OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of Indian Biography/Cooper, Manackji Bejonji

Layout 2
​COOPER, MANACKJI BEJONJI (1845–1904)
Born Sep. 15, 1845 : educated at Sir Jamsetji Jijibhai's Institution and the Elphinstone College, Bombay : headmaster of the Fort High School, Bombay, for nearly 20 years : the pioneer of higher education by private non-missionary enterprise in Western India. Sir W. W. Hunter, President of the Education Commission of 1882, stated that had there ​been others like Cooper in the chief centres of India, the Commission would never have been appointed, because his work had solved the problem of the Commission : the first Parsi schoolmaster to visit England, 1875, to study the educational systems of the West and apply them to his work in India. He was a household word among Bombay students : was popularly known as Manackji Master : his High School officially bore the highest reputation : he edited Pope's Homer's Iliad : died Aug. 4, 1904.
# Dictionary of Indian Biography/Conway, Thomas Henry Somerset

Layout 2
​CONWAY, THOMAS HENRY SOMERSET ( ? –1837)
Brig-General entered the E. I. Co.'s military service in 1793 : reached Madras, 1795 : in the expedition to Ceylon, 1796 : in that to Manilla, 1797 : in several campaigns : in Mysore, 1799 : in the Ceded Districts, 1801–2 : Mahratta war, 1803–6 : under Sir T. Hislop, 1815 : in the Pindari war, 1817–8 : Adjutant-General of the Madras Army, from 1809 : C.B., 1819 : employed on a military mission to Bengal, 1828–30 : appointed to command the Hyderabad Subsidiary Force : died of cholera. May 14, 1837.
# Dictionary of Indian Biography/Cooke, Edward

Layout 2
​COOKE, EDWARD (1772–1799)
Son of Colonel Cooke : became a Captain in the Royal Navy : appointed to the Syhille in 1795, served in her at the Cape, and in the East Indies : off the Sandheads, in the Bay of Bengal, the Sybille fought between 9 p.m. on Feb. 28, 1799, and 2.30 a.m. on March 1, the French ship Forte, a much larger and better armed frigate, and captured her in the Balasore roads, 150 of the Forte's men being killed and wounded. Cooke received very severe wounds, of which he died at Calcutta, May 23, 1799. The E.I. Co. erected a monument to him in the South Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta.
# Dictionary of Indian Biography/Coote, Sir Eyre

Layout 2
​COOTE, SIR EYRE (1726–1783)
Born in 1726: fourth son of the Rev. Dr. Chidley Coote : entered the Army in 1745 : went to India in 1754 with the 39th regt. and became Captain on June 18, 1755. Part of this regiment was included in the force dispatched from Madras to Bengal in 1756 against the Nawab Surajuddaula, after his capture of Calcutta. Coote was present at its recapture, at the taking of Chander-nagore, and at the victory of Plassey, on June 23, 1757 : Clive, it is said, acted on his advice among others to give immediate battle. In Jan. 1759, he was gazetted Lt-Colonel of the 84th regt., and to command the troops in Madras. In the war with the French, under Lally, he took Wandiwash, Nov. 30, 1759, and the fort of Carangooly, relieved Trichinopoly, defeated the French at Wandiwash, Jan. 22, 1760, and took Arcot. He besieged Lally in Pondicherry, while a naval force attacked it by sea. On its surrender in Jan., 1761, the French power in India completely collapsed : Coote returned to England in 1762, and was received with honour : became a Colonel on April 4, 1765, and M.P. for Leicester. In 1769 he was reappointed to command the troops in Madras, but resigned and returned to England in Oct. 1770, where he was made K.B. Aug. 31, 1771 : Maj-General Sep. 29, 1775 : Lt-General on Aug. 29, 1777 : and Commander-in-Chief in India, on April 17, 1777. He succeeded General Clavering as Member of the Supreme Council at Calcutta on March 24, 1779. When Hyder Ali of Mysore declared war, invaded the Carnatic in 1780 and defeated Colonel Baillie at Perambakam, Warren Hastings despatched Coote to Madras, which he reached on Nov. 5, 1780. Early in 1781 Coote took the field against Hyder, raised the siege of Wandiwash, marched on Cuddalore, attacked Chelambakam and won a decided victory at Porto Novo, July 1, 1781, besides defeating Hyder at Perambakam, Aug. 27, effecting the relief of Vellore and the capture of Chittore. His last encounter with Hyder was the indecisive skirmish at Arnee, June 2, 1782. Coote's failing health compelled him to resign the command in Madras and take a change to Calcutta. Only partially recovered, he returned to Madras early in 1783, but on the voyage was chased by the French. The anxiety and exposure produced a relapse, which proved fatal on April 28, 1783, two days after his arrival at Madras. His body was taken to England and interred at Rockburne, in Hampshire. A monument in Westminster Abbey was erected to him by the East India Company. His military capacity has been highly praised, as also his patience, temper, activity and energy, valour and coolness. His enforcement of discipline was tempered by kindness, which endeared him to his soldiers.
# Dictionary of Indian Biography/Cooper, Thomas Thornville

