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

​MILLINGTON, Sir THOMAS (1628–1704), physician, son of Thomas Millington, esq., of Newbury, Berkshire, was born at Newbury in 1628. He was sent to Westminster School, whence he was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1645, graduating A.B. in 1649 and M.A. in 1657. He then removed to Oxford, where he graduated M.D. in 1659 and became fellow of All Souls' College. Here he took part with Wilkins, Boyle, Wallis, Wren, and Willis in those scientific meetings in which originated the Royal Society, of which he was an original member. In 1672 he became a fellow of the College of Physicians; in 1678 he was chosen censor; in 1679 Harveian orator; from 1686 to 1689 treasurer; and from 1696 till his death, president. In 1675 he was appointed Sedleian professor of natural philosophy at Oxford. His inaugural lecture on 12 April 1676 was, according to Wood, ‘much commended’ (Wood, Life and Times, ed. Clark, ii. 343). He retained the post till his death, but generally performed the duties of the office by deputy. He became physician to William and Mary; was knighted in 1680; and occupied the same office under Queen Anne. In 1701, by an advance of 2,000l. he freed the College of Physicians of a debt of nearly 7,000l. Millington died of asthma in London, 5 Jan. 1704, and was buried on the 28th in the Wentworth Chapel of Gosfield Church, Essex, where there was a fine monumental brass to his memory, which, with the exception of some coats of arms, was stolen from its Purbeck-marble slab at the beginning of the present century.
Millington is spoken of in laudatory terms as a physician by Sydenham, and under the name of ‘Machaon’ in Garth's ‘Dispensary,’ but is now chiefly remembered as the alleged discoverer of sexuality in plants. Nehemiah Grew [q. v.], in a lecture on the anatomy of flowers, read to the Royal Society on 6 Nov. 1676, says: ‘In discourse hereof with our learned Savilian [an error] professor, Sir Thomas Millington, he told me, that he conceived that the attire [stamens] doth serve as the male for the generation of the seed. I immediately replied, that I was of the same opinion …’ As Pulteney points out (Sketches of the Progress of Botany, i. 336), the credit probably belongs rather to Grew himself, Millington being, as Sachs says (History of Botany, p. 382, English translation), ‘a botanist otherwise unknown to history;’ but the date of this lecture is six years earlier than Grew's ‘Anatomy of Plants.’
There is a fine portrait of Millington at the Royal College of Physicians, and the younger Linnæus commemorated him in the genus Millingtonia among Bignoniaceæ.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, i. 363; Patrick's Autobiography, passim.]
G. S. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Millington, James Heath

​MILLINGTON, JAMES HEATH (d. 1873), painter, was born at Cork, though not of Irish parentage. In 1826 he entered the schools of the Royal Academy in London, and gained many prizes there, though he was not successful in winning the gold medal for painting. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1831, sending ‘A Portrait of J. C. Bishop, esq.,’ and ‘Vulcan's Cave.’ He continued to be a frequent exhibitor of subject pictures, portraits, and miniatures there and also at the British Institution and Suffolk Street Galleries up to 1870. Millington, who was for a short time curator of the School of Painting at the Royal Academy, died in 1873.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1880; Royal Academy Catalogues.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Milliken, Richard Alfred

