OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gerard, Alexander (1738-1795)

​GERARD, ALEXANDER, D.D. (1728–1795), theological and philosophical writer, born at the manse of Chapel of Garioch, Aberdeenshire, 22 Feb. 1728, studied at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and was licensed as a preacher of the church of Scotland in 1748. Two years later he became a professor of philosophy in Marischal College, following the old arrangement, by which each professor had to conduct the students over several branches of study. This arrangement was founded on the notion that logic ought to be the first study, and that its principles ought to be applied in the study of all other branches; but Gerard in 1755 published an acute pamphlet, in which he advocated a modification of the arrangement of studies, and prepared the way for the abolition of the old system.
In 1756 he gained a prize offered by the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh for the best essay on taste, and in 1759 this work was published. Its fundamental definition is that taste consists chiefly ‘in the improvement of those principles which are commonly called the powers of imagination,’ including the sense of novelty, sublimity, beauty, imitation, harmony, ridicule, and virtue. The work has thus a much wider scope than that which, according to modern ideas, belongs to the subject of taste. Under the sense of beauty Gerard gave a prominent place to the principle of association, in which he has been followed by Alison [see Alison, Archibald]. ​In 1760 Gerard was appointed professor of divinity in Marischal College, and likewise minister of the Greyfriars Church in Aberdeen. In 1771 he resigned both these offices, on his appointment to the chair of divinity in King's College. He was a member of a well-known literary and philosophical society in Aberdeen with which Drs. George Campbell, Thomas Reid, James Beattie, Blackwell, Gregory, and other distinguished men were connected, and where not a few papers were first produced which proved the germs of important contributions to literature. He was one of the chaplains of the king, supported the ‘moderate’ party in the church, and filled the chair of moderator of the general assembly in 1764. Gerard died 22 Feb. 1795. Other works published by him were: 1. ‘The Influence of the Pastoral Office on the Character examined; with a View especially to Mr. Hume's Representation of the Spirit of that Office,’ Aberdeen, 1760. 2. ‘Dissertations on Subjects relating to the Genius and the Evidences of Christianity,’ Edinburgh, 1766, a defence of the manner in which the evidence of Christianity was presented by its great author, and a contention that Christianity is confirmed by the objections of infidels. 3. ‘An Essay on Genius,’ London, 1774. 4. ‘Liberty a Cloak of Maliciousness, both in the American Rebellion and in the Manners of the Times,’ Aberdeen, 1778. 5. Sermons, 2 vols. 2nd edit. London, 1782. 6. ‘The Corruption of Christianity,’ Edinburgh, 1792. 7. ‘The Pastoral Care’ (posthumous), London, 1799. His son, Gilbert Gerard, D.D. [q. v.], assisted him in the last-named book.
W. G. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/George, John

​GEORGE, JOHN (1804–1871), Irish judge, eldest son of John George of Dublin, merchant, by Emily Jane, daughter of Richard Fox, was born in the city of Dublin on 18 Nov. 1804, and received his education at Trinity College, Dublin. The university of Dublin conferred on him the degrees of B.A. 1823, and M.A. 1826, and in the latter year he was called to the bar at King's Inns. On 16 May 1827 he was also called to the bar at Gray's Inn, London. Having returned to Ireland, he was created a queen's counsel 2 Nov. 1844. He represented Wexford county in parliament as a conservative from 1852 to 1857, and again from May 1859 to 1866. He acted as solicitor-general for Ireland under Lord Derby from February to July 1859. He became a bencher of King's Inns in 1849, and a member of the Irish privy council in 1866, and was appointed a judge of the court of queen's bench, Ireland, in the November of the latter year, a post which he held until his death. He was highly esteemed as patient and painstaking in the discharge of his duties, strictly impartial and independent in his judgments, and courteous and dignified in his demeanour on the bench. He died at 45 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, 15 Dec. 1871, having married, first, in 1832, Susan Rosanna, daughter of Isaac Matthew D'Olier of Collegues, co. Dublin—she died in 1847; and secondly, 10 Aug. 1848, Mary, eldest daughter of Christopher L'Estrange Carleton.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Douglas, James (1703-1787)

