OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brock, Daniel de Lisle

​BROCK, DANIEL DE LISLE (1762–1842), bailiff of Guernsey from 1821 to 1842, belonged to an English family established in Guernsey as early as the sixteenth century. His father, John Brock of St. Peter's, who had been a midshipman in the royal navy, married Elizabeth de Lisle, daughter of the then lieutenant-bailiff of the island, and by her had fourteen children, ten of whom attained maturity. John Brock died in 1777, at the age of 48. Daniel de Lisle, his third son, was born in Guernsey on 10 Dec. 1762. After such schooling as the island afforded in those days, he was placed at Alderney under the tuition of M. Vallat, a Swiss pastor, afterwards rector of St. Peter-in-the-Wood, Guernsey, and subsequently at a school at Richmond, Surrey. He was, however, taken away at the age of fourteen to accompany his father, who was in failing health, to France, where the latter died at Dinan. He spent about twelve months in visiting the Mediterranean, Switzerland, and France, in 1785-6, and twelve years later, in 1798, was elected a jurat of the royal court of Guernsey, from which time his name is intimately associated with the history of his native place. On four separate occasions, between 1804 and 1810, he was deputed by the states and royal court of Guernsey to represent them in London, in respect of certain measures affecting the trade and ancient privileges of the island. In 1821 he was appointed bailiff, or chief magistrate, of the island, and soon after was again despatched to London, to protest, which he did with success, against the extension to Guernsey of the new law prohibiting the import of corn until the price should reach 80s. a quarter. In 1832, when the right of the inhabitants to be tried in their own courts was menaced by a proposed extension of the power of writs of habeas corpus to the island, Brock and Mr. Charles de Jersey, king's procureur, were sent to London to oppose the measure, and did so with success. Three years later Brock was once more despatched to London at the head of a deputation to protest against the proposed deprivation of the Channel Islands of their right of exporting corn into England free of duty. Owing to the remonstrance of the deputation, a select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the subject, and the bill was subsequently withdrawn. On this occasion the states of Jersey presented Brock with a service of plate valued at 100l., and his portrait was placed in the royal court-house of Guernsey. Brock was married and had two children: a son, who became a captain in the 20th foot, and a daughter. He died in Guernsey on 24 Sept. ​1842. A public funeral was accorded to his remains, in recognition of his long and valued services to his native island.
[Tupper's Life of Sir Isaac Brock (2nd ed. London, 1847), appendix B; Jacob's Annals of the Bailiwick of Guernsey (Paris, 1830), part i.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brock, William John

​BROCK, WILLIAM JOHN (1817?–1863), religious writer, born about 1817, married about 1845, in 1847 brought out a small volume of poems, 'Wayside Verses,' dating the preface London, 22 Sept.; and obtaining after this the degree of B.A., he took orders, and entered the church as curate of St. George's, Barnsley, Yorkshire (Twenty-seven Sermons, 2nd ed. p. 314). In 1855 he published at Barnsley, and by subscription, 'Twenty-seven Sermons,' in one volume, a publication which was quickly out of print (preface to 2nd ed.); and leaving Barnsley in 1858 to become incumbent of Hayfield, Derbyshire, Brock brought out a second edition of this book, dating it Hayfield Parsonage, 22 Sept. 1858, and adding to it the farewell sermon he had preached on leaving Barnsley. He died at Hayfield on 27 April 1863, and was buried there. After his death were published 'The Rough Wind stayed,' a volume of 'The Library of Excellent Literature,' 1867, and 'The Bright Light in the Clouds,' 1870.
[Brock's Wayside Verses, pp. 50, 76, 131; private information.]
J. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Airay, Christopher

