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

1904 Errata appended.
​STARK, WILLIAM (1740–1770), physician, born in Birmingham in July 1740, was the eldest son of Thomas Stark, a merchant of Manchester. He studied philosophy at Glasgow University, where he graduated M.A. in 1758, and then proceeded to Edinburgh, where he acquired the friendship of William Cullen [q. v.] Thence he came to London in 1765, and devoted himself to the pursuit of medicine, entering as a pupil at St. George's Hospital. He studied anatomy under John Hunter (1728–1773) [q. v.], and employed himself in making experiments on the blood and other animal fluids. On 2 Sept. 1766 he graduated M.D. at Leyden, publishing his thesis, ‘Specimen Med. Inaug. septem Historias et Dissectiones Dysentericorum exhibens,’ Leyden, 1766, 4to. In June 1769 he began a series of experiments on diet, in which he was greatly encouraged by Sir John Pringle [q. v.] The zeal with which he tried these experiments on his own person ruined his health, and on 23 Feb. 1770 he fell a victim to his enthusiasm.
‘The Works of the late William Stark … consisting of clinical and anatomical observations, with experiments dietetical and statical,’ were edited by James Carmichael Smyth [q. v.], London, 1788, 4to.
[Smyth's Introduction to Stark's Works; account of Stark's illness and death appended to his Works; Georgian Era, iii. 491; Allibone's Dict. of English Lit.]
E. I. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.257 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 107 | i | 23-25 | Stark, William: for of Irish parentage . . . . Scotland. read eldest son of Thomas Stark, a merchant of Manchester. |
| | | 26 | after University insert where he graduated M.A. in 1758 (Addison's Graduates of Glasgow University, 1898) |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Crawley, Richard

​CRAWLEY, RICHARD (1840–1893), scholar, born at Bryngwyn rectory on 26 Dec. 1840, was eldest son of William Crawley, archdeacon of Monmouth, by his wife, Mary Gertrude, third daughter of Sir Love Jones Parry of Madryn, Carnarvonshire. From 1851 to 1861 he was at Marlborough College. He matriculated from University College, Oxford, as an exhibitioner on 22 May 1861, and graduated B.A. in 1866, having taken a first class both in moderations and in the school of lit. hum. In 1866 he was elected to a fellowship at Worcester College, which he held till 1880. Called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 7 June 1869, Crawley never practised owing to ill-health, which compelled him to reside abroad for many years. He was thus free to cherish unhampered a native love of literature. At length, in April 1875, he became director of a life assurance company, and that business largely occupied him until his death on 30 March 1893.
Crawley had an admirable literary taste and a wide knowledge of literature. In the ample leisure of his early manhood he perseveringly essayed various branches of it. In 1868 he published 'Horse and Foot,' a witty satire on contemporary literary effort in the manner of Pope, which is now of historical value. A more serious endeavour, 'Venus and Psyche and other Poems,' which appeared in 1871, proved less distinctive. 'The Younger Brother,' a play in the style of the Elizabethan drama, which Crawley dedicated to his father, followed in 1878. Crawley contributed some sparkling verse to conservative newspapers during the general election of 1880. These he collected in a volume called 'Election Rhymes' in the same year. But his most notable performance was a translation of Thucydides's 'History of the Peloponnesian War.' His rendering of the first book came out in 1866, and the whole was issued in 1874. It was an able and vigorous piece of work, although it secured little recognition.
S. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Creswick, William

