OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Askwith, George Ranken Askwith, 1st Baron

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ASKWITH, GEORGE RANKEN ASKWITH, 1st Baron (1861-), English lawyer and civil servant, was born at Morley, Yorks, Feb. 17 1861, and was educated at Marlborough and Brasenose College, Oxford. He was called to the bar in 1886 (K.C. 1908), and in 1899 was one of the counsel in the Venezuelan arbitration case. In 1907 he entered the railways section of the Board of Trade as assistant secretary, and in 1909 was appointed comptroller-general of the Commercial, Labour and Statistical Departments of the Board of Trade. He acted as arbitrator in many industrial disputes, and in 1911 was created K.C.B. in recognition of his valuable work in that capacity. In 1911 he became chairman of the recently constituted Industrial Council, in 1912 he made a special report for the Government on the Canadian labour laws, and in 1915 was appointed chairman of the Government Arbitration Committee under the Munitions of War Acts, holding this post till 1917. On the Committee of Production he did important work for the Government. In 1919 he retired from his position as chief industrial commissioner, and was raised to the peerage. His wife, whom he married in 1908, was a daughter of Archibald Peel, nephew of the statesman Sir Robert Peel, and the widow of Maj. Henry
Graham (d. 1907). During the World War she was an active and energetic member of the Central Committee on Women's Employment, and was created C.B.E. in 1918.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Woffington, Margaret

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​WOFFINGTON, MARGARET (Peg) (c. 1714-1760), English actress, was born at Dublin, of poor parents. As a child of ten she played Polly Peachum in a lilliputian presentation of The Beggar's Opera, and danced and acted at various Dublin theatres until 1740, when her success as Sir Harry Wildair in The Constant Couple secured her a London engagement. In this, and as Sylvia in The Recruiting Officer, she had a pronounced success; and at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, as well as in Dublin, she appeared in all the plays of the day to ever growing popularity. Among her best impersonations were the elegant women of fashion, like Lady Betty Modish and Lady Townley, and in "breeches parts" she was unapproachable. She lived openly with Garrick, and her other love affairs were numerous and notorious, but her generosity and kindness of heart were equally well known. She educated her sister Mary, and cared for and pensioned her mother. She built and endowed by will some almshouses at Teddington, where she lived quietly after her retirement in 1757.
See Austin Dobson's introduction to Charles Reade's novel Peg Woffington (London, 1899), and Augustin Daly's Woffington: a Tribute to the Actress and the Woman (1888).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wochua

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​WOCHUA (Achua), a pygmy people of Africa, living in the forests of the Mabode district, south of the Welle. They were discovered (1880–1883) by Dr. W. Junker, who described them as “well proportioned, though the oval-shaped head seemed somewhat too large for the size of the body.” Some are of light complexion, like the Akka and Batwa, but as a general rule they belong to the darker, crisper-haired, more genuine negro stock.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Woelfl, Joseph

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​WOELFL, JOSEPH (1772-1812), Austrian pianist and composer, was born in 1772 at Salzburg, where he studied music under Leopold Mozart and Michael Haydn. After a short residence at Warsaw he produced his first opera, Der Höllenberg, with some success at Vienna, where it was soon followed by Das schöne Milchmädchen and some other dramatic pieces. His fame now rests upon his compositions for the pianoforte, and the skill with which he is said to have met their formidable demands upon his power as an executant. The perfection of his technique was immeasurably enhanced by the enormous stretch of his fingers (his hand could strike a thirteenth with case); and to his wide grasp of the keyboard he owed a facility of execution which he turned to excellent account, especially in his extempore performances. His technique was superior even to that of the young Beethoven, who played in company with him at the house of Count Wetzlar, and in memory of this exhibition of good-humoured rivalry he dedicated to Beethoven his "Three Sonatas," Op. 6. Quitting Vienna in 1798, he exhibited his skill in most of the great European capitals, and, after spending some years in Paris, made his first appearance in London on the 27th of May 1805. Here he enjoyed a long term of popularity, crowned about 1808 by the publication of his sonata, Op. 41, containing some variations on "Life let us cherish." This, on account of its technical difficulty, he entitled Non Plus Ultra; and, in reply to the challenge, Dussek's London publishers reprinted a sonata by that composer, originally called Le Retour à Paris, with the title Plus Ultra, and an ironical dedication to Non Plus Ultra. Woelfl died in Great Marylebone. Street, London, on the 21st of May 1812.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wokingham

