OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Tait, James Haldane

​TAIT, JAMES HALDANE (1771–1845), rear-admiral, son of William Tait of Glasgow and his wife Margaret, sister of Adam (afterwards Viscount) Duncan, was born in 1771, and entered the navy in April 1783 on board the Edgar, then commanded by his uncle, with whom he served ​also in the Ganges, guardship at Portsmouth. In 1787 he went into the service of the East India Company, in which he seems to have remained six years, with the exception of a couple of months during the Spanish armament in the autumn of 1790, when he was a midshipman of the Defence with the Hon, George Murray [see Penrose, Sir Charles Vinicombe]. In October 1973 he joined the Duke, then carrying Murray’s broad pennant, was with him again in the Glory in the Channel, and in the Resolution on the coast of North America. After serving again on the home station he was promoted to lieutenant of the Cleopatra frigate on the North America station, in which he returned to England a few months later. Through 1797 the Cleopatra was employed in active and successful cruising; and in November 1797 Tait was moved to the Venerable, his uncle’s flagship, in the North Sea. In January 1799 he was appointed to the command of the Jane (hired lugger) for service in the North Sea, where, during the next twenty months, he captured no less than fifty-six French and Dutch vessels, and, for the protection thus given to North British trade, was voted the freedom of Dundee, and was specially recommended to the admiralty by the magistrates and town council; as a consequence of this recommendation he was promoted to the rank of commander on 29 April 1802. Through 1803–4 he commanded the Volcano bomb, attached to the squadron in the Downs, under the orders of Lord Keith; and early in 1805 was sent out to the East Indies, were he was appointed acting captain of the Grampus of 50 guns. He was confirmed in the rank on 5 Sept. 1806, and in the following year was sent to the Cape of Good Hope, whence he returned to England, with convoy, in July 1809. In 1815 he went out to the West Indies in the command of the Junon; was moved into the Pique in 1816, and was invalided in 1817. He had no further service, but was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral on 23 Nov. 1841, and died on 7 Aug. 1845.
[Service-book in the Public Record Office; O’Byrne’s Nav. Biogr. Dict.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Talbot, Charles Chetwynd

​TALBOT, Sir CHARLES CHETWYND, second Earl Talbot of Hensol (1777–1849), born on 25 April 1777, was the elder son of John Chetwynd Talbot, first earl (1750–1793), by his wife Charlotte (d. 1804), daughter of Wills Hill, first marquis of Downshire [q. v.] Charles Talbot [q. v.], lord chancellor, was his great-grandfather. Charles succeeded to the peerage on the death of his father on 19 May 1793. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 11 Oct. 1794, and was created M.A. on 28 June 1797. After leaving Oxford he joined Lord Whitworth's embassy in Russia as a voluntary attaché, and formed a lasting friendship with his chief. Returning to England about 1800, he devoted himself to the improvement of his estates and to the general promotion of agriculture in England. In 1803 he took an active part in organising a volunteer force in Staffordshire to oppose the invasion of England contemplated by Napoleon. In August ​1812 he was sworn lord-lieutenant of the county, and continued to hold the office till his death. On 9 Oct. 1817 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, Sir Robert Peel acting as Irish secretary until 1818. During his term of office he rendered considerable services to the agriculture of the country, in recognition of which he was presented with the freedom of Drogheda. In 1821, during his viceroyalty, George IV visited Ireland, and on that occasion he was created a knight of the order of St. Patrick. Though he steadily opposed catholic emancipation, O'Connell gave him credit for impartiality, and Lord Cloncurry spoke of him as ‘an honourable high-minded gentleman.’ The discontent in Ireland, however, continued to grow during his administration, and in December 1822 he was somewhat ungraciously superseded by the Marquis Wellesley.
In 1839 Talbot received in recognition of his services as lord-lieutenant of Staffordshire a testimonial amounting to 1,400l., which he devoted to the endowment of a new church at Salt. He was one of the first peers to support Sir Robert Peel's plan for the extinction of the duties on foreign corn, and on 12 Dec. 1844, through that minister's influence, he was elected a knight of the Garter. Talbot died at Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire, on 10 Jan. 1849, and was buried in Ingestre church on 20 Jan. He married, on 28 Aug. 1800, Frances Thomasine (d. 1819), eldest daughter of Charles Lambert of Beau Parc in Meath. By her he had ten sons and two daughters. He was succeeded as third Earl Talbot by his second son, Henry John Chetwynd, who on 10 Aug. 1856 succeeded his distant cousin, Bertram Arthur Talbot, as eighteenth Earl of Shrewsbury. A portrait of the second Earl Talbot, painted by John Bostock and engraved by John Charles Bromley, was published by J. Shepherd at Newcastle in 1837.
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Watts, Gilbert

