OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ritchie, William Johnstone

​RITCHIE, Sir WILLIAM JOHNSTONE (1813–1892), chief justice of Canada, son of Thomas Ritchie, judge of the court of common pleas in Nova Scotia, and Eliza Johnstone, was born at Annapolis in that province on 28 Oct. 1813. He was educated at Pictou College, Nova Scotia, and studied law at Halifax in company with his brother, who afterwards became judge in equity for Nova Scotia. He was called to the bar of New Brunswick in 1838. In 1846 he entered the assembly as member for St. John's, retaining the same seat till 1851, but not making any special mark as a politician. After some years' successful practice he became a Q.C. in January 1854. In October 1854 he was appointed a member of the executive council of New Brunswick, but resigned on 17 Aug. 1855 on becoming a puisne judge for that province. In 1865 he was the representative of Nova Scotia on the colonial confederate council, which assembled to consider the question of commercial treaties. In December 1865 he was promoted to be chief justice of New Brunswick.
On 8 Oct. 1875 Ritchie was appointed a puisne judge of the Dominion supreme court, and on 11 Jan. 1879 was made chief justice. On 1 Nov. 1881 he was created knight bachelor. He acted as deputy governor of the Dominion during Lord Lorne's absence from July 1881 to Jan. 1882, and again in ​March 1884. He died at Ottawa on 25 Sept. 1892.
Ritchie married, first, Miss Strong, of St. Andrews, New Brunswick; secondly, in 1854, Grace, daughter of Thomas L. Nicholson of St. John, New Brunswick, and stepdaughter of Admiral William Fitzwilliam Owen [q. v.] He left children settled in Canada.
[Canadian Parl. Companion, 1880; Montreal Daily Herald, 26 Sept. 1892, as corrected by official record and private inquiry.]
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ritchie, Alexander Handyside

Contains subarticle John Ritchie (1809–1850).
​RITCHIE, ALEXANDER HANDYSIDE (1804–1870), sculptor, son of James Ritchie, a brickmaker, who amused himself with modelling, was born in Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, in 1804. He was educated at the parish school, and showed such a taste for drawing and designing that he was induced by Leonard Horner to remove to Edinburgh, where he continued his art studies. He attended the school of design, and afterwards made a tour of France and Italy, studying at Rome under Thorwaldsen, and returning to Edinburgh about 1838. He was the sculptor of a large number of busts, statues, and groups (eleven of which were exhibited at the Royal Academy, London), and he was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1846. He died on 23 April 1870.
As a sculptor Ritchie was possessed of no small amount of true feeling and skill. Among his best productions are busts of Lady Susan Hamilton and Kemp the architect of the Scott monument in Edinburgh; the Dickson statue group in St. Cuthbert's churchyard, Edinburgh; a statue of his friend, Dr. Moir, at Musselburgh; the Wallace statue at Stirling; and the ornamental figures on the Commercial and British Linen Banks in Edinburgh, the Commercial Bank in Glasgow, and the mausoleum at Hamilton Palace. He was also engaged for decorative sculpture for the houses of parliament.
Ritchie's younger brother, John Ritchie (1809–1850), sculptor, pursued his studies in Scotland under many disadvantages. The chief of his early works is the statue of Sir Walter Scott at Glasgow. He was subject to extraordinary dreams, and used to attempt to model his visions in clay. One of them was his fine group, ‘The Deluge,’ exhibited at Edinburgh in 1823, which attracted much attention. It was again exhibited in London, at the Royal Academy, in 1840. In the same year his ‘Sappho’ was exhibited at the British Institution. After the return of his brother from Rome, he became his assistant, and worked for him for some years. A Mr. Davidson, of London, who saw the model of ‘The Deluge,’ commissioned John Ritchie to execute it in marble. With this purpose he set out in September 1850 for Rome. He was already engaged on his work when he caught malarial fever, which proved fatal on 30 Nov. (notes furnished by Mr. Campbell Dodgson; Art Journal, 1851, p. 44).
G. S-h.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wogan, Thomas