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​WOKINGHAM, a market town and municipal borough in the Wokingham parliamentary division of Berkshire, England, 36 m. W. by S. of London by the South-Western railway, served also by the South-Eastern and Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 3551. It lies on a slight eminence above a valley tributary to that of the river Loddon, in a well-wooded district on the outskirts of the former royal forest of Windsor. The church of St Laurence is Perpendicular, greatly altered by restoration. Two miles west of the town is the village of Bearwood. The trade of Wokingham is principally agricultural. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 557 acres.
Wokingham (Wokyngham, Oakingham, Ockingham), which was within the limits of Windsor Forest, was formerly situated partly in Berkshire and partly in a detached piece of Wiltshire, which is now annexed to Berkshire, the Berkshire portion of the town was in the manor of Sonning, which was held by the bishops of Salisbury from before the Conquest until the reign of Elizabeth. The earliest existing charter to Wokingham is that of Elizabeth (1583), which recites and confirms some ancient customary privileges respecting the election of an alderman and other corporate officers. The governing charter for more than 250 years was that of James I (1612), incorporating it as a free town under the title of the "Alderman and Burgesses of the Town of Wokingham in the Counties of Berks and Wilts."
Under the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1882 a new charter of incorporation was granted, instituting a municipal body to consist of a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors.
Wokingham was assessed at £50 for ship-money, Reading being assessed at £220. It had at this time a manufacture of silk stockings, which flourished as early as 1625, and survived up to the 19th century. The town shared in the benefactions of Laud, whose father was born there. The Tuesday market, which is still held and which, during the first half of the 19th century, was famous for poultry, was granted to the bishop of Salisbury by Henry III. (1219), who also granted (1258) two annual fairs to be held on the vigil, day and morrow of St Barnabas and All Saints respectively; the latter is still kept up, the former appears in the list of fairs held in 1792.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Woden

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​WODEN, a deity of the Anglo-Saxons, the name being the Anglo-Saxon counterpart of the Scandinavian Odin (q.v.). In German the same god was called Wodan or Wuotan. Owing ​to the very small amount of information which has come down to us regarding the gods of ancient England and Germany, it cannot be determined how far the character and adventures attributed to Odin in Scandinavian mythology were known to other Teutonic peoples. It is clear, however, that the god was credited with special skill in magic, both in England and Germany, while the story of the Langobardic migration (see Lombards) represents him as the dispenser of victory. From Woden also most of the anglo-Saxon royal families traced their descent. By the Romans he was identified at an early date with Mercurius, whence our name "Wednesday" (Woden's day) as a translation of dies Mercurii. Tacitus states that the ancient Germans worshipped Mercurius more than any other god, and that they offered him human sacrifices. Many scholars connect the origin of the deity with the popular German and Swedish belief in a raging host (in Germany called das wütende Heer or Wutes Heer, but in Sweden Odens Jagt), which passes through the forests on stormy nights. There is evidence, however, that deities similar to Woden were known to some of the ancient peoples of central Europe, e.g. the Gauls and Thracians. See Teutonic Peoples, ad fin. (H.M.C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wohlgemuth, Michael

