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

​HILL, ROGER (1605–1667), judge, of a family long settled at Houndstone, Somerset, son of William Hill of Poundsford, near Taunton, and Jane, daughter of John Young of Devonshire, was born at Collaton, Devonshire, at the house of Mrs. Sampson, his father's sister, on 1 Dec. 1605. He was admitted a member of the Inner Temple 22 March 1624, was called to the bar 10 Feb. 1632, and became a bencher of his inn 10 June 1649. In March 1644 he was the junior of five counsel against Archbishop Laud (Wood, Athenæ Oxon. iii. 130), and was elected in 1645 to parliament for Bridport, the sitting member having adhered to King Charles (Parl. Hist. ii. 608). In 1646 he received a grant of the chambers in the Temple of Mostyn and Stampe (Whitelocke, Memorials, p. 201), and was named in the commission of judges to try the king, but did not act. In May 1649 he was appointed to assist the attorney-general for the Commonwealth against Lilburne, Walwin, Prince, and Overton, and was again assistant to the attorney-general in the trials in the west in the spring of 1655. On 29 June of that year he became a serjeant-at-law, was a judge of assize in Northamptonshire in August 1656, and is named as a baron of the exchequer in Easter term 1657 in Hardres's ‘Reports.’ He was present at the Protector's investiture in June 1657, and was a judge attendant on the House of Peers in January 1658 (Burton, Diary, ii. 240, 512). In 1658 he went the Oxford circuit (Wood, Athenæ Oxon. iii. 754), and in August 1659, with Chief-baron Wylde, held assizes in Gloucestershire, with instructions to proceed to Monmouth ‘if it be safe, but otherwise to forbear.’ Lambert being on the march from Chester, and the country becoming pacified, the judges were able to proceed (Greene, Cal. State Papers, Dom. August 1659). On the restoration of the Long parliament he resumed his seat, and on 17 Jan. 1660 was ​transferred from the court of exchequer to the upper bench (Siderfin, Reports; Whitelocke, Memorials, p. 693; Parl. Hist. iii. 1548). He received a parliamentary grant of the reversion of the Bishop of Winchester's manor of Taunton Dean, of the value of 12,000l. a year. On the Restoration he was not confirmed in his degree with the other serjeants. He died on 21 April 1667, and was buried in the Temple Church. He married first, in 1635, Katherine, daughter of Giles Green of Allington, Isle of Purbeck, who died in 1638, by whom he had one son and one daughter; secondly, in 1641, Abigail, daughter of Brampton Gurdon of Assington Hall, Suffolk, who died in 1658, by whom he had one son, Roger, knighted in 1668; and, thirdly, in 1662, Abigail, daughter and coheiress of Thomas Barnes of Aldborough Hatch, Essex, who had already been twice a widow.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Collinson's Somerset, iii. 233; Parl. Hist.; Greene's Cal. State Papers, Dom.; family memorials cited by Foss.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hill, Pascoe Grenfell

​HILL, PASCOE GRENFELL (1804–1882), miscellaneous writer, son of Major Thomas Hill, was born at Marazion, Cornwall, on 15 May 1804. He was educated at Mill Hill School, Middlesex, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1836. In the same year he was ordained a priest, and became a chaplain in the royal navy, in which he served till 1845, when he was placed on the retired list. During his service at sea he saw much of the slave trade on the African coast, of which he afterwards published an account in two works. An early publication, entitled ‘Poems on Several Occasions’ (chiefly love poems), was dedicated to his uncle, Oliver Hill, but in after years he repented of this production. From 1852 to 1857 he was chaplain of the Westminster Hospital, and for some time morning reader at Westminster Abbey. On 26 Jan. 1863 he was appointed rector of St. Edmund the King and Martyr with St. Nicholas Acons, Lombard Street, city of London, where he continued to his death. He endeavoured to enliven his church by providing a succession of preachers, by improving the choir, and holding short services in the middle of the day. He was the first to introduce a surpliced choir into a city church. He died at the rectory house, 32 Finsbury Square, London, 28 Aug. 1882, and was buried in the City of London cemetery at Ilford. His wife, Ellen Annetta, whom he married 26 Jan. 1846, died 18 April 1878. Hill was the author of: 1. ‘Fifty Days on Board a Slave Ship in the Mozambique Channel,’ 1843; 3rd ed. 1853. 2. ‘Poems on Several Occasions,’ Penzance, 1845. 3. ‘A Voyage to the Slave Coasts of West and East Africa,’ 1849. 4. ‘A Journey through Palestine,’ 1852. 5. ‘The Kaffir War,’ 1852. 6. ‘A Visit to Cairo,’ 1853. 7. ‘The Christian Soldier, a sermon,’ 1853. 8. ‘Modern British Poesy, with Biographical Sketches,’ 1856. 9. ‘Letter to the Lord Mayor on Street Slaughter,’ 1866. 10. ‘Life of Napoleon,’ 3 vols. 1869.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hobhouse, Henry

