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

​MACKAY, ROBERT WILLIAM (1803–1882), philosopher and scholar, born 27 May 1803 in Piccadilly, London, was only son of John Mackay, and was educated at Winchester. He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, 15 Jan. 1821, graduating B.A. 1824 and M.A. 1828, and carrying off the chancellor's prize for Latin verse. On leaving Oxford he entered Lincoln's Inn in 1828, but after planning and partly writing a treatise on equity he conceived a dislike to the subject, and turned to theology and philosophy. In 1850 he published his most elaborate work, ‘The Progress of the Intellect, as exemplified in the Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews,’ 2 vols. 8vo. This was followed in 1854 by ‘A Sketch of the Rise and Progress of Christianity,’ and in 1863 by ‘The Tübingen School and its Antecedents: a Review of the History and Present Condition of Modern Theology.’ All are remarkable for ‘the amount of research and thought put into a narrow compass.’ Their author, as a philosopher, agreed most nearly with Kant, as a theologian he followed Baur and Strauss. His devotion to Plato found expression in two translations—‘The Sophistes of Plato, translated, with explanatory Notes and an Introduction on Ancient and Modern Sophistry,’ 1868, and ‘Plato's Meno, translated, with explanatory Notes and Introduction, and a preliminary Essay on the Moral Education of the Greeks,’ 1869. These, like his other works, show originality of thought and fine scholarship. He died 23 Feb. 1882.
[Athenæum, No. 2836, p. 283; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]
R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hibbart, William

​HIBBART or HIBBERT, WILLIAM (fl. 1760–1800), etcher, practised chiefly at Bath towards the end of the eighteenth century. He etched several heads rather cleverly in the manner of T. Worlidge [q. v.] Among them were portraits of Laurent Delvaux and A. Watteau for Walpole's ‘Anecdotes of Painting;’ Elizabeth Gulston after Falconet; Walter Harte after Seeman; and various portraits prefixed to literary works or biographies, such as those of Richard Nash, the master of the ceremonies at Bath, John Ray the botanist, and others. He also etched the plates for ‘The Amaranth,’ a volume of religious poems, published in 1767. Bartolozzi engraved a trade-card for Hibbert, engraver, of 8 Bridge Street, Bath, probably the above.
[Dodd's manuscript History of English Engravers (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 33401); Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hibbert, Henry

​HIBBERT, HENRY (1600?–1678), divine, was born in Cheshire about 1600. In 1618 he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. on 27 June 1622 (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 405). He became rector of Settrington, Yorkshire, and in 1651 vicar of Holy Trinity, Kingston-upon-Hull, in the same county, but was ejected for nonconformity in 1660. Hibbert soon conformed, and on Restoration day, 29 May 1661, he preached at St. Paul's before the lord mayor a very loyal sermon, published as ‘Regina Dierum, or the Joyful Day,’ 4to, London, 1661. He was rewarded in 1662 by the rectory of All Hallows the Less, London, and on 22 Sept. of the same year was instituted to the vicarage of St. Olave Jewry (Newcourt, Repertorium, i. 515). As a member of St. John's College, Cambridge, he was made B.D. in 1664 by royal mandate, and D.D. in 1665 (Cantabr. Graduati, ed. 1787, p. 192). On 12 Jan. 1668–9 he was installed prebendary of St. Paul's (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 376). Hibbert died in September 1678, leaving two daughters, Hannah and Mary.
He was author of:
* ‘Waters of Marah, drawn forth in two Funerall Sermons, October 1653 [on the two children of William Lyme, collector of the customs at Hull]. Since (upon desire) enlarged,’ 8vo, London, 1654.
* ‘Syntagma Theologicum; or a Treatise wherein is concisely comprehended the Body of Divinity, and the Fundamentals of Religion orderly discussed. Whereunto are added certain Divine Discourses,’ &c., 2 pts., fol., London, 1662, to which is prefixed his portrait engraved by D. Loggan. It bears a slavish dedication to James, duke of York. ​
[Frederick Ross's Celebrities of the Yorkshire Wolds, pp. 75–6; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 1178; authorities referred to.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Heywood, Robert