1904 Errata appended.
​DOUGLAS, Sir JAMES (1703–1787), admiral, son of George Douglas of Friarshaw, Roxburghshire, was, on 19 March 1743–4, promoted to be captain of the Mermaid of 40 guns, and commanded her at the reduction of Louisbourg by Commodore Warren. In 1746 he commanded the Vigilant of 64 guns on the same station, and for a short time in 1748 the Berwick of 74 guns, which was paid off at the peace. In 1756 he commanded the Bedford in the home fleet under Boscawen and Knowles, and in December and January (1756–7) was a member of the court-martial which tried and condemned Admiral Byng. In 1757 he commanded the Alcide in the bootless expedition against Rochfort. In 1759, still in the Alcide, he served under Sir Charles Saunders at the reduction of Quebec, and was sent home with the news of the success, an honourable distinction, which obtained for him knighthood and a gift of 500l. from the king. In 1760 he was appointed to the Dublin as commodore and commander-in-chief on the Leeward Islands station; and in 1761 the squadron under his command, in conjunction with a body of soldiers under Lord Rollo, captured the island of Dominica. In 1762 he was superseded by Rear-admiral Rodney, under whom he served as second in command at the reduction of Martinique, after which he was despatched with several of the ships to Jamaica. With these he reinforced the fleet off Havana under Sir George Pocock (Beatson, ii. 532, 553), and he himself, with his broad pennant in the Centurion, returned to England in charge of convoy. Towards the end of the year he was advanced to the rank of rear-admiral, and on the conclusion of peace went out again to the West Indies as commander-in-chief. In October 1770 he was promoted to be vice-admiral, and in 1773 hoisted his flag on board the Barfleur as commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, an appointment which he held for the next three years. In 1778 he attained the rank of admiral, but had no further service. He was for many years member of parliament for Orkney, was created a baronet in 1786, and died in 1787. He was twice married, and by his first wife left issue, in whose line the title still is.
J. K. L.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.101 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Douglas, James (1787-1857)

​DOUGLAS, JAMES, fourth and last Lord Douglas (1787–1857), fifth son of Archibald Stewart Douglas, first lord Douglas, was born on 9 July 1787. Having been educated for the church, he was appointed in 1819 rector of Marsh Gibbon, Buckinghamshire, and in 1825 rector of Broughton in Northamptonshire. There was then little prospect of his succeeding to the paternal honours and estates, though he was at the time the third surviving son. But his eldest brother, Archibald, second lord Douglas, died in 1844 unmarried; so did his second brother, Charles, third lord Douglas, in 1848, when the estates and title fell to him as fourth Lord Douglas. James Douglas married on 18 May 1813 Wilhelmina, daughter of General James Murray, fifth son of the fourth Lord Elibank, but had no children, and on his death at Bothwell 6 April 1857, the title of Lord Douglas became extinct, and the estates passed to his sister, Lady Montagu.
H. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Douglas, James (d.1671)

​DOUGLAS, JAMES, second Earl of Queensberry (d. 1671), the eldest son of William, first earl, by his wife, Lady Isabel Ker, the fourth daughter of Mark, earl of Lothian, succeeded his father in the title in March 1640. On the outbreak of the civil war he attached himself to the king's cause, and was on his way to join Montrose, after the battle of Kilsyth, when he was taken prisoner and lodged at Carlisle. The Marquis of Douglas, who was his companion at the time, and escaped capture, was afterwards fined for having attempted to bribe the governor of the earl's prison to release him. He himself was fined 120,000 marks Scots by the parliament of 1645, and in 1654 4,000/. further was exacted from him by Cromwell's act of grace. He took no further part in public affairs, and died in 1671. He was twice married: first to Lady Mary Hamilton, third daughter of James, marquis of Hamilton, who died childless 29 Oct. 1633; and secondly to Lady Margaret Stewart, eldest daughter of John, earl of Traquair, by whom he was the father of four sons and five daughters. William, the eldest son [q.v.], succeeded him in the earldom ; James, the second, became an advocate, but afterwards went into the army, was colonel of the guards in Scotland, and ​ died at Namur. John and Robert, the two youngest, were both killed in war, the one at the siege of Trèves in 1673, the other at the siege of Maestricht three years later.
A. V.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Goddard, William Stanley

