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

​KIRWAN, OWEN (d. 1803), Irish rebel, was a tailor by trade, resident in Plunket Street, Dublin. He joined the conspiracy of Robert Emmet, and was employed in the manufacture of ammunition. Kirwan was specially attached to the Patrick Street depôt of arms, the sudden explosion at which place on 16 July 1803 precipitated the insurrection. On the evening of 23 July Kirwan's residence was used as a muster-place for a large party of rebels. A little before nine o'clock in the evening Kirwan, attired in a green uniform, took up a position outside his door to watch for the rocket which was to announce the rising. On its appearance he summoned the men waiting in his house, and led them with a pike on his shoulder down Plunket Street into Thomas Street. After his departure his house was used as a refreshment-place for another body of rebels. Kirwan was denounced by a neighbour, and arrested immediately after the rising. He was tried before Mr. Baron George on 1 Sept. He was eloquently defended by Curran, but the evidence against him was conclusive, and he was found guilty and executed on 3 Sept. 1803.
[Madden's United Irishmen, 3rd ser. vol. iii.; Hibernian Magazine for 1803; Trial of Owen Kirwan, in Howell's State Trials, vol. xxviii.]
G. P. M-y.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kitchin, Anthony

​KITCHIN, alias Dunstan, ANTHONY (1477–1563), bishop of Llandaff, born in 1477, was a Benedictine monk of Westminster, who studied at Gloucester Hall (now Worcester College), built originally for Benedictine novices. He graduated at Oxford B.D. in 1525 and D.D. in 1538. In 1526 he was made prior of Gloucester College (see Foxe, Acts and Mon. v. 425). In 1530 he was appointed abbot of Eynsham, Oxford, and as abbot was a signatory to the king's supremacy (1534) and to the articles of 1536. On the dissolution of the lesser monasteries he, together with eight monks, surrendered his abbacy, 4 Dec. 1539, receiving a pension of 133l. 6s. 8d., with the promise of a benefice and cure. He was also appointed king's chaplain, and in 1545 bishop of Llandaff. The oath he took on his confirmation contains the fullest possible renunciation of the papal supremacy (Strype, Cranmer, p. 187). He clung to his bishopric through all changes, and wastefully reduced it from one of the wealthiest to one of the poorest sees. He did homage to Mary at her coronation, displayed zeal enough to burn a martyr (Foxe, vi. 646), and was one of the commissioners who sat on Hooper. At the accession of Elizabeth he again complied, ​being the only papist bishop who took the oath of supremacy, although he had dissented in the House of Lords from all the acts of restitution and reformation. He was included by Elizabeth in the two commissions which she drew for the consecration of Parker, but owing perhaps to pressure from Bonner he certainly did not act. No Marian bishop consequently took part in the ceremony, a fact which gave rise to the great controversy as to the validity of English ordinations. It was in connection with this controversy that the Nag's Head story was invented. According to the later form of this fable, Kitchin was present at the dinner at the Nag's Head tavern on the day of the confirmation of Parker, 9 Dec. 1559, and was in vain importuned by Scory and the rest to consecrate him and other bishops-elect. Kitchin died 31 Oct. 1563, and was buried in the parish church of Matherne, Monmouthshire.
His name appears as Dunstan up to the time of his election as bishop; after that event as Kitchin.
[Strype's Cranmer, Annals, Memorials, and Parker; Foxe's Acts and Mon. loc. cit.; Oxford Registers; Dugdale's Mon. Anglic. vol. iii.; State Papers, Dom. 1559, p. 143, ibid. Hen. VIII, iv. 1762; Godwin, De Præsulibus Angliæ (makes Kitchin Cantabr. Acad. Alumnus); Wood's Ath. Oxon.; Le Neve; Burnet; Fuller; Lansdowne MS. 981, fol. 15; Cotton. MSS. Vit. cx. 92–100.]
W. A. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kirton, Edmund