​HOBHOUSE, HENRY (1776–1854), archivist, only son of Henry Hobhouse of Hadspen House, Somerset, barrister, who died 2 April 1792, by Sarah, daughter of the Rev. Richard Jenkyns, canon residentiary of Wells, was born at Clifton, near Bristol, on 12 April 1776, and went to Eton in 1791. He matriculated from Brasenose College, Oxford, on 10 April 1793, graduated B.A. 1797, M.A. 1799, and was created D.C.L. 27 June 1827. On 23 Jan. 1801 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, was solicitor to H.M. Customs from 1806 to 1812, and then ​ became solicitor to the treasury. He was appointed permanent under-secretary of state for the home department on 28 June 1817, and held that office until July 1827, when he retired on a pension of 1,000l. a year. He was also keeper of the state papers from 23 May 1826 to his death. On 28 June 1828 he was gazetted a privy councillor. He was one of the ecclesiastical commissioners for England, and chairman of the Somerset quarter sessions. He resigned the chairmanship in 1845. In the formation of the record commission he rendered valuable service to Peel when home secretary, and became commissioner 10 June 1852. The commission published ‘State Papers of Henry VIII,’ in eleven volumes quarto, the last appearing in 1852. Hobhouse superintended the editing, and took great pains to produce an accurate text. Under his direction a permanent system of arrangement of the state papers was laid down, based upon a plan existing in the offices of the secretaries of state. His death took place at Hadspen House on 13 April 1854. He married, 7 April 1806, Harriett, sixth daughter of John Turton of Sugnall Hall, Staffordshire; she died at Bournemouth on 7 May 1858, aged 73, having had eight children. The fourth son, Arthur, was created Baron Hobhouse in 1885, and died 6 Dec. 1904.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hoblyn, Richard Dennis

​HOBLYN, RICHARD DENNIS (1803–1886), educational writer, eldest son of Richard Hoblyn, rector of All Saints, Colchester, born there on 9 April 1803, was educated at his native town, and at Blundell's School, Tiverton. Thence he went as a scholar to Balliol College, Oxford, where he proceeded B.A. 1824, M.A. 1828. He took orders four years later, but resigning the clerical life, he devoted himself to teaching and educational writing in London. His face was ‘familiar and friendly’ in the borough of Marylebone, where he dwelt for fifty-nine years in the same residence. He died on 22 Aug. 1886. He was married, and had a family. Hoblyn wrote: 1. ‘A Dictionary of Terms used in Medicine and the collateral Sciences’ (with a Supplement, 1832; 11th edit., by J. A. Price, 1887). 2. ‘A Manual of Chemistry, illustrated by engravings,’ 1841. 3. ‘A Manual of the Steam Engine,’ 1842. 4. ‘A Manual of Natural Philosophy’ (with J. L. Comstock, 1846. Largely augmented, 1860). 5. ‘A Dictionary of Scientific Terms,’ 1849, 12mo.
[Information communicated by Mr. R. A. Hoblyn of Somerset House; Marylebone Mercury, 4 Sept. 1886; Cat. Oxford Grad.; Foster's Alumni Oxonienses; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
F. W-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hobson, Richard

​HOBSON, RICHARD, M.D. (1795–1868), physician, was born at Whitehaven, Cumberland, in 1795. After school education he was sent to study medicine at St. George's Hospital, London. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and finally deciding to become a physician, went to Queens' College, Cambridge, and there graduated M.B. in 1825, M.D. in 1830. In 1831 he settled in practice in Leeds, and on 30 Sept. 1833 was elected physician to the infirmary there, a post which he resigned in 1843. During this period he published in the ‘Medical Gazette’ some notes on diabetes, and on the external use of croton oil. His tastes led him to frequent the turf. He belonged to the Harewood coursing club, bred racehorses, and hunted with the Bramham hunt. For a short time he kept a pack of harriers. He had some knowledge of natural history, and in 1836 became acquainted with Charles Waterton, the naturalist, who lived at Walton Hall, about twelve miles from Leeds. Here Hobson became a frequent visitor and physician to the family. Waterton often wrote to him. Their intercourse ceased a few years before Waterton's death. While it lasted Hobson states that he showed Waterton a memoir which he had written of the naturalist. This statement was not believed at Walton Hall, and the book, ‘Charles Waterton; his Home, Habits, and Handiwork,’ which Hobson published in 1866, contains abundant internal evidence that the statement about Waterton's approval of the manuscript is untrue. Many of the stories in the book are false, the letters given have been altered, and the only faithful parts of the work are the engravings of Walton Hall, some of them drawn from photographs taken by Hobson himself. A fall from his carriage ​made him an invalid, and while confined to the house he broke his thigh-bone, and died 29 Nov. 1868. His wife, a daughter of Peter Rhodes of Leeds, did not long survive him. He had no children.
[Works; Lancet, 1868; information received at Walton Hall in 1864–5.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hoblyn, Robert

