OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fontibus, John de

duplicates Pherd, John
​FONTIBUS (Fountains), JOHN de (d. 1225), ninth abbat of Fountains, sixth bishop of Ely, was elected abbat of Fountains in 1211, and blessed on 13 Dec. at ​Melrose Abbey by Ralph, bishop of Down. All that is known of his rule at Fountains is that he prosecuted the work of his predecessor vigorously, continuing the erection of the choir and lady chapel. He made himself useful to King John, from whom there are several letters extant to him, one showing that the king had entrusted many of his valuables to the care of the abbey. On 24 Dec. 1219 he was elected bishop of Ely, after the two elections of Geoffrey de Burgh and Robert of York had been quashed by the pope. This was chiefly through Pandulf's influence (Annal. Monast. iv. 412), whose letter to the king in his favour is given by Prynne (Walbran, Memorials of Fountains Abbey, i. 171). He was consecrated at Westminster by Archbishop Langton on 8 March 1219–20, and enthroned on 25 March. In 1221, in conjunction with the Bishop of Salisbury, Richard le Poore, he was appointed by Honorius III to investigate the complaints of the monks of Durham against their bishop, Richard de Marisco. He went to Durham, summoned the bishop to appear before him, and seems to have found the accusations true (Dunstable Annals, iii. 62, 67). The bishop appealed to the pope, but the pope referred the matter back to the two bishops (R. Wendover in Matt. Paris, iii. 62, 63). While still abbat of Fountains he had been appointed by the pope one of a commission to inquire into the merits of Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, before his canonisation. In 1223, in conjunction with his successor at Fountains and the abbat of Rievaulx, he received a similar injunction with respect to William, archbishop of York. In 1225 he witnessed Magna Charta (Burton Annals, i. 231). He died at his palace at Downham on 6 May 1225, and was buried in Ely Cathedral. He gave the tithes of Hadham to the Ely monks to provide for his anniversary, and endowed them with the churches of Witchford and Meldreth, with a view to their hospitality. His skeleton was found entire in 1770, when the choir was repaired and altered (Stevenson's supplement to James Bentham's Ely, Notes, p. 76).
H. R. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fonblanque, John Samuel Martin de Grenier

​FONBLANQUE, JOHN SAMUEL MARTIN DE GRENIER (1787–1865), legal writer, eldest son of John de Grenier Fonblanque [q. v.], was born in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, London, in March 1787. He was educated at the Charterhouse and at Caius College, Cambridge, where he was one of the founders of the Union Debating Society. He also kept his terms at Lincoln's Inn. At college he burst a blood-vessel and was advised change for his health, whereupon, having obtained a commission in the 21st fusiliers, he served with the regiment in Cadiz and Gibraltar, and in Italy under Lord W. Bentinck, by whom he was appointed deputy judge advocate-general. He took an active part in the war between Great Britain ​and the United States, was present at the taking of Washington, the battle of Baltimore, and the disastrous attempt on New Orleans, where he was captured by the enemy. After the battle of Waterloo he served in France with the army of occupation, and returning to England in 1816 he was called to the bar, and appointed by Lord Eldon in the following year a commissioner of bankruptcy. On the institution of the bankruptcy court by 1 & 2 William IV, c. 56, he was appointed one of the original commissioners. Fonblanque died at Brighton 3 Nov. 1865. He wrote (jointly with Dr. J. A. Paris) ‘Medical Jurisprudence,’ 3 vols. 1823—for this work the first award of the Swiney prize was made to the authors—and ‘Observations on the Bill now before Parliament for the Consolidation and Amendment of the Laws relating to Bankrupts,’ &c. 1824. He also was one of the founders of ‘The Jurist, or Quarterly Journal of Jurisprudence and Legislation,’ vols. i–iv. 1827–33.
[Gent. Mag. December 1865, p. 801; County Courts Chronicle and Bankruptcy Gazette, 1 Feb. 1866, p. 44; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
F. W-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fonblanque, John de Grenier

