OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nevay, John (1792-1870)

​NEVAY, JOHN (1792–1870), poet, was born in the town of Forfar on 28 Jan. 1792. He was well educated in the Forfar schools, one of his teachers being James Clarke, a friend of Burns. As a boy Nevay showed a lively appreciation of natural beauty, and the slopes and valleys of the neighbouring Grampians were early familiar to him. He soon essayed descriptive and sentimental verse, and literature became an unfailing recreation in his long and arduous career in Forfar as a handloom weaver. He was a close friend of Alexander Laing (1787–1857) [q. v.], the Brechin poet, and he contributed to his ‘Angus Album’ in 1833 an interesting poem in Spenserian stanza, ‘Mary of Avonbourne.’ Widely recognised by literary men, Nevay corresponded with Ebenezer Elliot, and found an appreciative critic in Professor Wilson, who inserted his touching lyric, ‘The Yeldron,’ in one of the ‘Noctes Ambrosianæ’ (in ‘Blackwood's Magazine,’ 1835). He is said to have written prose tales in various periodicals, and to have contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Literary Journal.’ From an unpublished autobiographical sketch it would appear that the Chevalier de Chatelain translated several of Nevay's lyrics into French, and that German translations also were made (Grant Wilson, Poets and Poetry of Scotland). Nevay died in Forfar on 4 May 1870.
As a lyric poet Nevay, without being very ambitious, is spontaneous and tender. His published works are: 1. ‘A Pamphlet of Rhymes,’ 1818. 2. A second ‘Pamphlet,’ 1821. 3. ‘Emmanuel,’ a sacred poem in nine cantos, 1831. 4. ‘The Peasant,’ 1834. 5. ‘The Child of Nature,’ and other poems, 1835. 6. ‘Rosaline's Dream,’ with Introduction by the Rev. George Gilfillan, 1853. 7. ‘The Fountain of the Rock,’ 1855.
[Rogers's Modern Scottish Minstrel; Mr. Grant Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland; information from Mr. W. D. Latto, Dundee, and from Miss Ewen and Mr. Alexander Lowson, Forfar.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neve, Cornelius

​NEVE, CORNELIUS (fl. 1637–1664), portrait-painter, appears to have been of Netherlandish origin, and may have been a ​member of the artist family of De Neve at Antwerp. There is a portrait by him at Knole of Richard and Edward Sackville as boys, signed and dated 1637. At Petworth there are two companion pictures, one of an artist with his wife and son, the other of eight children, which are stated to represent Neve and his family, painted by himself. In the Ashmolean collection of portraits at Oxford there is one inscribed ‘Mr. Le Neve, a famous painter,’ apparently Cornelius Neve, and Vertue notes that he drew Ashmole's portrait in 1664. The register of the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, records the marriage on 21 Aug. 1593 of ‘Cornelis de Neve van Ghistele with Elisabeth Goddens van Maseick, widow of Jan Davidts;’ this may be the father of, or perhaps identical with, the painter.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nettleship, Richard Lewis

​NETTLESHIP, RICHARD LEWIS (1846–1892), fellow and tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, the youngest brother of Henry Nettleship [q. v.], was born on 17 Dec. 1846 at Kettering. He was educated first at a preparatory school at Wing, Buckinghamshire, and afterwards at Uppingham under Edward Thring [q. v.] Elected to a scholarship at Balliol in 1864, he came into residence at Oxford in October 1865, and won a long series of university distinctions, the Hertford scholarship in 1866, the Ireland in 1867, the Gaisford Greek verse prize in 1868, a Craven scholarship in 1870, and the Arnold prize in 1873. Like his brother, he disappointed expectations by taking only a ‘second’ in literæ humaniores in 1869. In the same year, however, he was elected to a fellowship, and some time after appointed to a tutorship at Balliol. As a tutor he eventually came to take the place of his friend, Thomas Hill Green [q. v.], in the philosophic teaching of the college. The strong and lasting impression he made on his pupils and friends was largely due to his extremely interesting personality—a strange combination of intellectual acuteness and singular modesty and diffidence in matters of opinion. With the exception of an essay on ‘The Theory of Education in Plato's Republic’ contributed to the volume entitled ‘Hellenica’ edited by Mr. Evelyn Abbott (London, 1880), and a valuable memoir of T. H. Green prefixed to the third volume of his ‘Works’ (London, 1880), he published nothing, not even his Arnold prize essay; for after working at the subject, ‘The Normans in Italy and Sicily,’ for several years, he ultimately handed over to another the large collection of materials he had made for a book on it.
Nettleship, besides possessing the family love of music, was fond of all outdoor exercises, and, as an undergraduate, rowed in his college boat. He died on 25 Aug. 1892 from exposure in the course of an attempt to ascend Mont Blanc, and was buried at Chamounix. A tablet in his memory was placed in the antechapel of Balliol College, and a scholarship tenable at the college by a student of music was founded by his pupils and friends.
[Uppingham School Magazine, November 1892; Oxford University Calendar; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Times, 27, 29, 30 Aug. 1892; Oxford Magazine, 19 Oct. 1892; private information and personal knowledge.]
I. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neve, Timothy (1694-1757)