​AIRAY, CHRISTOPHER (1601–1670), a pioneer in English logic, was born at Clifton in Westmoreland in 1600–1. Wood informs us that he ‘became a student in Queen's College, Oxford.’ The entry in the register of admissions to the college runs thus: ‘In Ter. Nat. 1620[–1], Feb[ruary] 5, was admitted batchelor Christoph. Airaye.’ Going ‘through the servile offices,’ he proceeded Master of Arts. In 1627 he ‘was elected fellow.’ ‘About this time’ he ‘entered into holy orders, according to the statutes of the house,’ and became a preacher. He was created B.D. in 1642. Whilst still at the university he published anonymously his one known book, viz.: ‘Fascicvlvs Præceptorvm Logicorvm in gratiam juventutis academicæ compositus et nunc primum typis donatus. Oxoniæ excudebat Gvlielmvs Tvrner Academiæ Typographus. An. D. 1628. Cum Priuilegio’ (pp. 224). The printer signs the ‘Præfatio.’ The following are the main headings: Lib. 1, De Prædicabilibus; 2, De Anteprædicamentis; 3, De Propositione; 4, De Demonstratione; 5, De Syllogismo Topico; 6, De Syllogismo Sophistico. There is a good deal of neatness in the various formulæ, but logic is ever and anon trespassed on by metaphysic, or thought as against the form of thought. The examplar of ‘Fascicvlvs Præceptorvm Logicorvm’ in the British Museum was one of Bishop Juxon's books (8466a). A second edition did not appear until 1660.
Airay was presented to the living of Milford in Hampshire; he died on St. Luke's day, 1670, and was buried in the chancel of his church. His epitaph is still to be read as follows: ‘Memoriæ sacrum Christopheri Airay, S. T. Bac. olim Coll. Reg. Oxon. socii et hujus ecclesiæ Vicarii vigilantissimi, viri summæ integritatis, judicii acerrimi et ingenii literarum omnium capacis: qui difficillime seculo inter æstuantes rerum fluctus clavum rectum tenuit. Mortalitatem tandem exuit 18 Oct. annos natus 69.’ Anthony à Wood speaks of ‘other things’ by him, but they seem to have disappeared.
[Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iii. 907; information supplied by Dr. Magrath, per Rev. R. L. Clark, M.A., librarian of Queen's College, Oxford.]
A. B. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Aio

1904 Errata appended. The ODNB strongly suggests that his existence was a fabrication.
​AIO (d. 974), an historian, was a monk in the abbey of Croyland or Crowland in Lincolnshire, and is only mentioned in the ‘History’ of Ingulf, afterwards abbot of the same monastery. From this account we learn that after the death, in 941, of Athelstan, the special patron of Croyland, as well as of the abbot and two of the elder brothers, the monastery seemed likely to fall into decay. There remained in it only five monks, and of these two, Brun and Aio, in despair of the future of Croyland, determined to retire to other religious houses. Brun went to Winchester and Aio to Malmesbury. Croyland was, however, restored to prosperity in 946 by Eadred, who appointed Turketul abbot, and in the same year Brun and Aio were recalled thither. To these two monks was entrusted the task of compiling a history of Croyland, but they did not live to complete their task, both dying in the same year, 974. Ingulf professed to have made use of material collected by them.
[Historia Ingulphi, in Rer. Anglic. Script., ed. Gale, pp. 29 seq., 51.]
C. F. K.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.4 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 199 | i | 28 | Aio (d. 974): Note The only authority for the existence of Aio is the spurious 'history' of Ingulf, abbot of Croyland |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ainslie, Hew

​AINSLIE, HEW (1792–1878), Scottish poet, was born in the parish of Dailly, in Ayrshire, 5 April 1792. After a fair education, he became in turn a clerk in Glasgow, a landscape gardener in his native district, and a clerk in the Register House, Edinburgh. For a short time he was amanuensis to Dugald Stewart. In 1822, being then ten years married to his cousin, Ainslie emigrated to America, where he continued to live with varied fortune for the rest of his days, paying a short visit to Scotland in 1864. He was ​attracted, on going to the New World, by Robert Owen's social system at New Harmony, Indiana; but after a short trial he connected himself with a firm of brewers, and his name is associated with the establishment of various breweries, mills, and factories in the Western States. He died at Louisville, 11 March 1878. Ainslie's best known book originated, by its title, what is now an accepted descriptive name for the part of Scotland associated with Burns. It is ‘A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns’ (1820), and consists of a narrative interspersed with sprightly lyrics. A collection of the poet's Scottish songs and ballads (of which the most popular is ‘The Rover of Loch Ryan’) appeared in New York in 1855. Ainslie is one of the group of minor Scottish singers represented in ‘Whistle Binkie’ (Glasgow, 1853).
[Bibliography of Burns, 1881; Whistle Binkie, vol. i.; Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland, vol. ii.; Irving's Eminent Scotsmen.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ainslie, Robert (1766-1838)

