OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Watkins, Charles (d.1808)

​WATKINS, CHARLES (d. 1808), legal writer, practised from 1799 as a certificated conveyancer until his death on 15 Feb. 1808. He was author of some able treatises and tracts (all published at London), viz.:
* ‘An Enquiry into the Title and Powers of His Majesty as Guardian of the Duchy of Cornwall during the late Minority of its Duke,’ n.d. 8vo.
* ‘An Essay towards the further Elucidation of the Law of Descents,’ 1793, 8vo; 3rd edit. by Robert Studley Vidal [q. v.], 1819; 4th edit. by Joshua Williams [q. v.], 1837.
* ‘Reflections on Government in general, with their Application to the British Constitution,’ 1796, 8vo.
* ‘Introduction’ (on the feudal system) to the fourth edition of Gilbert's ‘Law of Tenures,’ 1796, 8vo [see Gilbert, Sir Geoffrey or Jeffray].
* ‘A Treatise on Copyholds,’ 1797–1799, 2 vols. 8vo; 3rd edit. by Vidal, 1821, 2 vols.; 4th edit. by Coventry, 1825.
* ‘An Enquiry into the Question, whether the Brother of the Paternal Grandmother shall succeed to the Inheritance of the Son in preference to the Brother of the Paternal Great-grandmother,’ 1798, 8vo.
* ‘Principles of Conveyancing, designed for the Use of Students,’ 1800, 8vo; 9th edit. by Henry Hopley White, 1845.
[Law Lists, 1799–1808; Gent. Mag. 1808, i. 172; Bridgman's Legal Bibliography; Marvin's Legal Bibliography; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Watkins, Morgan

​WATKINS, MORGAN (fl. 1653–1670), quaker, of Herefordshire, signed a ‘Letter from the People of Herefordshire to the Lord General’ on 7 May 1653 (Nickolls, Original Letters and Papers of State, p. 92), in which was protested ‘we attend you with our persons, petitions, purses, lives, and all that is deere to us.’ In 1660 he was a prisoner in St. Albans gaol. By July 1663 he was in London preaching at the quakers' meeting in Pall Mall and elsewhere. On 12 March 1665 he was sent to Newgate from the Bull and Mouth meeting, St. Martin's-le-Grand. Two other imprisonments followed during the year; the last, of about three months' duration, was on a warrant of 9 Aug. from the Duke of Albemarle for being, with nine others, at an ‘unlawful meeting’ at St. John's, Clerkenwell. His letters to Mary Penington vividly describe the visitation of the plague both inside prisons and out. He afterwards appears to have preached and been imprisoned in Westmoreland and Buckinghamshire, and to have returned to Herefordshire by 1670, when cattle and goods were distrained from his farm.
Watkins was the author of:
* ‘The Perfect Life of the Son of God Vindicated,’ London, 1659, 4to.
* ‘The Day manifesting the Night and the Deeds of Darkness reproved by the Light,’ London, 1660, 4to.
* ‘Swearing denyed in the New Covenant,’ London, n.d., 4to (the preface is dated from St. Albans gaol, 7 Feb. 1660–1).
* ‘The Children of Abraham's Faith who are Blessed, being found in Abraham's Practise of Burying their Dead in their own purchased Burying Places,’ London, 1663, 4to.
* ‘A Lamentation over England,’ 1664, 4to.
* ‘The Things that are Cæsar's rendered unto Cæsar,’ 1666, 4to.
* ‘The Marks of the True Church’ [1675], 4to.
[Besse's Sufferings, i. 78, 258, ii. 18; Smith's Cat. ii. 862; Barclay's Letters of Early Friends, pp. 120, 122, 148, 154; Brit. Mus. Cat. s.v. ‘Watkins’ and ‘W., M.;’ Penington Manuscripts at Devonshire House.]
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wathen, James