​FONBLANQUE, JOHN DE GRENIER (1760–1837), jurist, son of Jean de Grenier Fonblanque, a naturalised Englishman and banker in London, who was descended from an ancient and noble Huguenot family of Languedoc, was born in 1760. He was educated at Harrow and Oxford; became a student of the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar by that society 24 Jan. 1783. He soon obtained a good practice as an equity lawyer. He is said to have caused quite a sensation by disputing the then established, but now exploded, doctrine of scintilla juris. He was leading counsel on behalf of the merchants of London in their opposition to the Quebec Bill of 1791, and pleaded their cause at the bar of the House of Commons. By the influence of the Duke of Bedford he sat for Camelford, 1802–6. In 1804 he was made king's counsel. Fonblanque was a steady whig and a personal friend of the Prince of Wales, for whom he is supposed to have written the letters addressed to George III on his exclusion from the army. He died 4 Jan. 1837, and was interred in the Temple Church, in the vault belonging to the Middle Temple, of which society he was senior bencher. At the time of his death Fonblanque was called ‘Father of the English Bar.’ Writing to one of his sons Lord Lyndhurst says of him: ‘I have known jurists as profound as your father, but I have known no one who was so perfect a master of the philosophy of law.’ In 1786 Fonblanque married the daughter of Colonel John Fitzgerald, by whom he left three sons and a daughter. He assumed the old family prefix de Grenier in addition to the name of Fonblanque by royal license in May 1828. Fonblanque edited the ‘Treatise on Equity’ ascribed to Henry Ballow [q. v.], with such additions and improvements that it became almost a new work. It enjoyed considerable reputation as an authority on the subject, and went through several editions (5th ed. 1820). He also wrote two tracts, ‘A Serious Exhortation to the Electors of Great Britain’ (1791?), and ‘Doubts as to the Expediency of adopting the Recommendation of the Bullion Committee,’ 1810.
[Gent. Mag. March 1837, p. 325; Fonblanque's Life of Albany Fonblanque, pp. 1–4 (1874); County Courts Chron. and Bankruptcy Gaz. 1 Feb. 1866, p. 44; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
F. W-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Follows, Ruth

​FOLLOWS, RUTH (1718–1809), quakeress, born in 1718 at Weston in Nottinghamshire, was the daughter of Richard and Ruth Alcock, who were poor quakers. When twenty-three years old she married George Follows, quaker, of Castle Donington in Leicestershire, with whom she lived sixty years, and by whom she had two children. When about thirty years of age she received a certificate enabling her to travel as a minister, and visited and preached at the majority of the quaker meetings in the United Kingdom. Her first sermon was preached in 1748 at Castle Donington, whence she proceeded to London, attending over eighty meetings on her way. She remained in London until the middle of 1749, from which time till 1758 she appears to have done little more than attend to meetings in the neighbourhood of her own residence, and those at Atherstone and Matlock. In 1758 she visited Yorkshire and Lancashire, and in 1760 made an extended tour, which embraced most of the meetings in the western and midland counties, as well as London and Norfolk. During the following year she visited Ireland, where she remained several months, working so arduously as to seriously injure her health. Quakerism was at this time at a low ebb in Ireland, and her letters show that she was greatly dispirited. In 1764 she laboured in Wales, and between that time and 1788 she visited nearly every part of England and Wales, and made several excursions into Scotland. In 1782–3 she spent several months in ministerial work in Ireland. From 1788 till her death she was almost incapacitated by the infirmities of age; but she was able to make occasional journeys, the last she undertook being in 1795, when seventy-seven years old. She died on 3 April 1809, and was buried seven days later in the quaker burial-ground at Castle Donington. She is not known to have been the author of any works. Her life was very self-denying and her piety intense, her ministry being highly valued for its simplicity and earnestness.
[Stansfield's Memoirs of Ruth Follows, 1829; Smith's Cat. of Friends' Books.]
A. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Curle, Hippolitus

​CURLE, HIPPOLITUS (1592–1638), Scotch jesuit, was son of Gilbert Curle, secretary to Mary Queen of Scots, by his wife, Barbara Mowbray. He studied in the Scotch seminary at Douay, and entered the Society of Jesus at Tournai. During the second year of his noviceship his aunt, Elizabeth Curle, died at Antwerp (29 March 1619), leaving him sixty thousand florins. The bulk of this fortune he devoted to the use of the seminary at Douay, of which he is regarded as the second founder. He was appointed rector of the college in 1633, and died on 21 Oct. 1638.
[Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 42; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 18; Foley's Records, vii. 189; Gordon's Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 539.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Curling, Henry

