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Staunton, Francis French

​STAUNTON, FRANCIS FRENCH (1779?–1825), lieutenant-colonel, born about 1779, went to India as a cadet in 1797, and was commissioned an ensign in the Bombay army on 21 Sept. 1798, He became lieutenant on 6 March 1800, and captain on 18 June 1807. He served in the Mysore war, including the storming of Seringapatam, and in the campaign of 1801 in Egypt, receiving medals for both. But his claim to remembrance is his conduct in the action of Korigaum, in which he repulsed the army of the peshwa, Baji Rao, on 1 Jan. 1818. He was ordered from Seroor to Poona to reinforce Colonel Burr with five hundred men of the 2nd battalion 1st Bombay native infantry—his own regiment—three hundred regular horse, and twenty-four men of the Madras artillery with two 6-pounders. After a night march of twenty-seven miles he reached the Bhima a 10 a.m., and found the army of the peshwa drawn up on the opposite side. It consisted of five thousand foot and twenty-five thousand horse. He threw his men into the village of Korigaum, and there they fought all day without food or water. Many of the houses were set on fire by the enemy, who had guns and rockets, and succeeded in gaining possession of put of the village. The British troops (all native except the artillery) lost nearly two hundred men in killed and wounded, including six out of the seven English officers, but they held out till night. Next morning they found that the peshwa had retreated upon news of the approach of reinforcements. A stone obelisk still marks the spot. The battalion was made a grenadier battalion, and Staunton was nominated CB. and aide-de-camp to the governor-general. He was promoted major on 15 April 1819, and lieutenant-colonel on 28 Sept. 1823. He died on board the Florentia on 25 June 1825.
E. M. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Staveley, Thomas

​STAVELEY, THOMAS (1626–1684), antiquary, son of William Staveley, rector of Cossington, Leicestershire, by his wife Anne, daughter of Thomas Babington of Rothley, was born at East Langton, Leicestershire, in 1626. He was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, admitted of the Inner Temple on 2 July 1647, and called to the bar on 12 June 1654. He resided the greatest part of his life at Belgrave, but a few years before his death removed to Leicester; he there held the office of steward of the court of records, to which he was appointed in 1672, probably by the Earl of Huntingdon. The stimulus given to protestant opinion by the conversion of James, duke of York, to Romanism (avowed in 1669), the Declaration of Indulgence (1672), and the countermove of the Test Act of 1673, elicited from Staveley in 1674 the work by which he is best known, ‘The Romish Horseleech: or an Impartial Account of the Intolerable Charge of Popery to this Nation’ (London, 8vo). To the 1769 edition of this work is annexed ​an essay by Staveley ‘of the supremacy of the king of England.’
During the later years of his life Staveley studied English history and the antiquities of his native county. He left some valuable collections for the history and antiquities of Leicester, which were printed by Nichols, first in his ‘Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica,’ and afterwards, with a curious historical pedigree of Staveley's family drawn up in 1682, in his ‘History of Leicestershire.’ He was a justice of the peace for Leicestershire, and was reputed to be ‘strictly just, abhorring bribery.’
Staveley died at Leicester on 2 Jan. 1683–4, at the age of fifty-seven, and was buried in St. Mary's Church, Leicester, on the 8th. His monumental inscription is given in Nichols's ‘History’ (i. 318), as well as an engraved portrait (ii. 678). He married, at Cossington, Leicestershire, on 31 Dec. 1656, Mary, daughter of John Onebye of Hinckley, by whom he had three sons and four daughters. His wife died on 12 Oct. 1669.
After his death were published: 1. ‘Three Historical Essays,’ published by his youngest son in 1703. 2. ‘The History of Churches in England; wherein is shown the time, means, and manner of founding, building, and endowing of churches, both cathedral and rural, with their furniture and appendages,’ 1712 (a second edition, with improvements, in 1773); a work of research and learning. Manuscript copies of ‘The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Town, and once City, of Leicester,’ are in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 15917) and in the Leicester Free Library.
W. G. D. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Statham, Nicholas

