OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Houghton, John (d.1705)

​HOUGHTON, JOHN (d. 1705), writer on agriculture and trade, studied for a time at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Cooper, Memorials of Cambridge, i. 154). He subsequently became an apothecary and dealer in tea, coffee, chocolate, and other luxuries, first ‘against the Ship Tavern in St. Bartholomew Lane, behind the Royal Exchange,’ but by 14 Dec. 1703 at the ‘Golden Fleece at the corner of Little Eastcheap in Gracechurch Street,’ London. He constituted himself a kind of agent for advertisers, and his advertisements appended to his ‘Collections’ are newspaper curiosities. He died in 1705. In the letters of administration, P. C. C., granted on 10 Nov. 1705 to his widow Elizabeth, Houghton is described as late of the parish of St. Leonard, Eastcheap, London. He was elected F.R.S. on 29 Jan. 1680, and served on the society's committee for agriculture.
Houghton edited an entertaining periodical work entitled ‘A Collection of Letters for the Improvement of Husbandry & Trade,’ two vols. 4to, London, 1681–3. The letters treat of miscellaneous subjects, and were written by eminent authorities, Evelyn and Worlidge included. The editor excuses the want of arrangement, preferring a ‘libertine way of handling’ subjects before the ‘severest rules.’ An index accompanies each volume. Houghton first noticed the potato plant as an agricultural vegetable (ed. 1728, ii. 468), and that turnips were eaten by sheep (ib. i. 213, iv. 142–144). His ideas of improving trade are obsolete. In November 1691 he issued, with the approbation of the more distinguished fellows of the Royal Society, ‘A Proposal for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade,’ which ultimately took the shape of another ‘Collection’ published in weekly folio numbers, of which the first appeared on 30 March 1692, and the last (No. 583) on 24 Sept. 1703, forming, according to the editor's design, nineteen volumes. A selection from these miscellanies in four octavo volumes was published by Richard Bradley in 1727–8, with the title ‘A Catalogue of all sorts of Earths, the Art of Draining, of Brewing, of all sorts of Husbandry,’ and Houghton also published in 1693 a sixpenny sheet, containing ‘An Account of the Acres and Houses, with the proportional tax … of each county in England and Wales’ (reprinted in ‘Somers Tracts,’ ed. Scott, x. 596). To the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ he contributed in 1699 ‘A Discourse of Coffee’ (xxi. 311–17), and ‘The Conclusion of the Protestant States of the Empire, of the 23d of Sept. 1699 concerning the Calendar’ (xxii. 459–63).
[Alexander Andrews's Hist. of British Journalism, i. 88; Reliquary, i. 64, ii. 47–8; Encyclop. Brit. (9th ed.), i. 299; Donaldson's Agricultural Biog. p. 36; Local Gleanings, Archæolog. Mag. (1880), i. 275.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooper, Robert (fl.1800-1836)

​COOPER, ROBERT (fl. 1800–1836), engraver, was largely employed during the first quarter of the century in engraving portraits. Among the publications on which he was engaged were: ‘La Belle Assemblée,’ a fashionable periodical; ‘Old Mortality’ and other novels by Sir Walter Scott; Lodge's ‘Portraits of Illustrious Personages;’ Chamberlaine's ‘Imitations of Original Drawings, by Hans Holbein;’ Tresham and Ottley's ‘British Gallery of Pictures,’ &c. He was employed by the Duke of Buckingham to execute some private plates for him; the most important and the best known of these is the engraving Cooper executed of the ‘Chandos’ portrait of Shakespeare. For him also he engraved portraits of the Duke of Buckingham, after Saunders, and Earl Temple, after the same; Count Gondomar, after Velazquez; Marquis de Vieuville, after Vandyck, and others. Cooper was also a very prolific engraver of book plates and vignettes, &c., and exhibited with the Associated Engravers in 1821. He was in addition a publisher, and in this line of business he seems to have met with financial disaster, as on 31 Oct. 1826 and the two following days his collection and stock of prints, drawings, and copperplates were dispersed by auction at Southgate's Rooms in Fleet Street. Among the drawings were some by Samuel de Wilde [q. v.], after whom Cooper executed numerous engravings of leading actors and actresses of the day for various theatrical publications. He is stated to have been living in 1836. He left unfinished in 1826 a large engraving of ‘Christ bearing the Cross,’ after Mignard.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Leblanc's Manuel de l'Amateur d'Estampes; Bromley's Cat. of ​British Engraved Portraits; Collection of Sale Catalogues in the Print Room, British Museum.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooper, Samuel (1780-1848)