​WATHEN, JAMES (1751?–1828), traveller, son of Thomas Wathen of the Kellin, Herefordshire, by his wife, Dorothy Tayler of Bristol, was born at Hereford in 1750 or 1751, and carried on the business of glover in that city. After retiring from trade he employed his leisure in walking excursions in all parts of Great Britain and Ireland. In these expeditions he amused himself by making innumerable sketches of interesting objects and scenery, accomplishing sometimes as many as twenty a day. He was even able from memory to sketch accurately scenes that he had formerly visited. From 1787 onwards he was a frequent contributor to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ sending topographical descriptions illustrated by sketches. He was given the sobriquet of Jemmy Sketch. His contributions included accounts of Aconbury chapel, Killpeck church, Marden church, Burghope House, Longworth chapel, White Cross, Dore Abbey, and Putley Cross.
In 1811, being prevented by the war from travelling in Europe, he accompanied Captain James Prendergast in his ship the Hope on a voyage to India and China, in which he visited Madras, Penang, Canton, Macao, the Cape of Good Hope, and St. Helena. In 1814 he published an account of his travels, under the title ‘Journal of a Voyage to India and China’ (London, 1814, 2 vols. 4to), ​illustrated with twenty-four coloured prints from his own drawings. His narrative is lively, and his account of eastern life is minute and interesting. In 1816 he took advantage of the peace to visit the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, and other parts of the continent. In Italy he visited Byron, who received him cordially on account of his friendship with Edward Noel Long (Moore, Life of Byron, 1847, p. 32). In 1827 Wathen made an expedition to Heligoland. He died at Hereford on 20 Aug. 1828. His portrait was drawn by Archer James Oliver, and engraved by Thomas Bragg.
[Gent. Mag. 1814 ii. 248, 1815 ii. 106, 1828 ii. 281; Robinson's Mansions and Manors of Herefordshire, 1873, pp. 96, 186.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Watkins, Charles Frederick

​WATKINS, CHARLES FREDERICK (1793–1873), author, born in 1793, was son of William Watkins, rector of Portaynon, Glamorganshire, and was educated at Christ's Hospital. In 1810 he joined the Hotspur frigate as midshipman, but left the service at the peace. He entered Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1818, was ordained as a literate, and, after serving curacies at Downton (Wiltshire) and Windsor (1820), was appointed in 1822 master of Farley Hospital, Salisbury. He was interested in geology, and formed a collection of cretaceous fossils, some of which are in the British Museum. In April 1832 he became vicar of Brixworth, Northamptonshire, retaining that preferment till his death on 15 July 1873. While living there he communicated to the Royal Society an ‘Account of Aurora Borealis of 17 Nov. 1848’ (Proc. v. 809). He published, besides various prose pamphlets, the following single or collected poems: ‘Eidespernox,’ 1821; ‘Sacred Poems,’ 1829; ‘The Infants' Death,’ 1829; ‘The Human Hand,’ &c., 1852; ‘The Twins of Fame,’ 1854; ‘The Day of Days,’ 1872; also a ‘Vindication of the Mosaic History of Creation,’ 1867, and ‘The Basilica’ (on Brixworth church), 1867.
[Men of the Reign; Brit. Mus. Libr. Cat.; information from the Rev. A. K. Pavey, vicar of Brixworth.]
T. G. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Watson, Brook

​WATSON, Sir BROOK (1735–1807), first baronet, merchant and official, born at Plymouth on 7 Feb. 1735, was only son of John Watson of Kingston-upon-Hull, by his second wife, Sarah Schofield. He was left an orphan in 1741. He went to sea, and had his leg taken off by a shark at Havana when he was fourteen. He served as a commissary under Colonel Robert Monckton [q. v.] at the siege of Beauséjour in 1755, and under Wolfe at the siege of Louisbourg in 1758. In 1759 he settled in London as a merchant. He took a leading part in 1779 in the formation of the corps of light-horse volunteers which helped to suppress the riots in the following year. In 1782 he was appointed commissary-general to the army in Canada, under Sir Guy Carleton [q. v.], but returned to England when peace was made in 1783. A pension of 500l. per annum was granted to his wife. He was elected M.P. for the City of London on 6 April 1784, and held the seat till 1793. He was also chosen as a director of the Bank of England. In 1786 he became alderman of the Cordwainers' ward and sheriff. He was chair​man of the House of Commons' committee on the regency bill in 1788.
On 2 March 1793 he was appointed commissary-general to the Duke of York's army in Flanders, and resigned his seat in parliament. He served with the army till it returned to England in 1795. Many of his letters are to be found in the war office papers (original correspondence) in the public record office. Lord Liverpool spoke of him as ‘one of the most honourable men ever known’ (Wellington Despatches, Supplementary, ix. 428).
Watson was elected lord mayor of London in November 1796. His year of office was a troubled one. At a common hall on 12 April 1797 a resolution was brought forward ‘to investigate the real cause of the awful and alarming state of public affairs.’ He ruled this out of order, and closed a heated discussion by having the mace taken up. At another hall, on 11 May, he was censured, and a resolution was passed denouncing the ministry for having plunged the country into an unnecessary and unjust war; but he had many supporters.
On 24 March 1798 he was appointed commissary-general to the forces in Great Britain, and on 5 Dec. 1803 he was made a baronet, with remainder to his nephews. He died at East Sheen, Surrey, on 2 Oct. 1807, and was buried at Mortlake. He married, in 1760, Helen, daughter of Colin Campbell, a goldsmith of Edinburgh, but he had no children, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his great-nephew, William Kay.
E. M. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Synge, Charles

