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

​PLOTT, JOHN (1732–1803), miniature-painter, was born at Winchester in 1732. In early life he was employed by an attorney, and in 1756 acted as clerk of the accounts for the maintenance of French prisoners quartered near Winchester. He then turned to art, and, after receiving some instruction in landscape from Richard Wilson, became a pupil of Nathaniel Hone, whom he assisted in his miniatures and enamels. Plott practised miniature-painting with success both in London and Winchester, exhibiting with the Incorporated Society from 1764 to 1775, and at the Royal Academy from 1772 to the end of his life. Having a taste for natural history, he also executed a number of beautiful water-colour drawings of that kind, including a series for a projected work on ‘Land Snails,’ which remained unfinished at his death. Late in life Plott became a member of the corporation of Winchester, and he died there on 27 Oct. 1803. He was an intimate friend of George Keate [q. v.], and some of their correspondence is now in the possession of Mr. G. B. Henderson of Bloomsbury Place; it appears from one of the letters that Plott was twice a candidate for a librarianship in the British Museum. Plott painted a miniature of Keate, which was engraved by J. K. Sherwin as a frontispiece to his ‘Poems,’ 1781. A portrait of Plott, scraped in mezzotint by himself, is mentioned by Bromley (Cat. of Engraved Portraits) and in the Musgrave catalogue, but is not otherwise known.
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Plough, John

​PLOUGH, JOHN (d. 1562), protestant controversialist, son of Christopher Plough of Nottingham, and nephew of John Plough, rector of St. Peter's, in the same town was born there and educated at Oxford, where he supplicated for his B.C.L. in 1543–4. In the same year he became vicar of Sarratt, Hertfordshire, and subsequently succeeded his uncle as rector of St. Peter's, Nottingham. During Edward VI's reign he made himself prominent as a reformer, and on Mary's accession fled to Basle, where he remained throughout the reign. While there he engaged in controversy with William Kethe [q. v.] and Robert Crowley [q. v.], two of the exiles at Frankfort. About 1559 he returned to England, presented a declaration of protestant doctrines to Elizabeth, and was presented by his fellow-exile, Grindal, to the rectory of East Ham, Essex, in 1560. In the same year he was granted the living of Long Bredy, Dorset, by letters patent. He died before November 1562.
Wood ascribes to Plough several works which he had never seen, and none are now known to be extant. The titles are: 1. ‘An Apology for the Protestants,’ written in reply to ‘The Displaying of the Protestants,’ by Miles Huggarde [q. v.] It was composed and published at Basle, and Strype gives the date as 1558. 2. ‘A Treatise against the Mitred Men in the Popish Kingdom.’ 3. ‘The Sound of the Doleful Trumpet.’
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Plukenet, Leonard

​PLUKENET, LEONARD (1642–1706), botanist, son of Robert Plukenet, and his wife Elizabeth, was born on 4 Jan. 1642. In early life he was a fellow-student of William Courten [q. v.] and of Robert Uvedale [q. v.], Pulteney suggests at Cambridge, but his name does not appear in the matriculation lists. Jackson (Journ. Bot. 1894, p. 248) believes, however, that it was at Westminster School under Dr. Busby. He soon practised as a physician in London, having apparently taken his M.D. degree abroad, and resided at St. Margaret's Lane, Old Palace Yard, Westminster, where he had a small botanic garden. He also had access to the gardens of other botanists, and owned a farm at Horn Hill, Hertfordshire. He published many works on botany at his own expense, and after 1689 his labours apparently attracted the interest of Queen Mary, who appointed him superintendent of the royal gardens at Hampton Court with the title of ‘Royal Professor of Botany,’ or ‘Queen's Botanist.’
He died at Westminster on 6 July 1706, and was interred on the 12th in the chancel of St. Margaret's Church. According to the registers of St. Margaret's, his wife Letitia bore him thirteen children; Pulteney speaks of another son, Richard, who was a student at Cambridge in 1696 (cf. Journ. Bot. 1894, p. 248).
Plukenet's long series of volumes forms a continuous description of plants of all parts of the world. They contain 2,740 figures with descriptive letterpress. Though chiefly devoted to exotics, several British plants were first figured in his plates. To Plukenet John Ray [q. v.] was indebted for assistance in the arrangement of the second volume of his ‘Historia Plantarum.’ His labours were ill appreciated by his fellow-botanists, and in his later writings Plukenet evinces his sense of neglect by passing severe though not unjust strictures on Sir Hans Sloane and James Petiver [q. v.]
His ‘Phytographia,’ &c., 4 pts. 4to, London, 1691–2, delineates new and rare species of plants. Subsequent works catalogue the contents of his herbarium, which comprised eight thousand plants. Their titles are: ‘Almagestum Botanicum,’ &c., 8vo, London, 1696; ‘Almagesti Botanici Mantissa,’ &c., 4to, London, 1700; ‘Amaltheum Botanicum,’ &c., with an index to the whole series, 4to, London, 1705. A collected edition of all these works, in six volumes, made up out of the surplus copies, was issued in 1720 and reprinted in 1769; an ‘Index Linnæanus,’ identifying his figures with Linné's species, was published by Giseke in 1779.
Plukenet's herbarium forms part of the Sloane collection kept in the Botanical Department of the British Museum (Natural History), where some of Plukenet's manuscript is also preserved.
A portrait engraved by Collins appears in the ‘Phytographia.’
[Pulteney's Sketches, ii. 18–29; Rees's Cyclopædia; Journ. Bot. 1882 pp. 338–42, 1894 pp. 247–8; Trimen and Dyer's Flora of Middlesex, p. 374.]
B. B. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walsh, John (1830-1898)

