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

​BREE, ROBERT, M.D. (1759–1839), physician, was born at Solihull, Warwickshire, in 1759. He was educated at Coventry and at University College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 6 April 1775, and took his B.A. degree on 10 Nov. 1778, and, having studied medicine at Edinburgh, proceeded M.A. on 10 July 1781. He was admitted, 31 July 1781, an extra-licentiate of the College of Physicians; took his bachelor's degree in medicine on 4 July 1782, and that of M.D. on 12 July 1791. He had first settled at Northampton, and was appointed physician to the general infirmary in that town, which after a short stay he left for Leicester, to the infirmary of which he became physician. An obstinate attack of asthma caused in 1793 a temporary retirement from his profession. In 1794 he accepted the command of a company in a regiment of militia, and in 1796 settled at Birmingham, where he was appointed in March 1801 physician to the General Hospital. Bree published 'A Practical Inquiry into Disordered Respiration, distinguishing the Species of Convulsive Asthma, their Causes, and Indications of Cure,' 8vo, London, 1797. It reached a fifth edition in 1815, and was translated into several languages. 'In this work,' says Dr. Munk, the author 'embodied the numerous experiments in his own case, gave a more full and complete view of asthma and dyspnœa than had hitherto appeared, and laid down some important therapeutic rules, the practical value of which has been universally acknowledged.' Bree was consulted for asthma by the Duke of Sussex, by whose advice Bree removed in 1804 to Hanover Square, London. He was admitted a candidate of the Royal College of Physicians on 31 March 1806, and a fellow on 23 March of the following year. He was censor in the years 1810, 1819, and 1830, and on 2 July in the last-mentioned year was named an elect. In 1827 Bree was chosen Harveian lecturer, and published the lecture course he delivered.
Bree withdrew from practice in 1833, and, after suffering from renewed asthma, died in Park Square West, Regent's Park, on 6 Oct. 1839. He contributed two papers 'On the Use of Digitalis in Consumption' to the 'Medical and Physical Journal,' 1799. He was also the author of a paper 'On Painful Affections of the Side from Tumid Spleen,' read 1 Jan. 1811 before the Medical and Chirurgical Society, of which Bree, who had some years before been elected a fellow of the Royal Society, became a member of council and a vice-president in March following; and of a second paper on the same subject, read 26 May 1812, 'A Case of Splenitis, with further Remarks on that Disease.' These papers were afterwards published in the first and second volumes of the 'Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.' Bree was further the author of a small tract on 'Cholera Asphyxia,' 8vo, London, 1832.
[Introduction to the various editions of Bree's Practical Inquiry into Disordered Respiration; Watt's Bibl. Brit. 1824; Gent. Mag. November 1839; Catalogue of Oxford Graduates, 1851; Munk's College of Physicians, 1878.]
A. H. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bremner, James

​BREMNER, JAMES (1784–1856), engineer and ship-raiser, was born at Keiss, parish of Wick, county of Caithness, on 25 Sept. 1784, being the son of a soldier. He received such education at Keiss as his mother's means could afford until 1798, when he was apprenticed to Robert Steele & Sons, shipbuilders of Greenock, whose establishment afforded every opportunity for both theoretical and practical instruction. He remained at Messrs. Steele's for about six years and a half. At the age of twenty-five, after having made two voyages to North America, he settled at Pulteney Town in his native parish, where he eventually occupied the shipbuilding yard for nearly half a century. During that time he built fifty-six vessels, from a ship of 510 tons to a small sloop of 45 tons. He was also engaged in designing and constructing harbours and piers on the northern coast of Scotland. His works of this kind included the reconstruction of the old harbour of Pulteney Town, the construction of Keiss harbour (1818), the reconstruction of Sarclet harbour near the bay of Wick (1835-6), the construction of Lossiemouth harbour, and the harbour of Pitullie, near Fraserburgh, besides surveying and preparing working plans for many other ports in Scotland.
Bremner evinced great ingenuity in the raising and recovering of wrecked vessels; and in the wide circuit between Aberdeenshire and the isle of Skye, comprehending the islands of Orkney, Shetland, and Lewis, and the critical navigation of the Pentland Firth, he raised no less than 236 vessels. With one of his sons he was employed in assisting to take the Great Britain off the strand at Dundrum Bay in August and September 1847. Bremner was elected a corresponding member of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 12 Feb. 1833, and received a Telford medal in 1844 for his papers on 'Pulteney Town Harbour,' 'Sarclet Harbour,' 'A New Piling Engine,' and 'An Apparatus for Floating Large Stones for Harbour Works,' For the last twelve years of his life he acted as agent at Wick for the Aberdeen, Leith, and Clyde Shipping Company. He died suddenly at Harbour Place, Pulteney Town, on 20 Aug. 1856. Bremner was the author of a tract, entitled 'Treatise on the Planning and Constructing of Harbours in Deep Water, on Submarine Pile Driving, the Preservation of Ships Stranded and Raising of those Sunk at Sea, on Principles of lately patented Inventions,' 1845, 8vo.
Of his numerous family the sons were all brought up as engineers; one of them, David Bremner, engineer for the Clyde trustees, died in 1852.
[Minutes of Proceedings of Institution of Civil Engineers (1857), xvi. 113-20.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hussey, William