​MILLIKEN or MILLIKIN, RICHARD ALFRED (1767–1815), poet, was born at Castlemartyr, co. Cork, on 8 Sept. 1767. His father, Robert Milliken, was of Scottish origin, and before coming to Cork, where he joined the established church, was a quaker. Richard was apprenticed to an attorney, and after being admitted and sworn he began business for himself in Cork. He was not much employed in his profession, and most of his time was devoted to painting, poetry, and music. In 1795 he contributed poetical pieces to the Cork ‘Monthly Miscellany,’ and in April 1797 started, jointly with his sister, who wrote some historical novels, a magazine entitled ‘The Casket,’ which appeared monthly till February 1798. On the breaking out of the rebellion he joined the Royal Cork volunteers, and became notorious for his ‘zeal and efficiency.’ In 1807 he published at Cork ‘The Riverside,’ a blank-verse poem and in 1810 a short tale, ‘The Slave of Surinam.’ In 1815 he laid the foundation of a society for the promotion of the fine arts in Cork, which followed an exhibition of his own and other local artists' drawings. He died 16 Dec. 1815, and was buried with a public funeral at Douglas, near Cork.
Milliken is now remembered chiefly as the author of the song ‘The Groves of Blarney, they look so charming,’ a burlesque of a doggerel ballad, ‘Castle Hyde,’ written by an itinerant poet named Barrett about 1790. There are various readings of the song, the rebellion having given rise to some scurrilous additions to the original, and a version is printed in ‘The Reliques of Father Prout.’ The song was frequently sung on the stage by the elder Charles Mathews. Other of Milliken's lyrics, which figure in Irish anthologies, are the ‘Groves of de Pool’ and ‘Had I the Tun which Bacchus used.’ Of several dramas and farces apparently never published, ‘Dugourney in Egypt, an afterpiece,’ was played with success at Sadler's Wells in 1805–6.
In 1823 a volume of ‘Poetical Fragments of the late Richard Alfred Milliken,’ with memoir and portrait, was published in London by subscription. Neither the ‘Groves of Blarney’ nor the ‘Groves of de Pool’ is included.
[Memoir in Poetical Fragments, as above; Crofton Croker's Popular Songs of Ireland, 1839, pp. 89, 141; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland, p. 163; H. Halliday Sparling's Irish Minstrelsy; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xi. 452.]
J. C. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hildeyard, Thomas

​HILDEYARD, THOMAS (1690–1746), jesuit, of a respectable Lincolnshire family, was born in London on 3 March 1689–90. He was educated in the jesuit college at St. Omer, entered the society on 7 Sept. 1707, and was professed of the four vows on 2 Feb. 1724–5. After teaching philosophy, theology, and mathematics at Liège, he was sent to the English mission. In September 1743 he was declared rector of the ‘college’ of St. Francis Xavier, which included the counties of Hereford, Monmouth, Gloucester, and Somerset, and the whole of South Wales; and died in that office on 10 April (N.S.) 1746 at Rotherwas, near Hereford, the seat of the Bodenham family, where he had been chaplain for upwards of twenty years. He was a scientific mechanician, and some of his ingenious astronomical clocks are said to be at Holt and Rotherwas.
His works are: 1. ‘Lectures on Penance,’ manuscript preserved at the presbytery, St. George's, Worcester. 2. A description of a timepiece invented by himself, which he is said to have published (Caballero).
[Caballero's Hist. Soc. Jesu Suppl. i. 57; Foley's Records, v. 907, vii. 360; Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 116.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hildilid

​HILDILID, Saint (fl. 700), abbess of Barking, was, according to the legendary life of Erkenwald or Earconwald [q. v.], bishop of London, of foreign origin, and Reyner has inferred from this that she came from Chelles (Apost. Bened. pp. 64–5). Earconwald is said to have engaged her to instruct his sister Ethelburga [q. v.], abbess of the monastery which he had founded at Barking. Hildilid succeeded her pupil as abbess at some date later than 692, if we accept the charter of Æthelred to Æthelburga given under that date (Kemble, Codex Dipl. i. 39). According to another account it must have been after the death of Earconwald (693), who died on a visit to his sister. Florence of Worcester, however, gives her accession under 664, but again mentions it under 675 (i. 27, 33). Bede speaks of Hildilid's long rule, of her translation of the bones of saints into the church of St. Mary, and of a miraculous cure of a blind man which took place in her time (Hist. Eccl. iv. 10). St. Boniface, writing to Eadburga, abbess of Minster, in 717 or 718, mentions Hildilid as the authority on which the visions of men who had been raised from the dead are reported. Among her pupils at Barking was Cuthburga, daughter of Ina, king of Wessex, and afterwards abbess of Wimborne, Dorsetshire. The date of Hildilid's death is uncertain, but Bede says she lived to a great age, and she was apparently dead before the date of Boniface's letter. Wilson (Martyrologium Anglicanum) gives her day as 22 Dec., but the more usually accepted date is 24 March. There is a life of Hildilid in Capgrave's ‘Nova Legenda Anglie’ (see Hardy, Cat. Brit. Hist. i. 414). Aldhelm, while abbot of Malmesbury, dedicated to her his treatise, ‘De Laudibus Virginitatis’ (Malmesbury, Gesta Pontif. p. 143, Rolls Ser.)
[Bædæ Hist. Eccl. and Florence of Worcester in Engl. Hist. Soc.; Capgrave, Nova Legenda Anglie, p. 180; Bollandists' Acta Sanctorum, March iii. 484; Mabillon, Act. Sanct. Ord. Bened. III. i. 288; Dict. Christ. Biog.]
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hildrop, John