​NEVE, TIMOTHY (1694–1757), divine and antiquary, was born at Wotton, in the parish of Stanton-Lacy, near Ludlow, Shropshire, in 1694. He was the son of Paul Neve, bailiff of the same place, and was educated at Ludlow school. He was admitted sizar of St. John's College, Cambridge, 10 Nov. 1711, under Goodwyn, and graduated B.A. in 1714. In 1716 he became master of the free grammar school at Spalding, Lincolnshire. He performed service in some capacity in Spalding parish church, and was in 1718 admitted a member of the Gentleman's Society of Spalding, of which he acted as librarian. To this society he communicated several papers, including, in 1727, essays on the invention of printing and our first printers, and on Bishop Kennett's donation of books to Peterborough Cathedral. Leaving Spalding about 1729, when a successor at the school was appointed, he moved to Peterborough, where he was minor canon from 24 March 1728–9 till 1745. While there he was secretary and joint founder, along with Joseph Sparke, the registrar of Peterborough, of the Gentleman's Society, founded on the lines of the Spalding society.
He was chaplain to Dr. Thomas, bishop of Lincoln, and by him nominated prebendary of Lincoln, first of the North Kelsey stall (1744–8), then of Nassington stall (1747–57). On 28 March 1747 he was also collated archdeacon of Huntingdon. For twenty-eight years (1729–57) he was rector of Alwalton, Huntingdonshire, a living attached to his Lincoln prebend. He died there on 3 Feb. 1757, and was buried in Alwalton Church, in the north transept of which is an epitaph to his memory.
By his first wife (married 1722, died 1728) he had four children, of whom two were surviving in 1741—a son, Timothy [q. v.], and a daughter, subsequently married to a Mr. Davies (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. vi. 136). His second wife, whom he married on 26 Feb. 1750, was Christina, daughter of the Rev. Mr. Greene of Drinkstone, Bury St. Edmunds, and sister to Lady Danvers of Rushbrooke, Suffolk.
Watt attributes to him ‘Observations of 2 Parhelia, or Mock Suns, seen 30 Dec. 1735, and of an Aurora Borealis seen 11 Dec. 1735, (Phil. Trans. Abridg. vii. 134, 1751); also on an ‘Aurora Borealis seen in 1741’ (ib. p. 526).
W. A. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, Alexander (1778-1838)

​LAING, ALEXANDER (1778–1838), antiquary, the illegitimate son of an Aberdeen advocate named Michie, was born at Coull, Aberdeenshire, in 1778. He was tolerably well educated and possessed good natural abilities, but his erratic temperament precluded his advancement. For some years previous to his death he was employed as a book canvasser and flying stationer, in allusion to which he was commonly known in the country as ‘Stashie Laing.’ The first of Laing's antiquarian writings, ‘The Caledonian Itinerary, or a Tour on the Banks of the Dee, with Historical Notes from the best Authorities,’ appeared at Aberdeen in 1819. During the three subsequent years Laing edited an annual, the first two issues of which were entitled ‘The Eccentric Magazine,’ and the third ‘The Lounger's Commonplace Book,’ being a collection of anecdotes, apophthegms, and literary and historical curiosities. In 1822 he published ‘Scarce Ancient Ballads never before published, with Notes,’ Aberdeen, 12mo, and in the following year a similar collection under the title ‘The Thistle of Scotland’ (Advocates' Library Cat.) In 1828 appeared his chief work, ‘The Donean Tourist, interspersed with Anecdotes and Ancient National Ballads,’ Aberdeen, 1828, 8vo, a volume on the history and traditions of the river Don, which, though somewhat loosely compiled, constitutes a rich mine of Scottish historical lore, and ‘exhibits,’ says Jervise, ‘an incredible amount of patience’ and labour (Epitaphs and Inscriptions, i. 284). This is the only work by Laing in the British Museum Library. His last work was ‘An Cluaran Albannach, a Repository of Ballads, many never before published, to which are appended copious Notes, Historical, Biographical, Illustrative, and Critical,’ Aberdeen, 1834, 12mo. Laing died in 1838 at Boltingstone, a roadside inn between Tarland and Strathdon, and was buried in the churchyard of Coldstone, Aberdeenshire.
All his works are now scarce and coveted by Scottish bibliophiles. ‘Not a ruin or a battlefield by Dee or Don, which history or tradition gave name to, but Laing visited and viewed with a devotion almost sacred in its intensity. Ballads, family histories and genealogies, in all the unmethodical delightfulness of a tinker's wallet, lay jumbled up in his capacious brain, to be reproduced in various books with a confusing prolixity’ (Walker, Bards of Bonaccord, p. 650).
[Notes kindly supplied by John Bullock, esq., editor, Scottish Notes and Queries; Irving's Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen, p. 260; Men of the Reign, p. 507; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, James

