OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Simmons, Samuel Foart

​SIMMONS, SAMUEL FOART (1750–1813), physician, born at Sandwich in Kent on 17 March 1750, was the only son of Samuel Simmons (1724–1766), town clerk of Sandwich, by his first wife, Katherine, daughter of Josiah Foart of the same town. After being educated at a seminary in France, he proceeded to study medicine at Edinburgh and at Leyden, where he obtained the degree of doctor of physic in 1776. He next visited ​in Friesland Professor Camper, who possessed one of the finest anatomical museums in Europe; and journeyed in turn to each of the great German universities. Passing into Switzerland, he made the acquaintance of Haller at Berne, and at Ferney paid his respects to Voltaire. He returned to London by way of Paris, and in September 1778 was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians. In 1779 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In the following year he was chosen physician to the Westminster General Dispensary, and in 1781 physician to St. Luke's Hospital. In the same year he became editor of the ‘London Medical Journal,’ a new magazine, which was continued under the name of ‘Medical Facts and Observations’ until 1800.
Simmons took advantage of the opportunities which his hospital practice afforded to make a close study of mental diseases, and his reputation as an authority in cases of insanity led to George III being intrusted to his care in 1803. This post he held for six months, until the king's recovery, when he was appointed one of his majesty's physicians-extraordinary. In 1811 the king became permanently insane, and Simmons was again in attendance and gave evidence before the House of Lords on the probability of the king's recovery. In the same year he resigned his post of physician of St. Luke's Hospital, and was appointed by the directors consulting physician, a post specially created for him. He died on 23 April 1813, at his house in Poland Street, and was buried on 2 May in St. Clement's churchyard at Sandwich. By his wife Susannah he left one son, Richard, a physician.
In 1791 Simmons was elected a member of the Society of Antiquaries. He was also a fellow of the academies of Nantes, Montpellier, and Madrid; of the College of Physicians of Lorraine; and of the Royal Society of Medicine at Paris, as well as honorary member of the Medical Society of Edinburgh and the Philosophical Society of Manchester.
He was the author of: 1. ‘Disputatio Inauguralis de Rubeola,’ Leyden, 1776, 4to. 2. ‘Elements of Anatomy and the Animal Economy, translated from the French of M. Perron,’ London, 1775, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1781. 3. ‘Tænia or Tapeworm,’ London, 1778, 8vo. 4. ‘Anatomy of the Human Body,’ London, 1780, 8vo. Only the first volume was published. 5. ‘Observations on the Treatment of Consumptions,’ London, 1780, 8vo. 6. ‘Gonorrhœa,’ London, 1780, 8vo. 7. ‘Account of the Life and Writings of William Hunter,’ London, 1783, 8vo. He also contributed many articles to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ and the ‘London Medical Journal.’
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Simmons, William Henry

​SIMMONS, WILLIAM HENRY (1811–1882), mezzotint engraver, was born on 11 June 1811. He became a pupil of William Finden [q. v.], the line engraver, but eventually he almost entirely abandoned that style of the art for mezzotinto, in which he attained a high degree of excellence. Several of his best known plates are after pictures by Thomas Faed, R.A., and comprise ‘Highland Mary,’ ‘Coming Events,’ ‘Daddie's Coming,’ ‘His only Pair,’ ‘Sunday in the Backwoods,’ ‘The Last of the Clan,’ ‘New Wars to an Old Soldier,’ ‘The Poor, the Poor Man's Friend,’ ‘A Wee Bit Fractious,’ ‘Baith Faither and Mither,’ and ‘Happy as the Day's long.’ After Sir Edwin Landseer he engraved ‘Rustic Beauty’ (the single figure of a girl from the ‘Highland Whisky Still’), ‘Catharine Seyton,’ ‘Odin,’ ‘The Princess Beatrice on Donald,’ ‘Royal Sports’ (the Queen in the Highlands), ‘The Sick Monkey,’ ‘On Trust,’ ‘Balmoral, 1860,’ ‘Queen Victoria’ (an oval), ‘Dominion’ (Van Amburgh and his animals), ‘The Fatal Duel,’ ‘Well-bred Sitters that never say they are bored,’ and the smaller plates of ‘The Sanctuary,’ ‘The Maid and the Magpie,’ and ‘The Taming of the Shrew.’ Other important works by him are ‘The Light of the World’ and ‘Claudio and Isabella,’ after William Holman Hunt; ‘The Proscribed Royalist,’ ‘The Parable of the Lost Piece of Money,’ and ‘Rosalind and Celia,’ after Sir John Everett Millais, bart., P.R.A.; ‘Broken Vows,’ after Philip H. Calderon, R.A.; ‘The Blind Beggar,’ after J. L. Dyckmans; ‘Luff, Boy,’ after James Clarke Hook, R.A.; ‘Hesperus,’ ‘In Memoriam,’ ‘Mors Janua Vitæ,’ and ‘Thy Will be done,’ after Sir Joseph Noel Paton, R.S.A.; ‘The Marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales,’ after W. P. Frith, R.A.; Boswell's Introduction to Dr. Johnson,’ after Eyre Crowe, A.R.A.; ‘Christ weeping over Jerusalem,’ after Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, P.R.A.; ‘An Old Monarch,’ ‘A Humble Servant,’ ‘An Old Pensioner,’ and the small plate of ‘The Horse Fair,’ after Rosa Bonheur; and ‘The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism,’ after Gustave Doré. He engraved also many plates from paintings by Thomas Brooks, Henry O'Neil, A.R.A., George B. O'Neill, George H. Boughton, R.A., Philip R. Morris, A.R.A., Richard Ansdell, ​R.A., Henry Le Jeune, A.R.A., James Sant, R.A., Frank Stone, A.R.A., Edouard Frère, and others. He left unfinished ‘The Lion at Home,’ after Rosa Bonheur, which was completed by Thomas L. Atkinson. Several of his engravings appeared at the Royal Academy between 1857 and 1882.
Simmons died, after a short illness, at 247 Hampstead Road, London, on 10 June 1882, and was buried in Highgate cemetery.
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Needler, Benjamin