​HILDROP, JOHN (d. 1756), divine, was educated at St. John's College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. on 7 July 1702, M.A. on 8 June 1705, B.D. and D.D. on 9 June 1743. On 14 April 1703 he was presented to the mastership of the Royal Free Grammar School at Marlborough by Thomas, earl of Ailesbury and Elgin. He was also rector of Maulden, Bedfordshire. He resigned the mastership on 4 Dec. 1733, and the rectory on 23 March 1733–4. On 13 April 1734 he was instituted to the rectory of Wath-juxta-Ripon on the presentation of Charles, lord Bruce, afterwards earl of Ailesbury and Elgin, whose chaplain he was. He was a friend and correspondent of Dr. Zachary Grey [q. v.] In 1740 he became one of the regular contributors to the ‘Weekly Miscellany.’ He died on 18 Jan. 1756. Hildrop published from time to time, anonymously or under the pseudonyms of ‘Phileleutherus Britannicus’ and ‘Timothy Hooker,’ various fugitive essays of a satirico-polemical stamp, chiefly directed against the deists, of slight intrinsic value, but written in a style unusually nervous, easy, and entertaining. Some of these were reprinted as ‘The Miscellaneous Works of John Hildrop, D.D.,’ London, 1754, 2 vols. 8vo. They comprise: 1. ‘An Essay for the better Regulation and Improvement of Free-Thinking.’ 2. ‘An Essay on Honour.’ 3. ‘Free Thoughts upon the Brute Creation or an Examination of Father Bougeant's “Philosophical Amusement,”’ &c. (an attempt to prove that the lower animals have souls in a state of degradation consequent upon the fall of man). 4. ‘A Modest Apology for the Ancient and Honourable Family of the Wrongheads.’ 5. ‘A Letter to a Member of Parliament containing a Proposal for bringing in a Bill to revise, amend, or repeal certain obsolete Statutes commonly called the Ten Commandments.’ This amusing jeu d'esprit, which on its first appearance was attributed to Swift, was reprinted in 1834, London, 8vo. 6. ‘The Contempt of the Clergy considered’ (an argument for the liberation of the church from state control). 7. ‘Some Memoirs of the Life of Simon Shallow.’ Other miscellanies by Hildrop are: 1. ‘Reflections upon Reason,’ London, 1722, 8vo (a satire upon free-thinking, attributed at first to Bishop Gastrell [q. v.], and examined by Thomas Morgan in ‘Enthusiasm in Distress,’ London, 1722, 8vo). 2. ‘A Caveat ​against Popery; being a seasonable Preservative against Romish Delusions and Jacobitism now industriously spread throughout the Nation,’ London, 1735, 8vo. 3. ‘A Commentary upon the Second Psalm,’ London, 1742, 8vo.
[Cat. of Oxford Graduates, notes; Gent. Mag. 1756 p. 43, 1834 ii. 114; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 466, ii. 534; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. iv. 323; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hildersam, Samuel