​WALSH, JOHN (1830–1898), archbishop of Toronto, the son of James Walsh, by his wife Ellen (Macdonald), was born at Mooncoin, co. Kilkenny, on 23 May 1830. After education at St. John's College, Waterford, he emigrated to Canada (April 1852), entered the grand seminary at Montreal, and received the tonsure.
In 1855 he served on the Brock mission on Lake Simcoe; shortly after the consecration of Dr. Lynch as bishop of Toronto in 1859, he became rector of St. Michael's Cathedral in that city, and in 1862 was nominated vicar-general of the diocese. In 1864 he visited Rome and was nominated by Pius IX bishop-elect of Sandwich. Four years later he removed the episcopal residence from Sandwich to London, Ontario, to which city the see was transferred by a decree from the propaganda, dated 15 Nov. 1869. Great scope was now afforded to Walsh's administrative ability. Within three years he paid off a large debt. In 1876, when he again visited Rome, he reported twenty-eight new churches and seventeen presbyteries built within his diocese, in addition to a college, an orphanage, and the episcopal residence at Mount Hope. In May 1881 the corner-stone of the new cathedral in London was laid, and St. Peter's was dedicated by Walsh on 28 June 1885. By a brief dated 27 Aug. 1889 he was appointed archbishop of Toronto, and he died in that city on 27 July 1898. As a pulpit orator and a prudent organiser he enjoyed a great reputation in Canada. He was also very popular in Ireland, and took a leading part during the summer of 1896 in organising the Irish race convention in Dublin, by which it was hoped to reconcile the various sections of the nationalist party.
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walsh, John Benn

​WALSH, Sir JOHN BENN, first Lord Ormathwaite (1798–1881), born at Warfield Park, Berkshire, on 9 Dec. 1798, was the only son of Sir John Benn Walsh, bart., of Warfield Park, Berkshire, and Ormathwaite, Cumberland. His father was the son of William Benn of Moor Row, Cumberland, a member of an old north-country family; he married in 1778 Margaret, daughter of Joseph Fowke of Bexley, Kent, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Walsh, governor of Fort St. George. On 4 April 1795 he assumed the surname and arms of Walsh by royal license, in compliance with the will of his wife's uncle, John Walsh (1725?–1795) [q. v.], son of Joseph Walsh. He was created a baronet on 14 June 1804, sat for Bletchingly 1802–6, and died on 7 June 1825. His son was educated at Eton, and matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 3 Dec. 1816 (Foster, Alumni Oxon.) Entering parliament for the borough of Sudbury in 1830, he represented that constituency in the tory interest in three parliaments until December 1834. An ardent politician and an able writer, he published several pamphlets on parliamentary reform. In January 1835 Sir John contested the county of Radnor, but was defeated by a small majority. At the next general election, following the accession of the queen in 1837, he was an unsuccessful candidate for Poole, but the following March was again returned at a by-election for Sudbury. In two years' time, however, he accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, and was returned (on 10 June 1840) without opposition for Radnorshire, which he afterwards represented for nearly twenty-eight years, the only occasion on which his re-election was challenged being in 1841, when he defeated Lord Harley. He was J.P. and D.L. for Berkshire, and served as high sheriff of that county in 1823. Being lord of the manor of Trewerne in Radnorshire and the owner of considerable property there, he was also J.P. for that county and high sheriff in 1825, and on 11 Aug. 1842 was sworn in lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of Radnorshire. On 16 April 1868 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Ormathwaite. Owing to advancing years he resigned the lieutenancy of Radnorshire in favour of his son, the present lord, who received the appointment on 19 April 1875. Ormathwaite died at his seat, Warfield Park, Bracknell, Berkshire, on 3 Feb. 1881. He married, on 8 Nov. 1825, Jane, youngest daughter of George Harry Grey, sixth earl of Stamford and Warrington. By her he had two sons and two daughters, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Arthur.
Ormathwaite was author of some able pamphlets, of which the principal were: 1. ‘The Poor Laws in Ireland,’ 1830. 2. ‘Observations on the Ministerial Plan of Reform,’ 1831. 3. ‘On the Present Balance of Parties in the State,’ 1832. 4. ‘Chapters of Contemporary History,’ 1836. 5. ‘Political Back-Games,’ 1871. 6. ‘Astronomy and Geology Compared,’ 1872. 7. ‘Lessons of the French Revolution, 1789–1872,’ 1873.
W. R. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walsh, Edward (1756-1832)