​SYNGE, CHARLES (1789–1854), lieutenant-colonel, born on 17 April 1789, was second son of George Synge of Rathmore, King’s County, by Mary, daughter of Charles McDonell of Newhall, co. Clare. He was commissioned as cornet in the 10th hussars on 11 May 1809, became lieutenant on 8 Feb. 1810, and captain on 12 Aug. 1813. He served on the staff of Generals Ferguson, (afterwards Sir Ronald) and Graham (afterwards Lord Lynedoch) at Cadiz in 1810. He then became aide-de-camp to General (afterwards Sir Denis) Pack [q. v.], and remained with him to the end of the war, being present at Busaco, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Pyrenees, Nive, Nivelle, Orthes, and Toulouse. He distinguished himself especially at Salamanca, where he was severely wounded in the attack of the Arapiles. He exchanged to the 20th light dragoons on 12 Nov. 1814, was made brevet major on 21 June 1817, and was placed on half-pay in 1818. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel on 9 Aug. 1821 . In the latter part of his life he lived at Mount Callan, co. Clare, and was J.P. for that county. He died in Dublin 21 Oct. 1854. He was married and left issue.
E. M. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sæwulf

​SÆWULF (fl. 1102), traveller, was apparently a native of Worcester, and an acquaintance of Wulfstan [q. v.], bishop of Worcester. William of Malmesbury, in his ‘History of the English Bishops,’ tells us of a certain Sæwulf, a merchant, who was often advised by Wulfstan, in confession, to embrace a monastic life, and in his old age, adds the historian, he became a monk in the abbey of Malmesbury. Probably it was the same penitent who went on pilgrimage to ​Syria in 1102, three years after the recovery of the holy city by the crusaders. In the narrative of this journey Sæwulf only describes his course from Monopoli, near Bari in Italy, whence he sailed to Palestine on 13 July 1102. He went by way of Corfu and Cephalonia, ‘where Robert Guiscard died,’ to Corinth and Rhodes, ‘which is said to have possessed the idol called Colossus, that was destroyed by the Persians [Saracens?] with nearly all Romania, while on their way to Spain. These were the Colossians to whom St. Paul wrote.’ From Rhodes he sailed to Cyprus and Joppa; thence he went up to Jerusalem, where he visited the sacred sites, also going to Bethlehem, Bethany, Jericho, the Jordan, and Hebron, in the neighbourhood. In the north of Palestine he describes Nazareth, Mount Tabor, the Sea of Galilee, and Mount Lebanon, ‘at the foot of which the Jordan boils out from two springs called Jor and Dan.’
On the feast of Pentecost (17 May) 1103 Sæwulf sailed from Joppa to Constantinople on his return. For fear of the Saracens he did not venture out into the open sea this time, but coasted along Syria to Tripolis and Latakiyeh (Laodicea), after which he crossed over to Cyprus and proceeded on his way to Byzantium. But after describing the voyage past Smyrna and Tenedos to the Dardanelles, the narrative breaks off abruptly. Sæwulf mentions Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, and Raymond, count of Toulouse, as living in his time; and adds that Tortosa was then in the latter's possession, and that Acre was still in the hands of the Saracens. Tortosa was captured by Count Raymond on 12 March 1102, Acre on 15 May 1104.
C. R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Symons, Jelinger Cookson