1904 Errata appended.
​AINSLIE, ROBERT (1766–1838), correspondent of Robert Burns, the poet, was born 13 Jan. 1766, at Berrywell, near Dunse, where his father was factor to Lord Douglas. While apprenticed to a writer to the signet in Edinburgh, young Ainslie in 1787 formed the acquaintance of Burns, and in May of the same year he made an excursion with the poet in Teviotdale and Berwickshire. Burns stayed some days at Berrywell. A sister of Ainslie, whom Burns met on this occasion, was the subject of the impromptu beginning with ‘Fair maid.’ Ainslie passed writer to the signet in 1789. He became an elder in the Church of Scotland, and was the author of two small religious works, ‘A Father's Gift to his Children,’ and ‘Reasons for the Hope that is in us.’ He also contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Magazine’ and other periodicals. His intimacy with Burns, and his genial manners, secured him a cordial welcome in the literary circles of Edinburgh. Hogg, who speaks of him as ‘honest Ainslie,’ mentions, as his one failing, constitutional sleepiness, the irresistibility of which Hogg, with characteristic egotism, illustrates by stating that he has ‘seen him fall fast asleep in the blue parlour at Ambrose's, with North in the chair and myself croupier.’ Fourteen letters of Burns to Ainslie are included in the poet's correspondence. According to W. S. Douglas (Works of Burns, ii. 188), the ballad, ‘Robin shure in Hairst,’ refers to a juvenile amour of Ainslie. Ainslie presented Sir Walter Scott with a manuscript copy of ‘Tam o' Shanter,’ which he had received from Burns at Ellisland. He died 11 April, 1838.
[Works of Burns, especially the editions of Cunningham, Chambers, P. H. Waddel, and W. S. Douglas.]
T. F. H.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.3 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 190 | i | 15 f.e. | Ainslie, Robert: after Dunse insert Berwickshire |
| | | 14 f.e. | after father insert Robert Ainslie (1734-1795) and after Douglas insert Sir Whitelaw Ainslie [q. v.] was his brother |
| | ii | 20 | after 1838 insert He and his brother Whitelaw married sisters, the daughters of Col. James Cuninghame, of Balbougie, Fifeshire. |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ayscough, William

​AYSCOUGH, WILLIAM, LL.D. (d. 1450), bishop of Salisbury, is believed to have come of an ancient Lincolnshire family seated at Kelsey. The date of his birth is unknown, and the only thing which gives an interest to his name is the manner of his death. Indeed all that is recorded of him before he was made a bishop is that his name occurs in the list of prebendaries of Sutton in Lincoln Cathedral, where he was installed on 10 Nov. 1436. But on 11 Feb. 1438 he was promoted by papal bull to the bishopric of Salisbury, and was consecrated at Windsor on 20 July following; on which promotion he gave up his prebend. He was Henry VI's confessor, and appears to have been constantly called to council by that king, whom he married to Margaret of Anjou, at Titchfield, on 22 April 1445. He was also one of the bishops who examined Eleanor Cobham, the wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, for sorcery. His continual residence at court seems to have been the principal cause of complaint against him in his own diocese, where bishops were expected to keep open house with the profuse hospitality of the middle ages. It was, in fact, a novelty in those days for a bishop to be a king's confessor; and it exposed him to the further criticism that if he was the king's confessor and an influential member of the council he was responsible for everything that was done amiss. Nothing but covetousness, it was believed, could have reconciled him to the atmosphere of the court if he had given the king good advice without effect. These feelings found a vent one day when he really did visit his diocese. In that year of civil tumult, 1450, at the very time that Jack Cade and his followers were upon Blackheath just before they entered London, the bishop said mass at Edington, in Wiltshire, on 29 June, the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. The sacred rite was scarcely completed when the people in church dragged him from the altar and ​carried him forcibly up a neighbouring hill, with his alb and stole upon him; then beat him and killed him with murderous weapons, stripping his body naked to the skin and leaving it lying in the fields unburied. Nor was their fury satiated even after the deed, but they tore his bloody shirt to pieces, and bore the fragments away with them in triumph, glorying in what they had done.
J. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ayton, Richard