​CRESWICK, WILLIAM (1813–1888), actor, was born on 27 Dec. 1813 near Covent Garden, London. As Master Collins he appeared in 1 831 at a theatre in the Commercial Road, playing an Italian boy in a drama on the subject of 'burking.' After practice with travelling companies in Kent and Suffolk, he played leading business on the York circuit, where he met Miss Paget, whom subsequently he married. His first appearance in London was at the Queen's theatre, Tottenham Street, under Mrs. Nisbett, on 16 Feb. 1835, as Horace Meredith in Jerrold's 'Schoolfellows.' He took part in a failing experiment under Penley at the Lyceum, then returned into the country. On 25 July 1846 he joined Phelps's company at Sadler's Wells, playing Hotspur, and afterwards one or two other parts. On the reappearance of Mrs. Butler [see Kemble, Frances Ann] he played in April 1847, at the Princess's, Master Walter in the 'Hunchback' to her Julia, and subsequently supported her in other characters. At the same house he played with Macready. At the Haymarket he appeared in July as Claude Melnotte to the Pauline of Helen Faucit. On 4 Oct. he was the first Vivian Temple in Marstoii's 'Heart and the World.' He was also seen as Trueworth in the 'Love Chase,' Mordaunt in the ' Patrician's Daughter,' Proteus in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' (December 1848), Ghost in 'Hamlet,' and Cassio. With Richard Shepherd he began, 17 Sept. 1849, the management of the Surrey, opening as Alasco in Knowles's 'Rose of Arragon.' At the Surrey he appeared as the Stranger, Virginius, Richelieu, Hamlet, &c.; was, 18 Feb. 1849, the first Laroque in H. F. Chorley's ' Old Love and New Fortune,' and was seen as Damon in 'Damon and Pythias,' Adam Bede, &c. Retiring from management in 1862, he played at Drury Lane and other theatres Othello, lago, Macbeth, and Iachimo. Joining again Shepherd in 1866, he played, on 8 Sept., Martin Truegold in Slous's prize nautical drama, 'True to the Core.' In 1871 he went for the second time to America, made his first appearance as Joe in 'Nobody's Child,' a part in which he had been seen at the Surrey on 14 Sept. 1867, and played with Charlotte Cushman and Edwin Booth. In 1877, after accepting at the Gaiety a benefit, in which he played Macbeth, he went to Australia, where he opened at Melbourne as Virginius, and was very popular. Creswick was occasionally seen in London, chiefly in Shakespeare. For his farewell benefit he appeared at Drury Lane on 29 Oct. 1885, in a scene from 'Lear,' forming part of a miscellaneous entertainment. Other parts in which he was accepted were King John, Joseph Surface, Varney in 'Amy Robsart,' and Cromwell in Wills's ' Buckingham.' Creswick died on 17 June 1888, and was buried at Kensal Green. He belonged to the old-fashioned and oratorical school, of which he was one of the last survivors. He was popular in tragedy, and won acceptance in melodrama, but had little subtlety or insight.
[Personal knowledge; Pascoe's Dramatic List; Scott and Howard's Blanchard; Dramatic and Musical Review; Era, 23 June 1888; Sunday Times, various years.]
J. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicholls, Edward

​NICHOLLS, EDWARD (fl. 1617), sea-captain, in 1616 commanded the Dolphin of London, of about 220 tons, trading to the Levant. She had 19 guns, mostly small, 5 murderers or swivels, and a crew, all told, of 38 men and boys. On 1 Jan. 1616–17 she left Zante, homeward bound, with a full cargo, and on the 12th, being then off the south end of Sardinia, she fell in with a squadron of five Turkish men-of-war, probably of Algiers, all large ships, heavily armed and full of men, and three of them commanded by Englishmen, whose names are given as Walsingham, Kelly, and Sampson. The fight that followed between these pirates and the Dolphin was one of the most remarkable that have been recorded. Over and over again the Turks attempted to board the Dolphin; two or three times they even succeeded in doing so: but the heavy fire kept up from the Dolphin's round-house and close fights forced the enemy to retire with great loss. The Turkish ships were raked through and through, and towards night they drew off, in evident distress, and having lost, it was supposed, a great many men. The Dolphin, too, had suffered a good deal of damage, with seven killed and nine wounded. The next day she put in to Cagliari, where she refitted and buried her dead. On 20 Feb. she sailed for England, and arrived in the Thames without further hindrance. Of Nicholls nothing more seems to be known.
[A Fight at Sea, famously fought by the Dolphin of London, 1617; Lediard's Naval History, p. 440.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicholls, Degory