​ LAING, JAMES (1502–1594), professor of theology in the university of Paris, was born in 1502 at Auchterless in Aberdeenshire. Having shown much aptitude at school in Scotland, he continued his studies at the university of Paris, where he applied himself to theology and entered holy orders. He is inscribed on the records of that university as a Scotsman, of the diocese of St. Andrews, and of the German nation. On 20 Oct. 1556 he was elected procurator of his nation, ​whereby he had the right to represent it in the rector's court, the governing body of the university. This honour was conferred on him on many later occasions—on 27 Aug. 1558, on 10 Feb. and 27 Oct. 1560, on 21 Oct. 1568, and on 14 Jan. 1571. About this latter date he obtained the degree of doctor of theology. He preached during several years in Paris. Jean de Rouen, privy councillor, royal almoner, rector and censor of the university, in his treatise on the Sorbonne, mentions Laing in very laudatory terms. He was a violent enemy of the Reformation, and very abusive in his personal attacks on the reformers. In 1581 he wrote ‘De Vita et Moribus atque Rebus Gestis Hæreticorum nostri temporis.’ The notices of Calvin are translated from the French of the earlier treatise of Bolsec. Laing's first sentence regarding Knox concludes, ‘ab initio suæ pueritiæ omni genere turpissimi facinoris infectus fuit.’ In 1585 he wrote a second treatise of a similar character, ‘De Vita et Moribus Theodori Bezæ, omnium hæreticorum nostri temporis facile principis, et aliorum hæreticorum brevis recitatio. Cui adjectus est libellus de morte Patris Edmundi Campionis et aliorum quorundam Catholicorum qui in Anglia pro fide Catholica interfecti fuerunt, primo die Decembris, anno Domini 1581. Authore Jacobo Laingeo, Doctore Sorbonico,’ Paris, 1585. The book is dedicated conjointly to Queen Mary Stuart and to James VI. He is said to have written other unpublished works of a less polemical nature, including a commentary on Aristotle's philosophy, which Dempster relates he saw in manuscript with the author. His name is appended to a document drawn up in the form of an oath of fealty signed and addressed by the principal members of the Paris faculties to Henry IV on his accession, 22 April 1594. He died during this year, and was buried, according to his wish, in the chapel of the Sorbonne.
[Du Boulay's Histoire de l'Université, tome vi.; Dempster's Hist. Eccl. Gent. Scot.; Conæus's De Stat. Religione apud Scotos, ii. 167; Beza's Life of Calvin; Hist. de la Vie, Actes, Doctrine, et Mort de Jean Calvin, par Bolsec, Paris, 1582.]
J. G. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laidlaw, William

