OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Emmet, Christopher Temple

​EMMET, CHRISTOPHER TEMPLE (1761–1788), barrister, eldest son of Robert Emmet, M.D., and elder brother of Thomas Addis and Robert Emmet [qq.v.], was born at Cork in 1761. He entered the university of Dublin in 1775, and obtained a scholarship there in 1778. He was called to the bar in Ireland in 1781, and in that year he married Anne Western Temple, daughter of Robert Temple, an American loyalist who had settled in Ireland. Emmet attained eminence as an advocate; he possessed a highly poetical imagination, remarkably retentive memory, and a vast amount of acquired knowledge of law, divinity, and literature. Under the chancellorship of Lord Lifford, Emmet was advanced to the rank of king's counsel in 1787. His death occurred in February 1788, while he was on circuit in ​the south of Ireland, and his widow died in the following November. The only known writings of Emmet are a short poem on the myrtle and other trees, and an allegory of thirty-two stanzas of four lines each, entitled ‘The Decree.’ The latter was written during the administration of, and inscribed to, the Earl of Buckinghamshire, viceroy of Ireland from 1777 to 1780. In these verses the author predicted that the future eminence of England would be imperilled if she delayed to act justly towards Ireland by annulling harsh laws, and by removing the enactments which prohibited commerce between the Irish and America, which he styled ‘the growing western world.’
[R. R. Madden's United Irishmen, 1860; Life of Grattan, vol. iv. (1840); manuscripts of Hon. Society of King's Inns, Dublin; Hibernian Magazine, 1788; Collection of Poems, 1789–90.]
J. T. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Emmett, Anthony

​EMMETT, ANTHONY (1790–1872), major-general royal engineers, after passing through the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, received his commission as second lieutenant in the royal engineers on 16 Feb. 1808. He joined the army in the Peninsula early in 1809, and remained with it until the summer of 1812, when he was sent to England for recovery from the effects of a very severe wound received while leading on one of the columns to the assault of Badajoz in April 1812. He returned to the army in October of the following year at his own request, and remained with it to the close of the war. During his service in the Peninsula he was constantly before the enemy. First, in Abrantes and skirmishes near it, while the French were in front of the lines of Lisbon; secondly, at both the sieges of Badajoz in 1811, at the cavalry affair of Elboden, and in the trenches before Ciudad Rodrigo; and thirdly, at the siege of Badajoz in 1812, when he led on the Portuguese column of the 4th division to the assault of the breach of the curtain, and was severely wounded. He was shortly after sent to England for the restoration of his health. Prior to the siege he was occupied in improving the navigation of the Upper Douro to facilitate the transfer of supplies for the operations in Badajoz. On rejoining the army as a captain in 1813 he was employed in the examination of the fords of the Nive, held by the enemy's posts prior to the successful passage of that river. During the following campaign he was attached to the 2nd division, and was present at the battle of St. Pierre, near Bayonne, at the attack on the heights of Garres St.-Palais at Tarbes, and at the battles of Orthes and Toulouse. Soon after his return to England he was sent, in 1815, with General Keane, on the expedition against New Orleans, landed with the advance, and was present in the attack of the Americans, also at the assault made on the enemy's lines and at the siege of Fort Bowyer.
He was next appointed commanding royal engineer at St. Helena, whither he went with Sir Hudson Lowe, and held the command until after the death of Napoleon. He held various commands at home, at Bermuda, and in the Mediterranean, until he was compelled in May 1855 to retire as a major-general on account of bad health brought on by the wounds he received in the Peninsula. He was awarded the war medal and four clasps. He died at Brighton on 27 March 1872.
R. H. V.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Empson, William