​WALSH, EDWARD (1756–1832), physician, born in 1756 in Waterford, was eldest son of John Walsh, a merchant, of Ballymountain House, co. Waterford. Robert Walsh (1772–1852) [q. v.] was his younger brother. After early education at Waterford, he studied medicine at Edinburgh and at Glasgow, where he graduated M.D. in 1791. Before leaving Waterford he founded a literary society there, an account of which by him appeared anonymously in the ‘British Magazine,’ 1830 (ii. 99–105). A poem by him gained a prize of a silver medal offered by this society, and on being appropriated some years after by one of the competitors for the Dublin College Historical Society medal was also successful (Brit. Mag. ii. 100). In 1792 Walsh published a poem, ‘The Progress of Despotism: a Poem on the French Revolution,’ which was dedicated to Charles James Fox. In the ‘Anthologia Hibernica’ he published about the same time a proposal for a universal alphabet. While a student in Edinburgh he published several sketches of some merit, one of which (a view of the side of Calton Hill on which a facial resemblance to Nelson could at that time be traced) appeared in ‘Ackerman's Repository.’
Walsh began his professional career as medical officer on a West Indian packet. He was afterwards physician to the forces in Ireland, being present at the battles in Wexford in 1798, and at the surrender of Humbert at Ballinamuck. He also served in Holland in 1799, and at the attack on Copenhagen (2 April 1801), where his hand was shattered. He was afterwards sent with the 49th regiment to Canada, where he spent some years studying Indian life. He collected a vast amount of information for a statistical history of Canada, but never published the work. He was present during most of the battles in the Peninsular war, and at Waterloo, and also served in the Walcheren expedition. He held for some time the post of president of the medical board at Ostend. He died on 7 Feb. 1832 at Summerhill, Dublin.
He published a ‘Narrative of the Expedition to Holland’ (London, 1800, 4to), and a collection of poems entitled ‘Bagatelles’ (1793); and wrote for the ‘Edinburgh Medical Journal,’ the ‘Amulet,’ &c. A portrait of him was painted by John Comerford [q. v.], and an engraving of it appeared in the ‘Dublin University Magazine’ (1834, vol. iii.).
[Dublin Univ. Mag. 1834; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. xii. 415; United Service Journal, June 1832; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland; Addison's Roll of Glasgow Graduates, 1898.]
D. J. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walsh, John (1835-1881)

​WALSH, JOHN (1835–1881), Irish poet, was born of humble parentage at Cappoquin, co. Waterford, on 1 April 1835. He became a school teacher, and followed that calling in the national school of his native town for several years; and subsequently in the national school, Cashel, co. Tipperary, where he died in 1881. He was buried in the graveyard attached to the famous ruins on the rock of Cashel. Walsh contributed poems to the ‘Nation,’ the ‘Harp,’ and the ‘Celt.’ Several are to be found in anthologies of Irish verse, but no collection of them has yet been published in book form.
M. MacD.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thrupp, John

​THRUPP, JOHN (1817–1870), historical writer, born on 5 Feb. 1817, was the eldest son of John Augustus Thrupp (1785–1844) of Spanish Place, Manchester Square, London, the eldest son of Joseph Thrupp of Paddington Green, by his first wife, Mary Burgon. Frederick Thrupp [q. v.] was his father's half-brother. After education at Dr. Laing's school at Clapham he was articled in 1834 and admitted a solicitor in 1838; he practised at Bell Yard, Doctors' Commons. Shortly after his publication in 1843 of his volume of ‘Historical Law Tracts,’ his father died and left him a competency. Henceforth he devoted more and more time to archæology and chess, in both of which pursuits he shared his enthusiasm with Henry Thomas Buckle [q. v.] He had to give up chess in 1856, but ​in 1862 he was able to bring some of his historical studies to fruition in his valuable ‘Anglo-Saxon Home: a History of the Domestic Institutions and Customs of England from the Fifth to the Eleventh Century’ (see Athenæum, 1862, ii. 178). John Thrupp died at Sunnyside, Dorking, on 20 Jan. 1870. He was thrice married, but left no issue.
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thurland, Edward