​WOGAN, THOMAS (fl. 1646–1666), regicide, was a member of the Wogan family of Pembrokeshire. He was elected as a recruiter to represent the borough of Cardigan in the Long parliament on 24 Aug. 1646. He is said to have served in the parliamentary army as captain of dragoons, though probably this is a confusion with Edward Wogan [q. v.] On 23 Jan. 1647 he presented to a committee of the House of Lords a petition from the town of Cardigan for the establishment of a free school there. At the end of March 1648 he received the leave of the House of Commons to go to Wales to endeavour to restore peace in Pembrokeshire and the adjoining counties. He then served under Colonel Thomas Horton [q. v.], and in June he was voted the sum of 300l. as part of the arrears due to him.
Wogan was one of the king's judges. He was present at the trial on 18, 22, 23, and 26 Jan. 1649, and was in Westminster Hall on the 29th when sentence was pronounced. He signed the death-warrant. In April 1652 lands belonging to the Commonwealth of England were settled upon Wogan and his heirs in satisfaction of all arrears. He sat in the restored Rump parliament of 1659. At the Restoration he was summoned to trial with other regicides, and on 9 June 1660 was excepted from the Act of Oblivion. He surrendered on 27 June, and, although not within the prescribed period for doing so, his surrender was accepted, and he was one of the nineteen included in the saving clause of suspension from execution in case of attainder till the passing of a future act. His forfeited lands at Wiston, near Haverfordwest, were granted to Robert Werden [q. v.] in August 1662. On 27 July 1664 he was stated to have escaped from York Tower, and a proclamation was issued for his arrest. The last reference that has been discovered to him is dated September 1666, when he is spoken of as ‘at Utrecht, plotting’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1666–7, p. 156).
B. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oliphant, Francis Wilson

​OLIPHANT, FRANCIS WILSON (1818–1859), painter and designer of stained glass, son of Thomas Oliphant, Edinburgh, of an ancient but fallen family in Fife, was born on 31 Aug. 1818 at Newcastle-on-Tyne, during the temporary residence of his parents there. He was trained as an artist at the Edinburgh Academy of Art. In early life the revival of Gothic style and ornament led him to make a profound study of ecclesiastical art, and while still very young he attained considerable reputation as a designer of painted glass in the works of Messrs. Wailes of Newcastle-on-Tyne. He afterwards removed to London, and worked much with Welby Pugin, especially upon the painted windows in the new Houses of Parliament. He also sent in a cartoon to the competition for the decoration of Westminster Hall, which was not successful. During this period Oliphant exhibited several pictures in the Royal Academy, the chief being a large Shakespearean study of the interview between Richard II and John of Gaunt, and a striking picture of the Prodigal Son ‘Nearing Home.’ In 1852 he married his cousin, Margaret Oliphant Wilson, who was beginning to be known as a writer, and since achieved a wide reputation in many departments of literature. His latter years were occupied with an energetic attempt to improve the art of painted glass by superintending the processes of execution as well as the design, in the course of which he produced the windows in the ante-chapel of King's College, Cambridge, those in the chancel of Aylesbury Church, and several in Ely Cathedral. The famous choristers' window at Ely was the joint work of Oliphant and William Dyce, R.A., the former being responsible for the original design. This work, however, was interrupted by ill-health, which obliged him to seek a warmer climate. He died at Rome in October 1859, chiefly from the effects of overwork. He had published in 1856 a small treatise entitled ‘A Plea for Painted Glass.’
Oliphant had two sons, both of whom died in early manhood after making some promising efforts in literature. The elder son, Cyril Francis Oliphant (1856–1890), who graduated B.A. at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1883, published in 1890, in the series known as ‘Foreign Classics,’ a biography and criticism of the work of Alfred de Musset, which was notable for some well-rendered translations from the French. The younger son, Francis Romano Oliphant (1859–1894), born at Rome after his father's death, graduated B.A. at Oxford in 1883. He issued in 1891 ‘Notes of ​a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land,’ which originally appeared in the form of letters addressed to the ‘Spectator.’ He was a frequent contributor to that and other periodicals, and largely aided his mother in the preparation of her ‘Victorian Age of Literature’ (1892).
[Private information.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oliphant, Laurence (d.1566)

