OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lawrenson, Thomas

​LAWRENSON, THOMAS (fl. 1760–1777), painter, is stated to have been a native of Ireland. He first appears in 1760 as an exhibitor at the first exhibition of the Society of Artists, sending a portrait of himself; he was subsequently a regular exhibitor until 1777, sending portraits or miniatures. In 1774 he exhibited a portrait which he had executed in 1783. A portrait of Lawrenson was painted and engraved in mezzotint by his son (see below). He drew and published a large engraving of Greenwich Hospital. Lawrenson signed the roll of the Society of Incorporated Artists in 1766, and is first styled a fellow of the society in 1774. He lived in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury. There is a portrait by him of John O'Keeffe in the National Portrait Gallery.
Lawrenson, William (fl. 1760–1780), painter, son of the above, resided with his father. In 1760 and 1761 he obtained premiums from the Society of Arts. He was, like his father, a fellow of the Incorporated Society of Artists, and signed their roll in 1766. He first exhibited with them in 1762, sending a portrait. In 1763 and 1764 he sent portraits to the Free Society of Artists, but in 1766 returned to the former exhibition and continued to exhibit there till 1772, mostly crayon portraits, including in 1771 one of William Smith the actor as 'Iachimo,' which he engraved himself in mezzotint, and in 1769 one of Mrs. Baddeley. From 1774 till 1780 he exhibited at the Royal Academy. Many of his pictures were engraved, including Ann Catley [q. v.] as 'Euphrosyne by R. Dunkarton, Signora Sestini by John Jones, Benjamin West by W. Pether, Sir Eyre Coote by J. Walker, 'A Lady Haymaking,' 'Palemon and Lavinia,' 'Rosalind and Celia,' 'Cymon and Iphigenia' by John Raphael Smith. It is not known when he or his father died.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760-1880; Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits; Catalogues of the Society of Artists, &c.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Llywelyn ab Seisyll

​LLYWELYN ab SEISYLL or SEISYLLT (d. 1023?), king of Gwynedd, was a Welsh chieftain, not of the royal line, who married, if the tradition of a later time can be trusted, Angharad, daughter of Maredudd. son of Owain, son of Howel Dda [q. v.] (Gwentian Brut, s.a. 994),and thus became associated with the greatest house in South Wales. Llywelyn lived in a time of exceptional confusion. In North Wales the stock of the royal house of Gwynedd had been replaced. on the throne by a vigorous usurper, Aeddan ab Blegywryd. The inroads of the Danes and the advances of the English power were fatal to settled rule in North and South Wales alike. Llywelyn managed, however, to slay Aeddan and his four sons. This event probably happened in 1017, or possibly 1018, the year after the accession of Cnut in England (Brut y Tywysogion, p. 35; Annales Cambriæ,p. 22). Llywelyn now took possession of the throne of North Wales, thus bringing in the family of Howel Dda in the person of his descendants, and representing some sort of triumph of South Welsh over North Welsh. Llywelyn'a brief reign was one of exceptional prosperity. He is styled 'supreme king of Gwynedd, and the chief and most renowned king of all the Britons' (Brut y Tywysogion, p. 37). 'In his time,' wrote the Welsh chronicler (ib. p. 37), 'it was usual of the elders of the kingdom to say that his dominion was, from one sea to the other, complete in abundance of wealth and inhabitants, so that it was supposed that there was neither poor nor destitute in all his territories, nor an empty hamlet, nor any deficiency.' This indicates that under Llywelyn that restoration of the North Welsh power began which attained its highest point in the reign of his more famous son Gruffydd ab Llywelyn (d. 1063) [q. v.] But in 1020 or 1022 Llywelyn had to face a formidable enemy. An Irish impostor named Rein claimed to be the son of Maredudd ab Owain, Llywelyn's father-in-law, formerly king of South Wales. Rein was so successful as to obtain general recognition throughout Deheubarth (South Wales). Llywelyn was still sufficiently connected with southern affairs to fear the growth of his power. He accordingly marched with an army into South Wales. Rein, 'after the manner of the Irish,' 'proudly and ostentatiously' exhorted his men to fight, with many boasts of victory. After a sharp struggle the men of Gwynedd prevailed, and Rein fled 'shamefully, like a fox.' The battle was fought at Abergwili, near Carmarthen. Rein was heard of no more, and perhaps perished in the battle (Annales Cambriæ, p. 23). Llywelyn, by cruelly devastating the south, vindicated his position ​as chief king of the Welsh. Next year he died. The date is either 1021 or 1023, probably the later year. He left a brother named Cynan, who was slain four years later. His son Gruffydd ab Llywelyn (d. 1063) [q. v.] was for a time driven from Gwynedd by a restoration of the rightful line. The Gwentian chronicler celebrates Llywelyn's virtues in war and peace, and couples him with his son as 'the noblest princes that had been until their time in Wales.'
T. F. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Loch, Granville Gower