Layout 2
​COOPER, THOMAS THORNVILLE (1839–1878)
Traveller : son of John J. Cooper : born Sep. 13, 1839 : educated at Bishop-wearmouth. When he was on a voyage to Australia for his health, the crew mutinied : he went to India, 1859: joined the firm of Arbuthnot & Co. at Madras : travelled to Rangoon and on to Shanghai : fought against the Taiping rebels : in 1868, he tried to travel from Hankow, through Tibet, to India, was stopped at Batang and near Weisi and imprisoned, and, via the Yangtsze, reached Hankow in Nov. 1868: in 1869, trying to reach China from Sadiya in Assam was stopped at Prun. The India Office employed him with the Panthay mission to London : he was then made Political Agent at Bhamo : returned home for his health : attached to the India Office : reappointed in 1876 to Bhamo, and was murdered there by one of his own guards, April 24, 1878. He wrote Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce in Pigtail and Petticoats, 1871 : and Mishmee Hills, 1873.
# Dictionary of Indian Biography/Conran, Henry

Layout 2
​CONRAN, HENRY (1738–1810)
Major : served in the American war, 1755–6 : under Wolfe, at Quebec, in 1759 : returned to England and retired as Major about 1780 : went to India by way of Aleppo and the desert with a packet from the Court of Directors to the Bengal Government : appointed to the Staff of Warren Hastings, on whose retirement, in 1785, Conran remained in Calcutta and died there. May 15, 1810.
# Dictionary of Indian Biography/Cooke, Theodore

Layout 2
​COOKE, THEODORE (1836–)
Born 1836 : son of Rev. John Cooke, Rector of Ardinan, Co. Tipperary : educated at Dublin University, highly distinguished : went to India as Engineer of the Bombay-Baroda line, 1860 : erected the Bassein bridge, 1865 : Principal of Civil Engineering College at Poona, 1865 : acted as Director of Public Instruction in Bombay : Director of Botanical Survey of Western India, and Director of Agriculture : Fellow of the Bombay University : retired in 1893, and was Sub-Director of the Imperial Institute : author of Manual of Heat, Manual of Geology, Flora of Bombay Presidency : C.I.E. in 1891.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gibb, Robert

​GIBB, ROBERT (d. 1837), landscape-painter, a native of Dundee, was an associate of the Royal Institution, Edinburgh, and contributed to the exhibitions of that body from 1822 to 1830. He was an original associate of the Scottish Academy, became a full member in July 1829, and contributed to its exhibitions from 1830 to 1834. His works, which are chiefly landscapes, though he occasionally produced figure-pictures, are carefully handled and show considerable feeling for nature. He is represented in the National Gallery of Scotland by views of ‘Borthwick Castle’ and ‘Craigmillar Castle.’ He died, at an early age, in 1837. (He is to be distinguished from Robert Gibb, portrait and figure painter, who was elected A.R.S.A. in 1878 and R.S.A. in 1882.)
[Harvey's Notes on the Early History of the Royal Scottish Academy; Catalogues of the Royal Institution, Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, and National Gallery of Scotland.]
J. M. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gibbes, Charles