​NEEDLER, BENJAMIN (1620–1682), ejected minister, son of Thomas Needler, of Laleham, Middlesex, was born on 29 Nov. 1620. He was admitted to Merchant Taylors' School on 11 Sept. 1634, was head scholar in 1640, and was elected to St. John's College, Oxford, on 11 June 1642, matriculating on 1 July. He was elected fellow of his college in 1645, but appears to have been non-resident, as his submission is not registered. Joining the presbyterian party, he was summoned to assist the parliamentary visitors of the university in 1648, and was by them created B.C.L. on 14 April of the same year. On 8 Aug. he was appointed to the rectory of St. Margaret Moses, Friday Street, London. It is not known whether he took episcopal orders or not. He was one of the ministers in London who in January 1648–9 signed the ‘Serious and Faithful Representation’ to General Fairfax, petitioning for the life of the king and the maintenance of parliament. On his marriage in 1651 with Marie, sister of Nathanael Culverwell [q. v.], Needler resigned his fellowship at St. John's College.
In August 1662 he was ejected from his rectory by the Act of Uniformity, and afterwards retired to North Warnborough in Hampshire, where he preached privately till the time of his death. He was buried at Odiham, near Winchfield, on 20 Oct. 1682. Needler had several children. The baptisms of six are recorded in the registers of St. Margaret Moses between January 1651–2 and May 1662, and the burials of two of them in 1658 and 1659 respectively.
He was an able preacher, and, according to Baxter, a very humble, grave, and peaceable divine (Sylvester, Reliq. Baxt. iii. 94). He published ‘Expository Notes with Practical Observations towards the opening of the five first Chapters of Genesis,’ London, 1655, and three sermons which are reprinted in various editions of ‘Morning Exercises’ (cf. these of 1660, 1661, 1675, 1676, 1677, and 1844). Dunn speaks highly of all these sermons. Needler also wrote some verses on the death of Jeremiah Whitaker, which were published in Simon Ashe's funeral sermon on Whitaker, ​entitled ‘Living Loves between Christ and Dying Christians,’ London, 1654.
Culverwell Needler (fl. 1710), son of Benjamin (baptised 5 March 1656 at St. Margaret Moses), was appointed additional writing clerk to the House of Lords on 25 March 1679, and later on clerk-assistant to the House of Commons, which latter post he retained till December 1710, when he was ‘disabled by palsie.’ He published ‘Debates of the House of Commons in January 1704,’ London, 1721 (2nd ed.)
B. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neele, Richard

