OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Richardson, John (1797-1863)

Modern biographies cite 1852 as the year of death
​RICHARDSON, JOHN (1797–1863), journalist, was born of Scottish parents in 1797 near Niagara Falls, Ontario. He served in the Canadian militia during the war of 1812, and was taken prisoner at the battle of the Thames. After his liberation he entered the British army, and in 1815 proceeded to England, where he married an Essex lady. He spent a portion of his time in Paris, and in 1829 published ‘Écarté, or the Salons of Paris,’ which was vigorously assailed by Jerdan in the ‘Literary Gazette,’ for no other reason, according to Richardson, than that Jerdan, piqued with Colburn, had threatened to denounce the next book Colburn published, which happened to be Richardson's. In 1835 Richardson joined the British auxiliary legion raised by the Spanish ambassador in London to aid the queen regent Christina against the Carlists. Richardson was appointed senior captain in the sixth Scots grenadiers, and in 1836 attained his majority; he was also made a knight of the military order of St. Ferdinand by Queen Christina. But he had a violent quarrel with his commander (Sir) George De Lacy Evans [q. v.], to whose politics he was hostile, and in his ‘Journal of the Movements of the British Legion’ (London, ​1836, 8vo) he charged Evans with treating him with gross tyranny. The matter was made a subject of inquiry by the House of Commons, and the result not satisfying Richardson, he returned to the charge in his ‘Personal Memoirs’ (Montreal, 1838, 8vo). He also proposed to Theodore Hook [q. v.] to continue his ‘Jack Brag,’ with the object of lampooning Evans and other officers. Hook approved of the idea, but no publisher would take it up (Barham, Life of Hook, 1877, pp. 201–2).
Meanwhile, Richardson's tory politics recommended him to the ‘Times,’ and in 1838 he accepted an offer from that journal to proceed as its correspondent to Canada, where Papineau's rebellion was in progress. In this capacity Richardson so vigorously supported Lord Durham's arbitrary administration that his engagement was promptly terminated [see Lambton, John George, first Earl of Durham].
In 1840 he established at Brockville, Ontario, a newspaper, the ‘New Era,’ which lasted two years, and in 1843 he began to publish at Kingston the ‘Native Canadian,’ in which he strongly supported Metcalfe's government [see Metcalfe, Charles Theophilus]. He afterwards removed to the United States, and continued to write for the press until his death in 1863. His other works are: ‘Wacousta, or the Prophecy,’ 1832; ‘Eight Years in Canada,’ Montreal, 1847, chiefly a record of Richardson's grievances and opinions; ‘The Guards in Canada,’ Montreal, 1848; ‘The Monk Knight of St. John, a Tale of the Crusaders,’ New York, 1850; ‘Matilda Montgomerie,’ New York, 1851; and ‘Wau-nan-gee … a Romance of the American Revolution,’ New York, 1852.
[Appleton's Cycl. of Amer. Biogr.; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Morgan's Celebrated Canadians; Richardson's works, esp. Personal Memoirs and Eight Years in Canada.]
B. H. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Richardson, John (1817-1886)

​RICHARDSON, JOHN (1817–1886), Cumberland poet, was born at Stone House (now called Piper House) in Naddle Vale, near Keswick, Cumberland, on 20 Aug. 1817. His father, Daniel Richardson, and his mother, Mary Faulder, were natives of the Vale. He was educated under ‘Priest’ Wilson, who taught the school of St. John's in the Vale, and was incumbent of its little church. On leaving school Richardson followed his father's trade as a mason, and eventually as a builder. Among other works of a public character he rebuilt the church of St. John's in the Vale, the parsonage, and the schoolhouse. About 1857 he became master of the school, in which he laboured with untiring energy and remarkable success till partially disabled by a paralytic seizure about a year before his death. He died on the fell side, near his residence, Bridge House, on 30 April 1886. He married Grace Birkett, who, with eight of their family of ten children, survived him. Many of his writings, which are ​numerous, both in prose and verse, are in the vernacular of the district of Cumberland in which he had spent his life. Besides his ‘Cummerland Talk’ (1st ser. Carlisle, 1871; 2nd ser. Carlisle, 1876), Richardson read seven papers to the Keswick Literary Society, which were printed in the ‘Transactions of the Cumberland Association for the Advancement of Literature and Science.’ In 1879 and 1880 he contributed to the ‘West Cumberland Times’ a series of sketches, ‘Stwories 'at Granny used to tell.’ He also contributed to various newspapers pieces of poetry and prose, some of them in the Cumberland dialect. Most of his compositions are characterised by humour and pathos. As a poet and song-writer he had a great local reputation, and his literary work often proved of conspicuous merit.
[Information from Mr. W. Routh Fitzpatrick, his son-in-law; Rawnsley's Literary Associations of the English Lakes, ii. 234.]
A. N.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Richardson, John (1580-1654)