​WATTS, GILBERT (d. 1657), divine, a younger son of Richard Watts, by his wife Isabel, daughter of Arthur Alcock of St. Martin's Vintry, London, widow of his cousin, Thomas Scott (d. 1585) of Barnes Hall, Ecclesfield, Yorkshire, was grandson of John Watts (1497?–1601) of Muckleton, Shropshire, by his wife Ann, daughter of Richard Scott of Barnes Hall. Watts was thus of kin to Thomas Rotherham [q. v.], archbishop of York and second founder of Lincoln College, whose arms he quartered with his own. His elder brother, Richard, M.A., fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, vicar of Chesterton, Cambridgeshire, and chaplain to Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford [q. v.], became the owner of Barnes Hall after the death, on 17 July 1638, in Ireland, of his elder half-brother, Sir Richard Scott, comptroller of the household to the same earl.
Gilbert was born at Rotherham, Yorkshire. He studied for a few terms at Cambridge, and on his admission as batler or servitor at Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1607, he was permitted to reckon them towards qualifying for a degree (Oxford Univ. Reg. ii. i. 371). He graduated B.A. on 28 Jan. 1610–1611, M.A. on 7 July 1614, was elected a fellow in 1621, and became B.D. on 10 July 1623. On 1 Nov. 1642 Watts was created D.D. during the king's visit to Oxford, having been presented on 11 July previous to the rectory of Willingale Doe, Essex. His rectory was sequestrated by the Westminster assembly in August 1647; but although the clerk of the committee for plundered ministers was ordered to show cause for the act, the ground of complaint against Watts does not appear.
He returned to Oxford, died at Eynsham on 9 Sept. 1657, and was buried in the chancel of All Saints. By his will, dated 5 Sept. (proved 5 Nov.) 1657, Watts left to Lincoln College ‘soe many bookes as cost me threescore pounds,’ to be chosen and valued by Thomas Barlow [q. v.], then librarian of the Bodleian. Watts was a good preacher and an excellent linguist. Wood says he had ‘so smooth a pen in Latin or English that no man of his time exceeded him.’
Watts translated Bacon's ‘De Augmentis Scientiarum,’ and his rendering called ‘Of the Advancement and Proficience of Learning, of the Partitions of Sciences,’ Oxford, 1640, fol., was highly praised on its appearance. His translation of D'Avila's ‘History of the Civil Wars of France’ was never published; and he left other works in manuscript, including ‘A Catalogue of all the works of Charles I,’ which is preserved among the manuscripts at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Watt, James Henry

​WATT, JAMES HENRY (1799–1867), line engraver, was born in London in 1799 and, at the age of eighteen, became a pupil of Charles Heath (1785–1848) [q. v.] He engraved many beautiful vignettes for the ‘Amulet,’ ‘Literary Souvenir,’ and similar productions from designs by Robert Smirke, Richard Westall, and others; also several plates for the official publication ‘Ancient Marbles in the British Museum.’ Of his larger works, which are all executed in pure line on copper, with much taste and power, the most important are: ‘The Flitch of Bacon,’ after Stothard, 1832; ‘May Day in the Time of Queen Elizabeth,’ after Leslie, 1836; ‘Highland Drovers' Departure,’ and ‘Courtyard in the Olden Time,’ after E. Landseer; and ‘Christ Blessing ​Little Children,’ after Eastlake, 1859. Watt died in London on 18 May 1867.
[Art Journal, 1867; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Gent. Mag. 1867, ii. 116.]
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Watson, William Henry

