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

​BENSLEY, THOMAS (d. 1833), printer, is known by his own productions and by certain mechanical adjustments (adopted by the 'Times' in 1814). His offices in Bolt Court were the same which had previously been occupied by Edward Allen, the friend of Johnson. Here he printed Macklin's folio Bible in seven volumes (1800), Hume's 'History of England,' an octavo Shakespeare, and 'The Posthumous Letters of William Huntington' (1822), which he also edited in part. In a preface to this work he complains of a fire which had destroyed his premises, with much of his valuable stock; and it appears that he was burned out on two separate occasions, suffering considerably thereby. Bensley seems to have been a steady man of business, enduring the heavy burdens imposed upon him by his patriotism and preserving a stolid, imperturbable, if fantastic and somewhat unintelligent religious faith. Bensley was one of the acting trustees of Providence Chapel, in Gray's Inn Lane, under the ministration of the notorious 'Coal-heaver Saint' [see Huntington, William]; and though the maintenance of this chapel was mainly due to the generosity of the wealthy widow of a city alderman, Bensley did his part in defraying the working expenses, and helped to raise a handsome monument by Westmacott on the death of Huntington in 1813. Testimony is borne to his charitable disposition in the preface to a work by his son Benjamin, entitled 'Lost and Found,' which records the conviction and repentance of a young Birmingham engraver, sentenced to penal servitude for the forgery of Bank of England notes. Thomas Bensley had shown much kindness to this young man after his conviction, and had assisted to support his wife and child, referring to which his son writes: 'I might here say much of that parent of whose life this affair always seemed to me to present one of the brightest pages.... That father's fame ​will ever be associated with names famous in the art which he did so much to raise and adorn.' Amongst these names are Allen, Bulmer, Nichols, Bell, and Koenig. Nichols writes of him that 'he demonstrated to foreigners that the English press can rival, and even excel, the finest works that have graced the continental annals of typography.' Koenig was associated with him in the invention noticed at the beginning of this article.
[Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, viii.]
L. S-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bennis, George Geary

​BENNIS, GEORGE GEARY (1790–1866), author, was a native of Corkamore, Limerick. The date of his birth is variously stated as 1790 and 1793. After some years as a grocer in Limerick he settled for a time in Liverpool, and whilst there appears to have embraced the doctrines of quakerism. His first work was 'The Principles of the One Faith professed by all Christians,' Liverpool, ​1816. He moved to London and in 1823 he settled at Paris, where a third edition of the work just named was printed in 1826. He published also the 'Traveller's Pocket Diary and Student's Journal' and a 'Treatise on Life Assurance.' Quérard also states him to have written some opuscules littéraires, of which no details are available. He travelled about over the continent: but from 1830 to 1836 he was the director of a librairie des étrangers in Paris, founded by Bossange and Renouard. Afterwards he acted as an insurance agent, and in addition was librarian to the British embassy. He was also at one time the editor of 'Galignani's Messenger.' When in France he ceased to be a member of the Society of Friends but always professed an attachment to their principles. 'At the time of the revolution,' says Smith, 'he peacefully retook the royal flag, for which he was knighted by the king.' There is apparently some error in this statement; for, according to Vapereau, he did not receive the decoration of the Légion d'Honneur until 1854. According to Smith, most of his property was lost at the time of the last revolution presumably the coup d'état of 1852, soon after which he retired into private life. He was nearly burned to death by the great fire which destroyed the government bakeries during the Crimean war, and most of his valuable library was consumed at that time. Enough was left, however, to found a free library in his native city, to which he left over 10,000 volumes.
A collection of coins which he had made was stolen between the time of his death and the arrival of his executor, Edward Bennis, of Bolton. He died 1 Jan. 1866, and was buried at Paris: but by his own desire no tombstone marks his resting-place.
[Smith's Descriptive Catalogue of Friends' Books, London. 1867: Quérard's France Littéraire, t. i., Paris. 1827; Quérard's Littérature Française Contemporaine, t. i., Paris, 1842; Vaperreau's Dictionaire des Contemporains, Paris, 1858; information of J. F. Bennis of Limerick.]
W. E. A. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Benson, Christopher

