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

​WILLOUGHBY, RICHARD de (d. 1362), judge, was the son of a Richard de Willoughby who acted as justice in eyre ​under Edward II, and purchased the manors of Wollaton in Nottinghamshire and Risley in Derbyshire. The original name of the family was Bugge. They took the name of Willoughby from their lordship of that name in Nottinghamshire. In 1324 the younger Richard was substituted for his father as knight of the shire for that county, and was about the same time appointed chief justice of the common pleas in Ireland (Parl. Writs, i. 306, 312, 314; Cal. Rot. Pat. pp. 78, 94, 97). He is mentioned as one of the justices appointed for the trial of the persons who had spoiled Henry le Despenser's lands in 1322 (Parl. Writs, ii. 189). On the accession of Edward III he was removed from his office and appears in the year-book of the first year of that reign as an advocate. On 6 March 1328 he was made a justice of the common pleas, and on 2 Sept. 1329 became second justice. On 15 Dec. 1330 he was removed into the court of king's bench; and when Geoffrey le Scrope [q. v.], the chief justice, went abroad with the king, Willoughby occupied the chief seat during his absence, at different times from 1332, till Geoffrey le Scrope ultimately resigned in the middle of 1338. From this time he presided in the court until he was displaced on 24 July 1340 (Foss).
In 1331 he was captured journeying towards Grantham by a certain Richard de Folville, and compelled to pay a ransom of ninety marks (Knighton, i. 460). In November 1340 he was arrested by order of the king, and imprisoned in Corfe Castle (French Chronicle of London, p. 84). He was tried on several charges at Westminster on 13 Jan. (ib. p. 87). But he was restored to office as one of the justices of the common pleas on 9 Oct. following, and continued to hold the office of judge till 1357, but probably retired in that year (Dugdale, Origines Juridiciales, p. 45). He died in 1362. His extensive estates were situated in the counties of Nottingham, Derby, and Lincoln, but he also had a house in London in ‘le Baly’ (Cal. Inq. post mortem, ii. 256). He married, first, Isabel, daughter of Sir Roger Mortein; secondly, Joanna; and thirdly, Isabella, and had several children. Later members of the family were Sir Hugh Willoughby [q. v.], Sir Nesbit Josiah Willoughby [q. v.], and Francis Willughby, the naturalist [q. v.]
W. E. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Willison, George

​WILLISON, GEORGE (1741–1797), portrait-painter, born in 1741, was a son of David Willison, an Edinburgh printer and publisher, and a grandson of John Willison [q. v.] In 1756 he was awarded a prize for a drawing of flowers by the Edinburgh Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and Sciences, and in the two following years his name again figures in the prize-list. After this his uncle, George Dempster [q. v.] of Dunnichen, sent him to Rome to continue his studies, and on his return he settled in London, where, between 1767 and 1777, he exhibited some six-and-twenty portraits at the Royal Academy. But meeting with little encouragement, he went to India and painted many portraits, including those of some native princes, one of which (that of the nabob of Arcot) is now at Hampton Court. He possessed a certain knowledge of medicine, and cured a wealthy person of a dangerous wound of long standing, in gratitude for which he had some time afterwards a considerable fortune bequeathed to him. Then he returned to Edinburgh, where he continued to paint, and where he died in April 1797. His pictures are pleasant in colour and rather graceful in arrangement, his characterisation fair, his handling easy if somewhat thin. A number of his portraits were engraved by Valentine Green and James Watson.
A medallion portrait of Willison (dated 1792) by Guillame is in the Scottish Portrait Gallery.
J. L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Willmore, James Tibbitts