​HEYWOOD, ROBERT (1574?–1645), poet, eldest son of Peter Heywood of Heywood Hall, Lancashire, was born about 1574. He married Margaret, daughter and coheiress of John Asheton of Penketh, Lancashire, and in 1611 rebuilt Heywood Hall. In 1636 he entertained the scholar and poet, Richard James [q. v.], who recorded the chief events of his visit in his ‘Iter Lancastrense.’ He was called by the nonconformist Oliver Heywood ​[q. v.] ‘a pious reverend old gentleman, and an excellent poet.’ His poetry was supposed to have perished until in 1868 a transcript turned up in a sale at Sotheby's, with the title of ‘Observations and Instructions, Divine and Morall.’ This was printed, under the editorship of James Crossley, by the Chetham Society in 1869. The verses, which are not without vigour or point, are arranged in five ‘centuries.’ Heywood died in 1645, aged 71.
[Crossley's Notes, op. cit.; James's Iter Lancastrense, in Chetham Soc. vol. vii.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hibberd, Shirley

​HIBBERD, SHIRLEY (1825–1890), journalist and horticultural writer, the son of a retired sea-captain, was born in the parish of St. Dunstan, Stepney, in 1825. The early death of his father necessitated his following some trade instead of, as had been intended, entering the medical profession, and he was apprenticed to a Stepney bookseller. He soon, however, began to write, and engaged in journalistic work. In 1858 he became the first editor of the newly established ‘Floral World,’ managing that journal until 1875 with considerable success. ​Meanwhile he had become connected in 1861 with the ‘Gardener's Magazine,’ of which he was editor at the time of his death. Hibberd was a man of many schemes. He was a temperance advocate and a vegetarian. But he is chiefly known as a practical writer on horticulture. He made various experiments on fruit-trees and vegetables, notably potatoes, and kept moving further into the suburbs in order to have better opportunities of pursuing his gardening operations. Hibberd died at the Hermitage, near Muswell Hill, on 16 Nov. 1890, and was buried in Abney Park cemetery at Stoke Newington. His portrait appears in the ‘Gardener's Magazine’ of 22 Nov. 1890. He was twice married, and left one daughter by his second wife. Among many other works, Hibberd published:
* ‘Brambles and Bay Leaves: Essays on the Homely and the Beautiful,’ 1855, 8vo; 3rd edit. 1873.
* ‘Profitable Gardening …,’ 1863, 8vo.
* ‘Familiar Garden Flowers …,’ 1879–87, 8vo.
[Gardeners' Chronicle, 22 Nov. 1890; Times, 17 Nov. 1890; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hibbert, George

​HIBBERT, GEORGE (1757–1837), collector and merchant, son of Robert Hibbert, a West India merchant, was born at Manchester in 1757. He was educated at a private school kept by a clergyman named Booth first at Liverpool and afterwards at Woolton. He settled in London as junior partner in a West India house, eventually becoming the head of the firm. He was alderman of London from 1798 to 1803, and from 1806 to 1812 was M.P. for Seaford, Sussex. He was a lucid and forcible speaker, and supported the whigs. At meetings in the city of London he moved the resolutions which led to the imposition of the property tax in 1798, and again those which forced its repeal in 1816. In conjunction with Robert Milligan, he was mainly instrumental in originating and maturing the schemes for establishing the West India Docks. He was also chairman of the West India merchants until 1831, and agent for Jamaica. In the foundation of the London Institution in 1805 he was most active, and was its president for many years.
He was elected F.R.S. in 1811, and F.S.A. in 1812. He was a patron of art and a collector of pictures and books, and formed a large collection of exotic plants at his house at Clapham. In 1829 he succeeded to the estate of R. Parker at Munden, near Watford, Hertfordshire, and removed there; but the size of his new residence necessitated the disposal of the greater part of his literary and art treasures. The sale of his library occupied forty-two days, and the catalogue fills 482 pages. He published in 1807 ‘The Substance of three Speeches on the Abolition of the Slave Trade.’ As a member of the Roxburghe Club he edited for that body in 1819 Caxton's translation of Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses,’ with a preface by himself.
He died at Munden House on 8 Oct. 1837, and was buried at Aldenham. He married Elizabeth Margaret, daughter of Philip Fonnereau, esq. His portrait and that of his wife were engraved by Ward after Hoppner. Another portrait of Hibbert by Sir Thomas Lawrence hangs in the board-room of the East and West India Company.
[Gent. Mag. January 1838, pt. i. p. 96 (memoir), and July 1829, p. 64 (sale of his library); Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, ii. 200; Baker's Memorials of a Dissenting Chapel, p. 90; Cussans's Hertfordshire, ‘Dracorum,’ p. 268, and ‘Cashio,’ p. 179.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Heywood, Samuel