​WATSON, Sir WILLIAM HENRY (1796–1860), baron of the exchequer, born at Bamborough in 1796, was the son of John Watson, captain in the 76th foot, by Eliza​beth, daughter of Henry Grey of Bamborough, Northumberland. He was educated at the Royal Military College, Marlow, and given a commission in the 1st royal dragoons by the Duke of York on 7 May 1812, serving with his regiment in the Spanish peninsula. When it was reduced in 1814 he exchanged into the 6th dragoons on 13 April 1815, with whom he served in Belgium and France. He was present at the battle of Waterloo and at the entry of the allied armies into Paris.
He was placed on the half-pay list on 25 March 1816, and the next year entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn, and by hard work soon became competent to practise as a special pleader, and continued to do so until 1832, when he was called to the bar in Lincoln's Inn. He joined the northern circuit, where he found work and became popular. In 1841 he entered the House of Commons as liberal member for Kinsale, for which borough he sat till 1847. In 1843 he became a Q.C. and a bencher of his inn. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Newcastle-on-Tyne in the liberal interest, July 1852, but in 1854 he was elected member for Hull, and sat as such until on 3 Nov. 1856 he was created baron of the exchequer, to succeed Sir Thomas Joshua Platt [q. v.] He was knighted on 28 Nov. of the same year. Watson proved himself a judge possessed of clear head and strong mind, but his career on the bench was very short. On the conclusion of his charge to the grand jury at Welshpool, 12 March 1860, he was seized with apoplexy, and died the next day.
Watson married, first, in 1826, a daughter of William Armstrong of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and sister of Lord Armstrong; secondly, in 1831, Mary, daughter of Anthony Hollist of Midhurst, Sussex.
He was distinguished as an advocate by honesty and earnestness rather than eloquence, but was a sound lawyer and the author of two (for a time) standard professional works:
* ‘A Treatise on Arbitration and Award,’ London, 1825, 8vo; 3rd ed. 1846.
* ‘A Treatise on the Law relating to the Office and Duty of Sheriff,’ 8vo, 1827; 2nd ed. 1848, by William Newland Welsby [q. v.]
[Morning Post; Gent. Mag. 1860, i. 422; Foss's Judges; Law Mag.; Dod's Knightage; Army Lists, 1813–17.]
W. C.-r.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Watts, Hugh

​WATTS, HUGH (1582?–1643), bell-founder, the second son of Francis Watts, bell-founder of Leicester (d. 1600), and sometime partner with the Newcombes, was born about 1582. His grandfather may have been the Hew Wat who in 1563 cast a bell for South Luffenham, Rutland.
In 1600, the year of his father's death, Watts cast for Evington in Leicestershire a bell bearing his own name and the shield with the device of three bells used by Francis Watts. The same device was borne by Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire bells made by a William Watts, and in 1450 by Richard Brayser of Norwich, to whom the original bell-founder Watts may have been apprenticed.
In 1611 Watts was admitted to the chapman's or merchant's guild; in 1620–1 he was elected chamberlain of the borough, and in 1633–4 mayor of Leicester (‘Payed to Mr. Hugh Watts maior for his yearly allowance according to the ancient order, 3l. 6s. 8d.’). A stately reception of Charles I and his queen on their progress in August 1634 marked the year of Watts's mayoralty.
There remain in the county of Leicester many examples of Watts's famous work, including several complete rings, admired for the beauty of their tone. The peal of ten bells for St. Margaret's, Leicester, was said to be the finest in England. His favourite inscription: ‘J. H. S.: Nazareus: rex: Iudeorum: Fili: Dei: miserere: mei:’ caused his bells to be called Watts's Nazarenes. He worked the bell-foundry of Leicester until his death, at the age of sixty, in February or March 1642–3, and was buried in St. Mary's Church, Leicester. Shortly after the death of Watts the business was wound up and partly taken over by Nottingham founders. Watts's son, also named Hugh (1611–1656), to whom the bell-metal and bell-founding appliances were bequeathed, married a daughter of Sir Thomas Burton of Stockerston.
[For a full account of the Newcombe and Watts families and their bells see North's Church Bells of Leicestershire (Leicester, 1876, 4to).]
L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pigg, Oliver