​OLIPHANT, LAURENCE, third Lord Oliphant (d. 1566), was the son of Colin, master of Oliphant (killed at the battle of Flodden in 1513), by Lady Elizabeth Keith, second daughter of William, third earl Marischal. He succeeded his grandfather John, second lord, in 1516, and was one of the Scottish nobles taken prisoner at the rout of Solway Moss on 25 Nov. 1542 (Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 25), his capturer being Dacre's servant (Hamilton Papers, ed. Bain, i. 325). He reached Newark on 15 Dec., he and other prisoners being then so 'crazed' by the hardships of their march that their subsequent journey to London was a little delayed (ib. p. 335). The annual value of his lands was then estimated at two thousand merks Scots, or five hundred merks sterling, and the value of his goods at four thousand merks Scots (State Papers, Henry VIII, v. 233). He remained in England in the custody of Sir Thomas Lee, knt., but on 1 July 1543 was allowed to be ransomed for eight hundred merks sterling, on condition that, along with other captive Scottish nobles, he should acknowledge Henry VIII as lord-superior, should co-operate in procuring him the government of Scotland, and should exert his influence to get the infant Queen Mary delivered to Henry, to be brought up in England. On obtaining his liberty he, however, made no attempt to fulfil these pledges, and he declined to enter himself a prisoner in England in August for making of his bond and promise for the payment of the ransom. When Lord Huntly began a reformation of religion in his territories, Lord Oliphant, in February 1560, at a meeting at Aberdeen, promised to do as Huntly advised (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1569-1660, entry 710); but it is doubtful if he ever joined against the queen-dowager (ib. 1560-1, entry 172). He died on 26 March 1566. By Margaret, eldest daughter of James Sandilands of Cruvie, he had three sons and four daughters. The sons were: Laurence, fourth lord Oliphant [q. v.]; Peter, ancestor of the Oliphants of Langton; and William. The daughters were: Catherine, married first to Sir Alexander Oliphant of Kellie, and secondly to George Dundas of Dundas; Margaret, married first to William Murray of Abercaimy, and secondly to James Clephane of Carslogie; Jean, to William Moncriefie of Moncriefie; and Lilias, to Robert Lundie of Balgonie.
[Diurnal of Occurrents (Bannatyne Club); Sadleir's State Papers; State Papers, Hen. VIII; Hamilton Papers; Anderson's Oliphants in Scotland, 1879, pp. xxxvii-xl; Douglas's Scottish Peerage, ed. Wood, ii. 333-4.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oliphant, Thomas

​OLIPHANT, THOMAS (1799–1873), writer and musical composer, was born 25 Dec. 1799, at Condie, Strathearn, Perthshire, in the house of his father, Ebenezer Oliphant; his mother was Mary, the third daughter of Sir William Stirling, bart., of Ardoch, Perthshire. After being educated at Winchester College and by private tutors, he became for a short time a member of the Stock Exchange, London, but soon relinquished commerce to devote himself to literature and music. In 1830 he was admitted a member of the Madrigal Society, of which he afterwards became honorary secretary, and, for the use of its members, he adapted English words to a considerable number of Italian madrigals, in some cases writing original verses, in others by merely trans​lating. In 1834 he took part in the chorus, as a bass vocalist, in the great Handel festival held in Westminster Abbey, and in the same year published, under the pseudonym ‘Solomon Sackbut,’ ‘Comments of a Chorus Singer at the Royal Musical Festival in Westminster' Abbey.' He also published in 1835 ‘A Brief Account of the Madrigal Society;’ in 1836, ‘A Short Account of Madrigals;’ in 1837 ‘La Musa Madrigalesca,' a volume containing the words of nearly four hundred ‘madrigals, ballets, and ronndelays. chiefly of the Elizabethan age, with remarks and annotations.’ In 1837 he composed the words and music of a madrigal, ‘Stay one Moment, gentle Sires,' which he produced as the work of an unknown seventeenth-century composer, Blasio Tomasi, and as such it was performed at the anniversary festival of the Madrigal Society. He wrote English versions of Beethoven‘s ‘Fidelio’ and the ‘Mount of Olives,’ and the words for numerous songs of Hatton and other composers. By desire of the directors of the Philharmonic Society he translated portions of Wagner’s opera ‘Lohengrin,’ which were performed by the society's orchestra and chorus, the composer conducting, at the Hanover Square Rooms in March 1855. He was engaged for some years in cataloguing the music in the British Museum, and he occasionally lectured in public on musical subjets. In 1871 he wus elected president of the Madrigal Society. He died unmarried, on 9 March 1873, in Great Marlborough Street, and in the following April his valuable collection of ancient music was sold by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson.
[Private knowledge.]
W. H. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Warburton, Peter (1588-1666)