​EMPSON, WILLIAM (1791–1852), editor of the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ was educated at Winchester, where he was a schoolfellow of Thomas Arnold, afterwards head-master of Rugby, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. 1812, and M.A. 1815. He began to contribute to the ‘Edinburgh Review’ in 1823, and between that date and 1849 wrote in it more than sixty articles upon law, politics, and literary topics. There is an interesting account of two articles upon Goethe's ‘Faust’ and ‘Correspondence with Schiller’ (1830 and 1831) in Carlyle's ‘Correspondence’ with Goethe (1887, pp. 255, 282). In October 1843 he wrote an article upon Bentham, in which his reliance upon certain statements of Bowring produced a contradiction from J. S. Mill, published in the ‘Review’ for January 1844. In January 1845 he wrote upon Dr. Arnold, with whose views upon educational and ecclesiastical questions he thoroughly sympathised. Other articles offended Bulwer and the irritable Brougham, who calls him a bad imitator of Macaulay. He was, however, a valued contributor under both Jeffrey and Napier. On 2 July 1824 he became professor of general ‘polity and the laws of England’ at the East India College, Haileybury, a chair which had been formerly occupied by Sir James Mackintosh. He was an intimate friend of his colleague, Malthus. On 27 June 1838 he married Charlotte, only daughter of Francis Jeffrey. He succeeded to the editorship of the ‘Edinburgh Review’ in 1847, upon the death of Macvey Napier [q. v.], who had succeeded Jeffrey in 1829. Empson is said to have been an excellent professor, and familiar with the laws of India. He was, however, more remarkable for his influence upon the moral and philosophical training of his pupils. He was much beloved by them, and when they heard that he had broken a bloodvessel in 1852, they spontaneously gave up their usual festival. He finished the examination in spite of his suffering, but died at Haileybury 10 Dec. 1852. There are many letters to him in Cockburn's ‘Life of Jeffrey’ and in Macvey Napier's ‘Correspondence’ which are highly creditable to his good feeling and sense.
[Gent. Mag. 1853, pt. i. pp. 99, 100; Cockburn's Life of Jeffrey; Selections from the Correspondence of Macvey Napier (1879).]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Stephen

​HARRISON, STEPHEN (fl. 1603), joiner and architect, is perhaps the ‘Stephen Harryson, son of Peter Harryson,’ who was ​baptised at St. Dionis Backchurch, London, on 25 May 1572 (Register). Otherwise he is known only through a very rare volume entitled ‘The Archs of Triumph Erected in honor of the High and mighty prince, James, the first of that name, King of England, and the sixt of Scotland, at his Maiesties Entrance and passage through his Honorable Citty & chamber of London, vpon the 15th day of march 1603. Invented and published by Stephen Harrison Joyner and Architect: and graven by William Kip.’ It is a thin folio, and ends with the colophon: ‘Imprinted at London by Iohn Windet, Printer to the Honourable Citie of London, and are to be sold at the Authors house in Lime-street, at the signe of the Snayle. 1604.’ An engraved title-page is followed by seven full-page engravings of the triumphal arches and nine leaves of descriptive text, contributed probably by Thomas Dekker and John Webster, whose names are attached to the odes with which the volume opens. The arches were seven in number, though only five were originally intended, and all except those erected by the ‘merchant strangers’ were designed by Harrison and erected under his supervision. Three hundred or more workmen were employed on them from the beginning of April to the end of August 1603, when, on account of the plague which was then raging in London, the state entry of the king was postponed, and the preparations discontinued until February 1604. The arches at West Cheap and Temple Bar were then added, and the whole completed within six weeks. Harrison's book is extremely rare, especially in the first state before the words ‘Are to be sould at the white horse in Popes head Alley, by John Sudbury, and George Humble,’ were added at the foot of the title-page. There are copies of the first issue in the Grenville Library, at the British Museum, and in the Huth and Britwell Libraries.
[Nichols's Progresses of King James the First, 1828, i. 328–99; Corser's Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, 1860–83, iii. 134–9; Cat. Huth Library, 1880, ii. 655.]
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Susannah

​HARRISON, SUSANNAH (1752–1784), religious poetess, probably born at Ipswich in 1752, of poor parents, entered domestic service when sixteen. Four years after illness permanently invalided her. Although without regular education, she taught herself to write, and developed much poetic power and piety, calling her verses ‘Songs in the Night’ (after Job xxxv. 10). She reluctantly consented to their publication. In the first edition, 1780, they are stated to be ‘by a young woman under deep afflictions,’ and were edited by Dr. John Conder [q. v.] A second edition was issued in 1781, with eleven additional pages. Dr. Conder supplied several pages of ‘Recommendation,’ and Susannah added an acrostic to show her name. The fourth edition (Ipswich, 1788) was augmented with twenty-two pages of posthumous verses, and twelve more recounting her resignation and giving admonitions to her friends before she died. She died 3 Aug. 1784, and was buried in Tacket Street burial-ground, Ipswich, with an inscription recording that ‘she wrote “Songs in the Night.”’
Susannah Harrison's poems reached a fifteenth edition in 1823. All that she wrote is strongly tinctured with religious enthusiasm. Her versification is smooth, although sometimes defaced by grammatical blunders. The influence of Ken is apparent in her earlier pieces, and that of Cowper and Newton afterwards. It is evident that she had read Milton's ‘Ode on the Nativity.’
A portrait (a silhouette) of the authoress forms the frontispiece of the first edition. She also wrote ‘A Call to Britain,’ seemingly a broadside, of which many thousands were sold in a short time.
[S. Harrison's Songs, and the Recommendation, Preface, &c., by Dr. Conder; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
M. G. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Thomas (1555-1631)