​PIGG, OLIVER (fl. 1580), puritan divine, born about 1551, was of Essex origin. He was admitted pensioner of St. John's College, Cambridge, on 6 Oct. 1565, and scholar on 8 Nov. 1566. He graduated B.A. in 1568–9, and was rector of All Saints', Colchester, 1569–71 (Newcourt, ii. 164), of St. Peter's, Colchester, 1569–79, and Abberton in Essex, 1571–8 (ib. ii. 3). In 1578 he was also beneficed in the diocese of Norwich (Davids, Nonconf. in Essex, p. 69), and in February 1583 was temporarily appointed to the cure of Rougham, Suffolk (cf. State Papers, Dom. Eliz. clviii. 79). In July of the same year Pigg, who was an earnest puritan, was imprisoned at Bury St. Edmunds on the charge of dispraising the Book of Common Prayer, especially by putting the question in the baptismal service, ‘Dost thou believe?’ to the parents in place of the child. In a petition for release to the justices of Bury he declared his ‘detestation of the proceedings of Browne, Harrison, and their favourers’ (ib. clxi. 83). Before the next assizes he conformed, and after some little trouble was discharged (Davids, p. 69).
In 1587, at a meeting held at Cambridge, under the presidency of Cartwright, to promote church discipline, Pigg and Dyke were nominated superintendents of the puritan ministers for Hertfordshire (Strype, Annals, iii. i. 691, ii. 479; Urwick, p. 115). In 1589 he seems to have preached in Dorchester (State Papers, Dom. Eliz. ccxxiii. 83), and in 1591 was in London.
Pigg wrote, besides a sermon on the 101st psalm:
* ‘A comfortable Treatise upon the latter part of the fourth chapter of the first Epistle of St. Peter, from the twelfth verse to the ende,’ London, 1582.
* ‘Meditations concerning Prayer to Almighty God for the Safety of England when the Spaniards were come into the Narrow Seas, 1588. As also other Meditations for delivering England from the Cruelty of the Spaniards,’ London, 1588, 8vo (Tanner, Bibl. Brit. p. 599).
[Cooper's Athenæ Cant.; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 599; Strype's Annals, III. i. 691, ii. 479; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), pp. 1140, 1246, 1330, 1332; Newcourt's Repertorium; Cat. Cambr. Univ. MSS. i. 463; Urwick's Nonconf. in Hertfordshire, pp. 115, 602–3; Davids's Nonconf. in Essex, p. 69; Dexter's Congregationalism, p. 84 n.; State Papers, Dom.]
W. A. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pierson, Abraham

​PIERSON, ABRAHAM (d. 1678), New England divine, born in Yorkshire, graduated B.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge, on 2 Jan. 1632–3. He went out to America, as member of the church at Boston, between 1630 and 1640. In 1640 he and a party of emigrants from Lynn in Massachusetts formed a new township on Long Island, which they named Southampton. There Pierson remained as minister of the congregational church for four years. In 1644 this church became divided. A number of the inhabitants left, and, uniting with a further body from the township of Weathersfield, formed under Pierson a fresh church at a settlement at Branford, within the jurisdiction of New Haven. In 1666 Pierson migrated yet a fourth time. The cause of this last change is among the most significant incidents in the early history of New England. When, by the order of Charles II, a new charter was granted to Connecticut, incorporating New Haven with that colony, several of the townships of New Haven resisted. This resistance, based on the exclusive tenacity with which the New Englander regarded the corporate life of his own community, was intensified by the peculiar conditions of the two colonies in question. Newhaven, rigidly and severely ecclesiastical from the outset, had, like Massachusetts, made church membership a needful condition for the enjoyment of civic rights. No such restriction was imposed in Connecticut. The men of Branford, supported by Pierson, opposed the union with Connecticut. When their opposition proved fruitless, they forsook their home, leaving Branford almost unpeopled, and, taking their civil and ecclesiastical records with them, established a fresh church and township at Newark, within the limits of New Jersey. There Pierson died on 9 Aug. 1678. His son Abraham was the first head of Yale College, Connecticut. In 1659 Pierson published a pamphlet entitled ‘Some Helps for the Indians, showing them how to improve their natural reason, to know the true God and the true Christian Religion.’ It is a short statement of the fundamental principles of monotheism, with a linear translation into the tongue of the Indians of New England. A copy of verses by Pierson on the death of Theophilus Eaton [q. v.] is published in the ‘Massachusetts Historical Collection’ (4th ser. vol. viii.)
J. A. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Piers, Henry

