OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dickson, David (1754-1820)

​DICKSON, DAVID, the elder (1754–1820), theologian, was born in 1754, at Newlands in Peeblesshire, where his father was minister. He studied at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and was ordained minister of Libberton, in his native county, in 1777. ‘There,’ says his biographer in Kay's ‘Portraits,’ ‘he began that course of faithful and zealous labour among all classes of the ​people, not in the pulpit only, but from house to house, by which he was so peculiarly distinguished throughout the remainder of his life.’ In 1783 he was translated to Bothkennar in Stirlingshire; in 1795 to the chapel in New Street, Edinburgh; and thereafter to the College Church, and finally to the New North Church in the same city. After enlarging on the qualities of his preaching, which was thoroughly in the evangelical spirit, the writer above quoted says: ‘Of this, the general strain of his sermons, more particularly the addresses at their conclusion, of which the volume that he published in 1817 furnishes a number of interesting and valuable specimens, afforded the most unequivocal proofs. But perhaps his correspondence by letter with a number of private individuals in every rank of society—with youthful inquirers and aged believers, with doubting and afflicted and sorrowful, as well as confirmed and prosperous and rejoicing believers—attests the fact still more powerfully.’
Dickson was a cordial supporter of the measures in the church of Scotland promoted by the evangelical party. He was one of those who voted in the general assembly against receiving the explanation of Dr. m'Gill of Ayr as a satisfactory explanation of the heresy with which he was charged. This was the case referred to in the well-known poem of Robert Burns, ‘The Kirk's Alarm.’ ‘On two several occasions also, viz. the settlements of Biggar and Larbert, he actually braved the highest censure of the ecclesiastical courts rather than surrender the dictates of his conscience to what he had thought their time-serving policy and unconstitutional decisions.’ Dickson, who was also proprietor of the estate of Kilbucho in Peeblesshire, died in 1820.
[Scott's Fasti; Kay's Portraits, ii. 310; Sermons preached on different occasions, by the Rev. David Dickson, Edinb. 1818.]
W. G. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dickson, Elizabeth

​DICKSON, ELIZABETH (1793?–1862), philanthropist, was a daughter of Archibald Dalzel, author of ‘The History of Dahomy’ (1793), governor of Cape Coast Castle, and for many years connected with the commerce of West Africa. Elizabeth was probably born at Cape Coast Castle in 1793. When quite young she was sent to visit a brother, the British vice-consul at Algiers, and there the sufferings of the British captives all over Barbary made so deep an impression on her, that about 1809, when still only sixteen years old, she wrote to the English press to make known what she had seen, and to entreat that immediate steps might be taken to relieve the captives. Her communications attracted the attention of the Anti-Piratical Society of Knights and Noble Ladies, from whom she received the rights of membership and a gold medal. The matter roused public feeling, was taken up by parliament, and resulted in the despatch of Lord Exmouth's expedition [see Pellew, Edward].
Miss Dalzel married John Dickson, a surgeon in the royal navy. She continued to reside in Africa, chiefly at Tripoli, where she was highly esteemed; and there she died, 30 April 1862, aged about seventy.
[Gent. Mag. 1862, ii. 112, quoting from the Malta Times; Dalzel's History of Dahomy.]
J. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dickson, David (1780-1842)