1904 Errata appended.
​BENSON, CHRISTOPHER (1789–1868), prebendary and canon of Worcester, master of the Temple, was born in 1789. He obtained a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in 1812, and M.A. in 1815. After being ordained he spent some years as a curate at St. John's, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and St. Giles's, London. In 1817 he was select preacher before the university, and delivered a course of sermons on baptism, which he subsequently printed; and two years later he published 'A Chronology of our Saviour's life. Benson rapidly earned a high repute as a preacher, and in the year 1820 he was selected as the first lecturer under Hulse's bequest at Cambridge. Hulse, who died in 1789, had left a considerable sum of money for various purposes connected with the elucidation of the Christian evidences; but as the fund was not held to be adequate for all the objects of the bequest, the appointment of a lecturer was delayed for thirty years. Benson's lectures, which were dedicated to the masters of Downing and St. John's Colleges, went through many editions, and he was again appointed in 1822. The second volume is dedicated to Granville Hastings Wheler, of Otterden Park, Kent, heir to the munificent Lady Betty Hastings, who had presented him to the vicarage of Ledsham. In the meantime he had been elected fellow of Magdalene, and in 1826 he became canon of Worcester. He successively held the livings of Lindridge and Cropthome, and was for several years master of the Temple. At the time of his death, however, which occurred in his eightieth year at Woodfield, near Ross, he held no preferment. Benson belonged to the broader evangelical school; and a series of 'Discourses upon Tradition and Episcopacy,' preached in the Temple Church in 1839, criticised the views of the Oxford tractarians — a term which Benson seems to have been one of the first to attach to Pusey, Newman, and their friends. These discourses, in which he argued against the apostolical authority of the fathers, and condemned the prominence assigned to tradition, led him into a controversy, of great interest at that period, with the Rev. F. Merewether, then rector of Cole Orton. The last of his sermons which attracted general attention was one delivered and printed in 1855, during the Crimean war — apologetic and courtly in its tone, but marked by considerable eloquence and pathos. Amongst his works may also be mentioned a volume on 'The Rubrics and Canons of the Church.' He died in 1868.
L. S-t.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.22 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 255 | i | 15 f.e. | Benson, Christopher: for several years read from 1827 to 1845 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bennett, William Mineard

​BENNETT, WILLIAM MINEARD (1778–1858), miniature-painter, was born at Exeter in 1778. Having left his native city early in life, he placed himself under the instruction of Sir Thomas Lawrence, and attained a considerable reputation as a painter of portraits and miniatures, living in the society of many of the most distinguished literary men of that day, among whom his brilliant wit and versatile talents made him a great favourite. Several of his works were exhibited at the Royal Academy between the years 1812 and 1816, and again in 1834 and 1835. Many years of his life were spent in Paris, where his talents gained for him the patronage and friendship of the Due de Berri; but in 1844 he returned to Exeter, where, practising his art only as an amusement, he resided until his death, which took place on 17 Oct. 1858. Bennett possessed also a thorough knowledge of the science of music, and many of his musical compositions became popular in Paris and Naples.
[Gent. Mag. 1868, ii. 647; Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878.]
R. E. G.
# Crouch/Opinion of the Court

* Court Documents
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* Opinion of the Court
* Wikipedia article
United States Supreme Court
112 U.S. 178
Crouch
It is not claimed that the law which imposes the tax and fixes the penalty for doing business without its payment is unconstitutional. Neither is it pretended that the hustings court has not plenary jurisdiction for the trial of persons charged with a violation of the law. The petitioner is, therefore, in the custody of a state court of competent jurisdiction, and held for trial upon an information for violating a criminal statute of the state. He seeks to be discharged by habeas corpus, not because, if guilty of the charge which has been made against him the court is without jurisdiction to hold him for trial and to convict and sentence him, but because, as he alleges, he has a valid defense to the charge, which grows out of a provision in the constitution of the United States; and, for this reason, he insists he is detained in violation of the constitution. It is elementary learning that if a prisoner is in the custody of a state court of competent jurisdiction, not illegally asserted, he cannot be taken from that jurisdiction and discharged on habeas corpus issued by a court of the United States, simply because he is not guilty of the offense for which he is held. All questions which may arise in the orderly course of the proceeding against him are to be determined by the court to whose jurisdiction he has been subjected, and no other court is authorized to interfere to prevent it. Here the right of the prisoner to a discharge depends alone on the sufficiency of his defense to the information under which he is held. Whether his defense is sufficient or not is for the court which tries him to determine. If, in this determination, errors are committed, they can only be corrected in and appropriate form of proceeding for that purpose. The office of a writ of habeas corpus is neither to correct such errors nor to take the prisoner away from the curt which holds him for trial, for fear, if he remains, they may be committed. Authorities to this effect in our own reports are numerous. Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 202; Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 166; Ex parte Parks, 93 U.S. 23; Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 374; Ex parte Virginia, Id. 343; Ex parte Rowland, 104 U.S. 612; Ex parte Curtis, 106 U.S. 375; S.C.. 1 SUP. CT. REP. 381; Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 653; S.C.. 4 SUP. CT. REP. 152. Of course, what is here said has no application to writs of habeas corpus cum causa, issued by the courts of the United States in aid of their jurisdiction upon the removal of suits or prosecutions from state courts for trial under the authority of an act of congress. Denied.

## Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Crouch

United States Supreme Court
112 U.S. 178
Crouch
Wm. L. Royall, for motion.
WAITE, C. J.
This petition is denied. The general revenue law of Virginia provides that no person shall do business in the state as a 'sample merchant' until he has obtained a license therefor, on payment of a tax of $75, and that if he does he shall pay a fine of $500 for the first offense, and $600 for each succeeding offense. Acts Va. 1884, c. 445, §§ 30, 31, pp. 578, 579. The petitioner has been informed against, and is now held in custody for trial by order of the hustings court of the city of Richmond, for a violation of this law. According to the statements in the petition presented to us, the defense of the petitioner, upon the trial of that case, will be a tender by him, before commencing business, to the proper revenue officer of the state, of the amount of the required license tax, in coupons cut from state bonds, which the state when it issued the bonds agreed should be receivable in payment of all state dues; and a refusal of the officer to accept the tender and give a proper certificate therefor, because by a statute enacted after the issue of the bonds the tax-receiving officers were prohibited from taking the coupons for this tax. The right of the petitioner to a writ of habeas corpus from this court is put in the petition on the ground that the petitioner is detained in custody by the state court in violation of the constitution of the United States, because the statute which prohibits the officer from accepting the coupons impairs the obligation of the contract of the state to receive them, and is on that account inoperative and void, by reason of the provision of the constitution which precludes the states from passing such laws.

## Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Crouch v. Roemer

* related portals: Supreme Court of the United States.
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United States Supreme Court
103 U.S. 797
Crouch v. Roemer
APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey.
This is a suit in equity by George Crouch against William Roemer to prevent the infringement by the latter of reissued letters-patent No. 4289, granted March 7, 1871, to the complainant for an improvement in straps for shawls.
Among the defences set up by the respondent was the want of novelty and the prior public use of the invention described in the letters. The remaining facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
The court below sustained the defence and dismissed the bill. Crouch thereupon appealed.
Mr. E. B. Barnum for the appellant.
Mr. Arthur v. Briesen, contra.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court.

## Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Crouch v. United States

* related portals: Supreme Court of the United States.
* sister projects: Wikidata item.
United States Supreme Court
266 U.S. 180
Crouch v. United States
Argued: Oct. 10, 1924. --- Decided: Nov 17, 1924
Messrs. James G. Martin and E. S. Merrill, both of Norfolk, Va., for plaintiff in error.
Mr. Assistant Attorney General Donovan, for the United States.
Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.

## Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ansell, George Frederick

​ANSELL, GEORGE FREDERICK (1826–1880), scientific inventor, was born at Carshalton on 4 March 1826. He was apprenticed for four years to a surgeon, and studied medicine with the intention of adopting a medical life as his profession, but abandoned it for chemistry. After undergoing a course of instruction at the Royal College of Chemistry, he became an assistant to Dr. A. W. Hofmann at the Royal School of Mines. In 1854 he gave lectures in chemistry at the Panopticon in Leicester Square, London, but that institution did not last long, and Mr. Ansell accepted from Mr. Thomas Graham, in November 1856, a situation in the Royal Mint. He remained in this office for more than ten years, when differences of opinion between him and its chiefs led to the loss of his position. After his retirement and until his death, which took place on 21 Dec. 1880, he practised as an analyst. Mr. Ansell devoted much attention to the dangers arising from firedamp in collieries, and made a valuable series of experiments on the subject in the Ince Hall colliery near Wigan. The 'firedamp indicator,' which he subsequently patented, has been adopted with considerable success in many of the collieries on the continent. For the cyclopædia of Mr. Charles Tomlinson he wrote treatise on coining—one hundred copies of which were struck of for private circulation—and his work on the 'Royal Mint' was an amplification of this article. This volume first appeared in 1870, and was reissued in the next year; its popularity was somewhat marred by the introduction of the narrative of his quarrels with his colleagues in the office, but it contained much information not to be found elsewhere. Several articles on the subjects in which he took most interest were contributed by him to the seventh edition of Ure's 'Dictionary of Arts,' &c.
[Times, 25 Dec. 1880, p. 10; Athenæum, 1 Jan. 1881, p. 24.]
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Anslay, Brian