​HOBLYN, ROBERT (1710–1756), book collector, was born at Nanswhyden House, and baptised at St. Columb Major in Cornwall 5 May 1710. His father, Francis Hoblyn, born in 1687, a J.P. for Cornwall and a member of the Stannary parliament, was buried at St. Columb on 9 Nov. 1711. His mother was Penelope, daughter of Colonel Sidney Godolphin of Shropshire. She married secondly, on 5 Sept. 1714, Sir William Pendarves of Pendarves. Robert Hoblyn was educated at Eton, matriculated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 18 Dec. 1727, took a B.C.L. degree in 1734, and in the same year contributed verses to the ‘Epithalamia Oxoniensia.’ He sat as one of the members for the city of Bristol from 24 Nov. 1742 to 8 April 1754, and was appointed speaker of two convocations of the Stannary parliament in Cornwall. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society 13 June 1745, and admitted 24 Oct.
Early in life he travelled in Italy, where he collected many scarce books. He inherited an ample fortune, which was very largely increased by his success in mining. With his wealth he restored his ancestral home, Nanswhyden House, employing Potter as the architect. This building is described in Dr. Borlase's ‘Natural History of Cornwall,’ 1758, p. 90, pl. viii., engraved at the expense of Mrs. Jane Hoblyn. He delighted in building and collecting books, and destroyed all the documents relating to the cost. The books formed a useful collection, and were divided into the classes of natural and moral philosophy. He made a manuscript catalogue in which he marked with a star those works which were not in the Bodleian. All clergymen and persons of literary tastes had free access to the library.
Hoblyn died at Nanswhyden House on 17 Nov. 1756. His monument in St. Columb Church bears a very long inscription. He married Jane, only daughter of Thomas Coster, merchant, Bristol. She remarried in 1759 John Quicke of Exeter. The estates under the entail went to the issue male of Thomas Hoblyn of Tresaddern, while the library went with the widow to John Quicke. In 1768 Quicke printed the catalogue in two volumes, entitled ‘Bibliotheca Hobliniana sive Catalogus Librorum juxta exemplar quod manu sua maxima ex parte descriptum reliquit Robertus Hoblyn, Armiger de Nanswhyden in Comitatu Cornubiæ.’ An edition in one volume appeared in 1769. Dibdin says in referring to it: ‘I know not who was the author of the arrangement of this collection, but the judicious observer will find it greatly superior to everything of its kind, ​with hardly even the exception of the “Bibliotheca Croftsiana”’ (Bibliomania, pp. 74, 497). The books were sold in London in 1778, and produced about 2,500l. Nanswhyden House was destroyed by fire on 30 Nov. 1803, with its collections of ancient documents, the records relating to the Stannary parliament, and a valuable cabinet of minerals.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hobson, Edward

