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

​MORTON, Sir WILLIAM (d. 1672), judge, was the son of James Morton of Clifton, Worcestershire, by his wife Jane, daughter of William Cook of Shillwood, Worcestershire, and great-grandson to Sir Rowland Morton of Massington, Herefordshire, a master of requests in the time of Henry VIII. He became a member of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1622 and M.A. in 1625 : and, having been a student of the Inner Temple concurrently since 24 Oct. 1622, he was called to the bar on 28 Nov. 1630. His name first appears in the 'Reports' in 1639, and shortly after that he took arms on the royal side, fought and was wounded in several actions. He was knighted, served as lieutenant-colonel in Lord Chandos's horse, and was governor of Lord Chandos's castle at Sudeley, Gloucestershire, when it surrendered in June 1644 to General Waller. ​ Clarendon describes the surrender as forced upon him by the treachery of a subordinate and by the mutiny of his men ; but there is no mention of this in Waller's own official account of the surrender (see Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1644, p. 219). Morton was sent to the Tower, and was imprisoned for some years. After hostilities were concluded he returned to the bar, though his name does not figure in the 'Reports.' He became a bencher of the Inner Temple on 24 Nov. 1659, and after the Restoration his courage and fidelity were rewarded. He received the degree of serjeant-at-law in 1660, was a commissioner of assize for Carmarthenshire in 1661, was appointed recorder of Gloucester early in 1662, and counsel to the dean and chapter of Worcester. He was made a king's serjeant in July 1663, and on 23 Nov. 1665 succeeded Sir John Kelynge in the king's bench, and ' discharged his office with much gravity andlearning.' He is said to have particularly set his face against highway robbery, and prevented the grant of a pardon to Claude Duval [q. v.] after his conviction by threatening to resign his judgeship if a pardon were granted. He died in the autumn of 1672, and was buried in the Temple Church. He married Anne, daughter and heiress of John Smyth of Kidlington in Oxfordshire, by whom he had several children, of whom one, Sir James, succeeded him. Besides his lodgings in Serjeants' Inn, Fleet Street, which were burnt in the great fire, he had, through his wife, a house at Kidlington, and also was lord of the manor (Anthony à Wood, Fasti Oxon. i. 63; cf. Burton, Diary, iv. 262). A portrait of Morton in his robes, by Van-dyck, belonging to Mr. Bulkeley Owen, was No. 963 in the first Loan Exhibition of National Portraits.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges ; Croke's Reports ; Visitations of Worcestershire, 1634 ; Clarendon, iv. 489 ; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1661 ; Pope's Memoirs of Duval; Macaulay's Hist. i. 187.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morwen, Peter

​MORWEN, MORWENT, or MORWINGE, PETER (1530?–1573?), translator, graduated B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1550, and was elected a fellow in 1552. In June next year he supplicated for the degree of M.A., but he was a rigid protestant, and when Bishop Gardiner made a visitation of the university in October 1553, he was expelled from his fellowship. He took refuge in Germany (Bloxam, Reg. Magdalen College, Oxford, ii. pp. liv, cvi; Strype, Memorials, in. i. 82). On the accession of Elizabeth he returned home, was ordained deacon by Grindal on 25 Jan. 1559-60 (Strype, Grindal, p. 54), and was granted his master's degree at Oxford on 16 Feb. following. He became rector of Langwith, Nottinghamshire, in 1560; of Norbury, Derbyshire, in 1564, and of Ryton, Warwickshire, in 1556. Thomas Bentham [q. v.], bishop of Lichfield, an old college friend, made him his chaplain, and afterwards collated him to the prebend of Pipa Minor in the cathedral of Lichfield on 27 Oct. 1567. A successor was appointed in the prebend on 6 March 1572-3 (Le Neve, Fasti, i. 618). Morwen probably died a month or two before.
Morwen was a fair scholar and translated into English, apparently from the Hebrew,' Joseph Ben Gorion's 'History of the Jews.' This task Morwen undertook at the entreaty of the printer, Richard Jugge [q. v.], and it must have been mainly accomplished while Morwen was an exile in Germany. The first edition, of which no copy is in the British Museum, was dated 1558, and bore the title 'A compendious and moste marveylous History of the latter Times of the Jewes Commune Weale' (London, b. l. 8vo). Other editions—'newly corrected and amended'—appeared in 1561, 1507, 1575, 1579, 1593, and 1615. All these are in the British Museum. Morwen also rendered into English from the Latin, Conrad Gesner's 'Treasure of Euonymus conteyninge the Wonderfull hid Secretes of Nature touchinge the most apte formes to prepare and destyl medicines,' London, b. l. by John Daye, 1559, 4to. The printer signs an address to the Christian reader, which is dated 2 May 1559, and a few engravings are scattered through the text. A new edition 'A new Booke of Distillation of Waters, ​called the Treasure of Euonymus' is dated 1565, b. l. 4to ; it was also published by Daye.
[Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 454; Brit. Mus. Cat. s. v. 'Morwing.']
S. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morys, John