​WILLMORE, JAMES TIBBITTS (1800–1863), line engraver, was born in 1800 at Erdington, near Handsworth, where his father, James Willmore, was a manufacturer of silver articles. He was apprenticed at Birmingham to William Radclyffe [q. v.], and, marrying at the age of twenty-two, came to London, where he worked for three years as assistant to Charles Heath (1785–1818) [q. v.] The earliest important works on which he was engaged were Turner's ‘England and Wales,’ 1827–38, and Brockedon's ‘Passes of the Alps,’ 1828–9; and his first large plate was executed from Eastlake's picture of ‘Byron's Dream,’ 1834. Willmore was extremely successful in translating the work of Turner, who greatly appreciated his abilities, and his plates from that artist's ‘Mercury and Argus,’ ‘Ancient Italy,’ ‘The Golden Bough,’ ‘Oberwesel,’ ‘The Old Temeraire,’ ‘Venice’ (engraved for the Art Union, 1858), and ‘Childe Harold's Pilgrimage’ (Art Union, 1861), are among the finest examples of modern landscape work. Some of these he re-engraved on a ​smaller scale for the ‘Art Journal.’ The ‘Mercury and Argus’ was a joint speculation on the part of Turner and Willmore. His other large works include ‘Ruins of Carthage,’ after W. Linton (for Finden's ‘Gallery of British Art’); ‘Crossing the Bridge,’ after E. Landseer, 1847; ‘Highland Ferry,’ after J. Thompson, 1848; ‘Villa of Lucullus,’ after Leitch (Art Union, 1851); ‘Wind against Tide,’ after C. Stanfield; ‘Harvest in the Highlands,’ after Landseer and Callcott (Art Union, 1856); and ‘Nearest Way in Summer Time,’ after Creswick and Ansdell, 1860. Willmore's small book illustrations are also very numerous and beautiful. In 1843 he exhibited at the Royal Academy a proof of his ‘Ancient Italy,’ and was then elected an associate engraver. Throughout his life he was one of the most active members of the Artists’ Annuity and Benevolent funds. Willmore died on 12 March 1863, and was buried in the Highgate cemetery.
Arthur Willmore (1814–1888), born at Birmingham on 6 June 1814, was a brother of James Tibbitts Willmore, by whom he was trained. He became an able line engraver, excelling chiefly in landscape work. He was extensively employed on book illustrations, and also executed many plates for the ‘Art Journal’ from pictures by Collins, Cooke, Creswick, Rubens, Stanfield, Turner, Van Dyck, and others. His most important work was ‘The Return of the Lifeboat,’ after E. Duncan, engraved for the Art Union, 1878. Willmore frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1858 and 1885. He died on 3 Nov. 1888.
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Riddell, Charlotte Eliza Lawson

​RIDDELL, Mrs. CHARLOTTE ELIZA LAWSON, known as Mrs. J. H. Riddell (1832–1906), novelist, born on 30 Sept. 1832 at the Barn, Carrickfergus, co. Antrim, was the youngest daughter of James Cowan of Carrickfergus, by his wife Ellen Kilshaw. After her father's death Charlotte lived with her mother at Dundonald, co. Down, the scene of her novel 'Bema Boyle' (1884) and then came to London. Her mother died in 1856, and in 1857 Miss Cowan married J. H. Riddell, a civil engineer, of Winson Green House, Staffordshire. Her husband soon lost his money, and Mrs. Riddell began to write for a livelihood.
Her first novel, 'The Moors and the Fens,' appeared in 1858 (3 vols.; 2nd edit. 1866). She issued it under the pseudonym of F. G. Trafford, which she only abandoned for her own name in 1864. Novels and tales followed in quick succession, and between 1858 and 1902 she issued thirty volumes. The most notable is perhaps 'George Geith of Fen Court, by F. G. Trafford' (1864; other editions 1865, 1886), for which Tinsley paid her 800l. It was dramatised in 1883 by Wybert Reeve, was produced at Scarborough, and was afterwards played in Australia. From 1867 Mrs. Riddell was co-proprietor and editor of the 'St. James's Magazine,' which had been started in 1861 under Mrs. S. C. Hall [q. v.]. She also edited a magazine called 'Home' in the sixties, and wrote short tales for the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and Routledge's Christmas annuals. Her short stories were less successful than her novels.
Her husband died in 1880. Despite harass and misfortune her twenty-three years of married Life were happy. After 1886 she lived in seclusion at Upper Halliford, Middlesex. She was the first pensioner of the Society of Authors, receiving a pension of 60l. a year in May 1901. She died at Hounslow on 24 Sept. 1906. There were no children of the marriage.
Mrs. Riddell, by making commerce the theme of many of her novels, introduced a ​new element into English fiction, although Balzac had naturalised it in the French novel. She was intimately acquainted with the topography of the City of London, where the scenes of her novels were often laid. At the same time she possessed a rare power of describing places of which she had no first-hand knowledge. When she wrote 'The Moors and the Fens' she had never seen the district.
[The Times, 26 Sept. 1906; Helen C. Black, Notable Women Authors of the Day, 1893; W. Tinsley, Random Recollections of an Old Publisher, 1900, i. 93-6; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Reid, John Watt