​HOBSON, EDWARD (1782–1830), botanist, was born in Ancoats Lane, Manchester, in 1782. When three years old he lost his father, and his mother having given way to drink he was put under the care of an uncle at Ashton-under-Lyne. His sole education was obtained at a day school there and at Manchester; but at the age of either ten or eleven he was sent to work. About 1809 he attended for the first time a meeting of the Society of Botanists, where he formed the acquaintance of George Caley, a botanical collector for the royal gardens at Kew, and then recently returned from New South Wales. Hobson studied cryptogamous as well as flowering plants, and in this department became a correspondent of Dr. (afterwards Sir William Jackson) Hooker [q. v.], Dr. Taylor, his associate in the ‘Muscologia Britannica,’ Dr. Greville of Edinburgh, and other active and prominent botanists. They all freely acknowledged their indebtedness to Hobson for specimens sent to them.
In 1818 he brought out the first volume of his ‘Musci Britannici,’ and three years later was busy on the second. At this period he was in the employ of Mr. Eveleigh, a Manchester manufacturer, who was also a naturalist and mineralogist. Entomology thenceforward became a favourite pursuit with Hobson. The Banksian Society was founded in January 1829, and Hobson was unanimously chosen its first president. Shortly afterwards the curatorship of the museum of the Manchester Society for the Promotion of Natural History was offered to him at a salary of 100l. per annum; but he declined to leave his old employer, although his wages were very small.
He died on 17 Sept. 1830 at Bowden, and was buried at St. George's Church, Hulme, where a mural tablet was placed by his old colleagues. The herbarium formed by him passed into the keeping of the Manchester Botanical and Horticultural Society at Old Trafford, and his collection of insects came into the possession of the Mechanics' Institute.
On hearing of Hobson's death Sir W. J. Hooker wrote as follows: ‘His publication of specimens of British mosses and hepaticæ will be a lasting testimony to his correctness and deep research into their beautiful families; and in this country he has been the first to set the example of giving to the world volumes which are devoted to the illustration of entire genera of cryptogamous plants by beautifully preserved specimens themselves.’ Hobson published: ‘Musci Britannici; a Collection of Specimens of British Mosses and Hepaticæ,’ 2 vols. 1818–24.
[Mem. Lit. and Phil. Soc. Manchester, 2nd ser. vi. 297–324; Gardener's Mag. vi. 749; Cash's Where there's a Will there's a Way, pp. 41–66.]
B. D. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Land, Edward

​LAND, EDWARD (1815–1876), vocalist and composer, was born in London in 1816. He began his career as one of the children of the Chapel Royal, and was afterwards brought into prominent notice as accompanist to John Wilson, the celebrated Scotch singer. After Wilson's death he acted in a similar capacity to David Kennedy [q. v.] On the formation of the Glee and Madrigal Union he was chosen accompanist, and he also occasionally officiated as second tenor vocalist. He was for several years secretary of the Noblemen and Gentlemen's Catch Club. He composed a number of songs, which were popular in their ​day, such as 'Bird of Beauty' (1852), 'The Angel's Watch' (1853), 'Birds of the Sea' (1853). and harmonised or arranged a good deal of miscellaneous vocal music. He wrote many original pieces for the pianoforte, and made arrangements of various Scottish melodies and other compositions for the same instrument. He died in London on 29 Nov. 1876.
[Musical Times, January 1877; Life of David Kennedy, Paisley, 1877.]
J. C. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lander, John

1904 Errata appended.
​LANDER, JOHN (1807–1839), African traveller, born in Cornwall in 1807, was brother of Richard Lemon Lander [q. v.], and was by trade a printer. He accompanied his brother Richard (without promise of any reward) in his expedition which left England under government auspices in January 1830 to explore the course and termination of the river Niger, and, after discovering the outlet of the river in the Bight of Biafra, returned home in July 1881. His African journal was incorporated with that of his brother in the narrative of the expedition published in 1832. Viscount Goderich, the president of the Royal Geographical Society, procured for Lander a tide-waiter's place in the custom house. Lander died on 16 Nov. 1839 in Wyndham Street, Bryanston Square, at the age of thirty-three, of a malady originally contracted in Africa. He left a widow and three children.
[Tregellas's Cornish Worthies, London, 1884, ii. 202-3; Brit. Mus. Cat. Printed Books; Gent. Mag. new ser. xii. 662.]
H. M. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.177 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 49 | ii | 11 | Lander, John: for thirty-three read thirty-two |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lancrinck, Prosper Henri

​LANCRINCK, PROSPER HENRI (1628–1892), painter. [See Lankrink.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Landen, John