​LOCH, GRANVILLE GOWER (1813–1853), captain in the navy, born 28 Feb. 1813, was second son of James Loch [q. v.] of Drylaw in Mid-Lothian; brother of George Loch and of Sir Henry Brougham Loch, the present (1892) governor of the Cape of Good Hope. He entered the navy in February 1826, passed his examination in 1832, and was promoted to be lieutenant on 23 Oct. 1833. After serving on the home station and the Mediterranean he was promoted to be commander 28 Feb. 1837. From 1838 to 1840 he commanded the Fly on the South American and Pacific station, and in 1841 the Vesuvius in the Mediterranean. He was advanced to post rank on 26 Aug. 1841, and on returning to England went out to China as a volunteer, and at the capture of Chin Kiang Foo served as an aide-de-camp to General Sir Hugh Gough [q. v.] He afterwards published his journal under the title 'The Closing Events of the Campaign in China,' 12mo, 1843. From 1846 to 1849 he commanded the Alarm frigate in the West Indies; and in February 1848 was sent to the coast of Nicaragua to demand and enforce redress for certain outrages, and to obtain the release of two British subjects who had been carried off from San Juan by the military commandant. The government at the time seemed to be in the hands of the army, and Loch forthwith proceeded up the river in the boats of the Alarm and Vixen sloop, his total force being 260 men. The enemy had occupied a strong position at Serapaqui, defended not only by the nature of the ground and the material obstructions, but by a five-knot current which kept the boats under fire for an hour and a half before the men could land. The fort was then gallantly carried and dismantled, the guns destroyed and the ammunition thrown into the river. Thereupon the British demands were conceded and a satisfactory treaty was arranged. On the reception of the news in England Loch was made a C.B. 30 May 1848. In 1852 he commissioned the Winchester frigate to relieve the Hastings as flagship in China and the East Indies. It was the time of the second Burmese war; and shortly after arriving at Rangoon the admiral died; the commodore was off the coast, and the command in the river devolved on Loch. The work resolved itself into keeping the river clear and driving the Burmese out of such positions as they occupied on its banks. In the beginning of 1853 a robber chief, Nya-Myat-Toon, had brought together a strong force, had stockaded a formidable position at Donabew, stopped the traffic, and repelled the attempt to drive him away. Loch in person led a joint naval and ​military expedition against him; landed, and threaded the way by a narrow path through thick jungle. They found the stockade on the farther bank of a steep nullah, in attempting to cross which they suffered severely and were driven back, 4 Feb. Loch was shot through the body and died two days later, 6 Feb. 1853. He was buried at Rangoon, beneath a stone erected by the officers and men of the Winchester. There is also a monument to his memory in St. Paul's Cathedral, He was unmarried.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Llywelyn of Llangewydd