​HARRISON, THOMAS, D.D. (1555–1631), biblical scholar, was born in London in 1555 of respectable parents, entered Merchant Taylors' School in 1570, where he is stated to have been second in learning only to Lancelot Andrewes, afterwards bishop of Winchester; he proceeded to St. John's College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1576. At Cambridge his scholarship attracted the notice of Dr. Whitaker, who for the excellence of his verses used to call him 'suum poetam.' He apparently became a fellow and tutor of Trinity College. Harrison was a puritan, and in 1589 is mentioned as attending a synod at St. John's College, along with Cartwright and others (Baker, History of St. John's College, ii. 601). He was a noted Hebraist and among the revisers of the bible assembled by James I; he belonged to the company of eight who met at Cambridge, and were allotted the 'first of Chronicles, with the rest of the story and the Hagiographs.' For the last twenty years of his life he was vice-prefect of Trinity College. He died in 1631 and was buried with some pomp in the chapel of his college. A Latin volume in his honour was written by Caleb Dalechamp; it is titled 'Harrisonus Honoratus: Id est ​Honorifica de Vita,' &c. (Cambridge, 1632), and contains a meagre outline of his life in the form of a funeral oration, with some Latin obituary verses to his memory.
[Robinson’s Register of Merchant Taylors' School, i. 15; Fuller's Church Hist. 1815, v. 371.]
R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Thomas (1693-1745)

​HARRISON, THOMAS (1693–1745), baptist minister and poet, born in 1693, was the son of Thomas Harrison, the minister of a baptist congregation meeting at Loriners' Hall, London. He was first called to the ministry by the congregation of baptists to which he belonged, meeting in Joiners' Hall. From 1715 to 1729 he was the pastor of the particular baptist church in Little Wild Street. In 1729 he conformed to the church of England; through the influence of relatives obtained orders, and was inducted into the vicarage of Radcliffe-on-the-Wreke, Leicestershire. He preached and published a sermon in justification of his change of views, which was answered by the famous ‘Orator’ Henley [see Henley, John] in a tract entitled ‘A Child's Guide for the Rev. Thomas ​harrison,’ &c. Harrison died 30 March 1745, and was buried in St. Peter's churchyard at St. Albans. He was the author of ‘Poems on Divine Subjects, in two Parts,’ 12mo, pp. 84, London, 1719. Several of the hymns in this volume became popular, and were reprinted repeatedly in collections. He also published ‘Belteshazzar; or the Heroic Jew,’ 12mo, 1727. Several of his sermons were printed separately during his lifetime.
[J. Ivimey's Hist. of the Baptists, iii. 568; Baker's Biog. Dramat. p. 312; Wilson's Dissenting Churches, ii. 558; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. viii. 90, 139; Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 382.]
R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Thomas Elliott

​HARRISON, THOMAS ELLIOTT (1808–1888), civil engineer, born in Sunderland on 4 April 1808, was son of William Harrison, who was engaged there in the shipping business. After a short education at Kepier grammar school, he was apprenticed to Messrs. Chapman, engineers and surveyors, in Newcastle, and soon showed remarkable efficiency. He became acquainted with George Stephenson and his son, and assisted the latter in some important engineering operations. Harrison surveyed part of the line for the London and Birmingham railway, and that of the Stanhope and Tyne railway. The latter undertaking included the well-known Victoria ​Bridge, with a height of 157 feet and arches of 240 feet span, the whole of which was built on Harrison's plans, under his immediate superintendence. Other engagements which he successfully carried out as railway engineer were the survey of the Newcastle and Carlisle railway, the York and Doncaster, the Hull and Selby, the Tweedmouth and Kelso, and various other lines. He was also, conjointly with Robert Stephenson, engineer for the construction of several important works, the most famous being the high level bridge between Newcastle and Gateshead. When Robert Stephenson retired from work as railway engineer, Harrison became engineer-in-chief of the York, Newcastle, and Berwick line, and the success ultimately reached was largely due to his energy and powers of organisation. In 1858 he designed and carried out the Jarrow docks, with several remarkable appliances of hydraulic power, and afterwards designed the Hartlepool docks. On 13 Jan. 1874 he delivered the inaugural address as president of the Institute of Civil Engineers. Harrison died at Newcastle on 20 March 1888.
[Times and Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 21 March 1888.]
R. E. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Field, Joshua