1904 Errata appended.
​STATHAM, NICHOLAS (fl. 1467), lawyer is stated to have been born at Morley, Derbyshire (Ashmolean MS. 816, where he is called John). He was reader of Lincoln's Inn in Lent term 1471. On 30 Oct. 1467 he received a patent for the reversion as second baron of the exchequer on the death of John Clerke. Clerke was certainly alive in 1471, but there was no mention of either him or Statham between that date and 3 Feb. 1481, when Thomas Whittington was made second baron. Consequently it is not known whether Statham ever obtained the office. Statham's name is never mentioned in the year-books, but he is credited with an abridgment of the cases reported in them in the reign of Henry VI, which is the earliest work of the kind now extant, Statham's abridgment was printed by R. Pynson as 'Epitome Annalium Librorum tempore Henrici Sexti,' London [1495?], 4to; other editions appeared in 1585 and 1679 (Brit. Mus. Cat.)
[Dugdale's Orig. pp. 58. 247. 257; Fuller's Worthies; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 590; Foss's Judges of England.]
C. L. K.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.258 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 112 | i | 4 | Statham, Nicholas: for (fl. 1467) read (d. 1472) |
| | | 12 | after no mention insert in records of judicial appointments |
| | | 16 | after the office. insert He was member for Old Sarum in the parliament of June 1467. His will, dated 15 July 1472, was proved on 5 August following (cf. Skottowe, Short History of Parliament, p. 14). |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Staunton, Hervey de

​STAUNTON, HERVEY de (d. 1327), judge, was son of Sir William de Staunton of Staunton, Nottinghamshire, by Athelina, daughter and coheiress of John de Masters of Bosingham, Lincolnshire (Thornton, Nottinghamshire, i. 305). He seems to have held the living of Soham, Norfolk, as early as 1289: afterwards he held the livings of Thurston and Werbeton, and about 1306, on being ordained priest, received the living of East Derham (Bliss, Cal. Pap. Reg. ii. 19). In November 1300 there is mention of him as going to the court of Rome (Cat. Pat. Rolls, Edward I, 1292-1301, p. 556). He was a justice itinerant in Cornwall in 1302 and in Durham in I303. In the parliament of September 1305 he was a receiver of petitions from Ireland and Guernsey (Rolls of Parliament, i. 159), and on 20 April 1306 was appointed one of the judges of the common pleas. On the accession of Edward II, Staunton was reappointed to the common pleas, and is frequently mentioned In judicial commissions (Calendars of Close Rolls and Patent Rolls). On 28 Sept. 1314 he was appointed one of the barons of the exchequer, and on 22 June 1316 chancellor of the exchequer, but continued to act as a judge, and was regularly summoned to parliament with the other judges (Parl. Writs, ii. 1457). In 1323 he was made chief justice of the king's bench, and directed to discharge his duties ​at the exchequer by a substitute (Dugdale, Orig. p. 38; Madox, Hist. Exchequer, ii. 53). On 27 March 1324 Staunton resigned the chief-justiceship, and on 26 March was reappointed chancellor of the exchequer. He resigned the latter post on 16 July 1326, when he was appointed chief justice of the common pleas (Parl. Writs, ii. pp. ii, 1458). Staunton seems to have sided with Edward II, and in September Queen Isabells seized eight hundred marks which he had deposited at Bury St. Edmunds (Chr. Edw. I and Edw. II, i. 314). He was not reappointed on the accession of Edward III, and the proceedings of an iter he had held at London were reversed (ib. i. 328; Cal. Pat. Rolls,Edward III, i. 2). As prebend of Husthwaite, York, and parson of East Derham, he is mentioned as receiving protection on 30 Jan. and 11 Feb. 1327 (ib. i. 1, 10). On 2 March he had license to alienate in mortmain the manor and advowson of Barenton to the masters and scholars of St. Michael, Cambridge (ib. i. 25). Staunton died in 1327, before he could give effect to his foundation, and the license was renewed to his executors (ib. i. 232, 319, 366, ii. 146). He was buried in the church of St. Michael, Cambridge. His foundation of Michael House was eventually absorbed in Trinity College, where Staunton is still commemorated as a benefactor.
[Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II (Rolls Ser.); Calendars of Close and Patent Rolls, Edward II and Edward III; Foss's Judges of England; Mullinger's Hist. University of Cambridge, i. 234-6,]
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stewart, James (1476?-1504)