He was twice in the DNB first edition. 1904 Errata appended.
​LLYWELYN of Llangewydd (or Llewelyn Sion) (1520?–1616), Welsh bard, born about 1520, was a disciple of Thomas Llewelyn of Rhegoes [cf. Llewelyn, Thomas, 1720?-1793] and Meirig Dafydd of Llanishen, ​both in Glamorganshire. Sion Mowddwy, a contemporary, says he was an usher in the Glamorgan court of great sessions, but he gained his living mostly by transcribing Welsh manuscripts for Glamorganshire gentlemen, and had access to the libraries at Raglan, Y Vann, and other places. About 1575 he is mentioned under the name Lewelyn John by Sir Edward Mansel in his 'History of the Norman Conquest of Glamorgan,' as a learned and diligent collector of Welsh manuscripts. Llywelyn died in 1616. He presided at the session ('gorsedd') of the bards of Glamorgan at Tir Iarll in 1580, and was commissioned to collect and to reduce to writing the traditional lore of that bardic order. These were utilised by Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams) in the preparation of his 'Cyfrinach y Beirdd,' published after his death by his son Taliesin Williams in 1829. A further instalment, termed ' Barddas,' was printed with a translation for the Welsh Manuscript Society in 1862. Several of his compilations are published in Iolo MSS., and on them are based most of the pretensions of neo-druidism to the possession of esoteric doctrines of great antiquity. One of his manuscripts which Iolo Morganwg said he had copied from an original (since lost) contained an account of an ancient Welsh bardic alphabet, called Coelbren y Beirdd, of which a full account is given by Taliesin Williams in a work bearing that title (Llandovery, 8vo), but the genuineness of such an alphabet is open to the gravest doubt.
[Iolo MSS. 45, 49, &c.; Owen's Cambrian Biography; Coelbren y Beirdd, by Taliesin Williams, pp. 15-22; Cyfrinach y Beirdd, pp. 1-6; Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, i. 29, 30.]
D. Ll. T.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.185 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 23 | i | 17-18 | Llywelyn of Llangewydd: for Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams) read Edward David or Dafydd [q. v.] |
| | | 19 | after Beirdd' insert which was sanctioned at a 'Gorsedd ' held in 1681. It was edited by Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams) and |
| | | 39 | after i. 29, 80 insert Preface to the Heroic Elegies of Llywarch Hen (1792), lxiii |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Loch, James

​LOCH, JAMES (1780–1855), economist, born on 7 May 1780, was eldest son of George Loch of Drylaw, Edinburgh. His mother, Mary, was daughter of John Adam of Blair, Kinross-shire, and sister of Lord-commissioner Adam. In 1801 he was admitted an advocate in Scotland, and was called to the bar in England at Lincoln's Inn on 15 Nov. 1806; but abandoning the law after a few years of conveyancing practice, he became largely interested in the management of estates, and was simultaneously auditor to the Marquis of Stafford, afterwards first Duke of Sutherland [q. v.], to Lord Francis Egerton, afterwards Earl of Ellesmere, to the Bridgewater trustees, to the Earl of Carlisle, and to the trust estates of the Earl of Dudley and of Viscount Keith. In this capacity he was responsible for much of the policy respecting the agricultural labourers and the improvement of agriculture pursued over tens of thousands of acres both in England and Scotland. The 'Sutherlandshire clearances' of the second Marquis of Stafford, by which between 1811 and 1820 fifteen thousand crofters were removed from the inland to the seacoast districts, were carried out under his supervision. The policy of these clearances was bitterly attacked, and they were said to have been harshly; carried out (see Sismondi, Etudes sur l'Economie Politique, No. iv. ed. 1837; Donald Macleod, Hist. of the Destitution in Sutherlandshire, 1841), but the stories of cruel evictions have never been proved, and the economic policy has been ably defended (see Léonce de Lavergne. Essai sur l'Economie rurale de l'Anqleterre, Écosse, et Irlande, 1854). The experiences of the Irish famine show that the clearances of the second decade of the century at any rate averted the possibility of similar sufferings in the highlands. In June 1827 Loch entered parliament as member for St. Germains in Cornwall in the whig interest, and having held that seat until 1830, he was then returned without opposition for the Wick burghs, and was regularly reelected until 1852, when he was defeated, by 119 votes to 80, by Samuel Laing. He published a pamphlet on the improvements on the Sutherland estates in 1820, and in 1834 printed privately a memoir of the first Duke of Sutherland. He died on 28 June 1855, at his house in Albemarle Street, London. He was a fellow of the Geological, Statistical, and Zoological Societies, and a member of the committee of the Useful Knowledge Society. He married, first, in 1810, Ann, youngest daughter of Patrick Orr of Bridgeton, Kincardineshire, by whom, among several other children, he had sons, Granville Gower Loch [q. v.] and Henry Brougham Loch, who is a G.C.M.G. and G.C.B., governor of the Cape, and high commissioner for South Africa. He married, secondly, on 2 Dec. 1847, Elizabeth Mary, widow of Major George Macartney Greville, 38th foot, and eldest daughter of John Pearson of Tettenhall Wood, Staffordshire, who predeceased him on 29 Dec. 1848.
[Gent. Mag. 1855, ii. 206; information from W. A. Loch, esq.; Lord Ronald Gower's Stafford House Letters; C. Knight's Passages from a Working Life, ii. 131; Quart. Rev. lxix. 419.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lobb, Emmanuel