​KIRTON, EDMUND (d. 1466), abbot of Westminster, belonged to the old family called Cobbledike, but took the name of Kirton, probably from the village where he was born. Villages of that name exist in both Lincolnshire and Suffolk, and the Cobbledikes are known to have spread themselves over the two counties. In 1403 Edmund was a monk of Westminster, and, while continuing a member of that monastery, graduated B.D. from Gloucester Hall (Worcester College), Oxford. According to his epitaph he was at Rome during the pontificate of Martin V, 1417–31, and preached before him. In 1423 he was prior of the Benedictine scholars at Gloucester Hall, and in the same year he was sent by the university to lay various letters, touching subsidies for the new divinity schools and other buildings at Oxford, before a general chapter of his order at Northampton. He was selected to preach before the council, and on his motion a vote of thanks was returned to John Whethamsted, abbot of St. Albans, as the chief benefactor and second founder of Gloucester Hall. In recognition of Kirton's services the chapter appointed him a visitor of the Benedictine monasteries, and requested the chancellor of the university to grant him a D.D. degree.
In 1437 he accompanied Paul Norreys, principal of University Hall, Oxford, to the council of Basle. Both seem to have been cited to appear there before Eugenius IV, on suspicion of heresy, but the influence of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and letters from their university enabled them to exculpate themselves. After having been a monk of Westminster thirty-seven years, Kirton was elected abbot between 27 May and 20 Aug. 1440. He resigned the post twenty-two years later (1462), probably on account of increasing age and infirmities, but received till his death (October 1466) an annual pension of two hundred marks. His oratory is spoken of as remarkable. His tomb in St. Andrew's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, formed part of a screen which Kirton himself had caused to be ornamented ‘with carved birds, flowers, and cherubim, and with the arms, devices, and mottoes of the nobility,’ but tomb and screen have long disappeared.
[Dart's History of Westminster Abbey, ed. 1723, vol. ii. p. xxxv; Widmore's History of the Church of St. Peter's, Westminster, p. 114; Dugdale's Monasticon, 1817, ii. 276; Wood's History of the University of Oxford (Gutch), i. 587; Neale and Brayley's History of Westminster Abbey, i. 90.]
E. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kirwan, Stephen

​KIRWAN, STEPHEN (d. 1602?), bishop of Clonfert, a native of Galway, was educated partly at Oxford and partly at Paris. Conforming to the protestant religion he was, apparently while ‘a student resident at Oxford,’ appointed archdeacon of Annaghdown in 1558. On 13 April 1573 he was, on the recommendation of Sir William Fitzwilliam, advanced to the see of Kilmacduagh, of which he was the first protestant bishop. His conduct giving satisfaction to the government, he was, on the recommendation of Lord Arthur Grey, translated to the bishopric of Clonfert on 24 May 1582, and on 15 July 1585 he was placed on a commission for compounding with the landowners in Connaught and Thomond for a certain rent in lieu of the uncertain cess accustomed to be paid by them to the crown. In 1587, 1588, 1597, and 1599 he was one of the commissioners of martial affairs in Connaught. On 20 Oct. 1602 Roland Lynch, bishop of Kilmacduagh, was appointed to the see of Clonfert in commendam, from which it seems likely that Kirwan died in that or the preceding year.
[Ware's Bishops, ed. Harris; Cotton's Fasti Eccl. Hib.; Cal. State Papers, Ireland; Cal. Fiants, Eliz.; Brady's Irish Reformation.]
R. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kirwan, Walter Blake

​KIRWAN, WALTER BLAKE (1754–1805), dean of Killala, was born at Gortha, co. Galway, in 1754. His father being a Roman catholic, he was sent for education in early youth to the jesuit college at St. Omer. At the age of seventeen he went to St. Croix in the West Indies, along with a relative who had large property in that island. The climate did not suit him, the cruelty which he witnessed disgusted him, and after six years' residence he returned to Europe, and went to the university of Louvain, where he took orders, and was appointed professor of natural and moral philosophy. In 1778 he became chaplain to the Neapolitan ambassador at the British court, and the eloquence of the sermons which he preached in London in this capacity attracted marked attention. In 1787 he left the Roman catholic church, and on 24 June of that year preached his first sermon to a protestant congregation in St. Peter's Church, Dublin, where for some time he continued to officiate every Sunday, immediately taking rank as a pulpit orator of singular power. His services were eagerly sought for charity sermons, and the churches in which he preached had to be defended against the pressure of the crowds by guards and palisades. It was not uncommon for collections amounting to 1,000l. or 1,200l. to be taken up on such occasions, jewellery and gold watches being frequently laid upon the plates. In 1789 Kirwan was collated by the Archbishop of Dublin to the prebend of Howth, and was in the same year preferred to the living of St. Nicholas Without in the city of Dublin. In 1800 he was appointed dean of Killala. He died at his house, Mount Pleasant, near Dublin, on 27 Oct. 1805. His wife, Wilhelmina, youngest daughter of Goddard Richards of Grange, co. Wexford, whom he had married 22 Sept. 1798, survived him, with two sons—one of whom, Antony la Touche Kirwan, became afterwards dean of Limerick—and two daughters. His widow was granted by the crown a pension of 300l. per annum for life, with reversion to her daughters.
A volume of Kirwan's sermons was published posthumously, London, 1816.
[Memoir prefixed to Sermons.]
T. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Miller, Andrew