​RICHARDSON, JOHN (1580–1654), bishop of Ardagh, was born near Chester in 1580. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, graduated M.A., and became a fellow in 1600. In the same year he was selected with James Ussher (afterwards primate) and another as lay preacher at Christ Church Cathedral. Richardson's part was to preach on Wednesdays, and explain the prophecies of Isaiah. He afterwards took holy orders, and was created D.D. in 1614 (Cat. of Graduates, Trinity College, Dublin).
Richardson held many preferments. He was appointed vicar of Granard, in Ardagh, in 1610; rector of Ardsrath, Derry, in 1617; archdeacon of Derry in 1622 (reappointed in the new charter of 1629); and prebendary of Mullaghtrack, Armagh. On 14 May 1633 he was elected bishop of Ardagh in succession to Bishop Bedell, who had resigned the see because he disapproved of pluralities. Richardson, however, obtained leave to hold the archdeaconry in commendam; but he was shortly afterwards deprived of his rectory and archdeaconry by Bishop Bramhall, who found his titles unsound.
On the outbreak of the Irish rebellion in 1641, Richardson fled to England, and settled in London, where he died on 11 Aug. 1654.
Richardson's chief work, published posthumously by Archbishop Ussher, was ‘Choice Observations and Explanations of the Old Testament … to which are added further and larger Observations upon the whole Book of Genesis,’ London, 1655, fol. He also contributed remarks on Ezekiel, Daniel, and the lesser prophets to the second edition of the Westminster assembly's ‘Annotations,’ published in 1657. Cotton says that his correspondence with Bishop Bedell exists in manuscript. He bequeathed money to Trinity College, Dublin. His portrait, engraved by T. Cross, is prefixed to his ‘Choice Observations,’ 1655.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Richardson, John (1667-1753)

​RICHARDSON, JOHN (1667–1753), quaker, son of William Richardson (1624–1679) of North Cave, Yorkshire, was born there in 1667. The father, who joined the quakers on hearing Fox and Dewsbury preach, was often fined and imprisoned.
The lad, after solitary wanderings, became a convinced quaker when only sixteen. He managed a grazing farm for his mother and five children, but, on her remarriage with a presbyterian, was turned out of the house. He began preaching at eighteen, having bound himself to a weaver, but after an illness he devoted all his time to itinerant preaching, and before he was twenty-seven had travelled four times all over England and twice through Wales. He settled in Bridlington, and married Priscilla Canaby, by whom he had five children. In November 1700 he sailed for America. Arrived in Maryland, he procured ‘a little white horse’ which carried him over four thousand miles. He stayed at Pennsbury with William Penn [q. v.], was present at a council with Indians, disputed publicly with George Keith [q. v.] at Lynn, near Boston, met Thomas Story [q. v.] on Long Island, and in Maryland preached before the governor and his wife, Lord and Lady Baltimore. Upon his return to Yorkshire, about 1703, he married as his second wife Anne Robinson, a Yorkshire woman of good family. She died in 1711, and Richardson travelled to Ireland and again to America in 1731. He died at Hutton-in-the-Hole, Yorkshire, on 2 June 1753, and was buried at Kirby-Moorside.
Richardson's journal, ‘An Account of the Life of that Ancient Servant of Christ,’ &c., appeared in London, 1757, 8vo (6th ed. 12mo. 1843; Friends' Library, Philadelphia, 1840, iv.). Although he met and disputed with all creeds, his book speaks harshly of none.
[Smith's Cat. ii. 485; Wight's Quakers in Ireland, 1751; Collection of Testimonies, 1760, pp. 143–5.]
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Richardson, John (1741-1811?)