​REID, Sir JOHN WATT (1823–1909), medical director-general of the navy, born in Edinburgh on 25 February 1823, was younger son of John Watt Reid, surgeon in the navy by his wife Jane, daughter of James Henderson, an Edinburgh merchant. Educated at Edinburgh Academy, at the university there, and at the extra-mural medical school, he qualified L.R.C.S. Edinburgh in 1844. He entered the navy ​as an assistant surgeon on 6 Feb. 1845, and after serving a commission on board the Rodney in the Channel was appointed in March 1849 to the naval hospital, Plymouth, and received the approval of the Admiralty for his services there during the cholera epidemic of that year. In Jan. 1852 he was appointed as acting surgeon to the Inflexible, sloop, in the Mediterranean; on 12 Sept. 1854 he was promoted to surgeon, and in June 1855 appointed to the London, line-of-battle ship, on the same station. In these two ships he served in the Black Sea until the fall of Sevastopol, and received the Crimean and Turkish medals with the Sevastopol clasp, and was also thanked by the commander-in-chief [see Dundas, Sir James Whitley Deans] for his services to the crew of the flagship when stricken with cholera in 1854. In 1856 he took the degree of M.D. at Aberdeen; and, after serving for a short time in the flagship at Devonport, was appointed in April 1857 to the Belleisle, hospital ship, on board which he continued during the China war of 1857–9, for which he received the medal. In Jan. 1860 he was appointed to the Nile, of 90 guns, and served in her for four years on the North American station, after which he went to Haslar hospital until promoted to staff surgeon on 6 Sept. 1866. After a year's further service in the Mediterranean, he was in June 1870 placed in charge of the naval hospital at Haulbowline, where he remained till 1873. During the concluding months of the Ashanti war (see Hewett, Sir William] he served on board the Nebraska, hospital ship, at Cape Coast Castle, for which he was mentioned in despatches, received the medal and, on 31 March 1874, was promoted to deputy inspector-general. In that rank he had charge of the medical establishments at Bermuda from 1875 to 1878, when he was appointed to Haslar hospital. On 25 Feb. 1880 he was promoted to be inspector-general and was appointed medical director-general of the navy. This post he held till his retirement eight years later, when the board of admiralty recorded their high opinion of his zeal and efficiency. He became an honorary physician to Queen Victoria in Feb. 1881 and to King Edward VII in 1901, was awarded the K.C.B. (military) on 24 Nov. 1882, and had the honorary degree of LL.D. conferred upon him by Edinburgh University at its tercentenary in 1884. A medical good service pension was awarded him in July 1888.
Reid died in London on 24 Feb. 1909, and was buried at Bramshaw, Hampshire. He married, on 6 July 1863, Georgina, daughter of C. J. Hill of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
[The Times, 26 Feb. 1909; Men and Women of the Time, 1899; R.N. List.]
L. G. C. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Cottesloe, Baron

​COTTESLOE, BARON. [See Fremantle, Thomas Francis, 1798–1890.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Cowden-Clarke, Mary

​COWDEN-CLARKE, Mrs. MARY (1809–1898), writer on Shakespeare. [See Clarke.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Warre-Cornish, Francis Warre