​LOBB, EMMANUEL (1596–1671), Jesuit. [See Simeon, Joseph.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Loch, David

​LOCH, DAVID (d. 1780), writer on commerce, of Over Carnbee, Fifeshire, bred a sailor, rose to the rank of master in the merchant service, and afterwards settled at Leith, where he prospered as a merchant and shipowner. He was for some years a member of the annual convention of the royal burghs, was appointed in 1776 inspector-general of the woollen manufactures of Scotland, by the trustees for fisheries, manufactures, and improvements, and was afterwards inspector-general of the fisheries of Scotland. He died at his house in St. Anne's Yards, Edinburgh, on 14 Feb. 1780.
In the interest of the woollen industry, which he regarded as the staple of Scotland, Loch advocated in three forcible pamphlets the abolition of the duties on wool, by which the linen manufacture was then protected, and the encouragement by premiums of sheepbreeding. These were entitled: 1. 'Letters concerning the Trade and Manufactures of Scotland: particularly the Woollen and Linen Manufactures,' Edinburgh, 2nd edit. 1774, 4to. 2. 'Letters,' &c. (same title as preceding, but different matter), Edinburgh, 3rd edit. 1775, 4to. 3. 'Curious and Entertaining Letters concerning the Trade and Manufactures of Scotland: particularly the Woollen and Linen Manufactures,' &c., Edinburgh, 3rd edit. 1774, 8vo. Loch also published 'Essays on the Trade, Commerce, Manufactures, and Fisheries of Scotland. Containing Remarks on the Situation of most of the Seaports, the Number of Shipping employed, and their Tonnage; Strictures on the principal Inland Towns, the different Branches of Trade and Commerce carried on, and the various Improvements made in each; and Hints and Observations on the Constitutional Police, with many Articles never yet published,' Edinburgh, 1775, 8vo, 1778-9, 3 vols. 12mo, and 'A Tour through the Trading Towns and Villages in Scotland,' Edinburgh, 1778.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hedley, William

​HEDLEY, WILLIAM (1779–1843), inventor, was born at Newburn, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, on 13 July 1779. He was educated at a school at Wylam, and when not yet twenty-two years of age was appointed viewer at Walbottle colliery in Northumberland. He afterwards held the same position at the Wylam colliery, taking charge, in addition, of the Blagill lead mine at Alston in Cumberland. The difficulty and expense of the mode of conveying coal from the pits to the river Tyne drew his attention to the necessity of improving the means of transit, and it was to his ingenuity that the locomotive engine of Trevithick, Blenkinsop, and Chapman first became practically, or at all events extensively, useful. Hedley first saw clearly that a locomotive engine and wagons needed none of the old rack rails and toothed wheels to secure sufficient friction to induce motion; his patent for the smooth wheel and rail system bore date 13 March 1813. Soon afterwards the smooth rails were laid down at Wylam.
Hedley was a designer and maker of locomotive engines, and discovered, though he did not perfectly develope, the principle of the blast-pipe, a method of producing a greater draught by returning the exhaust steam into the chimney. This was certainly introduced into engines of his which were at work as early as 1814.
Hedley had been a shipowner since 1808. In 1822, during a strike of the keelmen, he promptly placed one of his engines upon a barge, and, working it with paddles, towed the keels to the coal-shoots without the men's assistance. Steamboats had been invented earlier [see Hull, Jonathan], but they were little used, and the action was ​characteristic of Hedley's energy and resource.
In 1824 he took the Crow Tees colliery, near Durham, and later that at Callerton, near Wylam. In 1828 he removed to Shield Row, where he rented for some time the South Moor colliery. While at Callerton he introduced an improved system of pumping the water out of collieries, which, though adversely criticised at the time, was soon in general use in the north of England.
Hedley died at Burnhopeside Hall, near Lanchester, Durham, on 9 Jan. 1843, and was buried at Newburn. Four of his sons survived him: Oswald Dodd Hedley (d. 1882); Thomas Hedley (d. 1877), who left much money to endow the Northumberland bishopric; William Hedley; and George Hedley.
The inventions connected with the steam engine are all matters of dispute. Hedley's discoveries were not widely known at the time, and, owing to the desire of popular writers to simplify the story and to add to its picturesqueness by consolidating what should be a widely distributed credit, he has not until recently received due recognition.
[Archer's William Hedley, 3rd ed.; O. D. Hedley's Who invented the Locomotive Engine? Galloway's The Steam Engine and its Inventors, pp. 212, 218, 220; Smiles's Lives of the Engineers, iii. 91, 497, 498, 499, 500.]
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Heete, Robert