​MORYS or MORIZ, Sir JOHN (fl. 1340), deputy of Ireland, was probably a member of a Bedfordshire family, who re- ​presented that county in the parliaments of May 1322, December 1326, December 1332, March 1336, and March 1340. On some of these occasions he was associated with Thomas Studley, who was afterwards his attorney in England. There was also a John Morice or Moriz who represented the borough of Cambridge in the parliaments of December 1326, April 1328, September 1337, February 1338 (Return of Members of Parliament, i. 64-130). Morys was commissioner of array for Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire in 1322 and 1324 (Parliamentary Writs, iv. 1195). On 6 March 1327 he was placed on the commission of oyer and terminer for Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire to inquire into the taking of prises by members of the royal household, and on 8 March 1327 he was placed on the commission of peace for Bedfordshire. On 8 July 1328 he was going to Ireland, and had letters nominating attorneys to act for him during two years. On 13 March 1329 he had protection for one year again when going to Ireland on the royal service, and on 11 April 1329 had leave to nominate attorneys as before (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edward III, 1327-30). In May 1341 (Chart. St. Mary's, Dublin, ii. 382), when he was styled knight, he was said to be acting as deputy in Ireland for Sir John D'Arcy. In this capacity he held a parliament at Dublin in October 1341, when he had to enforce ordinances annulling royal grants made in the king's reign, and acquittances from crown debts, unless granted under the English seal. These measures were unpopular with the Anglo-Irish nobles, who perhaps also despised Morys as a man of small political or social importance. An opposition parliament was accordingly held under the Earl of Desmond at Kilkenny in November 1341, and an appeal made to the king against the abuses of the Irish administration. Morys was soon after displaced by Ralph Ufford. But in April 1346 he procured his own reappointment, and on the news of Ufford's death a few days after was ordered to proceed to Ireland (Gilbert, Viceroys, p. 541). There he arrived on 15 May, and at once released the Earl of Kildare, whom Ufford had imprisoned; but on the great massacre of the English in Ulster during June, Morys was once more displaced, and after this he seems to disappear from history.
[Chartulary of S. Mary's, Dublin (Rolls Ser.); Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland; Leland's Hist, of Ireland; authorities quoted.]
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stannus, Ephraim Gerrish

​STANNUS, Sir EPHRAIM GERRISH (1784–1850), major-general, born in 1784, was second son of Ephraim Stannus of Comus, co. Tyrone, by Susannah, daughter of Joseph Gerrish of Halifax, Nova Scotia. He went out to India as a cadet in 1799, was commissioned as an ensign in the Bombay army on 6 March 1800, became lieutenant on 26 May, and was appointed to the European regiment (now 2nd battalion royal Dublin fusiliers) in 1803. He served in the Kathiawar campaign in 1807, and became captain on 6 July 1811.
He distinguished himself in the Pindari war of 1817–18, was promoted major on 8 Oct. 1818, and was private secretary to Mountstuart Elphinstone while governor of Madras (1819–27). He was made lieutenant-colonel of the 9th native infantry on 31 Oct. 1822, C.B. on 23 July 1823, and colonel of the 10th native infantry on 5 June 1829. From 1823 to 1826 he was first British resident in the Persian Gulf. From this he was transferred to the 2nd European regiment (now 2nd battalion Durham light infantry). On 13 March 1834 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of the East India College, Addiscombe, and he was knighted in 1837. He was promoted major-general (local) on 28 June 1838. Though just and kindly, he was no administrator, and was systematically irritated by the cadets into extraordinary explosions of wrath and violent language. During the latter years of his rule at Addiscombe the discipline seems to have got very slack (cf. ‘Addiscombe’ in Blackwood's Mag. May 1893); he remained there until his death on 21 Oct. 1850. On 16 Oct. 1829 he married Mary Louisa, widow of James Gordon. He had no children.
[Gent. Mag. 1850, ii. 659; Vibart's Addiscombe, 1894, chap. iv. (with portrait); Burke's Landed Gentry; Royal Engineers' Journal, January 1893.]
E. M. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stanwix, John