​GODDARD, WILLIAM STANLEY, D.D. (1757–1845), head-master of Winchester College, son of John Goddard, a merchant, was born at Stepney on 9 Oct. 1757. He was educated at Winchester, first as a chorister, afterwards as a scholar under Dr. Warton (1771–6), and then went as a commoner to Merton (B.A. degree 1781, M.A. 1783, D.D. 1795). In 1784 he was appointed hostiarius or second master of Winchester, and appears to have done what he could to counteract the lax discipline of Dr. Warton, which resulted in the famous ‘rebellion’ of 1793, during which Goddard's house was broken into. Sydney ​Smith, who was under Goddard, described his life at Winchester as one of misery (Lady Holland, Memoir of Sydney Smith, i. 7, 4th ed.); but his experience seems to have been an exceptional one (see the evidence collected by the Rev. H. C. Adams in Wykehamica at p. 160). In 1796 Goddard succeeded Dr. Warton as head-master, and retained the appointment until 1809, when he retired. He was one of the best head-masters Winchester has ever had. Within three years he had raised the numbers of the school from 60 to 144, and its scholarship showed immediate improvement. Among his pupils were Bishops Lipscombe and Shuttleworth, Lords Cranworth and Eversley, Sir Robert Inglis, Augustus Hare, and Dr. Arnold, and it is probable that many of the educational principles which Dr. Arnold is supposed to have invented, especially that of governing by reliance on boys' sense of honour, were really derived by him from Goddard. He was an able teacher, a firm disciplinarian, and the only outbreak under his rule, that of 1808, was of a mild character (Augustus Hare, Memorials of a Quiet Life, vol. i. ch. iv.; Stanley, Life of Dr. Arnold, i. 2).
After his resignation of the head-mastership Goddard was made a prebendary of St. Paul's in January 1814, and canon of Salisbury in October 1829; he was also presented to the living of Barton in Sussex, and for several years held that of Wherwell, near Andover, in commendam. His last years were spent partly in Cadogan Place, Chelsea, London, partly at Andover, where, besides numerous benefactions, he rebuilt Foxcote Church, at the cost of some 30,000l. To Winchester College he presented 25,000l., to provide for the annual salaries of the masters, which had previously been charged in the accounts of the boys' parents. In grateful memory of him a scholarship of the value of 25l. a year, and tenable for four years, was founded at Winchester in 1846. Goddard's literary remains consist of a Latin elegy on Dr. Warton (Wool, Life of Warton, i. 191) and some sermons, one of which was preached on the occasion of the consecration of his old schoolfellow, Dr. Howley, as bishop of London (1813).
L. C. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Godfrey, Thomas

​GODFREY, THOMAS (1736–1763), poet and dramatist, born in Philadelphia on 4 Dec. 1736, was the son of Thomas Godfrey (1704–1749), glazier and mathematician, who constructed an improved quadrant at about the same time as John Hadley [q. v.] He received an ordinary education, and was apprenticed to a watchmaker, though he wished, it is said, to become a painter. In 1758 he obtained a lieutenant's commission in the provincial forces raised for an expedition against Fort Duquesne. On the disbanding of the troops in the spring of 1759 he went to North Carolina, and found employment as a factor. Here he composed a tragedy called ‘The Prince of Parthia,’ which was offered to a company performing in Philadelphia in 1759. This piece, which was printed in 1765, is considered to be the first play written in America. After remaining in North Carolina for three years Godfrey was obliged by the death of his employer to return to Philadelphia. He subsequently went as supercargo to New Providence. In his homeward journey through North Carolina he caught a fever, from which ​he died near Wilmington on 3 Aug. 1763. Besides contributing verses to the ‘American Magazine,’ a Philadelphian periodical, Godfrey published in 1763 ‘The Court of Fancy,’ a poem modelled in part on the pseudo-Chaucer's ‘House of Fame.’ A volume of his poems, with a biographical sketch by his friend Nathaniel Evans, appeared in 1767.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Goddard, William (fl.1615)