1904 Errata appended.
​WARBURTON, PETER (1588–1666), judge, eldest son of Peter Warburton of Hefferston Grange, Cheshire, grandson of Sir Peter Warburton (d. 1550) of Arley in the same county, by Magdalen, daughter of Robert Moulton of St. Alban's, Wood Street, London, auditor of the exchequer in the reign of Elizabeth, was born on 27 March 1588. At Oxford, where he matriculated from ​Brasenose College on 11 May 1604, he graduated B.A. on 22 Nov. 1606. On 27 Jan. 1606–7 he was admitted student at Lincoln's Inn, where he was called to the bar in 1612. He was one of the commissioners appointed on 1 Feb. 1640–1 for the levy in Cheshire of the first two subsidies granted by the Long parliament, and on 6 Nov. 1645 was added to the committee of accounts. Parliament also appointed him on 22 Feb. 1646–7 justice of the court of session of Cheshire and of the great sessions of the counties of Montgomery, Denbigh, and Flint, and advanced him on 12 June 1649 to a puisne judgeship in the court of common pleas, having first (9 June) caused him to be invested with the coif. He was a member of the special commission which on 24 Oct. following tried John Lilburne [q. v.] On 14 March 1654–5 he was joined with Sir George Booth and Sir William Brereton in the militia commission for Cheshire. Soon afterwards he was transferred from the court of common pleas to the upper bench, in which he sat with Lord-chief-justice Glynne on the trial (9 Feb. 1656–7) of Miles Sindercombe [q. v.] Though pardoned on the Restoration, he was not confirmed by a new call in the status of serjeant-at-law. He died on 28 Feb. 1665–6, and was buried in the church of Fetcham, Surrey. By his wife Alice, daughter of John Gardener of Kimbleton, Worcestershire, he left issue a son Robert.
[London Marr. Lic. 1520–1610 (Harl. Soc.), p. 146; Ormerod's Cheshire, ed. Helsby, i. 65, ii. 174–5; Earwaker's East Cheshire, ii. 70; Visitation of Cheshire, 1580 (Harl. Soc.), p. 239, Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Lincoln's Inn Rec. Adm.; Whitelocke's Mem. pp. 238, 240, 405, 407; Comm. Journal, v. 93, vi. 222, 229; Chetham Misc. ii. art. i. 36; Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. App. pp. 83, 115; Cal. State Papers, Dom. Addenda, March 1625–Jan. 1649 p. 630, 1655 p. 78, 1660–1 p. 370; Thurloe State Papers, iii. 738, iv. 149, 449; Cobbett's State Trials, v. 841; Noble's Protectoral House of Cromwell, i. 431; Brayley and Britton's Surrey, iv. 417; Addit. MS. 21506, f. 58, Style's Rep.; Siderfin's Rep.; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. v. 529; Foss's Lives of the Judges.]
J. M. R.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.275 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Warburton, Rowland Eyles Egerton-

​WARBURTON, ROWLAND EYLES EGERTON- (1804–1891), poet, born at Moston, near Chester, on 14 Sept. 1804, was son of the Rev. Rowland Egerton Warburton, who assumed the name Warburton on his marriage with Emma, daughter of James Croxton, and granddaughter and sole heiress of Sir Peter Warburton, bart., of Warburton and Arley, Cheshire. Peter Egerton Warburton [q. v.] was his younger brother. Rowland Warburton was educated at Eton and matriculated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 14 Feb. 1823. After making the grand tour, he settled at Arley and devoted himself to the care of his estates, rebuilding Arley Hall and seldom visiting London. He was high sheriff of Cheshire in 1833. A strong tory and a high churchman, he took little part in politics, but Gladstone's action in disestablishing the Irish church went near to severing an intimate friendship which began when both were young men.
An ardent foxhunter, he generally rode thoroughbred horses bred by himself, and amused himself and his friends by writing hunting songs for the Old Tarporley Club meetings. These verses were of unusual spirit and elegance; they were first collected and published in 1846 under the title of ‘Hunting Songs and Miscellaneous Verses,’ running subsequently through several editions, the eighth edition having appeared in 1887. Among these poems are many with which every hunting man is familiar, such as the one beginning ‘Stags in the forest lie, hares in the valley-o.’ Besides this volume Egerton-Warburton published ‘Three Hunting Songs’ (1855), ‘Poems, Epigrams, and Sonnets’ (1877), ‘Songs and Verses on Sporting Subjects’ (1879), as well as some minor works. For the last seventeen years of his life he was totally blind from glaucoma. He died at Arley Hall on 6 Dec. 1891. He married, on 7 May 1831, Mary, eldest daughter of Sir Richard Brooke, bart., of Norton Priory, Cheshire, and he was succeeded in the estates by his son Piers.
[Ormerod's Hist. of Cheshire; Burke's Landed Gentry; private information.]
H. E. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sandford, Francis Richard John