​LAIDLAW, WILLIAM (1780–1845), friend of Sir Walter Scott, was born 19 Nov. 1780, at Blackhouse, Selkirkshire, where his father was a sheep-farmer. After receiving ​an elementary education at Peebles he assisted his father for a time. James Hogg [q. v.], the Ettrick Shepherd, whose mother was his distant cousin, was employed at Blackhouse for ten years, and formed a lasting friendship with Laidlaw. According to Hogg's ‘Autobiography’ Laidlaw was one of his first appreciative critics. In 1801 Hogg and Laidlaw helped Scott with materials for the ‘Border Minstrelsy.’ After two unsuccessful attempts at farming, in Peeblesshire and Midlothian respectively, Laidlaw in 1817 became steward to Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford. Master and man suited each other exactly, Laidlaw proving himself not only an exemplary servant but a worthy counsellor and a devoted friend. He was valued in the field, on the stream, and in the study. In 1819, when Scott was recovering from an illness, Laidlaw and Ballantyne wrote to his dictation most of the ‘Bride of Lammermoor,’ and subsequently ‘The Legend of Montrose,’ and nearly all ‘Ivanhoe.’ ‘St. Ronan's Well’ may have been due to Laidlaw's suggestion that Scott should devote a novel to ‘Melrose in July 1823’ (Lockhart, Life, v. 285, ed. 1837). When ruin fell upon Scott, he wrote to Laidlaw that it was ‘not the least painful consideration’ amid his troubles that he could no longer be useful to him (Journal, i. 97). After an interval, however, Laidlaw became his amanuensis, retaining the post till Scott's death in 1832. Subsequently he was factor to Sir Charles Lockhart Ross, Balnagowan, Ross-shire. Retiring in feeble health, he died in the house of his brother at Contin, near Dingwall, Ross-shire, 18 May 1845.
Laidlaw wrote several lyrics, but he is remembered only for his tender song, ‘Lucy's Flittin',’ published in Hogg's ‘Forest Minstrel,’ 1810. After 1817 he compiled, under Scott's management and direction, part of the ‘Edinburgh Annual Register,’ and contributed articles to the ‘Edinburgh Monthly Magazine’ (afterwards ‘Blackwood's’). He is also said to have written on the geology of Selkirkshire.
[Lockhart's Life of Scott, passim, and Scott's Journal; Rogers's Scottish Minstrel, vol. ii.; Borland's Yarrow, its Poets and Poetry; Gent. Mag. 1845, pt. ii. p. 213.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, Alexander (1787-1857)

​LAING, ALEXANDER (1787–1857), the Brechin poet, was born at Brechin, Forfarshire, 14 May 1787. His father was an agricultural labourer. Laing spent only two winters at school, and when eight years old became a herd, but devoted much of his leisure to reading and writing. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to a flax-dresser, and followed this occupation for fourteen years, when an accident permanently ​disabled him. He afterwards earned a modest competency as a pedlar, and died at Brechin, 14 Oct. 1857.
Laing contributed to local newspapers and to the following poetical miscellanies: ‘Harp of Renfrewshire,’ 1819; R. A. Smith's ‘Scottish Minstrel,’ 1820; Struthers's ‘Harp of Caledonia,’ 1821; Whitelaw's ‘Book of Scottish Song,’ 1844; and ‘Whistle Binkie,’ 1832–47. He also furnished anecdotes to the Scottish story-book ‘The Laird of Logan,’ 1835. In 1846 he published a collection of his poetry under the title ‘Wayside Flowers,’ of which a second edition appeared in 1850. He writes vigorous and melodious lowland Scotch, and is both pathetic and humorous. Laing edited popular editions of Burns and Tannahill, supplied various notes to Allan Cunningham's ‘Scottish Songs,’ 1825, and biographical notices to the ‘Angus Album,’ 1833.
[Preface to Jervise's Epitaphs and Inscriptions; Rogers's Scottish Minstrel, vol. iv.; Grant Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland, vol. ii.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, David (1774-1856)

​LAING, DAVID (1774–1856), architect, son of a merchant in the city of London, was born in 1774, and articled to Sir John Soane [q. v.] about 1790. In 1811 he was appointed surveyor of buildings at the custom house, and was directed to prepare designs for a new custom house on a site to the westward of Sir Christopher Wren's structure. In five years (1813–17) the building was completed and occupied, but in 1825 the beech piling and planking used as the substratum of the foundation decayed, and the front fell down. Much litigation followed, and ultimately, under Sir Sydney Smirke's advice, a new foundation was put in, and the whole building rearranged and altered.
Tite, one of Laing's pupils, laid the foundation of his reputation as joint architect with Laing of the church of St. Dunstan-in-the-East in 1817–19. Laing, who was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, died at 5 Elm Place, West Brompton, London, on 27 March 1856, aged 82. He was the author of ‘Hints for Dwellings, consisting of Original Designs ​ for Cottages, Farmhouses Villages, &c,' 1800, new edit. 1841, and of 'Plans. Elevitions, and Sections of Buildings. Public and Private, executed in various parts of England, &c., including the new Custom House, London,' &c., 1818.
[Builder, 5 April 1856, p. 189; Gent. Mag. 1856, i. 650.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, John (1809-1880)