​HEYWOOD, SAMUEL (1753–1828), serjeant-at-law and Welsh judge, son of Benjamin Heywood of Liverpool, afterwards banker at Manchester, was born at Liverpool in 1753. He was educated at the Warrington academy from 1768 to 1772, and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Being a unitarian he absented himself from chapel, and incurred the censure of the authorities, which he would have resisted but for his father. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple on 2 July 1772, and was made serjeant-at-law in 1794. He had considerable practice on the northern circuit. On 8 March 1807 he received the appointment of chief justice of the Carmarthen circuit. He was a personal friend and warm defender of Charles James Fox. He was seized with paralysis while on circuit at Haverfordwest on 27 Aug. 1828, and died at Tenby on 11 Sept., and was buried at Bristol. He married Susan, daughter of John Cornwall, by whom he had several children. He wrote:
* ‘The Right of Protestant Dissenters to a Compleat Toleration asserted. … By a Layman,’ 1787; 2nd edit. 1789; 3rd edit. 1790. This is said to have converted Dr. Parr, who termed it the only good book produced by the dissenters.
* ‘High Church Politics’ (in answer to Bishop Horsley), 1790.
* ‘Digest of the Law concerning County Elections,’ 1790.
* ‘Digest of the Law respecting Borough Elections,’ 1797 (reprinted 1818).
* ‘Vindication of Mr. Fox's History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II,’ 1811, 4to; favourably reviewed by Sydney Smith in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ and by Roberts in the ‘Monthly Review,’ lxix. 364.
* ‘A Dissertation upon the Distinctions in Society and Ranks of the People, under the Anglo-Saxon Governments,’ 1818, 8vo.
Just before his death he was engaged on lives of the Duke of Monmouth and of William, Lord Russell.
[Woolrych's Eminent Serjeants-at-Law, 1869, ii. 701; Monthly Repository, 1814, p. 387; Foster's Lancashire Pedigrees; Lord Holland's Introd. to Fox's James II, p. xxxviii; Howell's State Trials, xii. 257, note; Allibone's Dict. of Authors, i. 839.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Heywood, Thomas (1797-1866)

​HEYWOOD, THOMAS (1797–1866), antiquary, son of Nathaniel Heywood, banker, and younger brother of Sir Benjamin Heywood [q. v.], was born at Manchester on 3 Sept. 1797, and educated at the Manchester grammar school. He was for some years a partner with his father, but retired in 1828, and purchased Hope End, Herefordshire, where he afterwards resided. Before leaving Manchester he collected a remarkable library of local books, which was dispersed in 1835. The sale catalogue is still of considerable value. He served the office of boroughreeve of Salford in 1826, and that of high sheriff of Herefordshire in 1840. In 1826 he printed an interesting pamphlet on ‘The Earls of Derby and the Verse Writers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,’ Manchester, 4to; reprinted in 1853 by the Chetham Society. In 1829 he annotated and printed ‘The most Pleasant Song of Lady Bessy, the eldest Daughter of King Edward the Fourth.’ He was an early member of the council of the Chetham Society, and edited the following of its publications: 1. ‘The Norris Papers,’ 1846. 2. ‘The Moore Rental,’ 1847. 3. ‘The Diary of the Rev. Henry Newcome,’ 1849. 4. ‘Cardinal Allen's Defence of Sir William Stanley's Surrender of Deventer,’ 1851. 5. ‘On the South Lancashire Dialect,’ 1862. 6. ‘Letter from Sir John Seton, dated 1643,’ 1862. For the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire he wrote a notice of the family of Percival of Allerton, Lancashire (Trans. vol. i.), and a description of an old Chester document (ib. vol. v.). He married in 1823 Mary Elizabeth, daughter of John Barton of Swinton, Lancashire, and died at Hope End on 20 Nov. 1866. His general library was sold at Manchester in 1868.
[J. F. Smith's Manchester School Reg. (Chetham Soc.), iii. 74; Foster's Lancashire Pedigrees; Baker's Memorials of a Dissenting Chapel, p. 116; Chetham Soc. Annual Report, 1867.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Branch, Thomas