​CURLING, HENRY (1803–1864), novelist, was a captain in the 52nd foot, and died at Kensington on 10 Feb. 1864. Among his numerous novels are ‘The Soldier of Fortune,’ 1843; ‘John of England,’ 1846; ‘Frank Beresford,’ 1847; ‘The Miser Lord,’ 1847; ‘Shakspeare, a Romance,’ 1848; ‘Nonpareil House,’ 1855; ‘Love at First Sight,’ 1860; and ‘Self-Divorced,’ 1861. He also published a variety of other works, including ‘Recollections of the Mess-table and the Stage,’ 1855; ‘The Merry Wags of War, a Drama,’ 1854; and ‘Camp Club in the Crimea,’ 1856.
[Gent. Mag. 1864, i. 405; Cooper's Biog. Dict.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cure, William

​CURE, WILLIAM (d. 1632), statuary, was son of Cornelius Cure, a native of the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, Southwark, who held the office of master-mason under Queen Elizabeth and James I, was employed in 1605–6 to erect monuments to Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey, and died in 1607. On his father's death William succeeded to his post of master-mason to James I, and completed the monument to Mary Queen of Scots. This monument, the painting of which was executed by one James Mauncy or Manuty, presents perhaps the most faithful portrait of that ill-fated queen at the time of her death; Cure received 825l. 10s. for his share in the work. ​Payments for the services of Cure and his father on these works occur in Sir Julius Cæsar's papers (Brit. Mus. Lansd. MS. 164). In 1613 Cure signed an agreement to erect a monument in Cranford Church, Middlesex, to Sir Roger Aston, master of the great wardrobe to James I, his two wives, and his children; this agreement still exists (Gent. Mag. 1800, lxx. 104). In 1618 he signed another agreement to erect a monument in the Abbey Church at Bath to James Montague, bishop of Winchester, for 200l.; this agreement also exists, and it is noteworthy that he spells his name in his signature as Cuer (Dingley, History from Marble, i. 155, Camd. Soc. Publ.) Cure worked under Inigo Jones at the Banqueting House, Whitehall, and continued to hold the office of master-mason until his death in 1632, when he was succeeded by Nicolas Stone [q. v.] On 4 Aug. 1632 he was buried in the church of St. Thomas the Apostle, Southwark. Francis Meres, in his ‘Palladis Tamia’ (published 1598), says: ‘As Lysippus, Praxiteles, and Pyrgoteles were excellent engravers, so have we these engravers, Rogers, Christopher Switzer, and Cure.’ It is no doubt Cornelius Cure who is thus extolled. It would appear that Cure was of Dutch origin, as in 1576 there exists a payment to ‘W. Cure, Duchemane graver,’ for making a clay figure of the tartar, lately brought to England by Sir Martin Frobisher (Rye, England as seen by Foreigners, p. 205).
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Scharf's Cat. of the National Portrait Gallery, 1884; Peter Cunningham in the Builder, 4 April 1863; Lysons's Parishes of Middlesex; authorities cited above.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cunnington, William

​CUNNINGTON, WILLIAM (1754–1810), antiquary, was born at Grafton, Northamptonshire, in 1754. He settled as a tradesman at Heytesbury in Wiltshire about 1775. He was a man of active mind and acute observation. Frequent rambles among the Wiltshire downs caused him to turn his attention to the sepulchral tumuli. He formed a collection of British antiquities, and also of minerals and fossils, and opened numerous barrows in Wiltshire, among which were the Golden Barrow in the parish of Upton Lovel (opened 1803, further excavated 1807), and the barrows at Corton, Boyton, Sherrington, &c. Cunnington was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and vol. xv. of the ‘Archæologia’ contains (pp. 122–9) an ‘Account of Tumuli opened in Wiltshire, in three Letters from Mr. William Cunnington to Aylmer Bourke Lambert.’ In the same volume (pp. 338–46) is a ‘Further Account of Tumuli opened in Wiltshire’ by him. Sir Richard Colt Hoare, who describes Cunnington's methods of excavating as being much more thorough than those of his predecessors, dedicated to him the first part of his ‘Ancient History of South Wiltshire,’ on the ground that the existence of the work was mainly due to Cunnington's collections and discoveries. From 1804 till his death Cunnington had placed all his materials at Hoare's disposal, and made new investigations for the purpose. His collection of antiquities was bought by Hoare, and is now in the museum at Devizes. Cunnington, who during the last twenty years of his life suffered much from ill-health, died towards the close of 1810, aged 57. Cunnington was a correspondent of William Smith, the geologist, for whom he procured a fine series of fossils. His portrait was painted by Samuel Woodford, R.A., and there is an engraving of it by J. Basire prefixed to the dedication of Hoare's ‘Ancient Wiltshire.’ In 1787 he married Mary, daughter of Robert Meares, by whom he had three daughters.
[Gent. Mag. (1810), vol. lxxx. pt. ii. p. 670, (1811) vol. lxxxi. pt. i. pp. 185, 186; Hoare's History of Modern Wiltshire, Hundred of Heytesbury, 265, 266, 269; Upcott's English Topography, iii. 1286; Archæologia, vol. xv.; information from H. Cunnington.]
W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lennard, Samson