​HUSSEY or HUSE, Sir WILLIAM (d. 1495), chief justice, was probably a son of the Sir Henry Huse who received a grant of free warren in the manor of Herting in Sussex in the eighth year of Henry VI. Campbell, however, describes him as belonging to a Lincolnshire family of small means. He was a member of Gray's Inn, and on 16 June 1471 was appointed attorney-general, with full power of deputing clerks and officers under him in courts of record. As attorney-general he conducted the impeachment of the Duke of Clarence for treason. In Trinity term of 1478 he attained the degree of serjeant-at-law, and on 7 May 1481 was appointed chief justice of the king's bench, in succession to Sir Thomas Billing, at a salary of 140 marks a year. This appointment was renewed at the accession of each of the next three kings, and under Henry VII he was also a commissioner to decide the claims made to fill various offices at the coronation (Rutland Papers, p.8).
In the first year of this reign he successfully protested against the king's practice of consulting the judges beforehand upon crown cases which they were subsequently to try (Year-book, 1 Hen. VII, p. 26). In June 1492 he was a commissioner to treat with the ambassadors of the king of France. He seems to have died late of 1495, as on 24 Nov. of that year Sir John Fineux [q. v.] succeeded him as chief justice. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Berkeley of Wymondham, and had two sons, John, lord Hussey of Sleaford [q. v.] and Robert, from whom descend the Husseys family of Honnington, Leicestershire.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 309; Burke's Extinct Baronetage, p.275; Rymer's Fœdera, xii. 481; Coke's Institutes, iii. 29; Cal. Rot. Pat. pp. 39, 276, 316, 326; Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hustler, John

​HUSTLER, JOHN (1715–1790), philanthropist, was a native of Bradford, Yorkshire, where his family had been resident and engaged in the wool trade since the early years of the seventeenth century. His parents were members of the Society of Friends, and he appears to have been educated at the Friends' School at Bradford. He became a wool-stapler, and was an active worker and minister among the Friends. He deeply interested himself in the development of Bradford, promoting the building of a markethouse, shambles, and other conveniences, and projecting in 1782 a new street, connecting ​Ivegate and Kirkgate, since completed and called New Street. The action, however, of the lord of the manor, John Marsden of Hornby Castle, Lancashire, or, according to James's 'History of Bradford' (continuation), p.91, the interference of Mr. Leeds of Royd's Hall, lord of the manor of North Brierly, in 1782 postponed for a time the execution of these projects. Hustler was also instrumental in causing the erection of the woollen hall, which was opened in 1773, and gave a lasting impetus to the woollen trade of Bradford and the adjacent district, and he successfully projected the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which, uniting the German Ocean and the Irish Sea, was opened 4 June 1777. A projected extension of the canal subsequently occupied his attention, and while in precarious health he visited London in 1790 for the purpose of promoting the passing of the bill with that object. He died at Undercliff, near Bradford, on 6 Nov. 1790, and was buried at the Friends' burial-ground at Bradford. Hustler took little part in politics, although in 1745 he actively supported the House of Hanover. He wrote a pamphlet, discussing the policy of the corn bounty, entitled 'The Occasion of the Dearness of Provisions,' &c., 1767, an impartial consideration of the reasons for and against the imposition of a corn bounty; several tracts in favour of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal scheme; and in 1782 and 1787 valuable pamphlets against the exportation of wool, which resulted in a bill for that object being presented to parliament in the latter year.
[Gent. Mag. 1790, p. 1055; Crosfield's Memoirs of Samuel Fothergill, 1843, p. 500; James's Hist. of Bradford (continuation), pp. 90, 91, 99; Smith's Cat. of Friends' Books, i. 1024, 1025.]
G. S. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hussey, Bonaventura