​BRANCH, THOMAS (fl. 1753), was author of 'Thoughts on Dreaming' (1738), and ' Principia Legis et Æquitatis' (1753). The latter work, which presents in alphabetical order a collection of maxims, definitions, and remarkable sayings in law and equity, has been highly commended as a student's text-book; it has found editors both in this country and in the United States. Nothing is known of Branch's personal history, but if the 'lady of Thomas Branch, Esq.' in the obituary of the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' December 1769, was his wife, it may be presumed that he was then alive.
[Lowndes's Bibl. Manual (Bohn), 254; Gent. Mag. xxxix. 608.]
J. M. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brand, Thomas

​BRAND, THOMAS (1635–1691), nonconformist divine, born in 1635, was the son of the rector of Leaden Roothing, Essex. He was educated at Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, and Merton College, Oxford. There he specially studied law, and afterwards entered the Temple. An acquaintance formed with Dr. Samuel Annesley [q. v.] led to a resolution to join the ministry. He entered the family of the Lady Dowager Roberts of Glassenbury, Kent, the education of whose four children he superintended. He caused the whole of his salary to be devoted to charity. He soon preached twice every Sunday, and frequently a third time in the evening, at a place two miles distant. He established weekly lectures at several places, and monthly fasts. On the death of the Rev. Mr. Poyntel of Staplehurst, he left Lady Roberts, went to Staplehurst, and was ordained. About two years after he married a widow, by whom he had several children, who all died young. He continued at Staplehurst till driven away by persecution. After many wanderings he settled near London. He built many meeting-houses, and contributed to their ministers' salaries. Catechising the young was also a favourite occupation, in which he was very successful. He gave away thousands of catechisms and other books, and even went to the expense of reprinting twenty thousand of Joseph Alleine's ‘Treatise on Conversion’ to be given away, altering the title to a ‘Guide to Heaven.’ A portion of this expense was defrayed by some of his friends. Many other small books were given away by him, and he and his friends sold bibles much under cost price to all who desired them, provided they would not sell them again. Brand maintained children of indigent parents, and put them to trades. Dr. Earle, many years a distinguished minister of the presbyterian congregation in Hanover Street, London, was one of his protégés. Brand spent little on himself. His charities were computed to amount to above 300l. a year. He said he ‘would not sell his estate because it was entailed, but he would squeeze it as long as he lived.’ Brand died 1 Dec. 1691, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. The inscription on his gravestone is recorded in ‘Bunhill Memorials,’ by J. A. Jones.
J. H. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brancastre, John de

​BRANCASTRE or BRAMCESTRE, JOHN de (d. 1218), is included among the keepers of the great seal by Sir T. D. Hardy, under the dates of 1203 and 1205; but Mr. Foss gives reasons for believing that the subscriptions to charters supposed to be attached by him as keeper were only affixed in the capacity of a deputy, or a clerk in the exchequer or in the chancery. His signature is found attesting documents from 1200 to 1208. In 1200 or the following year he was made archdeacon of Worcester, in November 1204 was sent to Flanders on the king's service, and on 13 Jan. 1207 was commissioned by King John to take charge of the abbey of Ramsey during a vacancy in the abbacy, and in his capacity of administrator paid thence, in May of the same year, 97l. into the exchequer. In the following October he was rewarded by the king (who exercised the right of presentation during the vacancy in the abbacy) with the vicarage of the parish which was doubtless his birthplace, Brancaster in Norfolk, and on 29 May 1208 was appointed prebendary of Lidington in the church of Lincoln. He died in 1218. One of his name, probably the same, appears as party in several lawsuits in Hertfordshire and Sussex in 1199.
[Hardy's List of Lord Chancellors, &c., 1843; Foss's Judges of England, ii. 43-5; Foss's Tabulæ Curiales, 1865, p. 9; Hardy's Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 73; Rot. Pat. 1835, i. 11, 58, 76, 84; Rot. Claus. 1833, i. 14, 83; Rot. Curiæ Regis, 1835.]
W. D. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brand, Barbarina