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​WOHLGEMUTH, MICHAEL (1434-1519), German painter, was born at Nuremberg in 1434. Little is known of his private life beyond the fact that in 1472 he married the widow of the painter Hans Pleydenwurff, whose son Wilhelm worked as an assistant to his stepfather. The importance of Wohlgemuth as an artist rests, not only on his own individual paintings, but also on the fact that he was the head of a large workshop, in which many different branches of the fine arts were carried on by a great number of pupil-assistants, including Albert Dürer. In this atelier not only large altar-pieces and other sacred paintings were executed, but also elaborate retables in carved wood, consisting of crowded subjects in high relief, richly decorated with gold and colour, such as pleased the rather doubtful Teutonic taste of that time. Wood-engraving was also carried on in the same workshop, the blocks being cut from Wohlgemuth's designs, many of which are remarkable for their vigour and clever adaptation to the special necessities of the technique of woodcutting. Two large and copiously illustrated books have woodcuts supplied by Wohlgemuth and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. The first is the Schatzkammer der wahren Reichthümer des Heils, printed by Koburger in 1491; the other is the Historia mundi, by Schedel, 1493-1494, usually known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, which is highly valued, not for the text, but for its remarkable collection of spirited engravings.
The earliest known work by Wohlgemuth is a retable consisting of four panels, dated 1465, now in the Munich gallery, a decorative work of much beauty. In 1479 he painted the retable of the high altar in the church of St Mary at Zwickau, which still exists, receiving for it the large sum of 1400 gulden. One of his finest and largest works is the great retable painted for the church of the Austin friars at Nuremberg, now moved into the museum; it consists of a great many panels, with figures of those saints whose worship was specially popular at Nuremberg. In 1501 Wohlgemuth was employed to decorate the town hall at Goslar with a large series of paintings; some on the ceiling are on panel, and others on the walls are painted thinly in tempera on canvas. As a portrait-painter he enjoyed much repute, and some of his works of this class are very admirable for their realistic vigour and minute finish. Outside Germany Wohlgemuth's paintings are scarce: the Royal Institution at Liverpool possesses two good examples—"Pilate washing his Hands," and "The Deposition from the Cross," parts probably of a large altarpiece. During the last ten years of his life Wohlgemuth appears to have produced little by his own hand. One of his latest paintings is the retable at Schwabach, executed in 1508, the contract for which still exists. He died at Nuremberg in 1519.
See the reproductions in Die Gemälde von Dürer und Wohlgemuth, by Riehl and Thode (Nuremberg, 1889-1895).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wodrow, Robert

* related authors: Robert Wodrow.
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​WODROW, ROBERT (1679-1754), Scottish historian, was born at Glasgow, being a son of James Wodrow, professor of divinity. He was educated at the university and was librarian from 1697 to 1701. From 1703 till his death, on the 21st of March 1734, he was parish minister at Eastwood, near Glasgow. He had sixteen children, his son Patrick being the "auld Wodrow" of Burns's poem "Twa Herds." His great work, The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution, was published in two volumes in 1721-1722 (new ed. with a life of Wodrow by Robert Burns, D.D., 1807-1808). Wodrow also wrote a Life (1828) of his father. He left two other works in MS.—Memoirs of Reformers and Ministers of the Church of Scotland, and Analecta: or Materials for a History of Remarkable Providences, mostly relating to Scotch Ministers and Christians. Of the former, two volumes were published by the Maitland Club in 1834-1845 and one volume by the New Spalding Club in 1890; the latter was published in four volumes by the Maitland Club in 1842-1843.
Wodrow left a great mass of correspondence, three volumes of which, edited by T. M'Crie, appeared in 1843-1844. The Wodrow Society, founded in Edinburgh to perpetuate his memory, was in existence from 1841 to 1847, several works being published under its auspices.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Woking

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​WOKING, a market town in the Chertsey parliamentary division of Surrey, England, 24 m. S.W. of London by the London and South-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1891) 9786; (1901) 16,244. The river Wey and the Basingstoke canal pass through the parish. St Peter's church dates from the 13th century. Modern structures include a public hall, and an Oriental institute (in the building erected for the Royal Dramatic College, including a museum of Eastern antiquities, a mosque, and residences for Orientals). In the vicinity are the Surrey county asylum and a female convict prison. Near Woking is Brookwood cemetery, belonging to the London Necropolis Company, with a crematorium.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peñiscola