​STANWIX, JOHN (1690?–1766), lieutenant-general, born about 1690, was nephew and heir to Brigadier-general Thomas Stanwix. Thomas Stanwix was a captain in Colonel Tidcomb's foot in 1693, served in Flanders under Marlborough, and in Spain, and was appointed governor of Gibraltar on 13 Jan. 1711. He was colonel of the 12th foot from 25 Aug. 1717 until his death; he was also governor of Kingston-upon-Hull, and sat in parliament as member for Carlisle from 1705 to 1715; for Newport, Isle of Wight, in 1721; and for Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, in 1722; he died on 14 March 1724–5.
The nephew, John, entered the army in 1706, became adjutant of his regiment, and captain of the grenadier company, and in January 1741 he was given a majority in one of the new marine regiments. On 4 Oct. 1745 he was made lieutenant-colonel of a regiment raised by Lord Granby on account of the Jacobite insurrection, and disbanded in 1746. In 1749 he was appointed equerry to the Prince of Wales, in 1752 governor of Carlisle (for which city he had been elected M.P. in December 1746), and in 1754 deputy quartermaster-general.
At the beginning of 1756, in consequence of Braddock's defeat, the royal American regiment (62nd foot, afterwards 60th, and now the king's royal rifle corps) was raised, and Stanwix was made colonel-commandant of the 1st battalion from 1 Jan. and was sent to America. In 1757 he was employed in Pennsylvania. In January 1758 he was made brigadier, and was sent up the Hudson to Albany, and thence to Oneida portage, where he built Fort Stanwix. A plan of this fort is given in vol. iv. of the ‘Documentary History of New York.’ In 1759, while Wolfe was taking Quebec, Stanwix was guarding the western border of Pennsylvania, and repairing Fort Duquesne, renamed Pittsburg. He was promoted major-general on 25 June 1759.
He returned to England in August 1760. On 19 Jan. 1761 he became lieutenant-general, and on 14 Dec. he was made colonel of the 49th foot, from which he was transferred on 11 April 1764 to the 8th foot. He was appointed governor of the Isle of Wight in May 1763. His first wife having died in 1754, Stanwix married, on 20 April 1763, a daughter of Marmaduke Sowle, commissioner of appeals in the excise in Dublin, but had no children by her. On 29 Oct. 1766, after making some military inspections in Ireland, he left Dublin for Holyhead with his wife and daughter. The vessel, the Eagle, was leaky when she started, and was lost at sea. He was on his way to London to attend parliament, having been elected M.P. for Appleby on 8 April 1761.
E. M. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stannard, Joseph

​STANNARD, JOSEPH (1797–1830), painter, was born at Norwich on 13 Sept. 1797. He was for a short time a pupil of Robert Ladbrooke [q. v.], and became an eminent member of the Norwich school. He painted chiefly river and coast scenes and shipping with much of the feeling of the Dutch artists, whose works he studied and copied during a visit to Holland in 1821. Stannard first exhibited with the Norwich Society in 1811, and he was one of the members who seceded from it in 1816; he contributed to the Royal Academy and British Institution between 1820 and 1829. His best known picture is the ‘Water Frolic at Thorpe,’ now in the Norwich Castle museum. He practised etching, and published a set of plates of Norfolk scenery. He had always delicate health, and died at Norwich on 7 Dec. 1830. A portrait of him, painted by George Clint, is in the Norwich Museum, and another, by Sir W. Beechey, belongs to Mr. J. J. Colman. Stannard married Emily Coppin, an excellent painter of fruit, flowers, and still-life, for works of which class she received three gold medals from the Society of Arts; she died at Norwich on 6 Jan. 1885, at the age of eighty-two.
Alfred Stannard (1806–1889), younger brother of Joseph, painted landscapes in the style characteristic of the Norwich school. ​A ‘River Scene with Mill’ by him is in the Norwich Museum. He died in 1889. He had a son, Alfred George, who painted landscapes, and died in 1885; and a daughter, who was a painter of fruit and flowers.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Catalogue of the Norwich Castle Museum; Wodderspoon's John Crome and his Works; Norfolk Chronicle, 1830 and 1885; information from Mr. James Reeve.]
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stanwix, Richard