​HUSSEY, BONAVENTURA (fl. 1618), Irish Franciscan, [See O'Hussey.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hussey, Walter

​HUSSEY, WALTER (1742–1783), Irish statesman. [See Burgh.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hussey, Philip

​HUSSEY, PHILIP (d. 1782), portrait-painter, born at Cork, began life as a sailor, and was shipwrecked no less than five times. He drew the figure-heads and stern ornaments of vessels, and eventually set up in Dublin as a portrait-painter, painting full-length portraits with some success. He was a good musician, and was skilled as a botanist and florist. His house was the rendezvous of many leading men of art and letters in Dublin. He died at an advanced age in 1782 at his house in Earl Street, Dublin.
[Pasquin's Artists of Ireland; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hussey, Richard

​HUSSEY, RICHARD (1715?–1770), politician, born probably in 1715, though Polwhele (Reminiscences, ii. 135) fixes the date two years earlier, was the son of John Hussey, town clerk (1722-37) of Truro, Cornwall, by his wife Miss Gregor. On 17 Oct. 1730 he matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, but did not graduate; and in 1742 was called to the bar at the Middle Temple (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1715-1886, ii. 720). He represented St. Mawes, Cornwall, in the parliament of 1761-8, and East Looe in the same county in that of 1768, retaining his seat until his death. After the accession of George III he received a silk gown (Foss, Lives of the Judges, viii. 222), and was appointed attorney-general to the queen. He was also auditor of Greenwich Hospital, counsel to the admiralty and navy, and counsel to the East India Company. In 1768 he was chosen auditor of the duchy of Cornwall (Royal Kalendar, 1769, p.88). As a politician Hussey won the respect of both parties by his integrity, fairness, and courtesy. Chatham thought highly of him (Stanhope, Hist. of England, v. Append, p. x). Lord Camden was his friend. Horace Walpole is never tired of eulogising his blameless life and talents as a debater. In the debates on Wilkes's complaint of breach of privilege he took a prominent part, especially in the debate on 24 Nov. 1763, when, says Walpole (Letters, ed. Cunningham, iv. 136), he 'was against the court, and spoke with great spirit and true whig spirit.' In the debate on the Stamp Act on 21 Feb. 1766 he advocated its repeal as an innovation upon what the colonies considered their usages and customs (Correspondence of Lord Chatham, ii. 394). However, in the debate arising out of the Massachusetts Bay petition on 26 Jan. 1769, he expressed himself strongly in favour of laying an internal tax upon America as the only practical way of forcing that country to own the supreme power of Great Britain (Cavendish, Debates, i.197-8). On the defeat of the ministry in January 1770 Hussey resigned the attorney-generalship to the queen (Walpole, Letters, v. 220). He died at Truro in the following September (Gent. Mag. 1770, 441).
[Correspondence of Lord Chatham, iii. Ill; Walpole's Last Ten Years of George II, 1832, i.375; Walpole's Memoirs of George III, 1845, i.326, 370-3, 377, ii. 60-1, 272, 279-80, 301, 379, iii. 161, 203, 208 n., 315, iv. 49-50; Walpole's Letters, ed. Cunningham, iii. 453, iv. 136, v. 220; Cavendish's Debates, i. 197-8, 246-7, 403; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. i. 260-1.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lens, John