​RICHARDSON, JOHN (1741–1811?), orientalist, born in 1741, was son of George Richardson of Edinburgh, by Jean, daughter of George Watson of Woodend, co. Stirling, and descended from Sir James Richardson, of Smeaton, grandson of Robert Richardson (d. 1578) [q. v.] Sir James Richardson, reputed eighth baronet of Belmont, Jamaica (d. 1778), and Sir George Richardson, reputed ninth baronet (d. 1792), were his brothers. In 1767 he joined the Society of Antiquaries. He matriculated from Wadham College, Oxford, on 24 Nov. 1775, and was received as a ​fellow-commoner on the same day. He obtained the degree of M.A. by diploma on 28 Feb. 1780. In the following year he became a member of the Middle Temple. He died about 1811.
Richardson's first oriental publication was ‘A Specimen of Persian Poetry,’ consisting of a selection from Hâfiz, with historical and grammatical illustrations (1774, reprinted 1802); but he had previously rendered some assistance to Sir William Jones in the preparation of his ‘Persian Grammar’ (1771). In 1776 appeared Richardson's ‘Grammar of the Arabic Language,’ which went to a second edition in 1801 and a third in 1811, and has long since retired into oblivion. But the work with which his name is chiefly connected is his ‘Dictionary of Persian, Arabic, and English,’ printed in two volumes at the Clarendon Press in 1777, and apparently reissued in 1800. As a later editor, Francis Johnson [q. v.], remarked, this dictionary was little else than an abridgment of Meninski's ‘Oriental Thesaurus,’ with the omission of the Turkish words and some additions from Golius and Castell (F. Johnson, Pref. to Pers. Arab. Engl. Dict. 1852). The second volume was the converse of the first, English into Persian and Arabic, and was less successful. ‘The first volume of Richardson's “Dictionary” was reprinted in 1806, and the second volume in 1810, by the late distinguished oriental scholar, Sir Charles Wilkins [q. v.], who on that occasion compared the English version of Meninski with the original. In doing this, many alterations and numerous additions were made, and many mistakes corrected.’ In 1829 the work was again revised and greatly improved, especially on the Arabic side, by Francis Johnson, who in 1852 still further expanded the dictionary, which has finally been ‘reconstructed’ by Dr. Steingass [1892]. In its various forms the ‘Dictionary’ has proved of very great service to several generations of students of Persian. The prefatory ‘Dissertation on the Languages, Literature, and Manners of Eastern Nations,’ was separately issued in 1777, and republished in the following year with additions, including ‘Further Remarks’ in criticism of the opinions of Jacob Bryant [q. v.] on ancient mythology.
[Foster's Alumni Oxon. (1715–1888); Brit. Mus. Cat.; Lit. Memoirs of Living Authors, 1791, ii. 195; Gardiner's Wadham Reg. p. 14.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ventris, Peyton

​VENTRIS, Sir PEYTON (1645–1691), judge, eldest surviving son of Edward Ventris, barrister-at-law, of Gray's Inn and Granhams, Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire (a scion of a Bedfordshire family of some antiquity), by Mary, daughter of John Breuse of Wenham Hall, Suffolk, was born at Wenham Hall in November 1645. He was admitted on 3 Feb. 1653–4 a member of the Middle Temple, where he was called to the bar on 2 June 1661. Failing to secure a practice, he devoted himself to reporting (see infra). In 1681 he was one of three commissioners for executing the office of high steward of Ipswich, for which borough he was returned to the Convention parliament on 12 Jan. 1688–9. He vacated the seat the same year, on being raised to the bench of the common pleas (4 May), having previously (2 May) been sworn serjeant-at-law. On 1 Oct. following he was knighted at Whitehall. As assessor to the House of Lords in the Preston peerage case (11 Nov. 1689), he advised against the validity of the English patent on the ground that it had been made out after the ‘abdication’ of James II [see Graham, Richard, Viscount Preston]. He was also consulted by the peers during the progress of the corporations restoration bill, the regency bill, and other important legislative measures. He died on 6 April 1691, leaving issue by his wife Margaret, daughter of Henry Whiting of Coggeshall, Essex. Edward Ventris, an antiquary, was a lineal descendant of the judge, and the possessor of his portrait by Riley.
Ventris's ‘Reports’ appeared posthumously in two parts: 1. ‘Cases in the King's Bench, 20–36 Car. II.’ 2. ‘Cases in the Common Pleas, 21 Car. II–3 Will. and Mary’ (each part with an appendix of miscellaneous cases), London, 1696, fol. Later editions appeared in 1701, 1716, and 1728. They have a high reputation for accuracy.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Verdon, Bertram de