​COOPER, SAMUEL (1780–1848), surgical writer, was born in September 1780. His father, who had made a fortune in the West Indies, died when his three sons were still young. The eldest, George, became a judge of the supreme court in Madras, and was knighted. The second, Samuel, was educated by Dr. Burney at Greenwich, and in 1800 entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where he showed great promise. In 1803 he became M.R.C.S., and settled in Golden Square. In 1806 he gained the Jacksonian prize at the College of Surgeons for the best essay on ‘Diseases of the Joints.’ In 1807 he published his ‘First Lines of Surgery,’ which went through seven editions. In 1809 the first edition of his great ‘Surgical Dictionary’ appeared, and its popularity was instant and great. During Cooper's lifetime seven large and carefully revised editions appeared. In 1810 Cooper married a Miss Cranstoun, but she died in the following year, leaving a daughter, afterwards married to Thomas ​Morton, surgeon to University College Hospital. After his wife's death Cooper (in 1813) entered the army as surgeon, and served on the field of Waterloo. Retiring on the conclusion of peace, he devoted his chief attention to editing the successive editions of his two principal works, and also gained a considerable surgical practice. In 1827 he became a member of the council of the College of Surgeons, and from 1831 to 1848 was surgeon to University College Hospital and professor of surgery in the college. In 1845 he was elected president of the College of Surgeons, and in 1846 fellow of the Royal Society. He died of gout on 2 Dec. 1848.
Besides his principal works Cooper wrote a book on ‘Cataract,’ 1805, and edited the third and fourth editions of Dr. Mason Good's ‘Study of Medicine.’ He delivered the Hunterian oration in 1834. The ‘Dictionary’ was translated into French, German, and Italian, and several times republished in America.
[Lancet, 1848, ii. 646; Gent. Mag. 1849, i. (March), 320; biographical notice by G. L. Cooper, prefixed to vol. ii. of the 8th edition of the Dictionary of Practical Surgery, 1872; Clarke's Autobiographical Recollections of the Medical Profession, 1874, pp. 323–6; for discussions connected with Cooper's resignation of the University College chair, see Lancet 1848, multis locis.]
G. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooper, Richard (1740?-1814?)

​COOPER, RICHARD, the younger (1740?–1814?), painter and engraver, son of Richard Cooper the elder, engraver, of ​Edinburgh [q. v.], was born in Edinburgh about 1740, and after receiving instruction from his father went to Paris and studied engraving under J. P. Le Bas, the famous French engraver, to whom he owed the correctness and brilliancy which distinguished some of his engravings. In 1761 he exhibited at the Incorporated Society of Artists a drawing from a picture by Trevisani, probably for the engraving of a Magdalen after that artist, which he exhibited at the Free Society of Artists in the following year. In 1762 also he exhibited one of his best engravings, viz. ‘The Children of Charles I,’ after Vandyck; at the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1764 he exhibited ‘The Virgin and Child,’ after Correggio, a very brilliant engraving. His name does not appear again as an exhibitor for some years, and during this period he seems to have visited Italy and produced a series of tinted drawings of Rome and its vicinity, which have gained for him the name of the ‘English Poussin.’ These he engraved, aquatinted, and published in 1778 and 1779, besides exhibiting some of the drawings at the Royal Academy. In 1782 he completed a large and important work, which he aquatinted and exhibited in 1783 at the Incorporated Society of Artists; this was the ‘Procession of the Knights of the Garter,’ from a design by Vandyck formerly in Charles I's collection, and intended to have been painted for the Banqueting House at Whitehall. Other engravings by him were portraits of ‘William III and Mary;’ Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford; Frederick, prince of Wales, and his sisters; ‘Rembrandt's Mistress’ (in mezzotint), ‘A Bacchanal,’ after N. Poussin; ‘A View of the Port of Messina before the Earthquake in 1783,’ after T. M. Slade. About 1787 Cooper settled in Charles Street, St. James's Square, and devoted himself to drawing, exhibiting numerous drawings at the Royal Academy up to 1809; among these were two of Windsor Castle, which were engraved and aquatinted by S. Alken. He was appointed drawing-master to Queen Charlotte, and also held that position in Eton School. He is stated to have been alive in 1814. Samples of his drawings may be seen at the South Kensington Museum and at the print room, British Museum; in the latter collection there are also numerous engravings, etchings, and lithographs by him.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Nagler's Künstler-Lexikon; Bryan's Dict. of Artists (ed. Graves); Sarsfield Taylor's State of the Arts in Great Britain and Ireland; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1880; Guiffrey's Vandyck; Catalogues of the Royal Academy, South Kensington Museum, &c.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooper, Richard (d.1764)