​FIELD, JOSHUA (1787?–1863), civil engineer, born about 1787, was of the firm of Messrs. Maudslay, Sons, & Field of Lambeth [see Maudslay, Henry]. Field had closely studied the marine engine and steam navigation since 1816, when Maudslay & Co. made a pair of combined engines, each fourteen horse-power, applying the power to the paddle-wheel shaft by the crank instead of by cog-wheels, according to the previous mode. Messrs. Maudslay & Field undertook to construct engines of adequate power to propel a vessel, with sufficient storage for fuel, across the Atlantic, at a time when many of the constructors of the day declined to attempt an apparently impracticable feat. The engines were completed and fitted on board the Great Western in March 1838, and shortly afterwards the vessel started on her first voyage from Bristol, reaching New York, a distance of three thousand miles, in thirteen days and ten hours.
Field was one of six young men who, towards the end of 1817, founded the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was one of its earliest vice-presidents, and he continued to hold that office until elected president on 18 Jan. 1848, being the first president selected from the class of purely mechanical engineers. In his inaugural address, delivered on 1 Feb., he alluded particularly to the changes which had then been introduced into steam navigation, and to some of the more marked improvements, both in the engines and the vessels, by which they had been adapted for carrying cargo and fuel for long voyages, and for attaining great speed on short voyages. This office he filled for two years, the period permitted by the regulations. On 3 March 1836 he became a fellow of the Royal Society, and was also a member of the Society of Arts. Field died at his residence, Balham Hill House, Surrey, on 11 Aug. 1863, aged 76.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Field, Richard (1554?-1606)

​FIELD or DE LA FIELD, RICHARD (1554?–1606), jesuit, son of the Lord of Corduff, born about 1554 in the county of Dublin, studied at Douay, entered the Society of Jesus about 1582, and became a professed father. In April 1599 he was sent from Flanders to Fathers Fitzsimon and Archer in his native country, and he was superior of the Irish jesuit mission till 1640, displaying remarkable prudence and mildness in his office. There are still extant several of his letters which abound with interesting details of the catholic affairs of Ireland. He died in Dublin on 21 Feb. 1605–6.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lawrence (d.619)