​MILLER, ANDREW (d. 1763), mezzotint engraver, is believed to have been a Scotsman by descent but a native of London, and to have been a pupil of John Faber, jun. [q. v.] The earliest date on his plates is 1737. After practising for a few years in London he went to Dublin and settled there. Miller's portraits, which number more than sixty, are executed in a broad, effective style, and are very scarce; they include Dean Swift, after F. Bindon (1743); the Hon. Robert Boyle, after Kerseboom; Philip, earl of Chesterfield, after Hoare; William, duke of Cumberland, after Hudson; Queen Elizabeth; David Garrick as Richard III, after Hogarth; John Hampden; Archbishop King, after Jervas; Dr. Charles Lucas, after Jones; John, duke of Marlborough, after Kneller; Joe Miller as Teague, after Stoppelaer; Archbishop Ussher, after Lely; Dr. Warburton, after Vandergucht; and George Whitefield, after Jenkin. Some of these are copies of prints by Houbraken, Vertue, and others. Miller also produced a few fancy subjects after Courtin, Rosalba, P. Veronese, &c. His Dublin plates, which are dated from 1743 to 1756, were mostly published by himself ‘on Hog Hill, near the Round Church,’ and some bear also the address of Michael Ford [q. v.] Miller is said to have shortened his life by intemperance. He died in Dublin in September 1763.
[J. Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ii. 154; J. T. Gilbert's Hist. of Dublin, iii. 318.]
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Millar, John (1733-1805)

​MILLAR, JOHN, M.D. (1733–1805), medical writer, born in Scotland in 1733, graduated M.D. at Edinburgh. He commenced practice at Kelso, but on being appointed, in August 1774, physician to the Westminster General Dispensary, he settled in Pall Mall, London, and became an active promoter of the Medical Society of London, instituted in 1773. He died on 25 Feb. 1805 in Shepherd Street, Mayfair (Scots Mag. 1805, p. 237). By his wife Isabella, sister of Admiral Brisbane, he had two sons (Burke, Landed Gentry, 1886, p. 211). John, the eldest, was a lieutenant in the English navy, but died at Revel on 29 May 1804 in command of a 74-gun ship in the service of the emperor of Russia (Gent. Mag. 1804, pt. ii. p. 784); the youngest, a ship-surgeon, was drowned in early youth at sea (Millar, Observations on the Change of Public Opinion, Pref. p. cxxviii).
Millar was an excellent physician, especially for women and children, but was eccentric and irritable. His chief works are:
* ‘Observations on the Asthma and on the ​Hooping Cough,’ 8vo, London, 1769 (translated into French by L. Sentex, 8vo, Paris, 1808).
* ‘Observations on the prevailing Diseases in Great Britain,’ &c., 4to, London, 1770; another edit. 1798. He announced some ‘Additional Observations’ on the same subject in 1777.
* ‘Observations on Antimony,’ 8vo, London, 1774.
* ‘A Discourse on the Duty of Physicians,’ 4to, London, 1776.
* ‘Observations on the Practice in the Medical Department of the Westminster General Dispensary,’ &c., 4to, London, 1777.
* ‘Observations on the Management of the Diseases of the Army and Navy during the American War,’ &c., 4to, London, 1783, partly in answer to ‘Observations,’ 1780, by Donald Monro, M.D. [q. v.]
* ‘Observations on the Change of Public Opinion in Religion, Politics, and Medicine; on the Conduct of the War; on the Prevailing Diseases in Great Britain, and on Medical Arrangements in the Army and Navy,’ 2 vols. 4to, London [1804].
To Millar the elder Benjamin Rush, M.D., of Philadelphia, addressed his ‘Dissertation on the Spasmodic Asthma of Children,’ 1770, in which he acknowledges his obligations to Millar's ‘excellent treatise’ on the subject.
[Gent. Mag. 1805, pt. i. p. 384; Cat. of Libr. of Med. and Chirurg. Soc.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Millar, James