​DICKSON, DAVID, the younger (1780–1842), presbyterian divine, was born in 1780 at Libberton, N.B., of which parish his father, David Dickson the elder [q. v.], was minister, and was educated at the parish school of Bothkennar and afterwards at Edinburgh University. In 1801 he was accepted as a preacher in the established church of Scotland, and appointed early in 1802 to a chapel at Kilmarnock, which he held until in 1803 he was chosen junior minister of St. Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh. After the death of the Rev. Sir Henry Moncrieff in 1827 he was made senior minister, a position he held till his death. In 1808 he married Janet, daughter of James Jobson of Dundee, by whom he had a family of three sons and three daughters, and in 1824 the university of Edinburgh conferred on him the degree of D.D. He had some reputation as a Hebrew scholar; his sermons were plain and sound; in private life he was genial and benevolent, and he avoided mixing in the doctrinal disputes which culminated in the disruption of the Scotch church. On the occasion of Sir Walter Scott's funeral he was chosen to hold the service in the house at Abbotsford. Dickson was secretary of the Scottish Missionary Society for many years; wrote several articles in the ‘Edinburgh Encyclopædia’ and in the ‘Christian Instructor’ and other magazines; and published ‘The Influence of Learning on Religion’ in 1814, and a small volume of sermons in 1818. ‘Discourses, Doctrinal and Practical,’ a collection of his homilies, was published in 1857. He also published five separate sermons (1806–31), and edited ‘Memoir of Miss Woodbury,’ 1826; Rev. W. F. Ireland's sermons, 1829; and lectures and sermons by the Rev. G. B. Brand, 1841. He died 28 July 1842, and was buried in St. Cuthbert's Church, where a monument was subsequently erected to his memory, which shows an accurate likeness of him in his later years.
[Old and New Edinburgh, ii. 134; Hew Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. sect. i. 127, iii. 177; Crombie's Modern Athenians, p. 6 (with portrait).]
A. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dunster, Samuel

​DUNSTER, SAMUEL (1675–1754), translator of Horace, of a Somersetshire family, was born in September 1675, entered the Merchant Taylors' School 12 March 1687–8, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1693, M.A. in 1700, B.D. and D.D. in 1713, and was ordained at Fulham in 1700. He was at St. James's, Westminster, in 1705, and acted as chaplain to Charles, viscount Maynard, before 1708, to Charles, duke of Shrewsbury, in 1712, and to the Duke of Marlborough some years after. In 1716 he is mentioned by Lady Cowper (Diary, 1864, p. 100) as preaching ‘an intolerable dull sermon’ at court. He was presented to the rectory of Chinnor, Oxfordshire, in 1716 by Queen Anne, and was afterwards collated to the incumbency of Paddington, London. The prebend of Netherbury in Salisbury Cathedral was conferred on him in 1717. This he exchanged in 1720 for Grimston Yatminster in the same cathedral, which stall he held until 1748, when he resigned it to his son Charles. In 1720, also, he was collated to the stall of Farendon in Lincoln Cathedral. In 1722 he succeeded to the valuable vicarage of Rochdale. He died at Rochdale in July 1754, aged 79, after a residence there of thirty-two years and three months.
He was a dignified clergyman and a useful magistrate, though a poor and verbose preacher. He had high-church and non-juring leanings, and was closely associated with the active Jacobite party in Manchester.
His earliest poem is included in the ‘Lacrymæ Cantabrigienses in obitum Seren. Reginæ Mariæ,’ 1694–5. He is credited by the editors of Whitaker's ‘History of Whalley’ (4th edit. ii. 426) with the authorship of ‘Anglia Rediviva, being a Full Description of all the Shires, Cities, Principal Towns and Rivers in England,’ 1699, 8vo. His other publications were: 1. ‘Wisdom and Understanding the Glory and Excellence of Human Nature,’ being a sermon in defence of popular education, 1708, 8vo (three editions). 2. ‘The Conditions of Drexilius on Eternity, made English from the Latin,’ 1710. A second edition appeared in 1714, and other editions subsequently. In 1844 it was revised and again published, with a preface by the Rev. H. P. Dunster. 3. ‘The Satyrs and Epistles of Horace, done into English,’ 1710, 8vo. A second edition, with the addition of the ‘Art of Poetry,’ came out in 1717, with the translator's portrait. The fourth edition is dated 1729. This dull version exposed him to the taunts of the satirists of his day, among whom was Dr. T. Francklin, who wrote—
O'er Tibur's swan the muses wept in vain, And mourn'd their Bard by cruel Dunster slain.
4. ‘A Panegyrick on his Majesty King George … by Charles Ludolph, Baron de Danckelman, made English from the Latin by S. D.,’ 1716, 4to.
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dunster, Charles