​COOPER, RICHARD, the elder (d. 1764), engraver, was born in London, and studied engraving under John Pine. On the death of his father he inherited some money and quitted his profession as an engraver in order to visit Italy and study art there. He remained there some years, acquiring considerable knowledge of the great masters, and becoming a good draughtsman and fair painter himself. He also formed a good collection of drawings by the old masters and prints of various schools and countries. On his return to England he was induced by a friend and brother artist, Mr. Guthrie, to accompany the latter on a visit to Edinburgh. Scotland was at that time suffering from a lack of first-rate artists, and Cooper was warmly welcomed, so much so that he decided on settling in Edinburgh, and resumed his old profession of engraver. Finding plenty of employment he built for himself a house in St. John Street, the interior of which he decorated with pictures from his own hand. Here he took various apprentices, the best known of whom was Robert Strange [q. v.], who was apprenticed to Cooper for six years, and became not only an inmate but an intimate friend of the family. About 1738 Cooper married Miss Ann Lind, by whom he left a son, Richard Cooper the younger [q. v.], who followed his father's profession. According to Strange, Cooper as an engraver lacked practice, but all his work showed spirit and taste. He is chiefly known for his engravings of contemporary portraits, among which were John Taylor, oculist, after W. De Nune; William Carstares and Andrew Allan, both after W. Robinson; Sir Hugh Dalrymple, after W. Aikman; John Napier, the inventor of logarithms; George, lord Jeffreys, and others. He also occasionally engraved in mezzotint, viz. Archibald, duke of Argyll, after W. Aikman; John Dalrymple, earl of Stair, after Kneller; Lady Wallace, and others. He also engraved anatomical plates for the ‘Edinburgh Medical Essays,’ &c., book-plates, and other similar compositions. He died in 1764, and was buried in the Canongate churchyard, Edinburgh. W. Robinson painted his portrait, and Cooper engraved it himself. J. Donaldson engraved his portrait in mezzotint, and this is perhaps identical with a mezzotint portrait of him from a picture by G. Schroider.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Dennistoun's Memoirs of Sir Robert Strange; Huber and Roost's Manuel des Curieux et des Amateurs de l'Art, vol. ix.; Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooper, Thomas (fl.1626)

