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

​DENTON, RICHARD (1603–1663), divine, was born in 1603 in Yorkshire, and lived at Priestley Green. He took his B.A. degree at Catharine Hall, Cambridge, 1623. He became minister of the chapel of Coley, near Coley Hall, ‘an ancient seat of the tenure commonly called St. John of Jerusalem’ (Oliver Heywood, iv. 9). Here he remained about seven years, when, finding the times hard, the bishops ‘at their height,’ and the ‘Book for Sports on the Sabbath-day’ insupportable, he emigrated with a numerous family to New England. He settled at Wethersfield in 1640, but finding himself in disagreement with other ministers there on the subject of church discipline, he removed to Stamford in 1644, whence he departed not long after to Hempstead, Long Island, where he died in 1663 (Savage, ii. 40). Cotton Mather, in his ‘Magnalia,’ gives a high-flown description of his eloquence and powers of persuasion, which he contrasts with the smallness of his stature and the blindness of one of his eyes. ‘His well-accomplished mind,’ says Mather, ‘in his lesser body was an Iliad in a nutshell.’ The same writer states that Denton wrote a system of divinity entitled ‘Soliloquia Sacra,’ descriptive of the fourfold state, which does not seem to have been published.
[Oliver Heywood's Autobiography, 1885; Savage's Dict. of Settlers in New England; Mather's Magnalia, or Ecclesiastical Hist. of New England, B. iii. 95.]
R. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Denton, Thomas (d.1789)

​DENTON, THOMAS (d. 1789), bookseller and artificer, was born in the North Riding of Yorkshire and was originally a tinman. He kept a bookseller's shop in York for some time, and coming to London about ​1780 made a speaking figure in imitation of one he had seen. This he showed about the country, and next contrived a writing figure. He is said to have been an amateur chemist, and in 1784 translated from the French ‘Physical Amusements and Diverting Experiments,’ by Signor Giuseppe Pinetti de Wildalle, a conjuror of the day. The book contains tricks in parlour magic of a very elementary kind. Denton made pentagraphs and other mathematical instruments, and carried on the business of silver plating with that of a bookseller's shop in Holborn. He, however, associated with a well-known coiner, and was himself tried for coining. The trial lasted seven hours. He was finally convicted of possessing coining implements, and was hanged before Newgate, with his accomplice, John Jones, and two others, 1 July 1789. He is reported to have been a ‘professed infidel,’ and to have behaved badly, which conduct he ‘continued to the very last.’
H. R. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Janeway, James

​JANEWAY, JAMES (1636?–1674), nonconformist divine, fourth son of William Janeway, and younger brother of John Janeway [q. v.], was born about the end of 1636 at Lilley, Hertfordshire, of which his father was curate. About 1655 he entered as a student at Christ Church, Oxford, and graduated B.A. on 12 Oct. 1659. He left the university at the Restoration, and lived in the house of Mrs. Stringer at Windsor, as tutor to her son George. Calamy includes him in his list of ‘ejected or silenced’ ministers, but furnishes no evidence that he had entered the ministry prior to the Uniformity Act of 1662. He seems to have first acted as a nonconformist preacher in London during the plague year, 1665, when several conventicles were opened. On the indulgence of 1672 a meeting-house was built for him in Jamaica Row, Rotherhithe, where he became very popular. After the withdrawal of the indulgence his meeting-house was wrecked by a band of troopers, but rebuilt on a larger scale. On two occasions Janeway escaped arrest. There was a tinge of religious melancholy in his character, and, like others of his family, he became consumptive. He died on 16 March 1674, ‘in the 38 yeare of his age,’ leaving a widow, Hannah, and was buried on 20 March in the church of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, near the grave of his brother Abraham. Funeral sermons were preached by Nathaniel Vincent and John Ryther. The portrait in Palmer's ‘Nonconformist's Memorial,’ 1803, iii. 511, is idealised from the emaciated visage which appears in an early print.
Janeway published, besides four single sermons, 1671–5:
* ‘Heaven upon Earth,’ &c., 1670, 8vo; 1677, 8vo.
* ‘A Token for Children … Account of the Conversion, holy and exemplary Lives and joyful Deaths of several young Children,’ &c., 1671, 8vo; 2nd part, 1672, 8vo (this extraordinary collection has been frequently reprinted, and still enjoys a reputation).
* ‘Invisibles, Realities … the Holy Life and … Death of Mr. John Janeway,’ &c., 1673, 8vo (with commendatory epistles by Richard Baxter and others [see Janeway, John]).
* ‘The Saints Encouragement,’ &c., 1673, 8vo.
Posthumous were:
* ‘Legacie to his Friends … instances of … Sea-dangers and Deliverances,’ &c., 1674, 8vo, 1675, 8vo (portrait; edited by Ryther).
* ‘Saints' Memorials; or Words Fitly Spoken,’ &c., 1674, 8vo (edited by Edmund Calamy, Joseph Caryl, and Ralph Venning).
[Funeral Sermons by Vincent, 1674, and Ryther, 1674; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 1006; Fasti, ii. 218; Calamy's Account, 1713, p. 838; Calamy's Continuation, 1727, ii. 962; Wilson's Dissenting Churches in London, 1814, iv. 346 sq.; Urwick's Nonconformity in Hertfordshire, 1884, pp. 658 sq.]
A. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Janiewicz, Felix