​VERDON or VERDUN, BERTRAM de (d. 1192), judge, was the son of Norman de Verdun and Luceline, daughter of Geoffrey de Clinton, chamberlain to Henry I. He is mentioned as adhering to Henry II against his rebel sons in 1173 (Bened. Peterb. i. 51). In 1175 and the three following years he was regularly present as a baron at the sittings of the curia regis (Madox, History of the Exchequer, i. 94), and from 1175 to 1179, and probably later, acted as itinerant justice in eight counties (ib. i. 137; Bened. Peterb. i. 107). He was also sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire from 1168 to 1183 (Pipe Rolls, Pipe Roll Soc., for these years up to 1173; Foss). In March 1177 he was sent with others of the king's counsellors by Henry to Ferdinand to negotiate and announce his intention of making a pilgrimage to Compostella (Bened. Peterb. i. 157). He was seneschal of Ireland in 1184–6, when Giraldus Cambrensis mentions his stay with him (Opera, i. 65). He continued in the service of Richard I, witnessing charters at Canterbury on 1 Dec. 1189, and Westminster in January 1190 (Gerv. Cant. i. 503; Historians of York, iii. 87), and accompanied Richard to the Holy Land. He was surety for Richard's peace with Tancred of Sicily in November 1190 (Rog. Hov. iii. 62), and witnessed a charter at Messina on 23 Jan. 1191 (Pipe Roll. Soc. Anc. Charters, p. 98). He arrived in Palestine in June 1191 (‘Itin. Ricardi’ in Memorials of Richard I, i. 217), and on 21 Aug. was left with Stephen de Longchamp in charge of Acre and the queens of England and Sicily, and the daughter of the Emperor of Cyprus, while Richard proceeded towards Jerusalem (Bened. Peterb. ii. 190; Rog. Hov. iii. 128). He died next year (1192) at Joppa (Bened. Peterb. ii. 150). Among other religious benefactions he founded in 1176 the Cistercian abbey of Croxden in Staffordshire, where his chief lands were (Dugdale, Monasticon, v. 660; Ann. Burton, i. 187).
His first wife was Maud, daughter of Robert de Ferrers, earl of Derby, by whom he had no issue. By his second wife, Rohese, he had two sons, Thomas and Nicholas. Nicholas's only daughter and heiress, Rohese, married Theobald Butler, and was grandmother of Theobald de Verdon [q. v.]
W. E. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mar, William

​MAR, WILLIAM, ninth Earl of (d. 1281?), was the son of Duncan, eighth earl of Mar, and grandson of Morgrund, fifth earl. He succeeded his fat her in or before 1237, when he attested at York the agreement between Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland. His right of succession was contested by Alan Durward, who asserted that William's father and grandfather were both of illegitimate birth, and that he ought to succeed as lawful heir. But apparently the case was arranged on the footing of an agreement which had been made about 1228 with Thomas Durward, father of Alan, who received a large accession of territory in Mar ; and the earldom remained with William de Mar. In 1249, during the minority of Alexander III, he was appointed one of the regents of Scotland. He held the office of great chamberlain of Scotland from 1252 to 1255, in which year, owing to political dissensions, he was removed from the government, and received permission from Henry to sojourn for a time in England. In 1258 he was a party to the treaty between some of the Scots and Llewellyn, prince of Wales, not to make peace with Henry without each other's consent (Rymer, Fœdera, i. 370). But in the same year he was reappointed one of the Scottish regents, and they received the promise of Henry's support so long as they acted righteously. He again became great chamberlain of Scotland in 1262, and continued in the office till 1267. He was also sheriff of Dumbartonshire. After the battle of Largs in 1263 he was sent by Alexander III with a military force to reduce the chiefs of the Western Isles who had supported Haco, king of Norway. He was still alive in 1273, but must have died in or before 1281. He married Elizabeth, daughter of William Comyn, earl of Buchan, by whom he had two 'sons, Donald, tenth earl [q. v.], who succeeded, and Duncan; and after her death he married an English lady, Muriel, granddaughter and one of the heiresses of Robert de Muschaump, whose barony lay in the see of Durham, but had no issue by her. She died in 1291 (Raine, North Durham, p. 267).
[Bain's Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, vol. i. passim, vol. ii. Nos. 201, 477, 544 ; Antiquities of Aberdeenshire, vols. i-iv. passim ; Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, i. lxv, 10, 11, 30, ii. cxxi; Kymer's Fcedera, i. 329, 353, 378, 402.]
H. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mar, Donald (1293?-1332)