​SYMONS, JELINGER COOKSON (1809–1860), miscellaneous writer, was born at West Ilsley, Berkshire, on 27 Aug. 1809. His father, Jelinger Symons, born at Low Leyton, Essex, in 1778, became vicar of Monkland, Herefordshire, in 1838, and died in London on 20 May 1851. He was the author of ‘Synopsis Plantarum insulis Britannicis,’ 1798 (Gent. Mag. 1851, ii. 211–12). The son was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, whence he graduated B.A. in 1832. In 1835 he received a commission from the home office to inquire into the state of the hand-loom weavers and manufacturers. To carry out this inquiry he traversed Lancashire and Scotland and parts of Switzerland. He subsequently held a tithe commissionership, and was a commissioner to inquire into the state of the mining population of the north of England. On ​9 June 1843 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple. He went the Oxford circuit, and attended the Gloucester quarter sessions. During this period of his life he was editor of the ‘Law Magazine’ until its union with the ‘Law Review’ in 1856. In 1846 he was appointed a commissioner to collect information as to the state of education in Wales. Lord Lansdowne was so much impressed with his reports that on 11 Feb. 1848 he made him one of her majesty’s permanent inspectors of schools, an office he retained through life. In the establishment of reformatories for juvenile criminals he took great interest. He died at Malvern House, Great Malvern, on 7 April 1860, having married in 1845 Angelina, daughter of Edward Kendall, by whom he had Jelinger Edward, born in 1847, and other children.
His chief works are: 1. ‘A Few Thoughts on Volition and Agency,’ 1833. 2. ‘Arts and Artizans at Home and Abroad, with Sketches of the Progress of Foreign Manufactures,’ 1839. 3. ‘Outlines of Popular Economy,’ 1840. 4. ‘The Attorney and Solicitors Act,’ 6 & 7 Vict. cap. 73, with an analysis, notes, and index, 1843. 5. ‘Parish Settlements and the Practice of Appeal,’ 1844; 2nd edit. 1846. 6. ‘Railway Liabilities as they affect Subscribers, Committees, Allottees, and Scripholders, inter se, and Third Parties,’ 1846. 7. ‘A Plea for Schools, which sets forth the Dearth of Education and the Growth of Crime,’ 1847. 8. ‘Tactics for the Times, as regards the Condition and Treatment of the Dangerous Classes,’ 1849. 9. ‘School Economy,’ a practical treatise on the best mode of establishing and teaching schools, 1852. 10. ‘A Scheme of Direct Taxation,’ 1853. 11. ‘The Industrial Capacities of South Wales,’ 1855. 12.‘Lunar Motion, the whole Argument stated and illustrated by Diagrams,’ 1856. 13. ‘Sir Robert Peel as a Type of Statesmanship,’ 1856. 14. ‘Milford, Past, Present, and Future,’ 1857. 15. ‘William Burke, the author of “Junius,”’ 1859. 16. ‘Rough Types of English Life,’ 1860. With R. G. Welford and others he published ‘Reports of Cases in the Law of Real Property and Conveyancing argued and determined in all the Courts of Law and Equity,’ 1846.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Symons, Benjamin Parsons

​SYMONS, BENJAMIN PARSONS (1785–1878), warden of Wadham College, son of John Symons of Cheddar in Somerset, was born at Cheddar on 28 Jan. 1785. He matriculated from Wadham College on 2 Feb. 1802, was admitted a scholar on 25 Oct. 1803, graduated B.A. on 14 Oct. 1805 and M.A. on 7 July 1810, and was elected a probationer fellow on 30 June 1811. He was admitted a fellow on 2 July 1812, and graduated B.D. on 22 April 1819. He filled the office of bursar from 1814 to 1823, in which year he became sub-warden. On 23 Jan. 1831 he obtained the degree of D.D., and on 16 June of the same year he was elected warden. From 1844 to 1848 he was vice-chancellor of the university.
Symons was unaffected by the high-church movement at Oxford, and was in later life regarded as the leader of the evangelical party. To Wadham he proved an able head of the old-fashioned autocratic type. He resigned the wardenship on 18 Oct. 1871, but continued to reside in Oxford till his death on 12 April 1878. He was buried in the ante-chapel, and bequeathed 1,000l. to the college to found an exhibition. His portrait is in the college hall.
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Synge, William Webb Follett