​JANIEWICZ, afterwards YANIEWICZ, FELIX (1762–1848), violinist and composer, was born at Vilna in Lithuania in 1762. He travelled in Europe, visiting Haydn and Mozart in Vienna about 1784, and spending three years in Italy. He made his début as a violinist at a Concert Spirituel, Paris, in December 1787, and was described in the ‘Mercure de France’ as a pupil of Jarnowick (Giornovichj). Janiewicz was immediately recognised by the Parisians as an artist of high rank. For a short time he enjoyed the pension of a musician on the establishment of Mlle. d'Orléans; but on the outbreak of the revolution he left France for London.
Janiewicz played at Corri's house in London in January 1792, and at Growetz's concert on 9 Feb., giving a benefit concert in the same month. He performed his violin concerto at the Saloman concerts of 17 Feb. and 3 May (for Haydn's benefit). During several seasons Janiewicz played in London, visited the provinces and Ireland as a violinist, and conducted the subscription concerts in Manchester and Liverpool. He was one of the original members of the London Philharmonic Society, and in the first season (1813) was one of the leaders of the orchestra. For a time he kept a music-warehouse at 25 Lord Street, Liverpool, and married Miss Breeze of that town in 1800. In 1815 he went to Edinburgh. He retired after 1829, and died at 84 Great King Street, Edinburgh, on 21 May 1848, aged 86.
Janiewicz was not only a brilliant soloist, but an excellent leader and a conductor of conspicuous ability. His style of playing was solid, yet full of expression, and his skill in octave passages admirable. Janiewicz published: 1. ‘Six Divertimentos for Two Violins,’ London, 1800? 2. ‘Sonata for the Pianoforte, with Accompaniment for the Violin,’ in which is introduced Handel's ‘Lord, remember David,’ London, 1800? 3. ‘Go, youth belov'd,’ song, Liverpool, 1810? 4. ‘Polish Rondo for Pianoforte,’ Liverpool, 1810? and many adaptations.
[Mercure de France, 1788, p. 37; Pohl's Haydn in London, p. 39; Parke's Musical Memoirs, p. 151; Kelly's Reminiscences, i. 230; Grove's Dict. of Music, ii. 30, iv. 685; Caledonian Mercury, 25 May 1848.]
L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Janssen, Bernard