​LENNARD, SAMSON (d. 1633), genealogist and translator, was son of William Lennard of Chevening and Knole, Kent, by Anne, daughter and heir of John Perkins of Richmond, Surrey. He was cousin of Samson Lennard of Chevening, who married Margaret, baroness Dacre, and of whom honourable mention is made by Camden in his 'Britannia.' His early life was spent in military service. He accompanied Sir Philip Sidney to the Netherlands, and was with him when he received his fatal wound at the battle of Zutphen in 1586. Subsequently he devoted himself to literature, being patronised by some of the principal persons of his time, particularly by Prince Henry and William Herbert, third earl of Pembroke. Entering the College of Arms he was appointed Rouge-rose pursuivant extraordinary, by patent 11 March 1614-15, and created Bluemantle pursuivant 22 March 1615-16. He was buried in the church of St. Benet, Paul's Wharf, on 17 Aug. 1633.
He was the author of:
He also translated the following works:
* Buoni's 'Problemes of Beautie'[1606].
* Charron's treatise 'Of treatise 'Of Wisdome' [1612].
* De Mornay's 'Mvsterie of Iniquitie, 1612.
* Perrin's 'Luther's Fore-runners, or a Cloud of Witnesses deposing for the Protestant Faith,' 1621, reprinted in 'Papal Usurpation and Tyranny,' pt. ii., 1711, under the title of 'The History of the old Waldenses and Alhigenses.'
* The first part of Mazella's 'Parthenopœia, or the History of the Kingdom of Naples,' 1654, edited by James Howell [q. v.]
Manuscript copies of most of the Heraldic visitations in which he was engaged are preserved in the British Museum. The following have been printed by the Harleian Society: 'Visitation of Warwickshire,’ 1619; of Cornwall, 1620; of Dorset, 1623; of Somerset, 1623; and of Wiltshire, taken by him in 1623, in conjunction with Sir Henry St George, printed in 1882. Two volumes of his general and heraldic collections are in the Cottonian MSS. 1178 and 1452.
His portrait, engraved by Robert Vaughan, and representing him in armour, is prefixed to his translation of Charron.
Addit. MS. 5675, f. 37; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 5th edi. ii. 151; Granger Letters, p.175; Lansd. MS. 72, art. 58; Willis's Not. Parl. vol. iii. pt. ii. pp. 80, 123, 128, 174; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. viii. 430; Hasted's Kent, Kent, i. 108, 111; Topographer and Genealogist, iii. 217.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lennie, William

​LENNIE, WILLIAM (1779–1852), grammarian, was born in 1779. He established himself as a teacher of English at Edinburgh in 1802, and died there on 20 July 1852. To a school at Craigend, Perthshire, he left an endowment of 10l. a year. To the town council of Edinburgh he bequeathed the lands of Auchenresch, Dumfriesshire, for founding in Edinburgh University four bursaries of 12l. each, to be called the ‘Lennie Bursaries.’ They are to be given for ‘literary education’ only, and the bursars are enjoined to repay the amounts received by them as soon as they are able; those who do so to have the nomination of their successors. The residue of the rents was to be equally divided between Trinity Hospital and James Gillespie's Hospital, Edinburgh, and after the lapse of certain annuities a further sum of 200l. a year was to be added to the fund.
Lennie's ‘Principles of English Grammar,’ to which he added a ‘Key,’ published in 1816, is still extensively used. He was also author of the ‘Child's Ladder.’
[Gent. Mag. 1852 pt. ii. p. 319; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leney, William S.