​MAR, DONALD, twelfth Earl of (1293?–1332), was the son of Gratney, eleventh earl, and Lady Christian Bruce, sister of King Robert Bruce. He was probably born about 1293 (Fraser, Red Book of Menteith, vol. i. p. lxxx), and, as his father died about 1305, he was but a young boy at the time of his succession. After the defeat of Bruce at Methven in 1306, along with others, Mar was brought to Edward in token of submission, and was carried prisoner to England, where, in respect of his tender age, he was entrusted to the custody of the Bishop of Chester, first in the castle of Bristol, and afterwards at the bishop's own house, with suitable attendants (Palgrave, Documents and Records, Scotland, pp. 353-6). He spent nearly all the remainder of his life in England, taking service with Edward III, for which he received fifteen pence per day as wages. During this time he is never styled earl, but simply Donald of Mar. He was the owner of a trading vessel there called La Blithe.
After the battle of Bannockburn, in 1314, Mar and his mother, with Bruce's wife and daughter, and Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, were exchanged for the Earl of Hereford, Edward's brother-in-law, who had been taken prisoner by the Scots at Both well. But when Newcastle was reached in their journey to Scotland Mar turned back, preferring to remain in England (Chronicon dc Lanercost, p. 229). He paid visits to Scotland in 1318 and 1323. But to encourage him to remain in his service Edward conferred upon him various grants of lands and wardships, including the manor of Longbynington in Lincolnshire, and in 1321 appointed him keeper of Newark Castle (some call it Bristol Castle), which he held for the king till 1326, when he delivered it up to Queen Isabella and Lord Mortimer (Scalacronica, p. 151). He went to Scotland in 1327 for assistance to replace Edward III upon his throne, but instead of bringing help he joined the Scots in their raid of that year to Byland Abbey in Yorkshire, and was declared a rebel by Edward. Mar now remained in Scotland, and assumed his position as one of the seven earls. He had grants of lands from Bruce there in 1328 and 1329, and after the death of Randolph, 30 July 1332, he was chosen regent of Scotland. But he only held the honour ten days. Edward Baliol landed in Scotland the very day of his appointment, and Mar took command of the Scottish force which was raised to meet him, a post for which he was no way qualified. The battle was fought on 9 Aug. at Dupplin Moor in Perthshire, and Mar's army of thirty thousand was routed by Baliol's of three thousand, and himself slain. He left a widow, Isobel Stewart, who had two other husbands, Geofrey de Moubray, whom she divorced, and Sir William Carswell; also a son, Thomas, who succeeded as thirteenth earl of Mar [q. v.], and a daughter, Margaret, who succeeded as Countess of Mar after her brother's death, and married William, first earl of Douglas [q. v.]
[Bain's Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, vol. iii. passim; Antiquities of Aberdeenshire (Spalding Club), iv. 698-725; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, i. 13-97.]
H. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mara, William de

​MARA, WILLIAM DE (fl. 1280), Franciscan, probably studied at Oxford before he went to Paris, where he came under the influence of Bonaventura and Roger Bacon. In 1284 he published a criticism of Thomas Aquinas, called ' Correct orium,' or 'Reprehensorium,' the substance of which has been printed several times (at Strasburg, 1501 ; Cordova, 1701, &c.) with the reply to it under the name of Ægidius Colonna. Wil​liam argues that, as the 'principium individuationis' is, according to the Thomists, matter, and not form, individuality, according to them, ceases to exist as soon as the soul leaves the body; in other words, the Dominican school supported the Averroistic heresy of the universal soul. William also wrote in favour of a strict observance of the rule of St. Francis. He died before 1310, when he was classed with Bonaventura, Peckham, and others among the 'solemn masters' of the order. Among his extant works are: 'Quæstiones de Natura Virtutis,' Burney MS. Brit. Museum, 358; and 'Commentaries on the first three books of the Sentences,' manuscripts of which are in the Laurentian Library at Florence, formerly in the Franciscan library of Santa Croce.
[Hist. Litt. de France, xxi. 299; Haureau's Philosophie Scolastique, ii. 99, 1880; Bartholomew of Pisa's Liber Conformitatum, fol. 81; Wadding's Supplementum ad Scriptores, p. 323; Charles's Roger Bacon, p. 240; Analecta Franciscana, ii. 115.]
A. G. L.