​COOPER, COUPER, or COWPER, THOMAS (fl. 1626), divine, was born in London and educated at Westminster, whence he was elected in 1586 on the foundation of Christ Church, Oxford, and as a member of that house proceeded B.A. on 14 Dec. 1590, M.A. on 19 June 1593, and B.D. on 14 April 1600. His first call, as he himself tells us, was to succeed ‘that painefull and profitable Teacher Maister [William] Harrison’ as one of the preachers for the county palatine of Lancaster, and on 1 Aug. 1601 he was presented by his college to the vicarage of Great Budworth, Cheshire, which he held until 1604. On 8 May in the latter year he became vicar of Holy Trinity, Coventry, but resigned in January 1610. In 1620 he was living in Whitecross Street, London, apparently befriended by Lord-chief-justice Montagu, to whom and his lady Cooper expresses himself under deep obligations. In September 1626, having been appointed a ‘preacher’ to the fleet at 5l. a month by Captain Richard Gyffard, he petitioned ‘the most illustrious and renowned prince, George, duke of Buckingham,’ for a small advance of salary to enable him to get to Portsmouth. Cooper published:
* ‘The Romish Spider, with his VVeb of Treason. Wouen and Broken: together with the seuerall vses that the World and Church shall make thereof,’ 3 pts. 4to, London, 1606 (republished the same year with a new title-page, ‘A Brand taken out of the Fire,’ &c.).
* ‘Nonæ Novembris æternitati consecratæ in memoriam admirandæ illius liberationis Principis et Populi Anglicani à proditione sulphurea.’ [In verse and prose] 4to, Oxford, 1607.
* ‘The Chvrches Deliverance, contayning Meditations … vppon the Booke of Hester. In remembrance of the wonderfull deliuerance from the Gunpoulder-Treason,’ 4to, London, 1609.
* ‘The Mystery of Witch-craft. Discouering the Truth, Nature, Occasions, Growth and Power therof. Together with the Detection and Punishment of the same. As also the seuerall Stratagems of Sathan, ensnaring the poore Soule by this desperate practize of annoying the bodie,’ &c., 3 books, 12mo, London, 1617.
* ‘The Cry and Reuenge of Blood. Expressing the Nature and haynousnesse of wilfull Murther … exemplified in a most lamentable History thereof, committed at Halsworth in High Suffolk,’ &c. 4to, London, 1620.
* ‘VVilie begvile ye, or the Worldlings gaine,’ &c., 4to, London, 1621.
Wood's account of Cooper is vague and inaccurate.
[Prefaces to Works as cited above; Welch's Alumni Westmon. (1852), p. 59; Ormerod's Cheshire, i. 452; Dugdale's Warwickshire (Thomas), i. 174; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603–10 p. 263, 1625–26 p. 425; Wood's Fasti (Bliss), i. 250, 262, 285; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooper, Robert (fl.1681)

​COOPER, ROBERT (fl. 1681), geographer, son of Robert Cooper of Kidderminster, Worcestershire, became a servitor of Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1666, graduated in arts, and was made fellow of his college through the influence of Dr. Hall, the master. He was a good preacher and well skilled in mathematics. On 8 April 1681 he was admitted to the rectory of Harlington, near Hounslow, Middlesex, on the presentation of Sir John Bennett, afterwards Lord Ossulston, and was alive in 1700 (Newcourt). He wrote ‘Proportions concerning Optic-glasses, with their Natural Reasons drawn from Experiments,’ 1679, 4to, and ‘A General Introduction to Geography’ prefixed to the first volume of the ‘English Atlas,’ Oxford, 1680, fol.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 749; Life (Bliss), lxxxix; Kennet's Register, p. 500; Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 632.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooper, Thomas Henry

​COOPER, THOMAS HENRY (1759?–1840?), botanist, drew up a list of the indigenous plants of the county for Horsfield's ‘History of Sussex,’ which came out in 1835, and was printed in vol. ii. App. pp. 5–22; a separate 8vo edition was also issued. His name appears as fellow of the Linnean Society in ​1835 as living at Nottingham, in subsequent lists, from 1836 to 1841, as of Grafton Street, Fitzroy Square.
[Annual Lists, Linn. Soc.; Journ. Bot. new ser. iv. (1875), sup. p. 6.]
B. D. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gerald