​JANSSEN or JANSEN, BERNARD (fl. 1610–1630), stonemason and tombmaker, a native of Holland, was in all probability a pupil of Hendrik de Keyser, the great sculptor and tombmaker at Amsterdam. He is sometimes described as an architect and the designer of Northampton (afterwards North​umberland) House at Charing Cross, built for Henry Howard, earl of Northampton [q. v.], and of Audley Inn (now Audley End) in Essex, built for that nobleman's nephew, Thomas Howard, first earl of Suffolk [q. v.] It is more probable that he was only the master mason who carried out the designs of Moses Glover [q. v.] in the former case and of John Thorpe [q. v.] in the latter. In 1615 he and Nicholas Stone [q. v.] were engaged on the tomb of Thomas Sutton in the Charterhouse, and they executed other commissions jointly, including a tomb for Sir Nicholas Bacon and his wife in Redgrave Church, Suffolk. It would appear that Stone contributed the portrait figures. The same artists were employed between 1617 and 1620 to erect in the church at Bergen-op-Zoom in Holland a monument to Marcel Bax, governor of that town. Bax's widow, who had married Sir David Balfour, an English commander, gave the commission. This church was totally destroyed in the bombardment of 1745. In 1626 Janssen designed the triumphal arch erected by the members of the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, on the accession of Charles I. Janssen is described as a native of Southwark. There resided at the same date in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, Southwark, near the Globe Theatre, Geraert Janssen or Gerard Johnson (fl. 1616), who was also a tombmaker, and possibly Bernard's brother. He is noteworthy as having executed in 1616 the portrait bust of Shakespeare in the church at Stratford-on-Avon. In 1593 it was stated that a tombmaker of the name (see Diary of Sir W. Dugdale, edited by W. Hamper, appendix) was a native of Amsterdam, had lived twenty-six years in England with a wife named Mary, and was father of five sons and one daughter, all born in England. If not identical with the designer of Shakespeare's bust, he was no doubt his father, and perhaps father also of Bernard Janssen.
[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum; Messager des Sciences et Arts de la Belgique, 1858, p. 93; Moens's Reg. of the Dutch Church, Austin Friars; Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jane, Thomas

​JANE or JANYN, THOMAS (d. 1500), bishop of Norwich, was born at Milton Abbas, Dorsetshire, and educated at Winchester School, where he became a scholar in 1449. He proceeded as a scholar to New College, Oxford, and became a fellow there in 1454, and subsequently doctor of decrees, and commissary of the chancellor (an official corresponding to the later vice-chancellor) in 1468. Thomas Kemp, bishop of London, nephew to Archbishop Kemp, appears to have become Jane's patron, and gave him much preferment. The first benefice conferred on Jane was Burstead in Essex, 9 April 1471, and in the same year he was appointed prebendary of Reculverland in St. Paul's Cathedral, which he exchanged for that of Rugmere in 1479–80, and that for Brownswood in 1487. In 1480 he became archdeacon of Essex. He had resigned Burstead and his fellowship in 1472, when he was appointed by Ann, duchess of Exeter, Edward IV's sister, to the chapelry of Foulness, and by the prior and convent of the Cluniac monastery of that place to the vicarage of Prittlewell; he resigned the vicarage in 1473, and the chapelry in 1481–2. In 1479 he was presented by the prior and convent of St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, to the vicarage of St. Sepulchre's, Snow Hill, but resigned it after a few months' tenure. In 1484–5, the living of Saffron Walden having fallen to Bishop Kemp by lapse, Jane received that benefice. In 1494–5 he obtained a seat in the privy council, and in 1497 he was appointed canon of Windsor and dean of the Chapel Royal. Two years later Jane became bishop of Norwich, and was consecrated by Archbishop Morton on 20 Oct. 1499. He died in September 1500. He is stated to have paid the pope the enormous sum of 7,300 golden florins in fees on his appointment. The only public event assigned to his short episcopate was the burning of one Babram for heresy, but the date is not absolutely certain (Foxe, i. 829). He was a benefactor to New College, and contributed to the building of St. Mary's Church, Oxford.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 681, 745; Kirby's Winchester Scholars, p. 66; Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 72, ii. 118, 273, 474, 626; Lansdowne MS. 9784.]
E. V.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Janssen, Theodore