​GODDARD, WILLIAM (fl. 1615), satirist, probably belonged to the Middle Temple. He lived at the beginning of the seventeenth century in Holland, where he seems to have been employed in a civil capacity. In July 1634 one William Goddard, ‘doctor of physic of Padua,’ was incorporated in the same degree at Oxford, but his identity with the satirist seems doubtful. Goddard's volumes are very rare. His satire is gross, and is chiefly directed against women. The British Museum Library possesses only one of his volumes, that entitled ‘A Satirycall Dialogue, or a shaplye invective conference between Allexander the Great and that truelye woman-hater Diogynes. … Imprinted in the Low countryes for all such gentlewomen as are not altogeather Idle nor yet well occupyed’ [Dort? 1615?]. Some lines seem to refer to the burning of Marston's satires. Mr. Collier suggested that this volume might be identical with ‘The batynge of Dyogenes,’ licensed for printing to Henry Chettle 27 Sept. 1591 (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. i. 141). In the library of Worcester College, Oxford, and at Bridgwater House, are copies of Goddard's ‘A Neaste of Waspes latelie found out and discovered in the Law [Low] Countreys yealding as sweete hony as some of our English bees. At Dort … 1615.’ A third work, from which Dr. Bliss prints extracts in his edition of Wood's ‘Fasti’ (i. 476–8), is ‘A Mastif Whelp, with other ruff-Island-lik Currs fetcht from amongst the Antipedes. Which bite and barke at the fantasticall humorists and abusers of the time. … Imprinted amongst the Antipedes, and are to bee sould where they are to be bought,’ 4to, n.d. This was published after 1598, for Bastard's ‘Chrestoleros,’ 1598, is one of the books specially abused. A copy is in the Bodleian Library. Bibliographers have wrongly assumed that ‘Dogs from the Antipodes’—the sub-title of the ‘Mastif Whelp’—is the title of another of Goddard's volumes. Dr. Furnivall printed in 1878 Goddard's three known books, with a view to republishing, but they have not yet been reissued.
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Godfrey, Michael

​GODFREY, MICHAEL (d. 1695), financier, was the eldest son of Michael Godfrey (1624–1689), merchant, of London, and Woodford, Essex, eleventh son of Thomas Godfrey of Hodiford, Kent, by his wife, Anne Mary Chambrelan. His father was brother of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey [q. v.], and foreman of the grand jury who found a true bill against Edward Fitzharris [q. v.] for high treason. The younger Godfrey and his brother Peter were merchants, and their father predicted that their speculations would speedily ‘bring into hotchpott’ the whole of their ample fortunes. Godfrey supported William Paterson in the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694. He was rewarded by being elected the first deputy-governor of the bank. Soon afterwards he published an able pamphlet entitled, ‘A Short Account of the Bank of England,’ which was reissued after his death, and has also been included in both editions of the ‘Somers Tracts.’ On 15 Aug. 1694 Godfrey was chosen one of fifteen persons to prepare bylaws for the new bank (Luttrell, Historical Relation of State Affairs, 1857, iii. 357). At a general court held on 16 May 1695, at which Peter Godfrey was elected a director, the bank resolved to establish a branch at Antwerp, in order to coin money to pay the troops in Flanders. Deputy-governors Sir James Houblon, Sir William Scawen, and Michael Godfrey were therefore appointed to go thither ‘to methodise the same, his majesty and the elector of Bavaria having agreed theretoo’ (ib. iii. 473). On their arrival at Namur, then besieged by William, the king invited them to dinner in his tent. They went out of curiosity into the trenches, where a cannon-ball from the works of the besieged killed Godfrey as he stood near the king, 17 July 1695. ‘Being an eminent merchant,’ writes Luttrell, ‘he is much lamented; this news has abated the actions of the bank 2l. per cent.’ (iii. 503). He was buried near his father in the church of St. Swithin, Walbrook, where his mother erected a tablet to his memory (Stow, Survey, ed. Strype, bk. ii. p. 193). He was a bachelor. A Michael Godfrey was surveyor-accountant of St. Paul's school in 1682–3 (Admission Registers, ed. Gardiner, p. 394).
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Godel, William