​NEELE or NEALE, Sir RICHARD (d. 1486), judge, was son of Richard Neele, who was elected member of parliament for Leicester on 21 Dec. 1441 (Official Returns, i. 333), and died in the following year. Before 1461 Neele had evidently received grants from the crown, as he was specially exempted from the Act of Resumption passed on Edward IV's accession (Rolls of Parl. v. 475 a). In 1463 he was a member of Gray's Inn, whence he was called serjeant on 7 Nov. On 12 Aug. 1464, according to Dugdale (Chron. Ser. p. 69), he was appointed king's serjeant, but the ‘Calendar of Patent Rolls’ records this promotion in 1466. When Henry VI was restored on 9 Oct. 1470, Neele was made a justice of the king's bench; but on Edward's return he was, on 29 May, transferred to the common pleas. To this post he was reappointed on the accession of Edward V, Richard III, and Henry VII. Before 1483 he was knighted, and in that year served as a trier of petitions from England, Wales, and Ireland. He died on 11 June 1486, and was buried in Prestwold Church, Leicestershire, where an alabaster monument was raised to his memory. He married Isabella Butler of Warrington, Lancashire, by whom he had two sons, Christopher and Richard, whose great-grandson married a sister of Chief-justice Coke. Prestwold, which was acquired by Neele, became the family seat.
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Needham, John (d.1480)

​NEEDHAM, Sir JOHN (d. 1480), judge, was third son of Robert Needham (d. 1448) of Cranach or Cranage, Cheshire, and brother of Thomas Needham, from whom was descended Robert Needham, created Viscount Kilmorey in the peerage of Ireland in 1625 [see Needham, Charles, fourth Viscount Kilmorey]. His grandfather William married, in 1375, Alice, daughter of William de Cranach, whose family had long been settled in Cheshire; she brought her husband, as her dowry, half the manor of Cranage (Ormerod, iii. 78). John's mother was Dorothy, daughter of Sir John Savage, K.G., of Clifton, Cheshire (Visitations of Shropshire, Harl. Soc. ii. 371; Harrod, History of Shavington, pp. 18–21).
On 28 Dec. 1441 John was elected M.P. for Newcastle-under-Lyme, being again returned for that constituency in 1446–7 and 1448–9. On 6 Oct. 1449 he was elected member for London, for which in the same year he was common serjeant (Official Returns, i. 333, 336, 339, 342). On 1 Feb. 1453 he was called to the degree of the coif, and on 13 July in the same year was appointed king's serjeant; probably this last appointment was temporary, for in 1454 he was again made king's serjeant ‘pro hac vice tantum’ (Cal. Rot. Pat. p. 296). His arguments in this capacity are reported in the year-books until 9 May 1457, when he was appointed justice of common pleas. He retained his post under Edward IV, received a fresh confirmation of it and was knighted on 9 Oct. 1470, when Henry VI was restored, and was again appointed in May 1471, after Edward IV's return (Dugdale, Chronica Series, pp. 65, 70). He was a trier of petitions from England and Wales in 1461, 1463, 1472–3, and 1477 (Rolls of Parl. v. 461 b, 496 b, vi. 3 b, 34 a, 167 b, 181 b, 296 a); he also frequently acted as justice of assize in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and was chief justice of Chester (Notitia Cestriensis, i. 258). His judgments are recorded in year-books as late as Hilary term 1479, and he died on 25 April 1480; he was buried at Holmes-Chapel, Cheshire, where a monument was erected with an inscription to his memory.
Needham married Margaret, youngest daughter of Randal Manwaring of Over-Peover, Cheshire, and widow of William, son of Sir John Bromley of Baddington (Visitations of Shropshire, Harl. Soc. ii. 371). He left no issue, and settled his lands in Holme, called Hallum-lands, Cheshire, which he had purchased in 1471 from Thomas Chickford, with all his estate, on his next brother, Robert Needham of Atherley (Ormerod, i. 544). He also had a seat at Shavington, Shropshire, which subsequently descended to the Earls of Kilmorey. His sister Agnes married John Starkey of Oulton (Lancashire and Cheshire Wills, i. 11).
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Needler, Henry

​NEEDLER, HENRY (1685–1760), amateur of music, the last of the Needlers of Surrey, was born in London in 1685. As a young man he entered the excise office, and in March 1710 was appointed accountant for the candle duty, but through life he managed, without neglecting his profession, to practise music, ‘his only pleasure’ (Hawkins). His father, an accomplished violinist, give him his earliest lessons. Daniel Purcell taught him harmony (Grove), and the younger John Banister, first violin at Drury Lane Theatre, carried on his training. In due time Needler performed at the house of Thomas Britton [q. v.], ‘the musical small-coal man,’ and at weekly private concerts in noblemen's houses. He came to know Handel, who visited him in Clement's Lane, behind the church in the Strand, and he was an active member of the Academy of Vocal Music, a society meeting at the Crown Tavern in the Strand. Here he led the violins, and undertook librarian's and secretary's duties, cataloguing the music.
It is related that a volume of twelve of Corelli's concertos came accidentally into Needler's hands during a musical meeting, and that he and his friends forthwith played through the whole number. His admiration of Corelli led Needler to study his violin music until he excelled in its interpretation. He was in fact a fine and delicate performer, and equal to any difficulty before his arm grew stiff (Hawkins). Twenty-eight volumes of Needler's extensive transcriptions from the Oxford and other libraries are in the British Museum Addit. MSS. 5035 to 5062. He died on 8 Aug. 1760, in his seventy-fifth year, and was buried at Frindsbury, near Rochester, where, in the previous century, the Needlers had owned for a time the famous quarry house and lands. He married late in life, and had no children. Needler had inherited property at Horley, Surrey, of which he left by will the life interest to his widow Hester, and to his sister Elizabeth, and the reversion to other relatives and rightful heirs. A portrait of Needler, engraved by Grignion after Mathias, is given in Hawkins's ‘History of Music,’ 1776.
A volume of anthems composed by Mrs. Needler, and dated 1751, is in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 5053.
L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Negretti, Enrico Angelo Ludovico