​GIBBES, CHARLES, D.D. (1604–1681), divine, sixth son of Sir Ralph Gibbes, who was knighted at Whitehall in 1603, was born at Honington, Warwickshire, in 1604, matriculated from Magdalen Hall, Oxford, 26 June 1621, graduated B.A. 20 Feb. 1622–3. He was elected in 1624 probationer-fellow of Merton College, where, Wood tells us, he became ‘a noted disputant, orator, and quaint preacher.’ He proceeded M.A. on 25 June 1628, and in April 1638 was presented to the rectory of Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire, which he held until 1647, when he resigned it in anticipation of sequestration, being a zealous royalist. He appears also to have held about the same time the prebend of Combe Octava in the church of Wells. During the interregnum ​he taught at a school at Canterbury. On 30 April 1661 he was presented to the rectory of Stanford Rivers, Essex, and on 21 May 1662 was installed prebendary of Westminster; the same year he received the degree of D.D. from the university of Oxford. He died at Stanford Rivers on 16 Sept. 1681, and was buried in the parish church of that place. He published ‘XXXI Sermons preached to his parishioners upon several subjects and occasions. Never before made publick,’ London, 1677, 4to. At his death he was engaged in editing a volume of ‘sermons and discourses’ by his brother-in-law, Dr. Walter Raleigh.
[Dugdale's Warwickshire, p. 458; Oxf. Univ. Reg. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.) II. ii. 392, iii. 417; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 12; Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 405, 439; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. iii. 362; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, pt. ii. p. 75; Colville's Warwickshire Worthies.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gibb, John

​GIBB, JOHN (1776–1850), civil engineer and contractor, was born at Kirkcows, near Falkirk, a small property belonging to his father, a contractor, in 1776. The elder Gibb having died when John was only twelve, the son served an apprenticeship to a mechanical trade. After this he was employed as contractor's assistant, and later as subordinate engineer by his brother, then serving under John Rennie on the construction of the Lancaster and Preston canal. He afterwards went to Leith, being engaged by his father-in-law, Mr. Easton, in the making of the docks there. Commencing practice on his own account as a contractor, he gradually established a reputation for professional skill. He was employed in the construction of Greenock harbour under Rennie, where Telford's attention was drawn to his exceptional ability and great managerial tact. Telford engaged him as resident engineer at the Aberdeen harbour works. Gibb removed thither in 1809, and superintended the erection of extensive piers and other details. He executed many commissions with credit under Telford, Rennie, Robert Stephenson (of Edinburgh), and Sir William Cubitt; chief among his labours being the repair of the Crinan canal in 1817, various harbours on the east coast of Scotland, the great Glasgow and Carlisle turnpike road (which involved stone bridges of extensive span, such as that of Cartland Craigs, near Lanark, over the glen of the Mouse), various lighthouses, the Dean road bridge, near Edinburgh, several railway viaducts, and the famous Glasgow bridge, the lowest over the Clyde, and a model of its class, which was designed by Telford and completed by Gibb and his son. Gibb's special eminence lay in operations connected with harbour construction and river engineering. He died at Aberdeen on 3 Dec. 1850, being at the time one of the oldest members of the Institute of Civil Engineers.
[Thomson's Eminent Scotsmen; Anderson's Scottish Nation.]
J. B-y.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gibbon, Benjamin Phelps

​GIBBON, BENJAMIN PHELPS (1802–1851), line-engraver, son of the Rev. Benjamin Gibbon, vicar of Penally, Pembrokeshire, was born in 1802. He was educated at the Clergy Orphan School, and afterwards articled to Edward Scriven, the chalk-engraver. He inclined in early life to the stage, but on the expiration of his articles he placed himself under the line-engraver John Henry Robinson, and soon attained great proficiency. His plates, some of which are engraved in line and others in a mixed style, are distinguished by delicacy of touch. They are mostly from the works of Sir Edwin Landseer, after whom he engraved ‘The Twa Dogs,’ 1827; ‘The Travelled Monkey,’ 1828, a small plate engraved for the ‘Anniversary;’ ‘The Fireside Party,’ 1831; ‘Jack in Office,’ 1834; ‘Suspense,’ 1837; ‘The Shepherd's Grave,’ 1838; ‘The Shepherd's Chief Mourner,’ 1838; ‘Be it ever so humble, there's no place like Home,’ 1843; ‘The Highland Shepherd's Home,’ 1846; and ‘Roebuck and Rough Hounds,’ 1849. He engraved also ‘Wolves attacking Deer,’ 1834, after Friedrich Gauermann, in which the landscape was engraved by E. Webb; and ‘The Wolf and the Lamb,’ after Mulready. He, however, took more interest in portraits than in ​subject pictures, although he did not engrave many. They include a half-length portrait of Queen Victoria, after William Fowler, engraved in 1840, and a head of his master, Edward Scriven, after Andrew Morton, engraved for Pye's ‘Patronage of British Art,’ 1845. His death, occasioned by an attack of English cholera, took place at his residence in Albany Street, Regent's Park, London, on 28 July 1851, in his forty-ninth year. He died unmarried, and left scarcely half finished a plate from Webster's picture of ‘The Boy with many Friends,’ which was completed by P. Lightfoot.
[Art Journal, 1851, p. 238; Athenæum, 6 Sept. 1851, p. 956; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School, 1878; Algernon Graves's Catalogue of the Works of Sir Edwin Landseer, 1875.]
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gibbes, George Smith