Guillaume Godel in the ODNB.
​GODEL, WILLIAM (fl. 1173), historian, is only known from the allusions in his chronicle, in which he never mentions himself by name. Under the year 1145 he says: ‘This year I, who compiled this work from various histories, entered a monastery; in age a youth, and by race an Englishman.’ But at the end of the manuscript (Bibliothèque Nationale, 4893, sec. xiii) there is a note in a hand of the fourteenth century, stating that the author was William Godel, a monk of St. Martial at Limoges. The writer, however, never mentions St. Martial, nor even the town of Limoges. Probably he was a Cistercian of some monastery in the diocese of Sens, or of Bourges; for at the date of the foundation of Citeaux he gives very exactly the succession of its abbots, and under the year 1145 he reports the death of Henri Sanglier, archbishop of Sens, who was succeeded by Hugues of Touci, from whom he received all the orders except the priesthood. He was ordained priest of Leuroux by Pierre de la Châtre, archbishop of Bourges, who died in 1171. Godel seems to have been fond of travel, and so perhaps often changed his monastery till, dying at St. Martial, he left his chronicle there. The chronicle is a history from the creation to 1173 A.D., with some additions by a later writer down to 1320. It must have been written before 1180, for under date 1137 he speaks of Louis VII as ‘qui nunc rex pius superest,’ and later he refers to Philip Augustus as ‘qui nunc regni coronam expectat.’ The chronicle is very brief till 1066, then rather fuller on English affairs, but contains little that is new or important, and has some gross errors. Godel used as his English authorities Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bede, William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon (from whose work to the accession of Henry I he had made extracts in a monastery in England), and Florence of Worcester. This chronicle closely resembles the anonymous continuation from 1124 to 1184 of the ‘Chronicle of S. Pierre de Sens’ by Clarius, with which it is in many places literally identical. The writers of the ‘Histoire Littéraire’ hold that it was the continuator who had borrowed, while the editors of the ‘Recueil’ incline to the belief that Godel was himself the continuator. This is additional reason for believing that Godel's original monastery was in the diocese of Sens. Almost all Godel's chronicle from the tenth century to 1173 is printed in the ‘Recueil des Historiens de la France,’ x. 259–63, xi. 282–285, and xiii. 671–7, where also extracts from the continuation of Clarius will be found, xii. 283–5.
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Godfrey, Richard Bernard

​GODFREY, RICHARD BERNARD (b. 1728), engraver, born in London in 1728, is principally known as an engraver of views and antiquities. Many of these were done from his own drawings, and, if of little artistic value, have considerable archæological interest. Most of them were executed for Grose's ‘Antiquarian Repertory’ in 1775, a work which Godfrey appears to have had some share in editing. Others appeared in Grose's ‘Antiquities of England and Wales.’ Godfrey also engraved some portraits, including J. G. Holman, the actor, after De Wilde; Samuel Foote, the actor, after Colson; and the Rev. William Gostling, author of a ‘Walk about Canterbury’ in 1777. Godfrey exhibited some sea pieces, after Brooking, and other engravings at the Society of Artists from 1765 to 1770. He also engraved plates for Bell's ‘British Theatre.’
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Godfrey of Malmesbury

Under William of Malmesbury in the ODNB.
​GODFREY of Malmesbury (fl. 1081) is supposed author of a chronicle in the British Museum (MS. Cott. Vesp. D. iv. 73). Bishop Tanner erroneously identified this writer with Godfrey, abbot of Malmesbury in the eleventh century. Godfrey the abbot was a native of Jumièges, who accompanied his townsman, Theodewin, when he was made abbot of Ely in 1071. Two years and a ​half later Theodewin died, and Godfrey became procurator, a position which he filled with ability for seven years. He is said to have obtained from William I an inquiry into the property of his abbey, and a confirmation of its customs (Anglia Sacra, i. 610, and Monasticon, v. 460, 476, where the documents are given). In 1081 William appointed him abbot of Malmesbury, where he adorned the church, and laid the foundations of a library; in the latter work he was assisted by William of Malmesbury, who describes him as a man of courteous manner and temperate life, whose abbacy was sullied only by his stripping the treasures of the monastery to pay the tax imposed by William II on the occasion of the mortgage of Normandy by Duke Robert. Godfrey must have died about 1107, in which year Edulf became abbot. Despite his literary tastes, he cannot have been the author of the chronicle, which, according to Sir T. Hardy, is almost entirely based on Geoffrey of Monmouth. Tanner says that it is nothing else than part of the annals of Alfred of Beverley (fl. 1143), and conjectures that the name ‘Godfridus De Malvesbury’ on the manuscript is that of an owner, not of the writer. Perhaps this is correct; in any case the chronicler is a different person from the abbot. Baptista Fulgosus, an Italian writer of the fifteenth century, cites among his authorities Gotfredus Anglus Historicus, who is perhaps our chronicler. The chronicle, which extends from the coming of the Saxons to 1129, is merely a compilation and without historical value. It is quoted by Selden, ‘Titles of Honour,’ pt. ii. chap. v.
C. L. K.