​LENS, JOHN (1756–1825), serjeant-at-law, son of John Lens, a well-known land agent in Norwich, was born there on 2 Jan. 1756. He was educated first at a school in Norwich, and then by the Rev. John Peele. In 1775 he matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1779, when he was fourth wrangler and chancellor's medallist, and M.A. in 1782. After leaving Cambridge he entered at Lincoln's Inn, whence he was called to the bar in 1781. He at first joined the Norfolk circuit, but soon transferred himself to the western circuit, which he led for many years. On 12 June 1799 he became a serjeant-at-law, and in 1806 king's serjeant. His practice was extensive, and his position at the bar eminent. He was named a lay fellow of Downing College in its charter in 1800, was treasurer of Serjeants' Inn in 1806, succeeded Spencer Perceval in 1807 as counsel to the university of Cambridge, and was engaged in numerous celebrated cases, of which the chief were the action of Charles Perkin Wyatt, surveyor-general of crown lands in Canada, against General Gore, governor of Upper Canada, for libel, in 1816, and the Cranborne Chase boundaries case in the same year (see Nichols, Literary Illustrations, vi. 223). He sat as commissioner of assize at Guildford and Maidstone in 1818. He had been a friend and adherent of Fox, was a whig by conviction (see Moore, Memoirs, iv. 128), and might, had he chosen, have represented the university of Cambridge in parliament. But he was as indifferent to honours as he was completely disinterested. In December 1813, on the appointment of Sir Robert Dallas to the bench of the common pleas, he declined the solicitor-generalship (see Romilly, Memoirs, iii. 124), although it was pressed upon him by the prime minister at the request of the prince regent, his personal friend. His independence at length became proverbial, and the toast ‘Serjeant Lens and the independence of the bar’ was given at public dinners. In 1817 he retired from his circuit, at the height of his powers, in order to make way for younger men, but continued to practise in London, acting also as commissioner of assize on the home circuit in 1818 (see Campbell, Chief Justices, iii. 225, 289). He refused the chief justiceship of Chester, and Lord Ellenborough strongly recommended him as his own successor in the office of lord chief-justice. He died at Ryde in the Isle of Wight on 6 Aug. 1825. He had married in 1818 Mrs. Nares, widow of John Nares, esq., son of Sir George Nares, a judge of the common pleas. His wife predeceased him on 15 June 1820. A portrait of Lens was at Serjeants' Inn.
[Woolrych's Eminent Serjeants; Annual Biography, 1826; Gent. Mag. 1825; Bain's Catalogue of Portraits in Serjeants' Inn; Law Review, iii. 294; Criticisms on the Bar, by Amicus Curiæ, 1819; Scarlett's Life of Lord Abinger.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lennox, Malcolm

​LENNOX, MALCOLM, fifth Earl of Lennox (1255?–1333), son of Malcolm, fourth earl, was born about 1255. In 1292 he succeeded to the earldom, and in that year he was one of the supporters of Robert Bruce (1210–1295) [q. v.] in his competition with Baliol. In 1296 he joined the army invading Cumberland, but swore fealty to Edward I on 7 July. On 24 May 1297 he was one of the nobles to whom letters were addressed by the king of England inviting him to join an English expedition to Flanders, but he seems to have remained in Scotland (cf. Rotuli Scotiæ, i. 50). In 1306 he was, like Gilbert de Haya [q. v.], a great supporter of Bruce, who exchanged half the lands of Leckie with him for an estate at Cardross. He received other charters, and in 1310 he was appointed hereditary sheriff of Clackmannanshire. He appears as a benefactor to the Cluniac abbey of Paisley in 1318. In 1320 he signed the letter to Pope John XXII asserting the ecclesiastical independence of Scotland. By the king's command in 1329 Lennox was excused from paying the tenth penny, and a present of ​wheat was made to his wife. Lennox died fighting bravely at the battle of Halidon Hill on 19 July 1333. His wife's name seems to have been Margaret, and by her he had two sons: Donald, who succeeded as sixth earl of Lennox, and Murdoch.
[Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, ed. Wood, ii. 80; Stephenson's Doc. illustr. of the Hist. of Scotland, ii. 66, 168; Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, i. cxxix, cxliv, 129, 132, 257; Fordun's Scotichronicon, ed. Hearne, p. 1000; Gordon's Eccles. Chron. of Scotland, Monasticon, p. 568.]
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lennox, George Henry

​LENNOX, GEORGE HENRY (1737–1805), general, eighth child of Charles Lennox, second duke of Richmond [q. v.], was born in London on 29 Nov. 1737. He became ensign in the 2nd foot-guards on 15 Feb. 1754. He was appointed aide-de-camp to the Duke of Cumberland, made a campaign in Germany in 1757, and took part in the expedition to the French coast in 1758. On 8 May 1758 he was appointed lieutenant-colonel in the 33rd foot, in succession to his elder brother, Charles. In 1760 and 1761 he served in Germany, and on 20 Feb. 1762 was made aide-de-camp to the king with the rank of colonel. On 22 Dec. 1762 he was attached to the 25th foot. In 1763 he was brigadier to the forces in Portugal. Proceeding with his regiment to Minorca he had a quarrel with the governor, General Mostyn, about the quality of the wine served to the men. However, Mostyn afterwards threw one Fabrigas, a wine merchant, into prison, and thus arose the celebrated leading case of Fabrigas v. Mostyn, tried in 1773, in which Fabrigas recovered 10,000l. damages. In 1765 Lennox accompanied his brother Charles to the court of France as secretary of legation, and was left chargé d'affaires in his absence. He became major-general on 25 May 1772, constable of the Tower of London in 1783, a privy councillor on 9 Feb. 1784, and full general on 25 Oct. 1793. He was afterwards made governor of Plymouth, and died at Stoke, near Plymouth, on 22 March 1805. He married in 1758 Louisa, daughter of William Henry, fourth marquis of Lothian, and by her left Charles [q. v.] (who on the death of Charles, third duke, in 1806, succeeded as fourth duke of Richmond, and is noticed separately) and three daughters, the second of whom, Emilia Charlotte, married in 1784 the Hon. Sir George Cranfield Berkeley [q. v.]
[Burke's Peerage; Collins's Peerage (Brydges), i. 186; Gent. Mag. 1805, i. 294, 580; Report of Fabrigas v. Mostyn, 1773.]
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Houston, William (1695?-1733)