The ODNB states that James Piers was son of Maurice Piers, son of James Piers the bishop of Ardfert.
​PIERS, HENRY (d. 1623), author, was son of William Piers (d. 1603) [q. v.], constable of Carrickfergus. He paid a visit to Rome, became a Roman catholic, and wrote observations on Rome and various places on the continent. The manuscript remained in the possession of his descendants, and a copy belonging to Sir James Ware subsequently came to the Duke of Chandos's Library. An edition of this work is now in preparation by the author of the present notice. Piers died in 1623, having married Jane, daughter of Thomas Jones (1550?–1619) [q. v.], protestant archbishop of Dublin and chancellor of Ireland. He was succeeded by his son William, who was knighted, married Martha, daughter of Sir James Ware the elder, and was father of
Sir Henry Piers (1628–1691), chorographer. The latter was created a baronet in 1660. At the instance of Anthony Dopping [q. v.], protestant bishop of Meath, he wrote a description of the county of West Meath, where he resided on the family property, Tristernagh Abbey. This treatise was printed for the first time by Charles Vallancey at Dublin in 1774. Letters of Piers are extant in the Ormonde collection. He died in June 1691, having married Mary, daughter of Henry Jones (1605–1682) [q. v.], protestant bishop of Meath. He was succeeded as second baronet by his son William, and the title is still extant.
James Piers (fl. 1635), writer, probably a son of Henry Piers (d. 1623), went to France, graduated D.D., and became ‘royal professor of philosophy in the Aquitanick College’ at Bordeaux. He published: 1. ‘Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, Beatæque Virginis Mariæ Brevis … in Logicam Introductio, etc.,’ Bordeaux, 1631, 8vo. 2. ‘Disputationes in Universam Aristotelis Stagiritæ Logicam,’ Bordeaux, 1635, 8vo.
J. T. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Brown, Joseph

​BROWN, JOSEPH (1809–1902), barrister, born at Walworth on 4 April 1809, was second son of Joseph Brown, wine merchant, of the Cumberland family of Scales near Kirk Oswald. Educated by his uncle, the Rev. John Whitridge of Carlisle, at Camberwell grammar school, and at a private school at Wimbledon, he entered at eighteen the office of Armstrong & Co., a London firm of West India merchants, but after two years commenced to study law with Peter Turner, a solicitor in the City of London. Meanwhile he matriculated at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1830 and M.A. 1833. He was admitted to the Middle Temple on 12 Jan. 1832, and under Sir William Henry Watson [q. v.] and Sir John Bayley [q. v.] he learnt the art of special pleading, becoming a pleader under the bar in 1834. Called to the bar on 7 Nov. 1845, he soon acquired a large commercial practice and was engaged in several important actions, including the trial of the Royal British Bank directors before Lord Campbell in 1858. In 1865 he took silk and was made a bencher of the Middle Temple, of which he was treasurer 1878–9. Brown played a prominent part in the steps taken to supersede the old law reports, which were entirely due to private initiative. He was largely responsible for the preparation and publication in 1865 of the 'Law Reports,' which began the new departure. He was chosen to represent the Middle Temple on the Council of Law Reporting in 1872, and from 1875 to 1892 was chairman of the council. Created C.B. upon his retirement, he largely contributed by his energy and practical ability to the success of the council's publications. He died at his residence, 54 Avenue Road, N.W., on 9 June 1902. Brown was a fellow of the Geological Society and a skilled numismatist and antiquary. He contributed to the 'Proceedings' of the Social Science Congress, and wrote several pamphlets, including two urging reform of the system of trial by jury. He married in 1840 Mary (d. 1891), daughter of Thomas Smith of Winchcomb, Gloucestershire, by whom he had three sons and two daughters.
[The Times, 10 June 1902; Law Journal, 14 June 1902; Who's Who, 1901.]
C. E. A. B.