​SYNGE, WILLIAM WEBB FOLLETT (1826–1891), diplomatist and author, the son of the Rev. Robert Synge, M.A. (d. 1862), by his first wife, Anne (d. 1844), daughter of William Follett, was born on 25 Aug. 1826. After being educated almost entirely abroad, he on 26 June 1846 entered the foreign office; from 15 Sept. 1851 to 1 July 1853 he was attached to the British legation at Washington. On his return to England he devoted his leisure to literary work, beginning by writing in a journal called ‘The Press.’ His contributions to ‘Punch’ began during the Crimean war. On 26 July 1856 he was appointed secretary to Sir William Gore Ouseley’s special mission to Central America, and during his absence on that mission obtained the rank of assistant clerk at the foreign office on 7 Dec. 1857. While with Ouseley in Central America in 1859 he met Anthony Trollope, who disapproved of his politics (see West Indies and Spanish Main, pp.275, 292–4). He returned to work in London on 28 Feb. 1860. He was appointed commissioner and consul-general for the Sandwich Islands on 27 Dec. 1861, and in that capacity stood proxy for the Prince of Wales at the christening of the prince of Hawaii. In 1865 he escorted Queen Emma of Hawaii to England. On 30 Oct. 1865 he became consul-general and commissary judge in Cuba; but here his health, already impaired, gave way, and he retired from the service on 31 Oct 1868.
Settling first at Guildford, and then in 1883 at Eastbourne, Synge gave himself up to literature. He wrote regularly for the ‘Standard.’ In 1875 he published his first novel; in 1883 he began to contribute to the ‘Saturday Review.’ He died at Eastbourne on 29 May 1891.
Synge married, on 27 Jan. 1853, Henrietta Mary, youngest daughter of Robert Dewar Wainwright, colonel in the United States ​army. He left four sons, one of whom is in the foreign office, and a daughter.
Synge was a friend of Thackeray, and knew many of the writers of his time, both in England and America. Besides his contributions both in prose and verse to periodicals, the more noticeable of which are the poems, ‘Sursum Corda’ (Punch, November 1854) and ‘A Patriot Queen’ (Blackwood’s Mag. 1878), he published:
* ‘Olivia Raleigh,’ London, 1875.
* ‘Tom Singleton, Dragoon and Dramatist,’ 3 vols. London, 1879.
* ‘Bumble Bee Bogo’s Budget’ (‘Rhymes for Children’), 1888.
[Private information; Allibone’s Dict. of English Lit.; Foreign Office List, 1890.]
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Richardson, John (1771-1841)

​RICHARDSON, Sir JOHN (1771–1841), judge, third son of Anthony Richardson, merchant, of London, was born in Copthall Court, Lothbury, on 3 March 1771. He was educated at Harrow and Oxford, where he matriculated from University College on 26 Jan. 1789, graduated B.A. in 1792, taking the same year the Latin verse prize (subject, ‘Mary Queen of Scots’), and proceeded M.A. in 1795. He was admitted in June 1793 a student at Lincoln's Inn, where, after practising for some years as a special pleader below the bar, he was called to it in June 1803. In early life he was closely associated with William Stevens, treasurer of Queen Anne's Bounty, by whom he was assisted with money while at college, and with whom he laboured for the repeal of the penal laws against the Scottish episcopal church. Richardson was an original member of the Nobody's Club, founded in his honour.
Richardson was counsel for Cobbett on his trial, 24 May 1804, for printing and publishing libels on the lord-lieutenant of Ireland and other officials, and also in the concurrent civil action of a similar nature brought against him by William Conyngham Plunket [q. v.] The author of the libel on the Irish officials was an Irish judge, Robert Johnson, on whose indictment at Westminster in June of the following year Richardson argued with much ingenuity an unsubstantial plea to the jurisdiction, viz. that, the union notwithstanding, the court of king's bench had no cognisance of offences done by Irishmen in Ireland. The plea being disallowed, Richardson appeared for Johnson in the trial which followed, and which ended in a nolle prosequi. About the same time he found congenial occupation in converting the defence of Henry Delahay Symonds on his trial for libelling Dr. John Thomas Troy [q. v.], Roman catholic archbishop of Dublin, into an attack upon the catholic religion. Not long afterwards he was chosen to fill the post of ‘devil’ to the attorney-general; and on 30 Nov. 1818 he succeeded Sir Robert Dallas [q. v.] as puisne judge of the court of common pleas, being at the same time made serjeant-at-law. On 3 June 1819 he was knighted by the prince regent at Carlton House. His tenure of office was brief, ill-health compelling his retirement in May 1824, when he had already given proof of high judicial capacity. Great part of his later life was passed at Malta, where he amused himself by editing ‘The Harlequin, or Anglo-Maltese Miscellany,’ and drafting a code of laws for the island. He died at his house in Bedford Square, London, on 19 March 1841. By his wife Harriet (d. 1839), Richardson had issue a son, John Joseph, who was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1832.
[Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Parke's Life of William Stevens, 1859, pp. 29, 115, 125, 175; Howell's State Trials, xxix. 2, 54, 394, 423; Gent. Mag. 1839 pt. i. p. 442, 1841 pt. ii. p. 94; London Gazette, 8 June 1819; Ann. Reg. 1818 Chron. p. 196, 1819 Chron. p. 113, 1841 App. to Chron. p. 191; Times, 20 March 1841; Foss's Lives of the Judges; Henderson's Recollections of John Adolphus, p. 220.]
J. M. R.