​WARRE - CORNISH, FRANCIS WARRE (1839–1916), teacher, author, and bibliophile, the second son of the Rev. Hubert Kestell Cornish, vicar of Bakewell and formerly fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, by his wife, Louisa, daughter of the Rev. Francis Warre, D.C.L., rector of Cheddon Fitzpaine, was born at Bakewell 8 May 1839. He adopted the surname Warre-Cornish in 1892. He went to Eton as a colleger, was Newcastle scholar in 1857, and passed in the same year to King's College, Cambridge. After being third classic in 1861, he returned to Eton as an assistant master in the same year. He was appointed vice-provost and librarian in 1893, resigned in April 1916, and died at Englefield Green, Windsor, on 28 August in that year. He married in 1866 Blanche, daughter of the Hon. William Ritchie, legal member of the council of the governor-general of India, and had eight children. His wife, sister of Sir Richmond Thackeray Ritchie [q.v.], wrote two successful novels and was a brilliant conversationalist.
Warre-Cornish was a singularly attractive man. Small and frail, with a gentle voice and quiet manners, he was not the typical schoolmaster. He was no martinet and was not methodical. But boys who wished to learn were inspired by his fine scholarship and his literary and historical knowledge. As a house-master, he was inclined to leave his boys to govern themselves; but their attachment to him was shown by a strong esprit de corps. When he received the charge of the manifold treasures of the college library he did most valuable work in discovering and adding to them. He had a wide knowledge of books and bindings and had made a special study of Aldines. He was a good musician. As an author he was versatile. Industrious in research, he wrote clearly and with distinction, and had a power of vivid portraiture. His chief work is a useful History of the English Church in the Nineteenth Century (1910). He also wrote a History of Chivalry (1901), a Life of Oliver Cromwell (1882), Jane Austen in the ‘English Men of Letters’ series (1913), and a translation of Catullus (1904), besides minor books and reviews. Sunningwell (1899) and Dr. Ashford and his Neighbours (1914) are in a different vein. They are graceful fictions, with little plot, embodying a slightly ironical view of life, expressed with a peculiar charm and sympathy. These indeed were the qualities which endeared him to his friends. He was never pontifical, and in his power of epigrammatic speech he did not spare himself. He was interested in almost everything, and there were few whom he did not fascinate. To those who knew him well he remains a model of mitis sapientia.
[Private information; personal knowledge.]
H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Waterlow, Ernest Albert

​WATERLOW, Sir ERNEST ALBERT (1850–1919), painter, born in London 24 May 1850, was the only son of Albert Crakell Waterlow, lithographer, of London, by his wife, Maria, daughter of James Corss. Sir Sydney Hedley Waterlow [q.v.], lord-mayor of London in 1872–1873, was his uncle. After education at Eltham collegiate school and Heidelberg, Ernest Waterlow began his art studies at Ouchy, near Lausanne, and subsequently (1867) continued them at the school of art in London kept by Francis Stephen Cary [q.v.]. In 1872 he entered the Royal Academy Schools, where, in the next year, he gained the Turner gold medal for landscape-painting with his picture ‘A Land Storm’. A constant exhibitor at Burlington House from 1872 onwards, Waterlow was also a frequent contributor to the exhibitions of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, of which he was elected associate in 1880, member in 1894, and president in 1897, holding that office until 1914. He was also a member of the ‘Society of Six’, an association of landscape painters, which in 1896 held its first exhibition at the Old Dudley Gallery. He was elected A.R.A. in 1890 and R.A. in 1903; his diploma ​piece, painted in the latter year, was called ‘The Banks of the Loing’. In 1887 his picture ‘Galway Gossips’ was purchased by the trustees of the Chantrey fund, and now hangs in the National Gallery of British Art at Millbank (Tate Gallery). He was knighted in 1902.
The bulk of Waterlow's production, whether in oil or water-colour, consists of landscapes, with or without figures; he displays in them the characteristics of an essentially facile art, of considerable popular appeal, but without aesthetic qualities of a more profound or lasting interest.
Waterlow was twice married: first, in 1876 to Mary Margaret Sophia (died 1899), daughter of Professor Carl Hofmann, of Heidelberg; secondly, in 1909 to Eleanor Marion, widow of Dr. George Sealy, of Weybridge. By his first wife he had two sons and two daughters. He died at Hampstead 25 October 1919.
[C. H. Collins Baker in the Art Journal, Christmas number 1907. Portrait, Royal Academy Pictures, 1916.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Watson, Charles Moore