​JANSSEN, Sir THEODORE (1658?–1748), director of the South Sea scheme, was born in France about 1658. His father, Abraham Janssen, was the youngest son of Baron de Herz, who made himself prominent on the popular side during the rising against Spain in the Netherlands, and was finally captured and beheaded by the Duke of Parma. Janssen came to England in 1680 with a fortune of 20,000l., received from his father; engaged in trade so successfully as to increase this to 300,000l., and was naturalised in 1685 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. ii. 300). He was of service to the governments of King William and Queen Anne. William knighted him, and Anne made him a baronet on 11 March 1714, at the special request of the elector of Hanover, afterwards George I. The same year he was elected M.P. for Yarmouth. In South Sea days he became a director of the company, but on the collapse was a loser of 50,000l. It was part of Walpole's relief plan to make scapegoats of the directors, and Janssen was forced to hand over about a quarter of a million of money, ‘near one-half real estate.’ Part of this was the manor of Wimbledon, which he had bought in 1717, and which was now sold to Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, for 15,000l. He was also expelled the House of Commons, and was committed to the keeping of the sergeant-at-arms in 1721. In the Chauncy MS. of Pope's ‘Moral Essays’ (epistle iii., ‘On the Use of Riches’) he is mentioned in the lines:—
When still we see the dirty blessing light On such as Bl—n, Ja—n, W—rd, and Kn—t;
i.e. Bladen (who married Janssen's second daughter, Barbara), Janssen, Ward, and Knight. The reference to Janssen in the ‘Dunciad,’ iv. 326, and ‘Satires,’ vii. 88, is to a son, a notorious gambler (see Elwin and Courthope's edition).
Janssen died at Wimbledon 22 Sept. 1748, and was buried in the churchyard there. He was married to Williamsa (d. 1731), daughter of Sir Robert Henley of the Grange in Hampshire, and sister of Anthony Henley [q. v.] He had a large family. His three eldest sons—Abraham (d. 1765), Henry (d. 1766), and Stephen Theodore, lord mayor of London (d. 1777)—were successively baronets. On the death of the last, in 1777, the title became extinct. A tract by Sir Theodore Janssen, entitled ‘General Maxims in Trade particularly applied to the Commerce between Great Britain and France,’ appeared in 1713. It was reproduced in substance as part of vol. i. of ‘The British Merchant,’ edited by Charles King in 1721, and reprinted in vol. xiii. of the ‘Somers Tracts.’
[Gent. Mag. September 1748, p. 428; London Mag. 1748, p. 429; Burke's Extinct Baronetage, p. 281; Historical Register for 1721, pp. 49 and 221; Lysons's Environs of London; Brayley's Surrey; Sloane MS. 4310, f. 427.]
F. W-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jardine, Alexander

​JARDINE, ALEXANDER (d. 1799), lieutenant-colonel, captain royal invalid artillery, entered the artillery as a private matross in March 1755, and was transferred to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, as a cadet in June 1757. (Promotion from the ranks to commissions in the artillery did not cease entirely until 1776.) Jardine passed out of the academy as a lieutenant-fireworker on 8 Feb. 1758, became a second lieutenant on 11 Sept. 1762, first lieutenant on 28 May 1766, captain-lieutenant on 28 April 1773, was transferred to the invalid establishment on 1 Nov. 1776, became captain in 1777, brevet-major in 1783, and brevet lieutenant-colonel in 1793. While stationed at Gibraltar he collected a mass of valuable professional observations, and presented them in 1772 to the Regimental Society, Woolwich, which he actively helped to establish in 1772–5. These papers are now in the Royal Artillery Institute (cf. Royal Artillery Institute Proceedings, vol. i.). When at Gibraltar in 1771 Jardine was sent by the governor, General Stephen Cornwallis, on a mission to the emperor of Morocco. Jardine's account of Morocco, with letters written during subsequent visits to France and Spain, from Portugal in 1779, and from Jersey in 1787, were published by him under the title ‘Letters from Morocco, &c. By an English Officer,’ London, 1790, 2 vols. 8vo. Jardine died in Portugal on 16 July 1799.
[Kane's List of Officers Roy. Artillery (revised ed. Woolwich, 1869), p. 9; Proc. Roy. Art. Inst. vol. i. pp. xvii–xxxii; Duncan's Hist. Roy. Artillery, London, 1872; biographical notices prefixed to Lefroy's Official Cat. Artillery Museum; Jardine's Letters.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Knowles, Mary