​STANWIX, RICHARD (1608–1656), divine, born in 1608, was son of James Stanwix of Carlisle, who was fourth son of James Stanwix, head of an ancient family which had their origin at Stanwix, near Carlisle. Richard was educated at the free school in Carlisle under Thomas Robson, formerly of Queen's College, Oxford. He was admitted a servitor of the college under the tuition of Charles Robson [q. v.], son of his old schoolmaster, and matriculated on 21 Nov. 1628, according to Foster. He afterwards became a tabarder, graduating B.A. on 12 May 1629, and proceeding M.A. on 24 Jan. 1631–2. He was made a fellow about the same time, and on 4 July 1639 obtained the degree of B.D. In 1640 he was incorporated at Cambridge. Entering into holy orders, he was appointed chaplain to the lord keeper, Thomas Coventry [q. v.], through the recommendation of the provost, Christopher Potter [q. v.], and, after Coventry's death, to his successor, Sir John Finch, baron Finch of Fordwich [q. v.] When Finch was impeached by the Long parliament in 1640, and took refuge in Holland, Stanwix returned to Oxford, and was appointed rector of Chipping Warden, Northamptonshire, in 1643, by Sir Richard Saltonstall, of Queen's College. He remained undisturbed in his living during the Commonwealth, and died at Chipping Warden on 8 April 1656.
He was the author of ‘A Holy Life here the only Way to Eternal Life hereafter. Wherein this truth is especially asserted, that a Holy Life, or the Habitual Observing of the Laws of Christ, is indispensably necessary to Salvation,’ London, 1652, 8vo.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 427; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Bridges's Northamptonshire, ed. Whalley, i. 116; Foster's Visitations of Cumberland and Westmoreland, p. 128.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Isbister, Alexander Kennedy

​ISBISTER, ALEXANDER KENNEDY (1822–1883), educational writer, eldest son of Thomas Isbister, an officer of the Hudson Bay Company, was born at Fort Cumberland, Canada, in 1822, and was sent to Scotland, the original home of his family, to be educated. In his fifteenth year he returned to Canada, and after serving for a short time as a pupil-teacher, he entered the service of the Hudson Bay Company. Seeing little prospect of advancement he threw up his appointment and, returning to Scotland, studied at the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. At the latter he graduated M.A. on 3 March 1858. During part of this period he supported himself by contributing to the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ and to Chambers's ‘Educational Course.’
In 1849 he became second master in the East Islington proprietary school, and a year afterwards the head-master. Five years later he was appointed the head-master of the Jews' College in Finsbury Square, and from 1858 to 1882 was master of the Stationers' Company's school. His connection with the College of Preceptors, 42 Queen Square, Bloomsbury (now located in its own building in Bloomsbury Square), began in 1851. In 1862 he was appointed editor of the ‘Educational Times,’ the official organ of the college, and in 1872 he succeeded the Rev. G. A. Jacob, D.D ., as dean of the college. His services were very great, and to him the present position of the college is largely due. On 17 Nov. 1864 he was admitted to the bar at the Middle Temple, and took the degree of LL.B. at the university of London in 1866. He died at 20 Milner Square, Islington, London, on 28 May 1883. He was the author of numerous works, chiefly school books, among which were: 1. ‘Elements of Bookkeeping,’ 1850, with forms of a set of books, 1854. 2. ‘A Proposal for a New Penal Settlement in the Uninhabited Districts of British North America,’ 1850. 3. ‘Euclid,’ 1860, 1862, 1863, and 1865. 4. ‘Cæsaris Commentarii de Bello Gallico,’ 1863, 1864, 1865, and 1866. 5. ‘The Elements of English Grammar,’ 1865. 6. ‘Arithmetic,’ 1865. 7. ‘Outlines of the English Language,’ 1865. 8. ‘Xenophon's Anabasis,’ 1866. 9. ‘First Steps in Reading and Learning,’ 1867. 10. ‘The Word-builder,’ 1869. 11. ‘The Illustrated Public School Speaker,’ 1870. 12. ‘Lessons on Elocution,’ 1870.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Isaacson, Stephen