​ANSLAY, BRIAN (fl. 1521), yeoman of the wine cellar to Henry VIII, translated the 'Tresor de la Cité des Dames' of Christine de Pise, under the title of the 'Boke of the Cyte of Ladies,' 1521. In a preliminary copy of verses the printer, Henry Pepwell, states that the translation was published at the instance of the Earl of Kent. The book consists of a number of short stories about famous women, much of the material being drawn from Boccaccio. There are some notices of Anslay in 'Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII' (art. 4231, 23, et seq.). A ‘Bryan Anslye, Esquier, late of Lee, in the county of Kent … served Qveene Elizabeth as one of ye band of Gentlemen Pencioners to her Ma$^{tie}$ the space of XXX$^{tye}$ yeares;’ and, dying 10 July 1604, was buried in the church of Lee, Kent, where a memorial slab, still legible, gives an account of him and his family. He was probably the son of Anslay the translator.
[Ellis's Historical Sketches, ii. 20; Athenæum for 2 Sept. 1876, where the inscription on the younger Anslay is printed in full, by Mr. J. W. Hales, who has reprinted it in his Essays and Notes on Shakespeare, p. 271.]
A. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Anson, George (1797-1857)

​ANSON, GEORGE (1797–1857), general, was the second son of the first Viscount Anson, and brother of the first Earl of Lichfield. He entered the army at an early age, in the 3rd (or Scots Fusilier) Guards, with which regiment he served at Waterloo. In 1818, while still an officer in the guards, he was elected a member of parliament, and sat in the House of Commons for many years, holding in succession the political offices of principal storekeeper of the ordnance and clerk of the ordnance. In 1853, having meanwhile attained the rank of major-general in the army, he was appointed to command a division in Bengal, and in the following year succeeded to the command of the Madras army, from which post he was advanced to that of commander-in-chief in India early in 1856. General Anson was holding this important command when the mutiny of the Bengal army took place. Hastening down from Simla, whither he had gone only a few weeks previously to recruit his health, he collected a force at Amballa, and marched with it against Delhi, but being attacked by cholera at Karnal died at that place on 27 May 1857. General Anson was a man of unquestionable talent, and although he had never seen war except at Waterloo, where he served as a mere youth, those who knew him best had very high expectations that he would distinguish himself in his profession if an opportunity offered. It has been alleged that he showed vacillation and want of promptitude when preparing for the march upon Delhi; but the allegation has been amply refuted by a distinguished officer (Sir Henry Norman) who held an important position on the staff of the army at the time, and had the best means of forming a judgment. Sir Henry says that, 'suddenly placed in a more difficult position than has probably ever fallen to the lot of a British commander,' General Anson 'met the crisis with fortitude and with a calm endeavour to restore our rule where it had disappeared, and to maintain it where it still existed.' General Anson married in 1830 Isabella, daughter of the first Lord Forester, who survived him less than two years.
[Hart's Army List; Burke's Peerage; Annual Register for 1857; J. W. Kaye's History of the Sepoy War; Fortnightly Review, April 1883.]
A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ansted, David Thomas

​ANSTED, DAVID THOMAS, F.R.S. (1814–1880), a geologist of considerable reputation in his time, was born in London in 1814, educated in a London school and at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1836, being afterwards elected a fellow of his college. The earlier part of his life was devoted to educational work. He was professor of geology at King's College, London, and lecturer at Addiscombe and at the Civil Engineering College at Putney. From 1844 to 1847 he acted as assistant-secretary of the Geological Society, and for many years he edited its quarterly journal. In later life, from about 1850, he turned to the practical applications of geology in connection with mining, engineering, water-supply, and the like, and was constantly consulted on such matters both in this country and abroad. He was a prolific author, and some of his geological writings for a time kept their place as standard authorities, while others of a popular character attained a wide circulation. Among the former may be mentioned his 'Geology' (1844), and among the latter his 'Great Stone Book of Nature' (1863). He also wrote several books of travel, besides contributing a great number of papers to the Geological Society, the British Association, the Society of Arts, and other societies. His death took place at his residence near Woodbridge, Suffolk, in May 1880.
[Engineer Newspaper, xlix. 393; Geol. Mag. 1880, p. 336, or Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxxvii. 43; Journ. Soc. Arts, xxviii. 637.]