​KNOWLES, Mrs. MARY (1733–1807), quakeress, eldest daughter of Moses and Mary Morris of Rugeley, Staffordshire, was born on 5 May 1733. She was witty and beautiful. One of her accomplishments was working in worsted what Dr. Johnson called ‘sutile pictures’ (Croker). Specimens having been shown to the queen, she was sent for and commissioned to execute portraits of George III and the young princess, which were much approved. She married Dr. Thomas Knowles, graduate of Leyden 1772, L.R.C.P. 1784, and author of ‘Tentamen Medicum,’ Leyden, 1722. They travelled abroad, and were received at the Hague and at Versailles. Dr. Knowles died in Lombard Street 16 Nov. 1784, leaving considerable wealth. Mrs. Knowles was intimate with Dr. Johnson. She was a brilliant conversationalist, and said of Johnson's reading that ‘he tore the heart out of a book.’ She wrote, about 1776, a ‘Compendium of a Controversy on Water-Baptism’ between Rand, a clergyman of Coventry, and herself; ‘A Poetic Correspondence’ between her and a Captain Morris was printed in the ‘British Friend,’ April 1848, p. 110. Other verses by her appeared as small tracts without date. Boswell records her talents, but declines to accept as authentic her account of a ‘Dialogue between Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Knowles’ respecting the conversion to quakerism of Miss Jane Harry, which Mrs. Knowles forwarded to him while engaged on the biography of Johnson. Its authenticity was corroborated by Miss Seward, who was present at the interview. Mrs. Knowles published it in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ June 1791, p. 500, and it has been many times reprinted separately. Mrs. Knowles had one son, George. She died in London 3 Feb. 1807.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Knowlton, Thomas

​KNOWLTON, THOMAS (1692–1782), gardener and botanist, born in 1692, superintended from an early age the botanic garden of Dr. Sherard at Eltham in Kent. In 1728 he entered the service of Richard Boyle, third earl of Burlington [q. v.], at Lanesborough, Yorkshire, and there he appears to have remained for the rest of his ​life. He became known as a botanist of merit, corresponded with Mark Catesby, E. M. Da Costa [q. v.], and other members of the Royal Society, and won the esteem of Sir Hans Sloane. To him is due the first discovery in England of the ‘moor-ball,’ a species of fresh-water algæ of the conferva family, called by Linnæus Ægagropila, from its resemblance to the hairy balls found in the stomachs of goats (Dillwyn, British Confervæ, 1809, pl. 87). In order to find even a moderate number of these balls, he had to spend many hours wading in the lake at Wallingfen, in water from two to over three feet deep. Knowlton was also something of an antiquary. He discovered the exact site of the ancient city of Delgoricia, near Pocklington in Yorkshire, and communicated some observations on this and other subjects to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ (xliv. 100, 102, 124). Two large deer's horns which he discovered, one resembling the horn of an Irish elk, are figured in the same volume (plate 422). Knowlton died in 1782 at the age of ninety. A botanical genus of the order Ranunculaceæ, comprising five or six species of plants indigenous to the Cape of Good Hope, has been named after him. A John Knowlton, gardener to Earl Fitzwilliam, whose will was proved in February 1782 (P. C. C. Gostling, fol. 95), was probably a brother of the botanist, and Charles Knowlton, who graduated M.A. from St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1751, and was presented, on 7 April 1753, by the Earl of Burlington to the small living of Keighley in Yorkshire, was almost certainly his son (Whitaker, Deanery of Craven, ed. Morant, p. 202; Gent. Mag. 1838, i. 544).
[Pulteney's Progress of Botany, ii. 240; Biog. Universelle, xxii. 498; Nicholson's Dict. of Gardening, ii. 220; Nichols's Illustrations, iv. 469, 748, 785, where several letters to and from Knowlton are printed.]
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Knowles, John (1781-1841)

​KNOWLES, JOHN (1781–1841), biographer of Henry Fuseli [q. v.], born in 1781, early in life became a clerk in the surveyor's department of the navy office. He attained the chief clerkship there about 1806, and held this post until 1832. He published two or three works on naval matters, including ‘The Elements and Practice of Naval Architecture,’ 1822. For his scientific researches he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Knowles is best known, however, from his long, intimate friendship with Henry Fuseli the painter, and the circle to which that artist belonged. He was the executor of Fuseli's will, and a devoted admirer of his art. In 1830 he published an edition of Fuseli's ‘Lectures on Painting,’ and in 1831, in 3 vols. 8vo, the life of Fuseli, written as a labour of love, to which was added an edition of the painter's writings on art. As a biography the work has some merit. Knowles died, unmarried, at Ashburton, Devonshire, on 21 July 1841, aged 60. He was one of the original members of the Athenæum Club, and his portrait, drawn by C. Landseer, is No. 25 of the series of lithographs, published as ‘Athenæum Portraits,’ by Thomas McLean. He was corresponding member of the Philosophical Society of Rotterdam.
L. C.