​HILDERSAM or HILDERSHAM, SAMUEL (1594?–1674), nonconformist divine, only son of Arthur Hildersam [q. v.], was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, about 1594. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and became fellow and B.D. In 1628 he was presented by William Cokayne, a merchant in Austin Friars, to the rectory of West Felton, Shropshire, having been ordained by an Irish bishop, without subscription. The reputation he attained was that of a good preacher and sound expositor, of quiet habits, kindly to the younger clergy, and ‘very much a gentleman.’ He was a member, but not an original member, of the Westminster Assembly, which he seldom attended. His signature to the testimony of Shropshire ministers in 1648 is evidence of his presbyterianism. Ejected from West Felton by the Uniformity Act of 1662, he made no attempt to continue his ministry, but retired to the house of a relative at Erdington, a hamlet in the parish of Aston, near Birmingham, Warwickshire. Here he died in April 1674, at the age of eighty, and was buried in Aston churchyard, without funeral sermon, by his own order. He married Mary daughter of Sir Henry Goodyear of Polesworth, Warwickshire, who survived him. Baxter and Matthew Henry speak highly of his abilities and character. He is the author of dedicatory epistles to the two posthumous volumes of his father's sermons and lectures.
[Calamy's Account, 1713, pp. 566 sq.; Calamy's Continuation, 1727, p. 723; Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, 1822, iii. 47; Hildersam's Works; Williams's Life of P. Henry, 1825, p. 458.]
A. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hilditch, Edward

​HILDITCH, Sir EDWARD, M.D. (1805–1876), inspector-general of hospitals, was born in 1805, studied medicine at St. George's Hospital, took his diploma in 1826, and at once entered the naval medical service. He was on the West Indian station from 1830 to 1855, and had a most extensive experience in dealing with outbreaks of yellow fever. He reached the rank of inspector-general in 1854. In 1855 he was appointed to the charge of Plymouth Hospital, in 1861 to Greenwich Hospital, and was placed on the retired list in 1865, receiving the honour of knighthood. In 1859 he was named honorary physician to the queen, when the distinction was first instituted. He died at Bayswater on 24 Aug. 1876, aged 71.
[Lancet, 2 Sept. 1876.]
C. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pickering, Ellen

​PICKERING, ELLEN (d. 1843), novelist, lived in early life at Bath. Her family owned property in the West Indies, but losses compelled their retirement for some years to Hampshire, and Ellen commenced novel-writing about 1825 with a view to a livelihood. She wrote rapidly, acquired some popularity, and earned, it is said, 100l. a year. The most successful of her books was ‘Nan Darrell,’ published in 1839. The heroine is a crazy gipsy, said to be drawn from life. Other editions appeared in 1846, 1853, 1862, and 1865. Miss Pickering died at Bath, on 25 Nov. 1843, of scarlet fever (Annual Register, 1843, p. 315; Gent. Mag. 1844, ii. 216). She did not live to finish her last novel, ‘The Grandfather;’ it was completed by Elizabeth Youatt, and published in 1844. In the year of her death Miss Pickering published ‘Charades for Acting’ and ‘Proverbs for Acting.’
Her other novels are: 1. ‘The Marriage of the Favourite,’ 1826. 2. ‘The Heiress,’ 1833. 3. ‘Agnes Serle,’ 1835. 4. ‘The Merchant's Daughter,’ 1836. 5. ‘The Squire,’ 1837, 1860. 6. ‘The Fright,’ 1839. 7. ‘The Prince (Rupert) and Pedlar, or the Siege of Bristol,’ 1839. 8. ‘The Quiet Husband,’ 1840. 9. ‘Who shall be Heir?’ 1840. 10. ‘The Secret Foe: an historical Novel,’ 1841. 11. ‘The Expectant,’ 1842. 12. ‘Sir Michael Paulet,’ 1842. 13. ‘Friend or Foe,’ 1843. 14. ‘The Grumbler,’ 1843. 15. ‘Kate Walsingham,’ 1848, all in 3 vols. Most of her novels were published separately in the United States.
[Allibone's Dict. of English Lit. ii. 1589; Hale's Woman's Record, p. 884; private information.]
E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pickering, George