​NICHOLLS, DEGORY (d. 1591), divine, matriculated as a pensioner of Peterhouse, Cambridge, in May 1560. He graduated B.A. in 1563–4, and was elected a fellow 31 March 1566. He commenced M.A. in 1567, and was a taxor in 1571–2. He ​supplicated for incorporation as M.A. at Oxford, 15 July 1567. In 1570 he was rector of Lanivet, Cornwall. Nicholls was of ‘a contentious mind.’ On 6 May 1572, 164 members of the senate proposed that Nicholls and other persons should petition Lord Burghley, chancellor of the university, for ‘reformation of certain matters amisse in the new statutes’ given by the queen 25 Sept. 1570. The matter was referred to the archbishops and two bishops, who declared that ‘theis younger men have been farre to seek their pretended reformation by disordered means.’ The heads of colleges soon after exhibited articles against Nicholls and others, ‘who doe goe verye disorderlie in Camberdge, waring for the most part their hates, and continually verye unsemly ruffes at their handes, and greate galligaskens and barreld hooese stuffed with horse-tayles, with skabilonious and knitt netherstockes too fine for schollers.’
In 1574 Nicholls proceeded B.D., was appointed one of the university preachers in the same year, and received the office of chaplain to Lord Burghley. Soon after July 1577, he was made master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. About August 1578 he and other divines held conference with John Feckenham [q. v.], abbot of Westminster, then living in free custody with the Bishop of Ely, in order to induce him to acknowledge the queen's supremacy. At the close of the year a dispute arose in the college between him and some of his undergraduates. The master finally expelled the refractory students, and they retaliated by bringing contemptible charges against him, viz. that ‘he had an enmity for all Welshmen, that his kine were milked at the college hall door, and that his wife was such a scold as to be heard all over the college’ (State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 608). Nicholls on 12 Dec. asked Lord Burghley to arrange for the hearing of the complaints.
Retiring to Cornwall, where he had become a few months earlier rector of St. Ervan, he was appointed, 8 July 1579, by the queen, canon residentiary at Exeter (Rymer, Fœdera, xv. 788). In 1581 he was created D.D., and received the living of Cheriton Fitzpaine, Devonshire. He resigned the mastership of Magdalene College in 1582, and was instituted rector of Lanreath, Cornwall, which he held until his death, shortly after 2 March 1590–1.
[Le Neve's Fasti, i. 421, ii. 695; Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 95; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, ii. 279, 280, 304, 306; Strype's Annals, vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 178, 180; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–1580, pp. 552, 605, 606, 666; Heywood and Wright's University Transactions, i. 112; Cole MSS. xlii. fol. 79; Addit. MS. 5843; Baker MSS. xxiv. 161; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714, p. 1068.]
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicholl, John (1790-1871)

​NICHOLL, JOHN (1790–1871), antiquary, born at Stratford Green, Essex, on 19 April 1790, was only son of John Nicholl, brewer, by Mary, daughter of Mathias Miller of Epping in the same county (Nichols, Topographer, iii. 562). Possessed of an ample fortune, he was enabled to pursue uninterruptedly his researches in heraldry and genealogy. On 16 Feb. 1843 he was elected F.S.A. In 1859 he served as master of the Ironmongers' Company. He died in Canonbury Place, Islington, on 7 Feb. 1871, and was buried in the churchyard of Theydon Garnon, Essex, on the 13th. By his marriage on 5 Oct. 1822 to Elizabeth Sarah, daughter and heiress of John Rahn of Enfield, Middlesex, he left three sons and two daughters.
Nicholl collected genealogical notes made in the churches of Essex in six folio volumes, and filled three folio volumes with Essex pedigrees, and three others with pedigrees of the various families of Nicholl, Nicholls, or Nichols. Of the latter he made three copies, two of which he bequeathed to his own children, and a third (of smaller dimensions) to the College of Arms. He likewise worked up, in three volumes, the gatherings formed in two tours he made on the continent in 1842 and 1843. He left besides, in manuscript, collections for the history of Islington and notes on biblical criticism.
From the archives of the Ironmongers' Company Nicholl compiled a history of the company in seven folio volumes, embellished with armorial bearings and illuminated initials, and illustrated with drawings of buildings and costumes. The first six of these volumes were presented to the company between 1840 and 1844. In 1851 he printed ‘Some Account of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers’ (for private circulation), in imperial 8vo. In 1866 an improved edition was printed in 4to. The cost of both editions was defrayed by the company. Nicholl also attempted poetry, and printed a small private impression of his productions in 1863.
Nicholl's portrait was in 1851 painted at the expense of the Ironmongers' Company by Middleton, and placed in the court room.
[Proc. of Soc. Antiq. 2nd ser. v. 143; Nichols's Herald and Genealogist, vii. 83–5.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicholas of Lynne