​THURLAND, Sir EDWARD (1606–1683), judge, born at Reigate, Surrey, in 1606, was the eldest son of Edward Thurland of Reigate, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Richard Elyot of Reigate. The family was originally descended from that of Thurland Castle in Nottinghamshire. His great-great-grandfather was ​Thomas Thurland of Gamelton Hall, Nottinghamshire. His grandfather, Gervase Thurland, and his father, Edward, were London merchants.
The younger Edward was admitted to the Inner Temple on 20 Oct. 1625, and called to the bar on 15 Oct. 1634. On 13 March 1639–40 he was returned to the Short parliament for the borough of Reigate, but was not re-elected in the Long parliament (Official Returns of Members of Parliament, i. 483). About the same time he was made steward of the manor of Reigate, and on 24 Nov. 1652 was called to the bench of the Inner Temple. He represented Reigate in Richard Cromwell's parliament which met on 27 Jan. 1658–9, was returned for the same borough to the Convention parliament on 9 April 1660, and sat in the parliament of the Restoration from 1661 to 1672 (ib. i. 516, 529; Manning, Hist. of Surrey, ed. Bray, i. 292). In 1661 Thurland was chosen recorder of Reigate and of Guildford, and soon after was selected by James, duke of York, as his solicitor and knighted (ib. i. 40, 342). On 24 April 1672 he was created a serjeant-at-law, and on 24 Jan. 1673 he was appointed a baron of the exchequer, having refused a seat in the common pleas. After sitting six years his infirmities compelled him to retire on 29 April 1679 (Luttrell, Brief Hist. Relation, 1857, i. 11). He died at Reigate on 14 Jan. 1682–3, and was buried in the chancel of the parish church (Manning, Hist. of Surrey, ed. Bray, i. 317). By his wife, Elizabeth Wright of Buckland in Surrey, he left an only son, Edward, who died five years later, leaving issue.
Thurland was an intimate friend of John Evelyn (1620–1706) [q. v.] and Jeremy Taylor [q. v.] He composed a treatise on prayer which won Evelyn's warmest praise, but which was not published. He employed John Oldham as tutor to his two grandsons 1678–80. His portrait is in the possession of Lord de Saumarez at his residence, 43 Grosvenor Place, London. Lady de Saumarez is a descendant of Thurland through his granddaughter Elizabeth, who was married to Martin Bowes of Bury St. Edmunds. Another portrait of Thurland is in the mayor's court office in the Guildhall, London.
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thurkill (d.845)

​THURKILL, THORKILL, or TURGESIUS (d. 845), Danish king of North Ireland, could not have been the son of Harold Harfagr as Snorri Sturleson supposed (Heimskringla, i. 131–2, transl. Morris and Magnusson, Saga Library), for this would place him too late. He has, however, with more probability been identified with Ragnar Lodbrok, the half-mythical king of Denmark and Norway. This theory is supported by several striking coincidences, but cannot be said to be proved (War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, pp. liii seq. Rolls Ser.). As Thurkill he arrived in Ireland with a royal fleet in 832. He took Dublin in the same year, and afterwards assumed the government of all the northmen in Ireland (ib. pp. xlii seq., and 9, Rolls Ser.) Several other Danish fleets arrived about the same time, and it was apparently with their help and that of almost annual reinforcements of his countrymen that Thurkill took advantage of the civil and ecclesiastical strife then prevailing to extend his dominion over the whole north of Ireland. At Armagh, whither he went soon after taking Dublin, he seems to have met with resistance, for he attacked the city three times in one month (ib.; see also Ann. Ult. ap. O'Conor, Rer. Hibern. Script. iv. 208). A few years later, perhaps in 841 (War of the Gaedhil, pp. xliii and 9), Thurkill drove out the abbot of Armagh and assumed the abbacy—that is, the wide ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the chief successor of St. Patrick. He apparently aimed at the suppression of Christianity in Ireland and the substitution for it of heathenism (ib. pp. xlviii and 11). He organised an expedition to Lough Ree, and from there attacked Connaught and Meath (Chron. Scotorum, p. 145, Rolls Ser.), possibly as a step towards the subjugation of all Ireland (War of the Gaedhil, pp. xlviii and 13). In these central districts he again made a determined attack upon the chief centres of ecclesiastical authority, such as Clonmacnoise, Clonfert, Terryglass, and many more (ib.) At Clonmacnoise, which was second only to Armagh in ecclesiastical importance, he placed his wife Ota, who gave audiences or oracular answers from the high altar of the principal church of the monastery. He seems to have been completely successful, and the posting of Danish forces at Limerick, on Loughs Ree and Neagh, at Carlingford, on Dundalk Bay, and at Dublin, seems to point to far-reaching plans of conquest and permanent government (ib.) In 845, however, his career was abruptly cut short. He was taken prisoner by Malachy [see Maelsechlainn I], then king of Meath (afterwards king of Ireland), and drowned in Loch Owel in what is now Westmeath (ib. pp. xliii and 15). His dominion in Ireland probably lasted thirteen, and not thirty years, as Cambrensis states (Gir. Cambr. v. 186, Rolls Ser.). The story of his death given by Cambrensis is quite untrustworthy (ib. v. 185). If Thurkill be rightly identified with the half-mythical Ragnar Lodbrok, he was the ancestor of Olaf Sitricson [see Olaf] and the Hy Ivar of the line of the Danish kings of Dublin and Deira.
A. M. C.-e.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thurlow, Edward (1781-1829)