​NEGRETTI, ENRICO ANGELO LUDOVICO (1817–1879), optician, was born at Como in Italy in 1817, and came to London in 1829. As a glass-blower and thermometer maker, in partnership with M. Pizzi, he established himself at 19 Leather Lane, Holborn, in 1843, and thence removed to 9 Hatton Garden in 1848. In 1850 he took Joseph Warren Zambra into partnership. At the Great Exhibition of 1851 they received prize medals as opticians, spectaclemakers, and constructors of almost every kind of scientific or mathematical instruments, and were then appointed meteorological instrument makers to the queen, Greenwich Observatory, and the British Meteorological Society. In 1852 Negretti took out a patent, No. 14002, for thermometers and barometers. The firm obtained a world-wide reputation for the excellence of their work and the uprightness of their dealing. In 1858 they removed to 107 Holborn Hill, and in 1869 to Holborn Circus. Among the Italians in London Negretti enjoyed an almost patriarchal popularity: his purse was open to the poor, and his time, already overtaxed by his business, was never wanting in their service. ​On 26 Dec. 1864 Serafino Pelizzioni was charged with killing Michael Harrington in a public-house, was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be executed on 22 Feb. 1865. Through the interest of an Italian committee, headed by Negretti, the man was respited; and in another trial on 2 March it was clearly proved that the murder had been committed by Gregorio Mogni, and Pelizzioni was liberated on a free pardon (Times, 31 Dec. 1864, 5, 12, 24 Jan., 9, 10, 20 Feb., 6, 7, 9, 13, 16 March 1865; J. D. Barnett and A. Buckler's Central Criminal Court Sessions Paper—Minutes of Evidence, 1865, lxi. 283–302, 590–636). Negretti was also on terms of friendship with Garibaldi. The Italian hero was his guest in 1854, when he was coming from South America; and when in 1864, after the conquest of Sicily, he revisited London, Negretti was chief of the Italian reception committee. On 11 April 1862 he was naturalised as a British subject, under the name of Henry Negretti. He died at Cricklewood House, Cricklewood, Middlesex, on 24 Sept. 1879.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Postlethwaite, Thomas

​POSTLETHWAITE, THOMAS (1731–1798), master of Trinity College, Cambridge, born in 1731, was son of Richard Postlethwaite of Crooklands, Lancashire. He was educated at St. Bees School, and entered at Trinity College as a subsizar on 19 June 1749, æt. 18. He was elected scholar on 24 April 1752, sizars at that time not being allowed to sit for scholarships until their third year. He proceeded B.A. in 1753, when he was placed third in the mathematical tripos, with the reputation, which he retained through life, of being one of the best mathematicians in the university. The dates of his other degrees are M.A. 1756, B.D. 1768, and D.D. (by royal mandate) 1789. He was elected fellow in 1755, held the usual college lectureships, and from 1763 to 1776 was tutor. He was steward 1764–6, and junior dean 1767–8. In 1782 he became a senior fellow.
He must have been popular in college, for it is recorded that when, on Bishop Hinchliffe's resignation of the mastership in 1789, Pitt consulted Dr. Farmer as to his successor, Farmer replied, ‘If you wish to oblige the society, appoint Postlethwaite.’ As master he is said to have ‘soon discovered that, if he was alert, he and the seniors should be at variance, according to antient usage;’ and to have preferred quiet and the society of Dr. Craven, master of St. John's, to activity in the discharge of his duties (Nichols, Illustr. of Lit. vi. 737). During his tenure of the mastership a public examination for fellowships and an annual examination of undergraduates of the first and second year were established. It is, however, uncertain how far these reforms were due to his initiative. The old and vicious system of private examination for fellowships had been practically abolished by his predecessor; and the examination of undergraduates was established by an order of the master and seniors on 24 Feb. 1790. On the other hand, ‘his conduct in passing over Richard Porson [q. v.] for the lay fellowship, which had been promised to him, and bestowing it on a relative of his own, John Heys, a young man seven years junior to Porson, has left a stigma on his memory’ (Luard in the Trident, i. 12).
He died at Bath on 4 May 1798, and was buried in the abbey church, where there is a monument to his memory (in the north aisle). There is a portrait of him, in oils, in Trinity College Lodge. He published one sermon, on Isaiah vii. 14–16, preached before the university on 24 Dec. 1780, 4to, Cambridge, 1781.
J. W. C-k.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pote, Joseph