​GIBBES, Sir GEORGE SMITH, M.D. (1771–1851), physician, was the son of the Rev. George Gibbes, D.D., rector of Woodborough, Wiltshire. From Dr. Mant's school at Southampton he proceeded to Exeter College, Oxford, graduated B.A. in 1792, was elected a fellow of Magdalen, graduated M.B. in 1796 and M.D. in 1799. He joined the College of Physicians in 1803, and was made a fellow the year after. In 1817 he delivered the Harveian oration before the college. He practised at Bath, where he was a prominent figure. In 1800 he published his ‘Treatise on the Bath Waters,’ followed by a second treatise on the same in 1803. In 1804 he was elected physician to the Bath Hospital. Later he became physician extraordinary to Queen Charlotte, and in 1820 was knighted by George IV. He took an active part in municipal business at Bath, and was a member of the corporation until 1834. In 1835 he gave up practice and went to live at Cheltenham. He died at Sidmouth on 23 June 1851, aged 80. He was twice married, first to a daughter of Edward Sealey of Bridgwater, who died in 1822; and secondly, in 1826, to Marianne, daughter of Captain T. Chapman, 23rd regiment.
His first essay was in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ 1794, on the conversion of muscle into a substance resembling spermaceti (pamphlet on same theme, Bath, 1796). In 1799 he issued a syllabus of a course of chemical lectures given at Bath. Then came his two editions on the Bath waters. In 1809 he published ‘A Phlogistic Theory ingrafted upon M. Fourcroy's “Philosophy of Chemistry,”’ pt. i. pp. 32, Bath. His most considerable medical work was ‘Pathological Inquiries, or an Attempt to Explain the Phenomena of Disease,’ &c., Bath, 1818, a semi-popular but philosophical exposition of the principles of medicine, published for private circulation, of which this is a specimen: ‘The gout does the work which is left unfinished by the reactive energies of the digestive organs; and, as far as its curative powers go, produces a salutary outlet for the accumulated evils’ (p. 47). His address at the opening of the Bath Literary and Philosophical Institution was published, 1825, pp. 15. He was a fellow of the Royal Society and of the Linnean Society, having communicated to the latter an account of the contents of a bone-cave on the north-west side of the Mendip Hills, one of the earliest explored bone-caves in England (Trans. v. 143). To Nicholson's ‘Journal of Natural Philosophy’ he contributed a number of papers on the Bath waters and other chemical subjects (vols. ii. iii. xiv. xix.), and to Tilloch's ‘Philosophical Magazine’ a ‘Description of the Diacatoptron’ (xxxix. 1812).
[Gent. Mag. July 1851; Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, iii. 13.]
C. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gibbon, Charles