​DUNSTER, CHARLES (1750–1816), miscellaneous writer, born in 1750, was the only son of the Rev. Charles Dunster, prebendary of Salisbury. He was admitted at Oriel College, Oxford, as a commoner in 1767, took his B.A. degree at the end of 1770, migrated early in 1771 to Balliol, and again in 1773 to Trinity. He was instituted to the Worcestershire rectories of Oddingley and Naunton Beauchamp in 1776, and in 1789 (Arnold, Petworth) to that of Petworth in Sussex. He became rural dean of West Sussex, and held the rectory of Petworth till his death in April 1816. He published:
* ‘The Frogs of Aristophanes,’ 1785.
* ‘Cider, a poem by John Philips, with notes provincial and explanatory, including the present most approved method of making cyder in Herefordshire,’ 1791.
* ‘Paradise Regained, with notes of various authors,’ 1795.
* ‘Considerations on Milton's early reading and the prima stamina of his Paradise Lost,’ 1800 (a work intended to show Milton's obligations to Joshua Sylvester).
* ‘A Letter on a Passage in St. Matthew,’ 1804.
* ‘Discursory Considerations on St. Luke's Gospel,’ 1805.
* ‘Discursory Observations on the evidence that St. Matthew's Gospel was the first written,’ 1806.
* ‘A Letter on the two last petitions of the Lord's Prayer,’ 1807.
* ‘A Letter on the incontrovertible Truth of Christianity,’ 2nd edition, 1808.
* ‘Considerations on the hypothesis that St. Luke's Gospel was the first written,’ 1808.
* ‘Points at issue between the Editor of Dr. Townson's Works and the Author of Considerations on the hypothesis, &c.,’ 1811.
* ‘Considerations on the Holy Sacrament,’ 1811.
* ‘Tracts on St. Luke's Gospel,’ 1812. This is merely Nos. 6, 7, 10, and 11 bound up together with a general preface.
* ‘A Synopsis of the three first Gospels,’ 1812.
* ‘Psalms and Hymns adapted for the use of a Parochial Church,’ 1812.
There is also a sonnet by Dunster on the death of George Monck Berkeley in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for April 1795 (lxv. 328).
[Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ix. 236; Gent. Mag. May 1816, lxxxvi. (pt. i.) 492; Oriel, Balliol, and Trinity College MS. Admission Books.]
E. C-n.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dunsterville, Edward

​DUNSTERVILLE, EDWARD (1796–1873), commander R.N. and hydrographer, son of Edward Dunsterville, shipowner, was born at Penryn in Cornwall 2 Dec. 1796. He entered the navy 17 July 1812 as a first-class volunteer on board H.M. sloop Brisk, on the north coast of Spain, was present in the night attack made in August 1813 on the fortress of San Sebastian, and became a midshipman 26 Sept. 1813. As a midshipman and an able seaman he served until 18 Nov. 1815, when on the reduction of the fleet to a peace establishment he was ‘finally discharged’ from his majesty's service. Afterwards he was employed as second and chief officer in the merchant service. However, on 9 Sept. 1824 he passed an examination at the Trinity House for a master in the navy, and was appointed second master of H.M.S. Valorous. As master of the Bustard he was stationed in the West Indies, where he made many useful observations, which were duly recorded at the admiralty; afterwards in England he passed examinations and received certificates of his practical knowledge as a pilot. On 25 March 1833, on the nomination of the hydrographer of the admiralty, he became master of the surveying vessel Thunderer, with orders to complete the survey of the Mosquito coast, and remained in that employment until 27 Nov. 1835, when he was invalided from the effects of his servitude of fifteen years on the West India station. As a lieutenant on board the Cambridge, 78, he took part in the operations of 1840 on the coast of Syria, and assisted in blockading the Egyptian fleet at Alexandria, and was awarded the Syrian medals. On 19 April 1842 he became one of the hydrographer's assistants at the admiralty, Whitehall, where he remained until 31 March 1870, when he was superannuated at the age of 73, on two-thirds of his salary, namely, 400l. per annum. During the twenty-eight years of his residence at the admiralty he had to attend to the issuing of charts to the fleet, to keep an account of the printing, mounting, and issue of charts and books, to report to the hydrographer on questions of pilotage, and to prepare catalogues of charts and the annual lighthouse lists. Of the latter he revised and saw through the press 102 volumes respecting the lights and lighthouses in all parts of the world. In 1860 he produced ‘Admiralty Catalogue of Charts, Plans, Views, and Sailing Directions,’ 7th ed. 1859, 2 vols., and 8th ed. 1864, 2 vols. He also brought out ‘The Indian Directory, or Directory for Sailing to and from the East Indies. By James Horsburgh, F.R.S. Corrected and revised by Commander E. Dunsterville,’ 7th ed. London, 1859, 2 vols., and 8th ed. 1864, 2 vols. He died at 32 St. Augustine's Road, Camden Square, London, 11 March 1873. He was twice married and left issue.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dunthorne, John