​LAWRENCE or LAURENTIUS (d. 619), second archbishop of Canterbury, accompanied Augustine [q. v.] when he first set out from Rome for England in 696, remained at Aix when Augustine returned to Rome, and finally landed with him in Thanet in 697. He is described as a priest (presbyter), apparently in contrast with a certain Peter, described as a monk (Historia Ecclesiastica, i. 27). But the inference that he was not a monk has been disputed (Mabillon, Acta SS. O.S.B. ii. 67; Elmham, p. 127). Augustine sent him to Rome in 601 with a letter to Pope Gregory, and on his return he brought with him a new body of missionaries. When Augustine felt that his end was near, he ordained Laurentius as his successor, probably in the spring of 604, and Laurentius succeeded to the see of Canterbury on Augustine's death on 26 May. He laboured vigorously to strengthen the new church, and tried to bring the Britons and the Scots of Ireland into conformity with it. He wrote, with Bishops Mellitus [q. v.] and Justus [q. v.], to the Scottish bishops and abbots, complaining of the unfriendly conduct of a Scottish bishop named Dagan, and sent another letter to the British priests exhorting them to unity. These letters were ineffectual, but he is said to have won over a certain Irish archbishop named Tereran, supposed to be a bishop of Armagh, who was attracted to England by his fame (Eccl. Docs, iii. 61 T 62). In 610 he sent Mellitus to Rome on a mission concerning some needs of the English church. The church of St. Peter and St. Paul begun by Augustine at Canterbury is said to have been finished and consecrated by him in 613. When, after the accession of Eadbert [q. v.] to the kingship of Kent, Mellitus and Justus left England in 617 or 618, Laurentius was minded to follow their example. One day, however, he came before the king and showed him his back covered with the marks of stripes, telling him that the night before as he was sleeping in the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Peter appeared to him, and chastised and rebuked him for his intention. Eadbert was converted, and Mellitus and Justus were recalled. Laurentius died on 2 Feb. 619, and was buried by his predecessor in the north porch of the church of St. Peter and St. Paul. All that is certainly known about him is told by Bæda. Elmham adds that he blessed two abbots of the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul, and a manuscript life by Goscelin states that he went to Fordun (?Ford in Kent) and built a church there.
[Bede's Hist. Eccl. i. cc. 27, 33, ii. cc 4, 6, 7 (Engl. Hist. Soc); Elmham's Hist. Monast. S. Aug. pp. 114, 119, 127. 133, 144 (Rolls Ser.); Kemble's Codex Dipl. Nob. 1, 4-6, 983 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Mabillon's Acta SS. O.S.B. ii. 66-69; Acta SS., Bolland, Feb. i. 289-94; Hardy's Cat. i. 217, 218 (Rolls Ser.), where are notices of other manuscript lives, one the foundation of the account given in Capgrave's Nova Legenda, f. 207 b; Haddan and Stubbs's Eccl. Docs. iii. 61-70; art. 'Laurentius' in Diet. Christ. Biog. iii. 631, by Bishop Stubbs; Hook's Archbishops of Canterbury, i. 79 sqq.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lawrence, William (1611?-1681)

​LAWRENCE, WILLIAM (1611?–1681), lawyer, born in 1611 or 1612, was eldest son of William Lawrence (1579-1640) of Wraxhall, Dorset, by Elizabeth (d. 1672), sister of Gregory Gibbes (will of W. Lawrence the elder, registered in P. C. C. 152, Coventry). In 1631 he became a gentleman-commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, and was subsequently called to the bar at the Middle Temple. He rose to considerable eminence in his profession. In November 1653 he was appointed a commissioner for administration of justice in Scotland (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1653-4, p. 273). By the interest of Colonel William Sydenham, his brother-in-law, he was elected, on 26 Nov. 1656, M.P. for the Isle of Wight, on Sydenham's choosing to serve for Dorset, and on 11 Jan. 1658-9 he was returned for Newtown, in the same place (Members of Parliament, Official Return Dom. 1653-4, pt. i. pp. 505, 509). At the Restoration he returned to England, resumed his practice at the bar, and professed great loyalty. He died on 18 March 1680-1, aged 69, and was buried in Wraxhall churchyard. A memorial to him in the church contains a curious poetical epitaph of his own composition. In 1649 he married Martha (b. 1622), third daughter of William Sydenham of Winford Eagle, Dorset, by whom he had a son, William (will registered in P. C. C. 36, Drax). Lawrence wrote: 1. 'Marriage by the Morall Law of God vindicated against all Ceremonial Laws of Popes and Bishops destructive to Filiation, Aliment, and Succession, and the Government of Familyes and Kingdomes,' 2 pts. 4to, London, 1680, which he was compelled to leave unfinished on account of 'disturbances at the press.' Wood alleges that Lawrence wrote the book 'upon a discontent arising from his wife, whom he esteemed dishonest to him.' 2. 'The Right of Primogeniture in Succession to the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.' 4to, London, 1681, in which he learnedly argues in support of the Duke of Monmouth's succession. 3. 'The two great Questions, whereon in this present Juncture of Affairs the Peace and Safety of his Maiesties Person, and of his Protestant Subjects next under God depend, stated, debated, and humbly submitted to the consideration of Supreme Authority, as resolved by Christ,' 4to, London, 1681, a supplement to the foregoing. Lawrence also translated from the Italian of F. Pallavicino 'The Heavenly Divorce; or, our Saviour divorced from the Church of Rome his Spouse.' 12mo, London, 1679. He was fond of writing poetry, and introduced several pieces in which are not without merit.
'Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 62, where the place and date of Lawrence's death are wrongly given; Hutchins's Dorset, 3rd ed. ii. 201-3.]
G. G.