​PICKERING, GEORGE (d. 1857), artist, born in Yorkshire, succeeded to the practice of George Cuitt the younger [q. v.] as a drawing-master in Chester. He also painted many pictures in water-colour, exhibiting at the Liverpool Academy, of which he was a non-resident member in 1827. The plates by Edward Francis Finden [q. v.] which illustrate both the first (1829) and second (1831) series of Roby's ‘Traditions of Lancashire’ are after drawings by Pickering, which are remarkable alike for artistic finish and suitability for the purpose of reproduction by the engraver. They are now in the possession of Mrs. Trestrail, formerly Mrs. Roby. He also drew many of the fine landscapes that are engraved in Ormerod's ‘History of Cheshire’ and in Baines's ‘History of the County Palatine of Lancaster.’ In 1836 he had a studio at 53 Bold Street, Liverpool. Some years later he resided at Grange Mount, Birkenhead, where he continued to practise as an artist and teacher of drawing. He died there in March 1857.
[Liverpool Academy Catalogues; information from Mr. Charles Brown of Chester and others, communicated by Mr. C. W. Sutton.]
A. N.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pickering, Danby

​PICKERING, DANBY (fl. 1769), legal writer, son of Danby Pickering of Hatton Garden, Middlesex, was admitted, on 28 June 1737, a student at Gray's Inn, where he was called to the bar on 8 May 1741. He re-edited the original four volumes of ‘Modern Reports’ (1682–1703), with the supplements of 1711, 1713, and 1716, under the title ‘Modern Reports, or Select Cases adjudged in the Courts of King's Bench, Chancery, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, since the Restoration of His Majesty King Charles II to the Fourth of Queen Anne,’ London, 1757, fol. He also edited Sir Henry Finch's ‘Law, or a Discourse thereof in Four Books,’ London, 1759, 8vo. His most important work, however, was the abridgment of the ‘Statute Book,’ entitled ‘The Statutes at Large, from Magna Charta to the end of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain,’ Cambridge, 1762–9, 24 vols. 8vo; continued with his name on the title-page to 1807, and thereafter without his name until 1809. The date of his death is uncertain.
[Gray's Inn Reg.; Bridgman's Legal Bibliography; Marvin's Legal Bibliography; Wallace's Reporters.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Phiston, William

​PHISTON or FISTON, WILLIAM (fl. 1570–1609), translator and author, describes himself as ‘a student of London,’ where apparently he resided most of his life. He acquired a knowledge of Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian, and his works brought him under the notice of Nowell, dean of St. Paul's, Grindal, archbishop of Canterbury, and Robert Ratcliffe, earl of Sussex, to all of whom he dedicated books; but no further particulars of his life are known.
His works are: 1. ‘A Testimonie of the True Church of God … translated out of the French [of Simon de Voyon] by William Phiston,’ London, 4to; the British Museum Catalogue conjectures the date to be 1560? but 1570 is probably more correct. 2. ‘A Lamentacion of Englande for John Ivele [Jewel], bishop of Sarisburie, by W. Ph.’ London [1571]. 3. ‘Certaine Godly Sermons … First set foorthe by Master Bernardine Occhine … and now lately collected and translated out of the Italian tongue into the English by William Phiston of London, student,’ London, 1580, 4to. 4. ‘The Welspringe of Wittie Conceites … translated out of the Italian by W. Phist., student,’ London, 1584, 4to; besides the translation, Phiston added other matter, ‘partly the invention of late writers and partly mine own.’ 5. ‘The Estate of the Germaine Empire, with the Description of Germanie,’ London, 1595, 4to; a translation from two works, one Italian the other Latin. ​6. ‘The Auncient Historie of the Destruction of Troy … translated out of the French [of Le Fevre] into English by W. Caxton Newly corrected and the English much amended by William Fiston,’ London, 1596, 4to; another edit. 1607, 4to. 7. ‘The Most Pleasant and Delectable Historie of Lazarillo de Tormes, a Spanyard; and of his marvellous Fortunes and Adversities. The second part, translated out of Spanish by W. P[histon],’ London, 1596, 4to. 8. An edition of Segar's ‘Schoole of Good manners, or a new Schoole of Vertue … by William Fiston,’ London, 1609, 8vo; another edition, ‘newly corrected’ by Phiston, appeared in 1629, 8vo; but Phiston himself can scarcely have been alive then.
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Phylip, Sion