​HEETE, ROBERT, or Robert of Woodstock (d. 1428), canonist and civilian, presumably a native of Woodstock, Oxfordshire, became scholar of Winchester College in 1401, and in due course scholar of New College, Oxford, where he graduated M.A. and LL.B. He was a pupil of William Barrowe, doctor of decretals, and afterwards bishop of Bangor and Carlisle. In 1413, when Barrowe was chancellor, Heete delivered a lecture on the first book of the decretals. He was chaplain of the chantry of the Holy Trinity in All Saints' Church, Oxford, the patronage of which belonged to his college (Wood, City of Oxford, ii. 110, Oxf. Hist. Soc.), and rector of St. Mildred's, Oxford. In 1417 he became fellow of the college, and in 1422 was admitted fellow of Winchester College. He died on 28 Feb. 1428 (Reg. Winchester College, ap. Moberly, p. xii).
Heete owned New College MS. 92, and was the author of part of its contents, viz.: 1. ‘Lectura super primum librum Decretalium … extractum ex diversis doctoribus,’ ff. 9–82. 2. ‘Lectura super Decretalium librum quintum,’ ff. 83–99. 3. ‘Brocarda juris canonici, et civilis secundum R. [Heete?].’ He may also have written some of the other articles, which include several anonymous orations and some legal ‘adversaria.’ The volume bears the inscription ‘Lib' R. Heete precij xiii s. iiij d.,’ and a statement that it was bequeathed by him for the use of any law fellow of the college. Heete was also in all probability the author of a short life of William of Wykeham preserved in a manuscript at Winchester College: ‘Libellus seu Tractatus de prosapia, vita, et gestis venerabilis patris et domini, domini Willelmi de Wykeham, nuper episcopi Wynton.’ This volume is dated 1424 and contains a dedication to the fellows of Winchester and New Colleges; its author was certainly fellow of one or both of those colleges. Martin, in his ‘Life of Wykeham,’ ascribes it to one Robert Heers or Heresius, but there is no such name in the ‘College Registers.’ Heete's ‘Life of Wykeham’ is printed in the Rev. G. H. Moberly's ‘Life of Wykeham’ (Appendix E, pp. 293–308); it contains some short pieces of elegiac verse. The ‘Life’ preserved in ​New College MS. 288, art. 3, under the title ‘Brevis Chronica de ortu, vita, et gestis nobilibus reverendi domini Willelmi de Wykeham,’ is extracted from Heete's ‘Life.’ It was printed by Wharton in his ‘Anglia Sacra’ (ii. 355), where it is erroneously ascribed to Thomas Chaundeler, warden of New College. Heete gave numerous donations of plate and books to Winchester College.
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 388; Wood's Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford, ed. Gutch, pp. 171, 197; Kirby's Winchester Scholars, pp. 4, 28; Lowth's Life of Wykeham, 3rd ed. 1777, preface, pp. xiii–xvi; Moberly's Life of Wykeham, preface, pp. xi–xii; Coxe's Cat. MSS. in Coll. Aulisque Oxon. i. 73–4, 103.]
C. L. K.