​AYTON, RICHARD (1786–1823), dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born in London in 1786. His father, a son of William Ayton, banker in Lombard Street, removed some time afterwards to Macclesfield, Cheshire, and at the grammar school of that town young Ayton obtained a good elementary knowledge of Latin and Greek. In accordance with the wish of his father, who ​died in 1799, that he should be educated for the bar, he was sent to study law at Manchester, and at the end of a year became the pupil of a barrister in London; but conceiving from the beginning a distaste for the profession, he never set himself seriously to prepare for it. As soon as he came of age, he retired to the coast of Sussex, resolved to limit his expenses to his comparatively small income, and to consult only his own inclinations in the occupation of his time. There he amused himself with desultory reading and active outdoor exercise, boating being his special delight. In 1811 he returned to London, and accepted a situation in a public office; but this he relinquished in 1813, to accompany William Daniell, A.R.A., in a voyage round Great Britain. An account of the voyage, with views drawn and engraved by Daniell, appeared in 8 vols. folio, 1814–25 [see Daniell, William]; but the letterpress of only the first two volumes is by Ayton. Disagreeing with Daniell in regard to his plans for the future volumes, Ayton declined to proceed further with the book, and betook himself to play-writing. Two of his farces, acted at Covent Garden, were total failures; but he adapted from the French several pieces for the English Opera House with moderate success. During a voyage between Scarborough and London, Ayton was nearly shipwrecked, and received an injury to his ankle which confined him to bed for more than a year. In the spring of 1821 he was sufficiently recovered to go to the coast of Sussex, but his health continued uncertain and precarious. In July 1823 his illness assumed so serious a form, that he removed for medical advice to London, where he died shortly afterwards. During the last eighteen months of his life Ayton occupied himself in the composition of a number of essays, chiefly on pastimes and similar subjects, written in a genial and playful spirit, and displaying considerable sprightliness and humour. These, with a short memoir prefixed, were published in 1825.
[Memoir in Edinburgh Magazine, new series, x. 254–5, which contains some additional details to those given in Monthly Magazine, iv. 153–4, and Gent. Mag. vol. lxvii. part 2, pp. 731–2.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baalun, John de

Contains subarticle Roger de Baalun or Balun, who probably descended from Wynebald de Balun.
​BAALUN, or BALUN, JOHN de (d. 1235), justice itinerant, was a baron who possessed estates in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Wiltshire, and was descended from one Hameline de Baalun, who came over with the Conqueror, built the castle of Abergavenny, and died in 1089. His father was Reginald de Balun, and in 1207 John de Balun paid a fine for the lands of Hameline, on behalf of his father, to Geoffrey Fitz-Ace and Agnes, his wife, and 100 marks and a palfrey to the king. In 12 John (1210–11) Balun accompanied the king to Ireland, but at the end of John's reign lost his lands for taking part in the barons' attack upon the king. On the accession of Henry III he was restored on returning to his allegiance, and in 9 Henry III (1224–5) was appointed a justice itinerant for Gloucestershire along with Matthew de Pateshull, archdeacon of Norfolk, Richard de Veym, and the abbot of Tewkesbury. He died in 1235. His son John paid 100l. for his relief, and did homage for his inheritance, and, dying in 1274, was succeeded by another of John's sons, Walter (Abb. Rot. Orig. i. 24). A justice itinerant who was appointed 9 Henry III and died in the following year (1226) bore the name of Roger de Baalun ​or Balun, and was probably a son or grandson of Wynebald de Balun of Eastington Manor, in Gloncestershire, brother of Hameline de Balun.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Dugdale's Origines Juridic. (Chron. Ser.); Courthope's Historic Peerage.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ayscu, Edward