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​PEÑISCOLA, a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Castellón de la Plana, and on the Mediterranean Sea, 5 m. by road S. of Benicarló Pop. (1900), 3142. Peñiscola, often called the Gibraltar of Valencia, is a fortified seaport, with a lighthouse, built on a rocky headland about 220 ft. high, and only joined to the mainland by a narrow strip of sand. Originally a Moorish stronghold, it was captured in 1233 by James I. of Aragon, who entrusted it to the Knights Templar. In the 14th century it was garrisoned by the knights of Montesa, and in 1420 it reverted to the Crown. From 1415 it was the home of the schismatic pope Benedict XIII. (Pedro de Luna), whose name is commemorated in the Bufador de Papa Luna, a curious cavern with a landward entrance through which the sea-water escapes in clouds of spray.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Spontoon

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​SPONTOON (Fr. esponton, Ital. spontone, from Lat. punctum, point, pungere, to prick), a weapon carried by infantry officers in the 17th and early 18th centuries. It was a type of the partisan or halberd (q.v.), a shafted weapon with a special form of spear head.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sporades

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​SPORADES (Gr. Σποράδες, from σπείρειν, to sow), the islands scattered about the Greek Archipelago, as distinguished from the Cyclades, which are grouped round Delos, and from the islands attached, as it were, to the mainlands of Europe and Asia. Ancient and modern writers differ as to the list of the Sporades (see Bursian, Griechenland, ii. 348 seq.). The Doric Sporades—Melos, Pholegandros, Sikinos, Thera, Anaphe, Astropalia and Cos—were by some considered a southern cluster of the Cyclades. In modern times the name Sporades is more especially applied to two groups—the northern Sporades, which lie north-east of Negropont (Euboea), Skiathos, Skopelos and Ikos being included in the department of Magnesia and Scyros in that of Euboea; and the southern Sporades, lying off the south-west of Asia Minor, being included in the Turkish vilayet of the “Islands of the White Sea.” The northern, which have altogether an area of 180 sq. m. and a population of 12,250 (1896), comprise Skiathos (pop. 2790), Ikos (pop. 653), Skopelos (pop. 5295), Pelagonisi, Giura, Pipari and Scyros (pop. 3512), with the adjacent islets. Skiathos is a beautifully wooded and picturesque island; the town stands on a declivity surrounding an excellent harbour. The larger island of Skopelos is also well wooded. Almost every householder in both islands is the owner, joint owner or skipper of a sailing ship. The southern Sporades are as follows: Icaria, Patmos, Leros, Calymnus, Astropalia (Astypalaea or Stampalia), Cos (Stanko), Nisyros, Tilos or Episcopi, Syme, Khalki, Rhodes, Crete and many smaller isles. Icaria (pop. about 8000) derives its name from the legend of Icarus. The forests which it once possessed have been destroyed by the inhabitants for the manufacture of charcoal. Leros (pop. about 3000) was in ancient times a seat of the worship of Artemis. Calymnus (pop. about 7000) was once covered by forests—(Ovid, A. A. ii. 81, “silvis umbrosa Calymne”), which have disappeared. Nisyros (pop. about 2500) possesses hot sulphur springs.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sport

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​SPORT (a contracted or shortened form of “disport,” to amuse, divert oneself, O. Fr. se desporter or deporter, to leave off work, hence to play, Lat. dis-, away, and portare, to carry; the origin of the meaning lies in the notion of turning away from serious occupations, cf. “diversion”), play, amusement, entertainment or recreation. The term was applied in early times to all forms of pastime. It was, however, particularly used of out-of-door or manly recreations, such as shooting with the bow, hunting and the like. Modern usage has given several meanings to “sport” and “sports.” Generally speaking “sport” includes the out-of-door recreations, the “field-sports,” such as fishing, shooting, fox-hunting, &c., connected with the killing or hunting of animals as opposed to organized “games,” which are contests of skill or strength played according to rules. It also includes the special class of horse-racing, the votaries of which, and also of the prize-ring, have arrogated to themselves sometimes the name of “sportsman,” applying that word even to those who follow racing simply as an occasion for betting. On the other hand, the plural “sports” is generally confined to athletic contests such as running, jumping, &c. (see Athletic Sports and subsidiary articles).
In zoology and botany the word has a specific meaning of a sudden or singular variation from type, “diversion” in a more etymological sense of the term.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sporran