​NICHOLAS of Lynne (fl. 1386), Carmelite, was lecturer in theology to his order at Oxford. In 1386, at the request of John of Gaunt, he composed a calendar from 1387 to 1462, arranged for the latitude and longitude of Oxford, with an elaborate apparatus of astronomical tables, which were used by Chaucer in his ‘Treatise on the Astrolabe.’
Hakluyt states that Nicholas made a voyage to the lands near the North Pole in 1360. His authorities, Gerardus Mercator and John Dee [q. v.], who make no reference to Nicholas by name, derive their information from James Cnoyen of Bois-le-Duc, a Dutch explorer of uncertain date. Cnoyen's book, written ‘Belgica lingua,’ is lost. Mercator made extracts from it for his own use, and sent them in 1577 to John Dee. These extracts are preserved (Brit. Mus. MS. Cotton, Vitell. C. vii. ff. 264–9). From them it appears that Cnoyen's knowledge was obtained from the narrative of ‘a priest who had an astrolabe.’ The narrative was presented to the king of Norway in 1364. According to this priest's account, an Oxford Franciscan, who was a good astronomer, made a voyage in 1360 through all the northern regions, ‘and described all the wonders of those islands in a book which he gave to the king of England, and inscribed in Latin “Inventio Fortunatæ.”’ No evidence has been discovered to connect, as Hakluyt does, the unnamed Franciscan of Oxford with the Carmelite Nicholas. Dee (ib.) suggests that he may have been the Minorite Hugo of Ireland, a traveller who flourished and wrote about 1360 (see Bale, Script., and Wadding, Script.) The ‘Inventio’ has not been found. The earliest allusion to it is in the margin of a map by John Ruysch, which appeared at Rome in the Ptolemy of 1508. Nothing is said about the authorship of the book, and there is reason to doubt whether the writer of the marginal note had seen the original. The expression in the note, ‘mare sugenum’ (which surrounded the magnetic rock), may be merely an echo of Cnoyen's ‘een zugende zee.’
A. G. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicholl, John (fl.1607)

​NICHOLL, JOHN (fl. 1607), traveller and author, was one of a band of sixty-seven Englishmen who on 12 April 1605 sailed in the Olive Branch, at the charge of Sir Olyff Leigh [q. v.], to join the colony which had been planted by Captain Charles Leigh (d. 1605) [q. v.] on the river ‘Wiapica’ [Oyapoc] in Guiana, their leader being Captain Nicholas St. John. They missed their course, and, after being seventeen weeks at sea, put in at Saint Lucia, one of the Caribbee Islands in the West Indies. Here St. John decided to remain for a time with Nicholl and his party and to allow the vessel to go home. At first the natives were friendly, but they soon treacherously attacked the new settlers. After a truce with the Caribs had been made, Nicholl's party, nineteen in all, rigged and provisioned one of the Carib periaguas, and on 26 Sept. they left Saint Lucia. On 5 Oct. they were wrecked on a barren island about a league from the mainland. Having patched up their canoe, five of the party embarked for the mainland of Venezuela, but Nicholl and his comrades suffered agonies from hunger and thirst on the island for fifteen days. They were ultimately rescued by the Spaniards and taken to Tocuyo, and afterwards to Coro. There they were brought before the governor, but through the good offices of a Fleming they escaped the galleys. After remaining five months at Coro, Nicholl and two of his companions embarked in a frigate bound for Carthagena in New Granada ​on 30 April 1606. Here on 10 May, four days after their arrival, they were committed to prison as spies, but found friends, Spanish as well as English, and were released after two months, and in August were sent to Havannah, in the island of Cuba, in a fleet of Spanish galleons. About 10 Oct. Nicholl sailed thence for Spain, reaching Cadiz on 15 Dec., and at length, meeting with a kindly English skipper, he was landed safely at the Downs in Kent on 2 Feb. 1606–7. Soon afterwards he published in London a spirited account of his adventures, entitled ‘An Houre Glasse of Indian Newes. Or a … Discourse, shewing the … Miseries … indured by 67 Englishmen, which were sent for a Supply to the Planting in Guiana in the Yeare 1605,’ &c., 4to, London, 1607, which he dedicated to Sir Thomas Smith, governor of the company of merchants of London trading to the East Indies.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thomas, David (1760?-1822)