​STEWART, JAMES, Duke of Ross (1476?–1504), archbishop of St. Andrews and lord high chancellor of Scotland, son of James III, by Margaret, daughter of Christian III of Denmark, was born about 1476, and at his baptism was created Marquis of Ormond. On 23 Jan. 1480–1 he obtained a grant of the earldom of Ross, with the castle of Dingwall (Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1424–1513, No. 1457), and on 5 April 1481 of the lands of Brechin and Navar (ib. No. 1470). On 23 Jan. 1488 he was created Duke of Ross, Marquis of Ormond, Earl of Edirdale, and lord of Brechin and Navar (Acta Parl. Scot. ii. 181). A plot was formed in April 1491 by Sir John Ramsay, earl of Bothwell [q. v.], for the deliverance of the Duke of Ross and his brother, James IV, into the hands of Henry VII, but it came to nothing. In 1498 the duke was appointed to the see of St. Andrews, and went to Rome to be confirmed by the pope. There his appearance attracted the admiration of Ariosto, who in ‘Orlando Furioso’ (canto x.), while describing him as peerless in personal beauty and grace, refers in terms of almost equal but formal eulogy to his dauntless mind. In 1502 he was appointed lord high chancellor of Scotland, and had a grant of the abbacy of Dunfermline. He died in 1504, and was interred in the chancel of the cathedral church of St. Andrews. The title of Duke of Ross was next bestowed on Alexander, posthumous son of James IV, who was born on 30 April 1514, and died on 18 Dec. 1515.
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stewart, James (1791-1863)

​STEWART, JAMES (1791–1863), engraver, was born at Edinburgh in October or November 1791. He was articled to Robert Scott [q. v.] the engraver, and had as his fellow pupil John Burnet [q. v.], from whom he received much assistance; he also studied drawing in the Trustees' Academy, and became a very able line engraver. Stewart's first independent plate was from Sir William Allan's ‘Tartar Robbers dividing the Spoil,’ which was followed by ‘Circassian Captives,’ 1820; ‘The Murder of Archbishop Sharpe,’ 1824; and ‘Queen Mary signing her Abdication,’ all from paintings by Allan. He then became associated with David Wilkie, for whom he executed, with several minor works, an admirable plate of the ‘Penny Wedding.’ On the foundation of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1826 he became an original member. In 1830 Stewart removed to London, where he engraved ‘The Pedlar,’ after Wilkie, and ‘Hide and Seek,’ from a picture painted by himself in the style of Wilkie, which was exhibited at the British Institution in 1829. In 1833 he was induced by financial embarrassment to abandon his profession and emigrate to Cape Colony; there he settled as a farmer, but within a year lost everything through the outbreak of the Kaffir war. He then went to reside in the town of Somerset, where, by teaching and portrait-painting, he earned the means of purchasing another property. He subsequently became a magistrate and a member of the legislature, and died in the colony in May 1863.
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Tilney, John

​TILNEY, JOHN (fl. 1430), Carmelite friar, seems to have had some connection with the Grey Friars of Colchester, and is said to have been ordained acolyte on 19 Sept. 1405 (Tanner, Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 713 n.) He was doctor of theology of Cambridge and a teacher and disputant of some note there. He took the vows at Yarmouth, where he became prior of the Carmelite house. An entry in the Lincoln register under 26 March 1474 of the probate of the will of one John Tylney does not in all probability concern the Carmelite friar (ib. p. 714; Bradshaw, Statutes of Lincoln, ii. 459, 467, 489; but cf. Le Neve, Fasti, ii. 185). ​Tilney seems to have attained special distinction as an exponent of the scriptures, and wrote several treatises, of which the titles were, according to Bale, ‘In Sententias,’ ‘In Apocalypsin,’ ‘Lecturæ Scholasticæ,’ and ‘Conciones.’ Only the last is now known to be extant. It is in Gonville and Caius College MS. i. 9, and is an exposition of the Gospel of St. John. Bale points out the reforming tendency of the teaching of the ‘In Apocalypsin,’ no copy of which is now known.
A. M. C.-e.