​GIBBON, CHARLES (fl. 1589–1604), miscellaneous writer, was a member of Cambridge University, but there is no record of his having graduated. He was probably in holy orders, and appears to have resided at Bury St. Edmunds, London, and King's Lynn. He was the author of:
* ‘The Remedie of Reason: not so comfortable for matter as compendious for memorie,’ 1589, 4to.
* ‘A compendious Forme for domesticall Duties; also our Trust against Trouble,’ 1589, 4to.
* ‘Not so newe as true, being a caueat for all Christians to consider of. Wherein is truelie described the iniquities of this present time, by occasion of our confused living, And justly approved the world to be never worse by reason of our contagious lewdness,’ 1590, 4to.
* ‘A Work worth the Reading, wherein is contained fiue profitable and pithy questions, very expedient as well for parents to perceive howe to bestowe their children in mariage, & to dispose their goods at their death, as for all other Persons to receive great Profit by the rest of the matters herein expressed,’ 1591, 4to.
* ‘The Praise of a Good Name; the Reproach of an Ill Name, … with certain pithy Apothegues very profitable for this age,’ 1594, 4to. This book, which is dedicated to ‘some of the best and most ciuill sort of the inhabitants of St. Edmond's Bury,’ appears to have been written in answer to some calumny under which the author was smarting.
* ‘The Order of Equalitie, contriued and divulged as a generall Directorie for common Sessements; serving for the indifferent defraying, taxing, & rating of common Impositions and Charges, lyable to Citties, Townes, or Villages,’ &c., Cambridge, 1604, 4to. The last-named work, which is perhaps the most important, is an appeal for proportional equalisation of the incidence of taxation.
[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), pp. 1101, 1231, 1244–6; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Bodl. Libr. Cat.; Huth Libr. Cat.; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. ii. 884; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 396.]
A. V.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gibb, Frederick

​GIBB, FREDERICK (d. 1681), miscellaneous writer, son of Bernard Gibb, advocate, was born at Dunfermline, studied medicine, and took, 9 Sept. 1651, the degree of doctor at the university of Valence. He spent his life abroad. He died 27 March 1681.
Gibb, who adopted occasionally the name of Philalethes, wrote some unimportant works, among which some verses, contributed to a volume of de Thou, published by Daniel Elzevier in 1678, and an harangue made in 1679 in praise of the hog, and dedicated to François Gaverol, a famous lawyer of Nismes, seem most worthy of note. Gibb's grandson Jean Frederic Guib (as the name came to be spelt), is mentioned as having written some remarkable criticisms of parts of Bayle's Dictionary.
[Michel's Les Écossais en France, ii. 422.]
F. W-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fechin

​FECHIN, Saint (d. 664), was born in the north of Connaught. Of his genealogy no more is known than that his father's name was Coelcarna, his mother's Lassair. In some lists of saints he is named Ecca or Mo-Ecca. Prodigies are recorded of his gestation, birth, and childhood, resembling those of other saints of his time, and even the successful milking of a bull which is attributed to him is not without parallel. When he grew up he converted pagans, defeated devils, raised the dead, and boiled water without fire. Most of his miracles have no local colouring or individual propriety, and are merely part of the composition of his biographers; but some fragments of genuine history seem contained in his lives, the best being that in which he bids Themaria, queen of Diarmait, king of Meath, find the way of her salvation in dressing the sores of a leper. The drainage of wounds and sores was not then understood, and in bidding the queen clean the leper's ulcers with her lips Fechin was not intentionally adding unnecessary horror to her task, but was merely indicating the best method then known, and one of which ​traces existed till recent times in Ireland. After many wanderings Fechin settled in a remote hollow in the Connaught portion of the kingdom of Meath. A few houses with an encircling wall and ruined gates, still called the borough of Fore, because the place was represented in the Irish parliament, a ruined monastery of the later middle ages, a great earthwork attributed to Turgeis the Dane, and two very ancient churches with megalithic portals mark the importance of the saint's settlement in successive ages subsequent to his time. The oldest of the churches, if not built by him, at any rate approaches very nearly to his century. Near it are the remains of a very old mill, the successor of one built by Fechin, and known as muilin gan sroth, because worked by a spring which comes out of the hillside close to the mill. Above the church is the steep rock of Fore, and on the opposite side of the valley rises the Ben of Fore, a hill visible from remote parts of Meath and of Breifne. A great tribe of monks lived with Fechin in this lonely spot, and here he is remembered to this day and commemorated on 20 Jan., the day upon which he died of the plague called buidhe chonail in 664. Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire preserves his name in Scotland; and in Ireland besides Fore (now in co. Westmeath) he is said to have founded the abbey of Cong in Galway, and that of Eas-dara in Achadoe, co. Kerry, and nine other churches or religious settlements.
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Featley, Richard

​FEATLEY, RICHARD (1621–1682), nonconformist divine. [See Fairclough.]