​HOUSTON or HOUSTOUN, WILLIAM, M.D. (1695?–1733), botanist, seems to have been born in Scotland about 1695, and at an early age to have visited the West Indies as a surgeon, returning about 1727. On 6 Oct. in that year he entered the university of Leyden (Index of Leyden Students, p. 52), where he studied medicine for two years under Boerhaave, graduating M.D. apparently in 1729. At Leyden he performed, in conjunction with Van Swisten, the ​ experiments on animal respiration described in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' vol. xxxix., under the title 'Experimenta de Perforatione Thoracia, ejusque in Respiratione Effectibus.' He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society soon after his return from Holland to England, and seems to have gone immediately to the West Indies. It was probably on this occasion that he entered into the agreement, preserved in the Sloane MS. 4064, p.119, 'for improving botany and agriculture in Georgia' for 200l. a year for three years; the Early of Derby, Lord Petre, the Duke of Richmond, Sloane, the Apothecaries' Company, Charles Dubois, and John Oglethopre subscribed towards the expenses. He collected in Jamaica, Cuba, Venezuela, and Vera Cruz, sending home seeds and plants to Philip Miller [q. v.] at Chelsea. Among these plants was Dorstenia Contrayerva, a reputed cure for snake-bite, described in vol. xxxvii. of the 'Philosophical Transactions.' Houston died from the heat at Jamaïca 14 Aug. 1733. He left a manuscript catalogue of the plants he had collected, with engravings on copper by himself. This manuscript, as well as his specimens, now in the botanical department of the British Museum, came after Philip Miller's death into the hands of Sir Joseph Banks [q.v.], by whom the catalogue was published in 1781 as 'Reliquiae Houstonianae' with the copper-plates. This genus of Cinchonaceae, Houstonia, dedicated to his memory by Gronovius, was retained by Linnaeus, but is now merged in Hedyotis.
G. S. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Houghton, Robert

​HOUGHTON, Sir ROBERT (1548–1624), judge, son of John Houghton of Gunthorpe, Norfolk, was born at Gunthorpe on 3 Aug. 1548, entered Lincoln's Inn on 11 March 1569, where he was called to the bar on 10 Feb. 1577, was Lent reader in 1591 and 1600, and one of the governors from 1588 to 1603. He was returned to parliament in 1592–3 for Norwich, of which city he was elected recorder in 1595. On 17 May 1603 he was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law. In 1612 he resigned the ​recordership of Norwich, and on 21 April 1613 he was appointed to a puisne judgeship in the king's bench and knighted. When required in January 1614-15 to give a separate extra-judicial opinion for the guidance of the crown in the case of the puritan Peacham [q. v.], he at first demurred on the ground of his inexperience of business of that nature, but being, as Bacon said, 'a soft man,' ultimately consented; he also acted with the majority of the judges in the celebrated commendam case in 1616 [see Coke, Sir Edward, 1552–1634]. Houghton died in February 1623–4 at his chambers in Serjeants' Inn, and was buried on the 6th in the church of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, where his widow, Mary, daughter of Robert Rychers of Wrotham, Kent, caused a splendid monument to be erected to his memory. He is described by Croke as 'a most reverend, prudent, learned, and temperate judge and inferior to none in his time' (Croke, Rep. James I, p. 685). Several manors which he held in Norfolk descended to his heir, Francis, and remained long in his posterity. His sister Cecilia married Richard Thurlow of Burnham Ulph, Norfolk, a lineal ancestor of Lord Thurlow.
[Blomefield's Norfolk, ed. 1805, iii. 359, 370, v. 272., xi. 113; Dugdale's Orig, 254, 261–2; Nichols's Progr. James I, i. 157, ii. 627; Burke's Peerage, 'Thurlow;' Foss's Lives of the Judges.]
J. M. R.