​GERALD, Saint and Bishop (d. 731), of Magh Eo, now Mayo, was, according to the life published by the Bollandists, and attributed by Colgan to Augustin Magraidin (1405), a monk from the neighbourhood of Winchester, who, with some companions, migrated ​to Ireland, in order to lead a solitary life. Another account connects his leaving England with the defeat of St. Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne, at the conference at Whitby on the Easter question. The party landed in Connaught and made their way northward to Sligo. Gerald built a church in Mayo which he called Cill n-ailither, or the Church of the Pilgrims. Parties of West- and East-Saxons having from time to time joined him there, the district acquired the name of Tech Saxan, which is still preserved in the prebend of Tagh Saxan in the cathedral of Tuam. He is also said to have built an oratory for his adherents in the plain of Mayo, on land given by Raghallach, king of Connaught (640–5), but it must have been a later king, as the best authority places his own death in 731. Here he was buried and his memory was venerated. This has been confounded with the monastery built in the same neighbourhood by St. Colman of Lindisfarne for his Saxon followers. It has been suggested that St. Colman placed his followers under the charge of Gerald as their countryman, but Bede distinctly states that St. Colman's monastery was a new one, and Dr. Petrie holds that St. Colman's abbey church was founded in the seventh century, and this of St. Gerald, also known as ‘Tempull Garailt,’ in the beginning of the eighth. Another story connects him with St. Fechin of Fobhar, who belonged to the second order of Irish saints (542–99). Fechin approved a proposal of the rich to pray for a pestilence to diminish the numbers of the lower orders on occasion of a famine, that there might be enough for the survivors. Gerald opposed the wicked proposal, which is said to have been punished by a plague. These anachronisms show that little value can be attributed to the details of the life. His fame was probably due to the later prosperity of his monastery. Ussher quotes from the ‘Book of Ballymote’ a statement that there were a hundred Saxon saints at Mayo in the time of Adamnan, St. Gerald's successor, and the Litany of Oengus in the ‘Book of Leinster’ has an invocation of ‘3,300 saints with Gerald the bishop, and with the fifty saints of Leyney in Connaught, who are [buried] at Mayo of the Saxons.’ Local names and traditions also attest the reality of this English mission. Gerald is termed in the ‘Annals’ the ‘Pontifex of Mayo of the Saxons,’ and more distinctly ‘episcopus’ in the extract from the Litany of Oengus. The date of his death is given by Ussher as 697, and by the ‘Four Masters’ as 726, but the ‘Annals of Ulster,’ which appear to be the best authority, place it at 731. His day is 13 March.
T. O.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/George, William

​GEORGE, WILLIAM, D.D. (d. 1756), dean of Lincoln, born in London, was educated at Eton and admitted to King's College, Cambridge, in 1715. He proceeded to his degree of B.A. 1719, M.A. 1723, and D.D. 1728. On leaving the university he became assistant-master, and eventually principal, of Eton School, a position he maintained during several years with unusual distinction. It was during his residence at Eton that George was married to Miss Bland, daughter of Dr. Bland, his predecessor, and in 1731 he is further mentioned as canon of Windsor and chaplain in ordinary to his majesty. He quitted his scholastic career in 1743, when he was appointed to the vacant provostship of King's College, Cambridge. At his election to this office he engaged in a keen competition with Dr. Chapman, who was also a candidate, but he eventually succeeded in defeating his opponent by a small majority of votes. Within the same year he was also elected vice-chancellor of Cambridge. In 1747, the deanery of Winchester falling vacant, he was nominated for that office; but in order to oblige his friend, Dr. Samuel Pegge, he consented to exchange it for the deanery of Lincoln, where he was installed in 1748. He also resigned in favour of Dr. Pegge his rectory of Whittington, near Chesterfield in Derbyshire. He died on 2 Aug. 1756. George was a popular and eloquent preacher, and several of his sermons have been printed, among which may be mentioned a sermon preached before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1732, and a second delivered before the House of Commons in 1752. He is also described as an accurate Greek scholar and good Latin poet. Some fine specimens of his poetry have been preserved in the ‘Musæ Etonenses’ (1755), edited by J. Prinsep, including among others a series of poems entitled ‘Ecclesiastes’ and some exquisite lines on the death of Prince Frederick. The latter became unusually famous, from the high commendation pronounced upon them by Pope Lambertini, Benedict IV, who gave them the title of ‘cardinal,’ and is said to have observed that if the author had been a catholic he would have made him a cardinal; but since that could not be, he would bestow the honour upon the verses themselves.
W. F. W. S.