​ISAACSON, STEPHEN (1798–1849), miscellaneous writer, born on 17 Feb. 1798, at the Oaks, Cowlinge, Suffolk, was son of Robert Isaacson, auctioneer, of Cowlinge, and afterwards of Moulton, Suffolk, by his second wife, Mary Anne, daughter of John Isaacson, rector of Lydgate and Little Bradley, Suffolk, and perpetual curate of Cowlinge. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1820. Both at school and college he obtained some reputation as a writer of humorous verse, and was even then a frequent contributor to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ and other periodicals. In 1822 he projected the ‘Brighton Magazine,’ which had a very brief existence. More successful was his translation of Jewel's ‘Apologia’ (1825), with a life of the bishop and a preliminary discourse on the doctrine and discipline of the church of Rome in reply to some observations which Charles Butler had addressed to Southey on his ‘Book of the Church.’ Butler answered Isaacson in a ‘Vindication of “The Book of the Roman Catholic Church”’ (1826). Shortly afterwards Isaacson accepted the rectory of St. Paul, Demerara. In 1829 he edited Henry Isaacson's ‘Life’ of Bishop Andrewes, and prefixed a brief memoir of the author. By 1832 he had returned to England, and avowed as the results of his own experience that the social and religious condition of the negro slaves could not be bettered. On 8 Aug. of that year he delivered a clever speech in vindication of the West India proprietors at Mansion House Chapel, Camberwell, which was afterwards published. For the next year or two he served as curate of St. Margaret, Lothbury. In 1834 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the preachership of the Magdalen Hospital. He soon became curate of Dorking, Surrey, and remained there until February 1837. In that year he published two popular manuals, entitled ‘The Altar Service; for the use of Country Congregations,’ and ‘Select Prayers for all Sorts and Conditions of Men.’ He again came forward as an anti-abolitionist in 1840 by issuing part i. of ‘An Address to the British Nation on the Present State and Prospects of the West India Colonies,’ in which he argued in favour of an extensive system of immigration as the only means of extinguishing slavery and the slave-trade. From 1843 to 1847 he lived at Dymchurch, near Hythe in Kent, taking duty as chaplain of the Elham union.
During his residence there Isaacson became a member of the, newly established British Archæological Association, and contributed some papers on local antiquities to its ‘Journal.’ His quaint poem of the ‘Barrow Digger’ and other legends (printed in 1848) were suggested by the field operations of the association. He subsequently removed to Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire; but died on 7 April 1849 at 2 Tavistock Street, Bedford Square, London.
Isaacson married at St. George's Church, Guiana, in November 1826, Anna Maria ​Miller, youngest daughter of Bryan Bernard Killekelly of Barbadoes.
[Gent. Mag. new ser. xxxii. 101-2; Archæologia Cantiana, xv. 369, 372-3; Clergy Lists.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Isaac, Samuel

​ISAAC, SAMUEL (1815–1886), projector of the Mersey tunnel, son of Lewis Isaac of Poole, Dorsetshire, by Catherine, daughter of N. Solomon of Margate, was born at Chatham in 1815. Coming to London as a young man, he established a large business as an army contractor in Jermyn Street, trading as Isaac, Campbell, & Company. His brother, Saul Isaac, J. P., afterwards member for Nottingham 1874–80, was associated with him in partnership. The firm during the Confederate war in America were the largest European supporters of the southern states. Their ships, outward bound with military stores and freighted home with cotton, were the most enterprising of blockade-runners between 1861 and 1865. Isaac's eldest son Henry, who died at Nassau, West Indies, during the war, had much to do with this branch of the business. Having raised a regiment of volunteers from among the workmen of his own factory at Northampton, Isaac was rewarded with the military rank of major. He and his firm were large holders of Confederate funds, and were consequently ruined on the conclusion of the American war in 1865. In 1880 he acquired the rights of the promoters of the Mersey tunnel, and himself undertook the making of the tunnel, letting the works to Messrs. Waddell, and employing as engineers Mr. James Brunlees and Sir Douglas Fox. The Right Hon. H. C. Raikes became chairman, with the Right Hon. E. P. Bouverie as vice-chairman, of the company formed to carry through the undertaking. Money was raised, and the boring was completed under Isaac's superintendence on 17 Jan. 1884. The tunnel was opened on 13 Feb. 1885; the first passenger train ran through on 22 Dec.; it was formally opened by the Prince of Wales, 20 Jan. 1886 (Illustrated London News, 30 Jan. 1886, pp. 111, 112). Queen Victoria accepted from Isaac an ingenious jewelled representation of the tunnel, in which the speck of light which shines at the end of the excavation was represented by a brilliant. He formed a collection of paintings containing some of the best works of Mr. B. W. Leader, A.R.A. Isaac died at 29 Warrington Crescent, Maida Vale, London, on 22 Nov. 1886, and left 203,084l. 17s. 9d.
G. C. B.