1904 Errata appended.
​BRAND, BARBARINA, Lady Dacre (1768–1854), poet and dramatist, was the third daughter of Admiral Sir Chaloner Ogle, bart., by Hester, youngest daughter and coheir of John Thomas, D.D., bishop of Winchester. She was married first to Valentine Henry Wilmot of Farnborough, Hampshire, an officer in the guards, and secondly, on 4 Dec. 1819, to Thomas Brand, twenty-first Lord Dacre, who died without issue on 21 March 1851. She died in Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, London, on 17 May 1854, in her eighty-seventh year.
Lady Dacre was one of the most accomplished women of her time. In 1821 her poetical works were privately printed in two octavo volumes, under the title of 'Dramas, Translations, and Occasional Poems.' Some of these are dated in the last century. They include four dramas, the first of which, 'Gonzalvo of Cordova,' was written in 1810. In the character of the great captain the author followed the novel of Monsieur de Florian. The next, 'Pedarias, a tragic drama,' was written in 1811; its story being derived from 'Les Incas' of Marmontel. Her third dramatic work was 'Ina,' a tragedy in five acts, the plot of which was laid in Saxon times in England. It was produced at Drury Lane 22 April 1815, under the management of Sheridan, to whose second wife, the daughter of Dr. Ogle, dean of Winchester, the author was related. It was not sufficiently successful to induce its repetition. It was printed in 1815, as produced on the stage, but in Lady Dacre's collected works she restored 'the original catastrophe, and some other parts which had been cut out.' The fourth drama is entitled 'Xarifa.' Lady Dacre's book contains also translations of several of the sonnets of Petrarch. Some of these had been privately printed at an earlier date in 1815(?), 1818, and 1819. In 1823, when Ugo Foscolo produced his 'Essays on Petrarch,' he dedicated them to Lady Dacre, and the last forty-five pages of the work are occupied by her ladyship's translations from Petrarch. Her 'Translations from the Italian,' principally from Petrarch, were privately printed at London in 1836, 8vo. In addition to her other accomplishments, Lady Dacre was an excellent amateur artist, and excelled in modelling animals, particularly the horse. She edited in 1831 'Recollections of a Chaperon,' and in 1835 'Tales of the Peerage and Peasantry,' both written by her only daughter, Mrs. Arabella Sullivan, wife of the Rev. Frederick Sullivan, vicar of Kimpton, Hertfordshire.
[Gent. Mag. N.S. xlii. 296; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Martin's Privately Printed Books, 276, 466; Quarterly Beview, xlix. 228, 231.]
T. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.35 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 212 | i | 31-32 | Brand, Barbarina, Lady Dacre: for twenty-first Lord Dacre read twentieth Baron Dacre |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brand, John (1668?-1738)

​BRAND, JOHN (1668?–1738), minister of the church of Scotland, author of 'A Brief Description of Orkney,' was educated at the university of Edinburgh, where he graduated M.A. on 9 July 1688. After completing his divinity course, he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Edinburgh, and on 3 Jan. 1694-5 was ordained minister of the parish of Borrowstouness, Linlithgowshire. In February 1700-1 he was appointed by the general assembly one of a deputation to visit Shetland, and, if convenient, Orkney and Caithness. His journey occupied from 18 April to 24 June, and after his return he published an account of his experiences under the title, 'A Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland-Firth, and Caithness; wherein, after a short journal of the author's voyage thither, these northern places are first more generally described, then a particular view is given of the several isles thereto belonging; together with an account of what is most rare and remarkable therein, with the author's observations thereupon.' The book was reprinted in vol. iii. of Pinkerton's 'Voyages and Travels,' and was also republished separately in 1883. Although, as may be supposed, of no special value in reference either to the antiquities or natural history of the islands, there is considerable interest in its descriptions of their condition, and of the mode of life of the inhabitants at a period when intercourse with the south was of the most limited kind. He died on 14 July 1738, aged about seventy. By his wife, Elizabeth Mitchell, whom he married in 1700, he had a large family, and he was succeeded in the parish by his son William.
[Hew Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. vol. i. pt. i. 170; List of Edinburgh Graduates.]
T. F. H.