​LANDEN, JOHN (1719–1790), mathematician, was born at Peakirk, near Peterborough in Northamptonshire, on 28 Jan. 1719. He was brought up to the business of a surveyor, and acted as land agent to William Wentworth, earl Fitzwilliam [q. v.], from 1762 to 1788. Cultivating mathematics during his leisure hours, he became a contributor to the ‘Ladies' Diary’ in 1744, ​published ‘Mathematical Lucubrations’ in 1755, and from 1754 onwards communicated to the Royal Society valuable investigations on points connected with the fluxionary calculus. His attempt to substitute for it a purely algebraical method, expounded in book i. of 'Residual Analysis’ (London, 1784) was further prosecuted by Lagrange. Book ii. never appeared. The remarkable theorem known by Landen's name, for expessing a hyperbolic arc in terms of two elliptic arcs, was inserted in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for 1775, and specimens of its use were given in the first volume of his ‘Mathematical Memoirs’ (1780). In a paper on rotary motion laid before the Royal Society on 17 March 1785 he obtained results differing from those of Euler and D'Alembert, and defending them in the second volume of ‘Mathematical Memoirs' prepared for the press during the intervals of a painful disease, and placed in his hands, printed, the day before his death at Milton, near Peterborough, the seat of the Earl Fitzwilliam on 15 Jan. 1790. In the same work he solved the problem of the spinning of a top, and explained Newton's error in calculating the effects of precession.
Landen was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 16 Jan. 1766, and was a member of the Spalding Society. Though foreigners gave him a high rank among English analysts, he failed to develope and combine his discoveries. He led a retired life, chiefly at Walton in Northamptonshire. Though humane and honourable, he was too dogmatic in society. Besides the works above mentioned, he wrote: ‘A Discourse concerning the Residual Analysis’ (1758) and ‘Animadversions on Dr. Stewart's computation of the Sun’s Distance from the Earth’ (1771). Papers by him included in ‘Philosophical Transactions,' vols. xlviii. li. lvii. lx. lxi. lxvii. lxxv.
[Gent. Mag. vol. lx. pt. i. pp. 90, 191; Phil. Trans. Abidged, x. 469 (Hutton); Hutton's Mathematical Dict. 1815; Montucla's Hist. des Mathématiques; iii. 240; Montferrier's Dict. des Mathématiques; Poggendorff's Biographisch-Literarisches Handwörterbuch: Masres Scriptores Logarithmici, ii, 172; Richelot's Die Landensche Transformation in ihrer Anwendung auf die Entwickelung der eliptischen Functionen, 1868; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
A. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Landmann, Isaac

​LANDMANN, ISAAC (1741–1829?), professor of artillery and fortification, born in 1741, held for some years an appointment at the Royal Military School in Paris. Although he retired on the reorganisation of the school, he continued to live in Paris, and made an incomeof about 300l. per annum by teaching the our French nobility the art of war. On 25 Nov. 1777 he assumed the appointment of professor of artillery and fortification at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich at the invitation of George III. A letter from the board of ordnance, dated 25 Nov. 1777, introducing in him to the lieutenant-governor of the Woolwich Academy, described him as a gentleman who ‘has seen a great deal of service and acted as aide-de-camp to Marshal Broglis in the law war.’ His salary was 494l. per annum with a house. On 1 July 1815 he retired, after thirty-eight years' successful service, on a pension of 500l. per annum, granted him 1by the prince regent. He left a son, George Thomas Landmann [q. v.], who was an officer in the royal engineers.
Landmann was author of:
* 'Elements of Tactics and Introduction to Military Evolutions for the Infantry, by a celebrated Prussian General [Saltern], translated from the original by I. L.,’ 8vo, London, 1787.
* ‘Practical Geometry for the use of the Royal Military Academy at Wolwich,’ 8vo, London, 1798; 2nd ed. 1805.
* ‘The Field Engineers Vade Mecum, with Plans,’ 8vo, London, 1802.
* ‘The Principles of Fortification reduced into Questions and Answers for the use of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich,’ 8vo, London, 1806.
* ‘The Construction of several Systems of Fortification,' 8vo, London, with plates, vol. 1807.
* ‘The Principles of Artillery reduced into Questions an Answers for the use of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich,' 2nd ed., with considerable additions and improvements, 8vo, London, 1808.
* ‘Muller's Attack and Defence of Places' 4th ed. 8vo, London.
* ‘A Course of an Five Orders of Architecture,' fol. London.
* ‘A Treatise on Mines for the use of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich,' 8vo, London, 1815.
* ‘The Principles of Fortification,' 5th ed. 8vo, London, 1821.
Records of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, 4to, 1851.]
R. H. V.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Basset, Thomas

​BASSET, THOMAS (d. 1182?), judge, was son of Gilbert Basset (presumed to be a younger son of Ralph Basset, the justiciar (d. 1127?) [q. v.] He received a grant of the lordship of Hedendon, Oxfordshire, for services in war, and served sheriff of Oxfordshire, 1163–4. In 1167–8 he was an itinerant justice for Essex and Hertfordshire, and in 1169 appears at the Exchequer. In 1175 he was again an itinerant justice (Rog. Hov. ii. 90) and in close attendance on the court, as he continued to be till 1181, and was specially named as a justice itinerant on one of the new circuits, 10 April 1179 (Rog. Hov.) He is last mentioned in August 1181, and at the close of 1182 he had been succeeded by his son Gilbert.
J. H. R.