​DUNTHORNE, JOHN (1770–1844), painter, was a plumber and glazier in the village of East Bergholt, Suffolk. He was an intelligent man, and devoted all his spare time to painting landscapes. His cottage was close to the house of Golding Constable, and the latter's son, John Constable (1776–1837) [q. v.], early formed an intimacy with Dunthorne, and it was in Dunthorne's little house, and in his companionship, that Constable laid the foundations of his future great career as a landscape-painter. Dunthorne continued to live at East Bergholt until his death, on 19 Oct. 1844, at the age of seventy-four. By his wife Hannah he had four children, the third of whom was John Dunthorne, jun. (1798–1832), born at East Bergholt 19 April 1798, and baptised there 3 June. Constable's attachment to the elder Dunthorne was extended in an even greater manner to the son. Young Dunthorne became Constable's constant companion and assistant, and in the latter capacity proved very useful to him. ​He was possessed also of considerable mathematical and mechanical ingenuity, and was highly esteemed by all who knew him. He painted landscapes on his own account, and contributed to the Royal Academy exhibitions from 1827 to 1832, and occasionally to the British Institution. In 1832, however, he suffered from disease of the heart, which caused his death early in November of that year at East Bergholt, where he was buried. There were also two artists of the name of John Dunthorne, father and son, who lived at Colchester, and contributed small genre pictures to the Royal Academy exhibitions from 1783 to 1792. Some of these were engraved in stipple by E. Scott and others. The younger Dunthorne is said to have died young, and to have shown much ability.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dunster, Henry

​DUNSTER, HENRY (d. 1659), president of Harvard College, was the son of Henry Dunster of Balehoult, Bury, Lancashire. He received his academical education at Magdalene College, Cambridge, as a member of which he proceeded B.A. in 1630, M.A. in 1634. He took orders, but unable to submit to high church tyranny, he sought a home across the Atlantic in the summer of 1640. For a while he resided at Boston, of which he was admitted a freeman 2 June 1641. Soon after his arrival in America he was appointed, 27 Aug. 1640, president of the newly established Harvard College in the room of Nathaniel Eaton [q. v.], an office which his piety, learning, and administrative ability enabled him to fill with rare distinction. But having imbibed the principles of anti-pædobaptism, and publicly advocated them, he was persuaded, after a reign of fourteen years, to resign in favour of Charles Chauncy [q. v.], ​24 Oct. 1654. ‘President Dunster,’ says Quincy, ‘united in himself the character of both patron and president, for poor as he was he contributed at a time of the utmost need one hundred acres of land towards the support of the college’ (History of Harvard University). He is thought to have obtained the charter of 1642, and certainly secured that of 1650 on his own petition. He also built the president's house. He was then invited to Ireland by Henry Cromwell and his council, but he thought it better to decline, and retired to Scituate, where he continued to preach until his death, 27 Feb. 1658–9. By his will he desired to be buried at Cambridge, where, he says, lay the remains of some of his babes. He bequeathed legacies to the very persons who had clamoured the loudest for his removal from the college. Dunster was twice married. His first wife, Elizabeth, widow of the Rev. Joseph Glover, whom he married 21 June 1641, died 23 Aug. 1643, leaving no issue; and the following year he married another Elizabeth, whose parentage is unknown. By this lady, who survived until 12 Sept. 1690, he had David, Henry, Jonathan, Dorothy, and Elizabeth; an interesting account of these children, by the Rev. L. R. Paige, will be found in the ‘New England Historical and Genealogical Register,’ xxvii. 307–10.
Dunster was an excellent Hebraist. After the publication of Eliot's ‘Bay’ Psalms in 1640 it was found necessary to subject it to a thorough revision. Dunster undertook the task, and with the assistance of Richard Lyon produced the version used by the churches of New England for many subsequent years. A life of Dunster, by J. Chaplin, was published at Boston, U.S.A., in 1872.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dunstall, John