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​SPORRAN (Gaelic sporan, purse, pouch), a pouch which is worn, in Highland costume, hanging from the belt over the front of the kilt. The older sporrans were quite modest objects and ordinarily of leather; in modern Highland costume and in the uniform of Highland kilted regiments it has become a highly ornamental adjunct, with silver or metal rims, and a heavy long backing of horsehair or fur.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sports, The Book of

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​SPORTS, THE BOOK OF, or more properly the Declaration of Sports, an order issued by James I. in 1617 on the recommendation of Thomas Morton, bishop of Chester, for use in Lancashire, where the king on his return from Scotland found a conflict on the subject of Sunday amusements between the Puritans and the gentry, many of whom were Roman Catholics. Permission was given for dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting and other harmless recreations, and of “having of May games, Whitsun ales and morris dances, and the setting up of May-poles and other sports therewith used, so as the same may be had in due and convenient time without impediment or neglect of divine service, and that women shall have leave to carry rushes to church for the decorating of it.” On the other hand, “bear and bull-baiting, interludes, and (at all times in the meane sort of people by law prohibited) bowling” were not to be permitted on Sunday (Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 483). In 1618 James transmitted orders to the clergy of the whole of England to read the declaration from the pulpit; but so strong was the opposition that he prudently withdrew his command (Wilson, in Kennet, ii. 709; Fuller, Church History, v. 452). In 1633 Charles I. not only directed the republication of his father’s declaration (Rushworth, ii. 193) but insisted upon the reading of it by the clergy. Many of the clergy were punished for refusing to obey the injunction. With the fall of Laud all attempts to enforce it necessarily came to an end.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Spotswood, Alexander

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​SPOTSWOOD (Spottswood or Spottiswood), ALEXANDER (1676–1740), American colonial governor, was born, of an old Scotch family, in Tangier, Africa, in 1676. He served under Marlborough in the War of the Spanish Succession, and was wounded at Blenheim. He became lieutenant governor of Virginia in June 1710, when he was received with some enthusiasm, because he brought to the colony the privilege of habeas corpus; his term as governor closed in September 1722—probably because he meddled in ecclesiastical matters; but he remained in Virginia, living near his ironworks in Germanna, a settlement of Germans, on the Rapidan in Spottsylvania county (named in his honour) and he was deputy postmaster-general of the colonies from 1730 to 1739. He was the first representative of the British government in America who fully appreciated the value of the western territory. As governor he recommended the establishment of a Virginia company to carry on trade with the Indians, he urged upon the provincial government and also upon the British authorities the wisdom of constructing forts along the frontier, and he personally organized and conducted an exploring expedition (Aug. 17 to Sept. 20, 1716) into the Shenandoah Valley reaching the water-parting between the Atlantic and the Ohio river. These ambitious and expensive schemes, coupled with his haughty and overbearing conduct, involved him in a controversy with the rather niggardly House of Burgesses. He developed the iron industry of Virginia, promoted the religious education of the Indians and tried to advance the interests of education, and especially of the College of William and Mary. In 1740 he was commissioned major-general to conduct the expedition against Cartagena, but died while attending to the embarcation, at Annapolis, Maryland, on the 7th of June 1740. His library he left to the College of William and Mary.
See R. A. Brock (ed.), “The Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood” (with a memoir), in The Collections of the Virginia Historical Society (2 vols., Richmond, 1882–1885).