​WATSON, Sir CHARLES MOORE (1844–1916), soldier and administrator, the second son of William Watson, J.P., of Dublin, by his wife, Sarah, daughter of the Rev. Moore Morgan, rector of Dunlavin, co. Wicklow, was born in Dublin 10 July 1844. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, whence he passed, as a lieutenant, into the Royal Engineers in 1866. In 1874–1875 he served in the Sudan under General Gordon, and was engaged on the survey of the White Nile. He subsequently filled an appointment at the War Office until 1878, when he was made a captain and aide-de-camp to Sir John Lintorn Arabin Simmons [q.v.]. In 1880 he commenced two years' duty in the India Office, receiving in 1882 the brevet rank of major. In the latter year Watson was selected for special duty in the Egyptian campaign. It was he who, at the head of a small force, led the advance on Cairo after the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, and received the surrender of the citadel (14 September 1882). He continued to serve in the Egyptian army until 1886, when he became governor-general of the Red Sea littoral. In 1891 he was appointed assistant inspector-general of fortifications; he was promoted lieutenant-colonel in the following year, and in 1896 became deputy inspector-general of fortifications, a position which he held, with the rank of colonel, till his retirement in 1902. He carried out the arduous duties of these posts with the care, foresight, and technical skill which had already earned him a high reputation. His long experience and outstanding success undoubtedly influenced his selection in 1904 as secretary to the royal commission for the organization of the British section of the St. Louis Exhibition and commissioner-general. Two years prior to this appointment he was chosen to be the British delegate to the International Navigation Congress at Düsseldorf, and in the same capacity visited Milan in 1905 and St. Petersburg in 1908. He was chairman of the Palestine Exploration Fund committee from 1905 until his death, which took place in London 15 March 1916. He married in 1880 Geneviève, daughter of the Rev. Russell Cook. In his later years Colonel Watson turned to account a decided literary gift, publishing in 1909 a Life of Major-General Sir Charles William Wilson, and in 1910 a very useful work on British Weights and Measures. In 1912 he published The Story of Jerusalem, and three years later Fifty Years' Work in the Holy Land. He received the C.M.G. in 1887, and the C.B. in 1902, and in 1905 was created K.C.M.G.
[The Times, 16 March 1916; Journal of the Royal Engineers, June 1916.]
C. V. O.
# Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Flute

Edition of 1802.
​FLUTE, the German, a musical instrument of a well known construction.
Although playing the flute is on the Continent more generally practised than in Britain, yet we think it useful to observe, that this exercise is by no means compatible with either young or weak lungs. Indeed, all wind-instruments are in many respects objectionable, because, after blowing forcibly, a large portion of air is suddenly inhaled; and afterwards partially expelled from the lungs, so that they are by this debilitating action continually expanded and relaxed, in a manner very different from that which Nature pursues in the process of respiration.—See farther Wind-instruments.
# Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Flatulency

Edition of 1802.
​FLATULENCY, a very common disorder, arising from vapours generated in the stomach and intestines. It occasions distensions, disagreeable sensations, and frequently a considerable degree of pain.
Sedentary persons, and those who are of a delicate constitution, especially women, are very liable to attacks of this complaint, which is generally induced by the eating of peas, beans, and other leguminous food. Animal fats, especially those of mutton and veal, if immoderately used, with large draughts of liquor immediately after eating them, are apt to turn rancid on the stomach, and to be accompanied with flatulency. The drinking of turbid or feculent liquors, whether new or old, as well as excessive potations of hot tea, produce a similar effect. The habit of the patient likewise contributes towards the generation of these ​causes; so that in phlegmatic constitutions, where the bowels are of a dry and costive disposition, this complaint is most frequent and painful.
The general method of treating flatulency consists in administering hot aromatics, which, however, ought to be taken with great caution, as they often irritate rather than relieve the parts affected.—The poorer class, who are subject to flatulency, usually have recourse to drams, low wines, or punch—remedies which are extremely improper; and, though they afford a temporary relief, eventually impair the appetite and constitution.
The safest mode of treatment is, to keep the bowels gently open by means of clysters, prepared of half a pint of mutton-broth, in which half an ounce of caraway-seeds has been boiled, adding two spoonfuls of sweet-oil, and one of soft sugar; which should be repeated three or four times in twenty-four hours. During the intermediate days, gentle laxatives, consisting of single drams of vitriolated tartar, dissolved in one ounce of cinnamon water, may be taken every three hours, till they produce the desired effect, in order to attenuate the viscous matter in the bowels.—See also Colic, p. 32.
But if the paroxysms of flatulency be violent, and accompanied with vomiting and other distressing symptoms, so that neither absorbents nor carminatives relieve the patient, we are informed by Dr. Reich, that great and immediate benefit has been derived from his method of extracting the air from the bowels, by means of a common clystering syringe; or, still more effectually, by the machine of which we have given a short account in our first vol. p. 22.—This useful instrument, we understand, is manufacfured by George Göring, an ingenious turner of Fürth, a town in Franconia, who sells it at a price of from 10s. to 18s.