​PHYLIP, SION (1543–1620), Welsh poet, was the son of Phylip ap Morgan, and was born in 1543 in the neighbourhood of Harlech. His bardic instructors were Gruffydd Hiraethog and Wiliam Lleyn. He was present at the eisteddfod held at Caerwys in 1568, and was there admitted to the grade of ‘disgybl pencerddaidd’ (scholar of the first rank) (Pennant, Tours, ii. 93). He lived at Hendre Waelod, in the vale of Ardudwy, but spent much of his time in bardic tours through various parts of Wales. In the course of one of these (1620) he was drowned near Pwllheli. Three of Sion Phylip's poems have been printed in the ‘Cymmrodor’ (ix. 24, 28, 33), and five in the ‘Brython’ (iv. 230, 298, 345, 346, 390). Many are to be found in the Cymrodorion MSS., now in the British Museum. His brother Richard and his sons Gruffydd and Phylip were also poets.
J. E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Phylip, William

​PHYLIP, WILLIAM (1590?–1670), Welsh poet, was the son of Phylip Sion ap Tomas (d. 1625), and was born about 1590. In 1649, on the death of Charles I, he wrote a Welsh elegy upon the king, which was printed in the same year. Under the Commonwealth his property at Hendre Fechan, near Barmouth, was confiscated, and he himself was forced to go into hiding. After an interval he made his peace with the authorities, who are said to have sought to curb his spirit by making him a collector of their taxes. He died at a great age on 11 Feb. 1669–70, and was buried in Llanddwywe churchyard, where his tombstone is still inscribed ‘W. PH. 1669, FE. XI.’ Three of his ‘cywyddau’ have appeared in the ‘Brython’ (iv. 147, 185, 285), and five other poems in the ‘Blodeugerdd’ of 1759 (pp. 8, 125, 227, 390, 413).
J. E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Picken, Andrew (1815-1845)

​PICKEN, ANDREW (1815–1845), draughtsman and lithographer, second of the four sons of Andrew Picken (1788–1833) [q. v.] the novelist, was born in 1815. He became a pupil of Louis Haghe, and in 1835 received from the Society of Arts their silver Isis medal for a lithographic drawing of the ruins of the Houses of Parliament after the fire. In the same year he exhibited, at the Royal Academy, a view of a tomb in Narbonne Cathedral. Picken then established himself as a lithographer, and had already earned a reputation by the excellent quality of his work when in 1837 his health, which had always been delicate, broke down, and, his lungs being affected, he was sent to Madeira. During a residence there of two years he drew a series of views of the island, which, on his return to England, were published under the title ‘Madeira Illustrated,’ 1840, with interesting letterpress edited from his notes by Dr. James Macaulay. To this fine work, which is now scarce, was due much of the subsequent popularity of Madeira as a health resort. After a short interval Picken found it necessary to revisit Madeira; but his disease making rapid progress, he came back to London, and died there on 24 June 1845. During his brief career Picken executed on stone a large number of landscapes, chiefly illustrations to books of travel and private commissions. His youngest brother, Thomas, was also a landscape lithographer, and did much good work for Roberts's ‘Holy Land,’ 1855; Payne's ‘English Lake Scenery,’ 1856; ‘Scotland Delineated,’ and other works. In 1879 he became an inmate of the Charterhouse, London.
[Art Union, 1845, p. 263; Memoir of E. and A. Picken, by R. Brown, 1879 (Paisley Burns Club publications).]
F. M. O'D.