​THOMAS, DAVID (1760?–1822), Welsh poet, best known as ‘Daffydd Ddu Eryri,’ was born about 1760 at Pen y Bont in the parish of Llan Beblig, Carnarvonshire. His father, Thomas Griffith, was a weaver, and the son for a time followed that occupation, but in 1781 abandoned it for that of schoolmaster, which he exercised almost without intermission until his death. He contrived to acquire some knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and also became, under the tuition of Robert Hughes (Robin Ddu o Fôn), then schoolmaster at Carnarvon, proficient in the Welsh ‘strict’ metres. As a bard of promise he was elected in October 1785 a member of the London ‘Gwyneddigion’ Society. He competed unsuccessfully for the society's medal at Bala in 1789, the subject being ‘The Life of Man,’ but was victorious at St. Asaph in 1790 on ‘Liberty,’ and at Llanrwst in 1791 on ‘Truth.’ In consequence of his success he was suspended from competition for two years, a measure which induced him to give up ​competng altogether. In 1791 the three ‘awdlau’ were printed in London. During this year and the next Thomas kept school at Llanystumdwy; in 1793 and 1794 he taught at Pentraeth, Anglesey, and was also engaged in arranging the valuable Panton manuscripts at Plas Gwyn. He then took up the business of coal-meter at Amlwch, and afterwards at Red Wharf Bay, but ultimately returned to Carnarvonshire to teach, living for the most part at Waen Fawr, his native village. In 1810 he published at Dolgelly ‘Corph y Gainc,’ a collection of Welsh poems, very many of them from his own pen; in 1817 a second edition of the ‘Diddanwch Teuluaidd’ appeared at Carnarvon under his editorship. He was the chief contributor to the ‘Cylchgrawn Cymraeg,’ of which five numbers were published at Trefecca and Carmarthen in 1793 and 1794, and acted as adjudicator in the eisteddfodau of Tremadog (1811), and Carnarvon (1821). He was accidentally drowned in the river Cegin while returning from Bangor to his home on 30 March 1822, and was buried in Llanrug churchyard. Dafydd Ddu's work as a poet, facile and vigorous though it be, is less remarkable than the position he held as bardic mentor to the school of poets which sprang up in his day in Carnarvonshire. He did much to secure the continuity of the old bardic traditions which were threatened by the innovating tendencies of Dr. William Owen Pughe [q. v.] and his London supporters. Many of his letters are printed in ‘Adgof uwch Anghof’ (Penygroes, 1883).
[Memoir in Cambro-Briton (1822), iii. 426, 433; Leathart's History of the Gwyneddigion, 1831; Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry; Ashton's Hanes Llenyddiaeth Gymreig; letters in Adgof uwch Anghof.]
J. E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thomas, Ernest Chester

​THOMAS, ERNEST CHESTER (1850–1892), bibliographer, the eldest son of John Withiel Thomas, born on 28 Oct. 1850 at Birkenhead, was educated at Manchester grammar school, matriculated from Trinity College, Oxford, on 17 Oct. 1870, and graduated B.A. in June 1875. He became a student at Gray's Inn on 7 May 1874, and, having won the Bacon scholarship of the inn in May 1875, published the following year a volume on ‘Leading Cases in Constitutional Law briefly stated’ (2nd edit. 1885). In 1875 and 1876 Thomas studied in the universities of Jena and Bonn, and produced in 1877 the first volume of a translation of ​Lange's ‘Geschichte des Materialismus,’ the second volume of which appeared in 1880, and the third in 1881. He issued in 1878 ‘Leading Statutes summarised for the use of Students,’ and in the same year became joint honorary secretary of the Library Association with Mr. H. R. Tedder, with whom he collaborated in writing the article ‘Libraries’ in the ninth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ (1882). He was called to the bar on 29 June 1881. He edited the ‘Monthly Notes’ of the Library Association for 1882, and published in January 1884 the first number of the ‘Library Chronicle: a Journal of Librarianship and Bibliography,’ which he carried on until 1888.
His chief claim to notice is his edition of the ‘Philobiblon of Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, treasurer and chancellor of Edward III’ (London, 1888, sm. 8vo; also large paper), of which he produced the first really critical text, based upon the early editions and a personal examination of twenty-eight manuscripts. The notes clear up most of the obscurities which have embarrassed successive editors and translators. The translation is scholarly and the bibliography a model of careful research. It is an illustration of Thomas's conscientious methods that, a later investigation having led him to doubt the real authorship of the ‘Philobiblon,’ he printed a pamphlet which questioned the fair literary fame of Richard de Bury. Thomas had at one time a small practice at the bar, but his life was chiefly devoted to literature and librarianship. He was a man of extensive reading, a brilliant talker, a keen debater, an excellent writer. He edited several volumes for the Library Association, and contributed many articles and papers to the proceedings and journals of that society, which owes much to his self-denying labours, and to which, with several colleagues, he acted as honorary secretary for twelve years. He died at Tunbridge Wells on 5 Feb. 1892.
H. R. T.