1904 Errata appended.
​MILLAR, JAMES, M.D. (1762–1827), physician and miscellaneous writer, born at Ayr 4 Feb. 1762, distinguished himself in classics and science at Glasgow university. For some years he acted as tutor in Jamaica and afterwards was chaplain at Glasgow university. Removing to Edinburgh, he graduated M.D. and became fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He frequently lectured on natural history and chemistry, and was one of the physicians at the Edinburgh Dispensary, where he caught a fever and died 13 July 1827. He left a family ill provided for.
In 1807 Millar published in conjunction with William Vazie ‘Observations on the Advantages and Practicability of making Tunnels under Navigable Rivers, particularly applicable to the proposed Tunnel under the Forth,’ 8vo, Edinburgh. He also edited the fourth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ 20 vols. 4to, Edinburgh, 1810, and the last fifteen volumes of the fifth edition of the same work, 20 vols., 4to, Edinburgh, 1817, and wrote largely in both editions. Millar also planned and edited a more popular dictionary of arts, sciences, and literature, the ‘Encyclopædia Edinensis,’ 6 vols. 4to, Edinburgh, 1827. His other publications, which are chiefly based on his articles contributed to the encyclopædias, include:
* ‘A Guide to Botany,’ 12mo, Edinburgh, 1819.
* ‘Elements of Chemistry,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1820.
* ‘Practical Observations on Cold and Warm Bathing, and descriptive Notices of Watering-places in Britain,’ 12mo, Edinburgh, 1821.
[Gent. Mag. 1827, pt. ii. pp. 276–7; Biog. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816,p. 233; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Irving's Book of Scotsmen, p. 351.]
G. G.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.198 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Col. | Line | |
| | 5 f.e. | Millar, James: for (d. 1827) read (1762-1827) |
| | 4 f.e. | after writer, insert born at Ayr on 4 Feb. 1762, |
| | l.l. | after science, insert He acted for some years as a tutor in Jamaica, and afterwards as chaplain to the University of Glasgow. |
| ii | 6 | for in July read on 13 July |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Millar, William

​MILLAR, WILLIAM (d. 1838), lieutenant-general, colonel commandant royal artillery, second son of John Millar (1735–1801) [q. v.], received a direct appointment as second lieutenant royal artillery 24 May 1781. His subsequent commissions were: first lieutenant 1787, captain lieutenant 1794, captain 1799, major (brevet 1805) 1806, lieutenant-colonel 1806, colonel (brevet 4 June) 14 June 1814, major-general 1831, colonel commandant 1834, lieutenant-general 1837. He served eighteen years in the West Indies, and was present at the capture of most of the French islands during the early part of the revolutionary wars. In 1804, on the rebuilding of Woolwich Arsenal after the great fire of 1802, he was appointed assistant to Colonel Fage in the royal carriage department, and was one of the officers to whose skill and indefatigable exertions during the Peninsular war the services were indebted for their material. With mechanical resources which, judged by a later standard, were of the most imperfect description, they poured forth a never failing supply of a quality and excellence which were the admiration of other armies, and at the close of the war led to the French commission of Baron Dupin to inquire into the system that could produce such results. Millar was the originator of the 10-inch and 8-inch shell-guns which formed so large a part of British armaments from 1832 until some years after the Crimean war. He was among the first to perceive the advantages of shell-guns of large calibre; and as early as 1820, that is to say two years before the publication of Paixhans's ‘Nouvelle Force Maritime,’ brought forward his first 8-inch shell-gun (Official Catalogue Mus. of Artillery, p. xxiv). He was appointed inspector-general of artillery in 1827, and director-general of the field-train department in 1833.
Millar died from self-inflicted injuries near Hastings, on 14 March 1838. He had previously exhibited symptoms of suicidal mania. He was married and left a grown-up family.
[Kane's Lists Roy. Artillery, rev. ed., Woolwich, 1869; Official Catalogue Museum of Artillery; Dupin's Voyages dans la Grande-Bretagne; Sir Howard Douglas's Naval Gunnery; Naval and Military Gazette, 17 and 24 March 1838.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rawes, Henry Augustus