​LAING, JOHN (1809–1880), bibliographer, was born in 1809 at Edinburgh, but spent his early youth at Dalmeny, where his father was for many years factor to the Earl of Rosebery; his mother was Mary Fyfe, of a Banffshire family. After the usual course at Edinburgh University in arts and theology, he was in 1842 ordained assistant and successor to John M. Robertson, minister of Livingston, Linlithgowshire. At the disruption in the following year he withdrew from the establishment, joined the newly formed free church, and for a time continued his ministry ​in the same parish. In 1846 he became chaplain to the presbyterian soldiers at Gibraltar and afterwards at Malta. Failing health, together with an invincible repugnance to appear in public, caused him to resign his charge. In 1850 he was appointed librarian in New College, Edinburgh, where his love of books found free scope, and his researches into bibliography began. After the death of Samuel Halkett [q. v.] in 1871, the materials collected by the latter for a dictionary of anonymous literature were entrusted to him, and Laing more than doubled the store. But he died 3 April 1880, before the work went to press. The whole, with the exception of the indices, was arranged and edited by his elder surviving daughter, and appeared with the title ‘A Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain,’ 4 vols. 8vo, between 1882 and 1888. Laing published the ‘Catalogue of the Printed Books and Manuscripts in the Library of New College, Edinburgh,’ 4to, 1868.
On 29 Aug. 1843 he married at Livingston Catherine Fyfe, daughter of a West India proprietor, and had three daughters, the eldest of whom predeceased him.
[Library Chronicle, 1888; private information.]
J. K-y.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walford, Thomas

​WALFORD, THOMAS (1752–1833), antiquary, born on 14 Sept. 1752, was the only son of Thomas Walford (d. 1756) of Whitley, near Birdbrook in Essex, by his wife, Elizabeth Spurgeon (d. 1789) of Linton in Cambridgeshire. He was an officer in the Essex militia in 1777, and was appointed deputy lieutenant of the county in 1778. In March 1797 he was nominated captain in the provisional cavalry, and in May following was gazetted major. In February 1788 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, in October 1797 a fellow of the Linnean Society, in 1814 a member of the Geological Society, and in 1825 a fellow. In 1818 he published ‘The Scientific Tourist through England, Wales, and Scotland’ (London, 2 vols. 12mo). In this work he noticed ‘the principal objects of antiquity, art, science, and the picturesque’ in Great Britain, under the heads of the several counties. In an introductory essay he dealt with the study of antiquities and the elements of statistics, geology, mineralogy, and botany. The work is too comprehensive to be exhaustive, and its value varies with Walford's personal knowledge of the places he describes.
Walford died at Whitley on 6 Aug. 1833. He published several papers on antiquarian subjects in antiquarian periodicals (e.g. Archæologia, xiv. 24, xvi. 145–50; Vetusta Monumenta, iii. pt. 39; Linnean Soc. Trans. lix. 156), and left several manuscripts, including a history of Birdbrook in Essex and another of Clare in Sussex.
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walkden, Peter

​WALKDEN, PETER (1684–1769), presbyterian minister and diarist, born at Flixton, near Manchester, on 16 Oct. 1684, was educated at a village school, then at the academy of James Coningham, minister of the presbyterian chapel at Manchester, and finally at some Scottish university, where he graduated M.A. He entered his first ministerial charge on 1 May 1709 at Garsdale, Yorkshire, which he quitted at the end of 1711 to become minister of two small congregations at Newton-in-Bowland and Hesketh Lane, near Chipping, in a poor and sparsely inhabited agricultural part of Lancashire. There he remained until 1738, when he removed to Holcombe, near Bury in the same county. In 1744 he was appointed to the pastorate of the tabernacle, Stockport, Cheshire, and remained there until his death on 5 Nov. 1769. He was buried in his own chapel, and his son Henry wrote a Latin epitaph for his gravestone.
His diary for the years 1725, 1729, and 1730, the only portion which has survived, was published in 1866 by William Dobson of Preston. It presents a vivid and curious picture of the hard life of a poor country minister of the period, and has suggested to Mr. Hall Caine some features of his character of Parson Christian in the ‘Son of Hagar.’ Passages from his correspondence and commonplace books have also been printed by Mr. James Bromley in the ‘Transactions’ of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire (vols. xxxii. xxxvi. xxxvii.).
He was twice married: first, to Margaret Woodworth, who died in December 1715; his second wife's name is not known. He had eight children, of whom one, Henry, was a minister at Clitheroe, and died there on 2 April 1795.
[Works cited above; E. Kirk in Manchester Literary Club Papers, v. 56; Heginbotham's Stockport, ii. 300; Smith's History of Chipping, 1894; Nightingale's Lancashire Nonconformity.]
C. W. S.