​POTE, JOSEPH (1703?–1787), bookseller, born in 1702 or 1703, long carried on business at Eton, and also kept a boarding house for Eton boys, Lord-chancellor Camden having been one of his boarders. At the same time he was well known as an editor and publisher, and his editions of classical works brought him into close relations with Zachary Grey [q. v.] and other scholars. Works compiled and published by him include: 1. ‘Catalogus alumnorum e collegio regali B. Mariæ de Etona,’ 1730. Much use was made in this work of the names cut by pupils, before leaving Eton, on the oaken pillars that supported the roof of the under-school. 2. ‘History and Antiquities of Windsor Castle and the Royal College and Chapel of St. George, with the Institutions, Laws, and Ceremonies of the most noble Order of the Garter,’ 1749. The work was subsequently abridged and published under the name of ‘Les Délices de Windesore, or a Pocket-Companion to Windsor Castle,’ which was very popular and went through six editions. An appendix to the original work was compiled and published by Pote in 1762. It contained an alphabetical list of all the knights of the Garter from the institution of the order to 1762. 4. ‘The Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood,’ 1772. 5. ‘Registrum Regale Præpositorum utriusque Collegii regalis Etonensis et Cantabrigiensis,’ 1774. Pote died at Eton on 3 March 1787, aged 84, leaving two sons; the younger, Thomas, who succeeded to his father's business at Eton, was master of the Stationers' Company. A daughter married John Williams, publisher of Wilkes's paper ‘The North Briton.’
G. P. M-y.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Poste, Beale

​POSTE, BEALE (1793–1871), divine and antiquary, of an ancient Kentish family, was second son of William Poste, one of the four common pleaders of the city of London. Born in 1793 at Hayle Place, his father's seat near Maidstone, Kent, he entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge (Luard,Grad. Cant. p. 416), but left the university at an early age, travelled on the continent, returned, took holy orders, and married (in 1817) before graduating LL.B. in 1819. He was for some years curate of High Halden, and then of Milstead, both in Kent. At Milstead he devoted himself to the study of archæology. He was one of the earliest members of the Archaeological Association, and many papers from his pen appeared in their 'Journal.' He removed about 1851 to Bydews Place, near Maidstone, where he died on 15 April 1871. By his wife Mary Jane, daughter of John Cousins, esq., of Westbourne, Sussex, who died two years before her husband, he had three sons and four daughters. His third son, Edward, is director of civil service examinations.
His works, dealing principally with early British history, evidence the most painstaking research. They are: 1. 'History of the College of All Saints,' Maidstone, 1847, 8vo. 2. 'The Coins of Cunobeline and of the Ancient Britons,' 1853, 8vo. 3. 'Britannic Researches, or New Facts and Rectifications of Ancient British History,' 1853, 8vo. 4. 'Britannia Antiqua: Ancient Britain brought within the Limits of Authentic History,' 1857, 8vo. 5. 'Celtic Inscriptions on Gaulish and British Coins, intended to supply Materials for the Early History of Great Britain; with a Glossary of Archaic Celtic Words and an Atlas of Coins,' 1861, 8vo.
[Berry's Kent Pedigrees, p. 20; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Guardian. 1871, p. 491; Athenæum for 1853, 1857, 1861; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]
E. G. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Postlethwayt, James

​POSTLETHWAYT, JAMES (d. 1761), writer on revenue, probably a brother of Malachy Postlethwayt [q. v.], published ‘The History of the Public Revenue from the Revolution in 1688 to … Christmas 1758,’ &c., London, 1759, obl. 4to. This work is one of the most valuable authorities for the financial history of the period to which it relates. Postlethwayt also devoted some attention to vital statistics. He published a ‘Collection of the Bills of Mortality from 1657 to 1758 inclusive,’ with ‘A Comparative View of the Diseases and Ages, and a Table of the Probabilities of Life, for the last Thirty Years,’ London, 1759, 4to. He died in Hatton Garden on 6 Sept. 1761.
W. A. S. H.