William Satchwell Leney in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​LENEY, WILLIAM S. (fl. 1790–1810), engraver, was born in London, and articled to Peltro William Tomkins [q. v.] He practised both in line and stipple, and was employed upon Boydell's great edition of Shakespeare, for which he executed five plates after Fuseli, Downman, W. Miller, J. Graham, and J. Boydell. He also engraved Rubens's ‘Descent from the Cross’ and R. Westall's ‘Going to the Mill.’ About 1806 Leney emigrated to America and settled at New York, where he engraved some small portraits of George Washington, John Adams, Captain Lawrence of the Chesapeake, Robert Fulton, and other Americans of note. In 1812 he entered into partnership with William Rollinson, a bank-note engraver, and having in a few years earned a competency, retired from business and took a farm on the St. Lawrence, near Montreal. There he resided until his death, the date of which is not recorded.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Baker's American Engravers and their Works, 1875; Baker's Engraved Portraits of Washington, 1881.]
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lennon, John

​LENNON, JOHN (1768–1842?), master-mariner, was born at Downpatrick, Ireland, in 1768. He is stated to have served as a midshipman in the royal navy during the American war. In 1796, when in command of the schooner Favorite of Martinique, carrying letters of marque, he was very severely wounded, and his ship was taken, after a fierce engagement of one hour and twenty minutes' duration, by a French privateer of very superior force. In 1798 he was in command of the General Keppel, also of Martinique, which was capsized in a white squall on passage from Philadelphia, when Lennon and some of his crew were rescued by a passing schooner, after suffering great perils and hardships. Lennon performed various daring feats in the West Indies in 1806–9; but his most remarkable exploits were in the Hibernia, a Cowes-built barque, carrying six guns and about twenty-two men and boys all told, in which he traded for some years from the West India island of St. Thomas. In 1812 orders were issued that no vessels should leave the island without convoy, on account of the American privateers. The Hibernia and three other merchantmen, whose aggregate cargoes were valued at half a million sterling, had long been waiting. Unwilling to detain them ​further, Governor Maclean agreed to their sailing without convoy, on condition of Lennon hoisting his pennant as commodore. Although harassed by the Rossie, Commodore Barney, an American privateer of superior force, Lennon brought his vessels safe into the English Channel on 18 Oct. 1812. Two years later Lennon was attacked, on 19 July 1814, by the schooner Comet of Baltimore, U.S., an American privateer of sixteen guns and 136 men, which he beat off after a nine hours' fight, in which twelve out of his crew of twenty-two hands were killed or wounded. Two lawsuits followed with the underwriters of the Hibernia's cargo, and Lennon and his owners were cast in 8,000l. damages, or more than double the loss that would have been incurred if Lennon had surrendered. Lennon died in retirement at Devonport after 1841.
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lemprière, William

​LEMPRIÈRE, WILLIAM (d. 1834), traveller and medical writer, was third son of Thomas Lemprière of Jersey. He entered the army medical service when young, and by 1789 was attached to the garrison of Gibraltar. In the September of that year Sidi Mahommed, emperor of Morocco, sent a message to General O'Hara, the commandant at Gibraltar, asking that an English doctor might be sent to attend his son, Muley Absolom, who was suffering from cataract. Lemprière accepted the commission, and left Gibraltar on 14 Sept. 1789; on 28 Oct. he reached Tarudant, where he attended the prince with great success. His only rewards, however, were ‘a gold watch, an indifferent horse, and a few hard dollars.’ He was then summoned to Morocco itself, which he reached on 4 Dec., to attend some ladies of the sultan's harem. He was detained at Morocco a long time against his will, and was not allowed to leave till 12 Feb. 1790; here again he complains of the miserable remuneration awarded him. After his return from Morocco Lemprière published an account of his travels in ‘A Tour from Gibraltar to Tangier, Sallee, Mogadore, Santa Cruz, Tarudant, and thence over Mount Atlas to Morocco,’ London, 1791. The work supplies interesting details concerning the Moorish sultan's harem. A number of its minor inaccuracies were noticed in a ‘Corrective Supplement to Wm. Lemprière's Tour,’ by Francisco Sanchez, London, 1794. After his visit to Morocco Lemprière was appointed surgeon to the 20th or Jamaica regiment of light dragoons. He spent five years in Jamaica, and on his return to England published ‘Practical Observations on the Diseases of the Army in Jamaica,’ London, 1799. Lemprière left the army with the rank of inspector-general of hospitals, and resided for many years in the Isle of Wight. He died at Bath in 1834.
During his stay in the Isle of Wight he published two medical works: 1. ‘A Report on the Medicinal Effects of an Alumnious Chalybeate Water, lately discovered at Sandrocks, in the Isle of Wight,’ London, 1812. 2. ‘Popular Lectures on the Study of Natural History and the Sciences, as delivered before the Isle of Wight Philosophical Society,’ London, 1830.
[J. B. Payne's Monograph of the House of Lemprière; Watt's Bibl. Brit. vol. ii.; Gent. Mag. 1834, pt. ii.; Army Lists; Lemprière's own works passim.]
G. P. M-y.