​THURLOW, afterwards HOVELL-THURLOW, EDWARD, second Baron Thurlow (1781–1829), minor poet, was first son of Thomas Thurlow [q. v.], bishop of Durham, by Anne, daughter of William Bere of Lymington, Hampshire. Born in the Temple, London, on 10 June 1781, he was educated at the Charterhouse and Magdalen College, Oxford, whence he matriculated on 17 May 1798, and was created M.A. on 16 July 1801. On the death of his uncle, Lord-chancellor Thurlow, he succeeded to the barony of Thurlow of Thurlow, Suffolk, 12 Sept. 1806 [see Thurlow, Edward, first Baron Thurlow]; but did not take his seat in the House of Lords until 29 Nov. 1810. In commemoration of the descent of his grandmother from Richard Hovell, esquire of the body to Henry V, he prefixed to Thurlow the additional surname Hovell by royal license dated 8 July 1814.
In accordance with a custom not infrequent in those days, Thurlow was appointed on 30 Dec. 1785 one of the principal registrars of the diocese of Lincoln, and in 1788 clerk of the custodies of idiots and lunatics. To those offices were added those of clerk of the presentations in the petty bag office (1796), patentee of commissions in bankruptcy (1803), and clerk of the Hanaper (1821). He retained them all until his death at Brighton on 4 June 1829.
Thurlow married, at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields on 13 Nov. 1813, an actress of some talent, Mary Catherine (d. 1830), eldest daughter of James Richard Bolton, attorney, by whom he had three sons, of whom Edward Thomas succeeded him in the title.
Thurlow edited for private circulation, London, 1810, 4to, Sir Philip Sidney's ‘Defence of Poesy,’ to which he prefixed some original sonnets, reprinted, with ‘Hermilda,’ an attempt in the manner of Tasso, as ‘Verses on several Occasions,’ London, 1812, 8vo; second enlarged edition entitled ‘Poems on several Occasions,’ 1813, 8vo. He was also author of ‘Ariadne: a poem in three parts,’ 8vo; ‘Carmen Britannicum’ (4to), in honour of the prince regent; and ‘The Doge's Daughter: a poem, with several translations from Anacreon and Horace,’ 8vo (all published at London in 1814); of ‘Select Poems,’ privately printed at Chiswick in 1821 (8vo); and ‘Angelica, or the Rape of Proteus,’ an attempt to continue Shakespeare's ‘Tempest,’ 1822, 8vo. ​He was a frequent contributor to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ in which appeared (April 1813) his ‘Lines on Rogers's Epistle to a Friend,’ somewhat brutally parodied by Byron (Works, ed. 1855, ii. 345). His laboured and affected effusions met with deserved castigation at the hands of Moore (Edinburgh Review, September 1814).
[G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; London Kalendar, 1797, p. 186; Royal Kalendar, 1788–1829; Lords' Journ. xlviii. 5; Gent. Mag. 1813, i. 41; Martin's Cat. Priv. Printed Books; Moore's Life of Byron, 1847, pp. 181, 206, 216; Clayden's Rogers and his Contemporaries, i. 128–30.]
J. M. R.