​RAWES, HENRY AUGUSTUS, D.D. (1826–1885), catholic divine, born at Easington, near Durham, on 11 Dec. 1826, was educated at Houghton-le-Spring grammar school, under his father, the headmaster, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1849, and M.A. in 1852. He became curate of St. Botolph, Aldgate, in June 1851; curate of St. Bartholomew, Moor Lane, in June 1853; and warden of the House of Charity, Soho, in May 1854. In March 1856 he was received into the Roman communion by Father Grant, S. J., at Edinburgh (Browne, Annals of the Tractarian Movement, pp. 345, 545). He at once joined Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Manning, who about that time was forming the congregation of the oblates of St. Charles under the auspices of Cardinal Wiseman. On being ordained priest in November 1857 he had the charge of the Notting Hill district, where he built the church of St. Francis. He was appointed prefect of studies in St. Charles's College in 1870; was created D.D. by Pius IX in 1875; and was elected superior of the Oblate Fathers at Bayswater in 1879. For twenty-eight years he was well known in London as a preacher and writer; he was ​founder of the society of the Servants of the Holy Ghost, which was erected into an Arch-confraternity by Leo XIII in 1879, and has affiliated branches in Ireland, the United States, and France. He died at Brighton on 24 April 1885, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Mary Magdalen at Mortlake.
He was author of many devotional works; the chief are: 1. ‘The Lost Sheep, and other Poems,’ London, 1856, 8vo. 2. ‘Sursum; or Sparks flying Upward,’ London, 1864, 12mo. 3. ‘Septem; or Seven Ways of hearing Mass,’ 3rd edit., London [1869], 16mo. 4. ‘Great Truths in Little Words,’ 3rd edit., London [1872], 8vo. 5. ‘Homeward,’ 2nd edit. London, 1873, 8vo. 6. ‘Little Books of the Holy Ghost,’ London, 1880, &c., 16mo. 7. ‘Foregleams of the Desired: Sacred Verses, Hymns, and Translations,’ 3rd edit., London, 1881, 16mo.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rawle, Richard

​RAWLE, RICHARD (1812–1889), divine, born at Plymouth, 27 Feb. 1812, was a son of Francis Rawle (1778–1854), an attorney at Liskeard, who, on abandoning practice, settled at Plymouth; his mother, Amelia (Millett), died 6 Oct. 1814. Richard was educated at Plymouth new grammar school, and on 7 Feb. 1831 was admitted pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge, under the tutorship of Dr. Whewell. On 19 April 1833 he obtained a scholarship at his college, and in 1835 he graduated B.A., being third wrangler and fourth classic. He was elected minor fellow of Trinity College, 3 Oct. 1836, and major fellow 3 July 1838, in which year he proceeded M.A. and became sub-lector tertius; he acted as assistant-tutor from 1836 to 1839. In 1839 he was ordained both deacon and priest, and accepted the rectory of Cheadle in Staffordshire. From 1847, when he resigned Cheadle, to 1864, he was principal of Codrington College at Barbados, and about 1859 he declined the offer of the bishopric of Antigua.
In 1864 Rawle returned to England, and, after refusing the offer of an honorary canonry in Ely Cathedral, and acting as vicar of Tamworth from 1869 to 1872, was on 29 June 1872 consecrated in Lichfield Cathedral as bishop of Trinidad, where he worked with great energy until 1888. He then resigned the see, but reaccepted the post of principal and professor of divinity at Codrington College, Barbados. He died at Codrington College on 10 May 1889, and was buried next day in the college burial-ground.
Rawle married at Cheadle parish church, on 14 Jan. 1851, Susan Anne Blagg, daughter of John Michael Blagg, of Rosehill in that parish. She died at Bournemouth on 1 March 1888, and was buried in Cheadle churchyard on 5 March. Rawle was the last male representative of ​the family of Rawle owning the barton-house of Hennett and other property in the parish of St. Juliot, on the north coast of Cornwall, and his generosity raised the income of the benefice, restored the church, and built new schools.
W. P. C.