​SANDFORD, FRANCIS RICHARD JOHN, first Lord Sandford (1824–1893), eldest son of Sir Daniel Keyte Sandford [q. v.], was born on 14 May 1824, and spent some years in the high school of Glasgow and the Grange School, an institution of repute kept by a Dr. Cowan at Sunderland. Thence he passed successively to the university of Glasgow, and, as Snell exhibitioner, to Balliol College, Oxford, where he matriculated, 10 March 1842. At Oxford he obtained a first class in the school of literæ humaniores (B.A. 1846, and M.A. 1858). In 1848 he entered the education office. In that office, with an interval in 1862, when he acted as organising secretary to the International Exhibition, and another from 1868 to 1870, in which he was assistant under-secretary in the colonial office, he remained until 1884. During the last fourteen years of this period he was, as secretary, the permanent head of the office, and performed work of the greatest value in the organisation of the national system of education created by Mr. Forster's act of 1870. He acted at the same time as secretary to the Scottish education department and to the science and art department, then combining duties which since his period of office have been discharged by separate officials. The work he performed in these capacities was appreciated by statesmen of all political parties. In 1884 he became a charity commissioner under the London Parochial Charities Act. In 1885 he acted as vice-chairman of the boundary commissioners under the Redistribution of Seats Act, and in the same year he became the first under-secretary for Scotland. He held that office until 1887. He was knighted in 1862, became C.B. in 1871, and K.C.B. in 1879; was created a privy councillor in 1885, and was called to the House of Lords as Lord Sandford of Sandford in 1891. The entail of the estate of Sandford in Shropshire, which has been owned by the family for eight hundred years, passed to him in 1892. He died on 31 Dec. 1893. He married, 1 Aug. 1849, Margaret, daughter of Robert Findlay, esq., of Botwich Castle, Dumbartonshire. He left no issue.
H. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sandford, Daniel (1766-1830)

​SANDFORD, DANIEL (1766–1830), bishop of Edinburgh, second son of the Rev. Daniel Sandford of Sandford Hall, Shropshire, was born at Delville, near Dublin, on 1 July 1766. He was descended from Ro​bert, eldest son of Francis Sandford [q. v.] On the death of his father, his mother removed to Bath in 1770, and young Sandford was educated at the grammar school there. After receiving some private tuition at Bristol he matriculated as a commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, on 26 Nov. 1783, under Dr. Cyril Jackson, and was preferred to a studentship by the bishop of Oxford. In 1787 he won the college prize for Latin composition, and graduated B.A. He proceeded M.A. in 1791 and D.D. in 1802. In 1790 he was admitted to deacon's orders, and served curacies at Sunbury and Hanworth. In 1792 he removed to Edinburgh, where he opened an episcopal chapel. It was attended by English families residing in the city. In 1818 he removed to St. John's, the leading Scottish episcopal church in Edinburgh. On 9 Feb. 1806 he was consecrated bishop of Edinburgh, in succession to Dr. Abernethy Drummond. The appointment of an English presbyter to an episcopate in Scotland was viewed by many with suspicion, and provoked much discussion. But the appointment was in every way a success. As a member of the episcopal college he was regarded by his brother prelates with affection and respect, and he rendered valuable assistance in the preparation of the canons by which the episcopal church of Scotland is governed. He died at Edinburgh, after many years of feeble health, on 14 Jan. 1830, and was buried in the ground adjoining his chapel. On 11 Oct. 1790 he married Helen Frances Catherine (d. 1837), eldest daughter of Erskine Douglas, son of Sir William Douglas, bart., of Kelhead. He had three sons and four daughters. The eldest son, Erskine Douglas (1793–1861), was sheriff of Galloway. The second and third sons, Sir Daniel Keyte [q. v.] and John (1801–1873) [q. v.], are noticed separately.
Sandford was the author of: 1. ‘ Lectures on Passion Week,’ 1797, Edinburgh, 8vo; 2nd ed. 1821, Edinburgh, 12mo; 3rd ed. 1826, Edinburgh, 12mo. 2. ‘Sermons chiefly for young Persons,’ 1802, Edinburgh, 12mo. 3. ‘Sermons preached in St. John's Chapel,’ 1819, Edinburgh, 8vo. 4. ‘Remains,’ 2 vols. 1830, Edinburgh, 8vo. He also contributed articles to the ‘Classical Journal.’
G. S-h.