​AYSCU, or AYSCOUGH, EDWARD (fl. 1633), historian, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1590. He afterwards resided at Cotham, in Lincolnshire, from which place he dates the preface to his only work, ‘A Historie contayning the Warres, Treaties, Marriages, and other occurrents betweene England and Scotland, from King William the Conqueror untill the happy Union of them both in our gratious King James. With a briefe declaration of the first Inhabitants of this Island: And what severall Nations have sithence settled them-selves therein one after an other,’ London, 1607, 4to. Ayscu appears to have been living in 1633.
T. C.
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Babell, William

​BABELL or BABEL, WILLIAM (1690?–1723), musician, was the son of a bassoon-player, and received his first musical instruction from his father. He was for some time the pupil of Dr. Pepusch, under whose care he attained to great proficiency as a player both on the harpsichord and violin, and to some skill in composition. He was appointed one of George I's private musicians, and was also given the post of organist of All Hallows, Bread Street. Such celebrity as he attained was due rather to his arrangements for the harpsichord of popular airs from the operas of Handel and others,than to any original work of his own. He may claim to be regarded as the originator of those 'transcriptions' which have since his day been so fashionable in a certain circle of the world of music. Burney criticises him very severely, accusing him of 'wire-drawing the favourite songs of the opera of Rinaldo, and others of the same period, into showy and brilliant lessons, which by mere rapidity of finger in playing single sounds, without the assistance of taste, expression, harmony, or modulation, enabled the performer to astonish ignorance, and acquire the reputation of a great player at a small expense.' Hawkins, however, considers them to have deserved the celebrity which they attained. Besides these arrangements there exist several collections of solos for the violin, oboe, German flute, &c., and some concertos for 'small flutes' and violins mentioned by Hawkins. A Vivace with florid variations, and a Gavotte and Aria in manuscript, are contained in the British Museum (Add. MS. 31577). He died at Canonbury on 23 Sept. 1723, his early death being probably due to his intemperate habits. He was buried in All Hallows Church.
[Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, i. 287; Burney's History of Music; Hawkins's History of Music; Manuscript and Printed Music in Brit. Mus.]
J. A. F. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Callender, James Thomson

​CALLENDER, JAMES THOMSON (d. 1803), miscellaneous writer, a native of Scotland, in autumn 1792 published anonymously at London and Edinburgh ‘The Political Progress of Britain, or an Impartial Account of the Principal Abuses in the Government of this Country from the Revolution of 1688.’ This was meant to be the first of a series of pamphlets, but the project was checked by the arrest of the author on 2 Jan. 1793, on account of statements in the work. Having, as he says, ‘with some difficulty made his escape,’ he went to America and established himself in Philadelphia, where he republished his treatise (3rd edit. reissued 1795). It received the favourable notice of Jefferson, was translated into German (Edinburgh, Philadelphia, and London, 1797; the translator's preface is dated from Cologne, 4 June 1796), and was attacked in ‘A Bone to Gnaw for the Democrats’ (Philadelphia, 1795). A second part of the ‘Political Progress’ was published, but this was, says Jefferson, much inferior to the first. Callender also published at Philadelphia the ‘Political Register’ (3 Nov. 1794 to 3 March 1795), the ‘American Annual Register for 1796,’ 1797, and ‘Sketches of the History of America,’ 1798. He was a bitter writer; he was continually in want of money, and from either or both causes got into difficulties at Philadelphia, from which he ‘fled in a panic.’ He was afterwards at Richmond, Virginia, where he edited for some years the ‘Richmond Recorder,’ which became noted for the violence ​of its attacks on the administrations of Washington and John Adams. It was probably at some time during his residence here that he wrote a work entitled ‘The Prospect before us.’ When Jefferson succeeded to power, Callender, who had obtained money from him on several occasions, wished to be appointed postmaster at Richmond. Jefferson would not consent to this, and Callender, taking ‘mortal offence,’ passed over from the republicans to the federalists, and bitterly attacked his former allies. Jefferson, who was very indignant at this, says his ‘base ingratitude presents human nature in a hideous form,’ and animadverts strongly on the scurrility of his writings. Callender was drowned while bathing in the James river at Richmond on 7 July 1803. The ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ says that he ‘drowned himself.’
F. W-t.