​DUNSTALL, JOHN (fl. 1644–1675), engraver, lived in Blackfriars, where he published some drawing-books of natural history and other educational subjects. On one, entitled ‘Liber Domorum, or Book of Houses,’ he calls himself ‘John Dunstall, schoolmaster. … The Author hereof teacheth the Art of Delineation or Drawing. He dwelleth in Black-Friers, London.’ On another, entitled ‘Geometria, or some Geometricall Figures by way of Introduction to the Art of Pourtraicture, Delineation, or Drawing,’ he says that he has ‘since removed into Ludgate-Streete.’ He was also employed by the booksellers in engraving portraits for frontispieces. Among these were Charles I, Charles II, William III, Queen Mary, Rev. John Carter, minister of Bramford (1644), Archbishop Ussher (1656), Rev. Samuel Clarke (1675), and others. He engraved views of Basing House, Clarendon House, the Custom House, St. Mary's Church, Nottingham, &c. His works are etched and sometimes finished with the burin in the style of Hollar, but have no merit as engravings. There is in the print room of the British Museum a small drawing by him of Bethlehem Hospital, which shows him to have been a skilful draughtsman. According to some accounts he lived in the Strand.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fleetwood, James

​FLEETWOOD, JAMES, D.D. (1603–1683), bishop of Worcester, the seventh son of Sir George Fleetwood of the Vache, Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire, by Catherine, daughter of Henry Denny of Waltham, Essex, was baptised at Chalfont St. Giles 25 April 1603. He was educated first at Eton and then at King's College, Cambridge, of which he was elected scholar in 1623. Having taken holy orders, he was appointed in 1632 chaplain to the Bishop of Lichfield (Dr. Robert Wright), by whom he was presented to the vicarage of Frees, Shropshire, and subsequently, 12 July 1636, collated to the prebend of Eccleshall in the church of Lichfield, in which he was installed on 9 Sept. following. On the outbreak of the rebellion he attached himself as chaplain to the regiment of John, earl of Rivers, and was of so much service at the battle of Edgehill - whether he limited himself strictly to prayers and exhortations or took a more active part in the fighting is not clear - that at Charles's special command the university of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.D. on 1 Nov. 1642. He was afterwards preferred to the rectory of Button Coldfield, Warwickshire, from which, however, he was ejected by the parliament. He was tutor to several noblemen and chaplain to Prince Charles, who made him his chaplain in ordinary on the Restoration. In accordance with a royal mandate the fellows of King's College, Cambridge, elected him provost in June 1660. Dr. Whichcote, the existing provost, supported by a minority of the fellows, held out in his rooms, and Fleetwood was compelled to apply to Charles for a 'letter mandatory' before he would quit. He was restored to the living of Frees and presented to the rectory of Anstey in Hertfordshire and that of Denham in Buckinghamshire. On 29 Aug. 1675 he was consecrated bishop of Worcester in the church of St. Peter le Poer, Broad Street, London. He died on 17 July 1683, and was buried in Worcester Cathedral. A mural tablet inscribed with his name was placed in Jesus Chapel the same year. Wood states that he was buried in the lady chapel, and that 'a marble monument with an epitaph of his own making' was placed over his grave in 1687. No trace of this, however, is now to be seen. By his wife, Martha Mercer of Reading, he had two sons, Arthur and John (the latter became archdeacon of Worcester), besides four daughters.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fleccius, Gerbarus

​FLECCIUS, GERBARUS (fl. 1546-1554), painter. [See Fliccius.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fleetwood, Peter Hesketh

​FLEETWOOD, Sir PETER HESKETH (1801–1866), founder of the town of Fleetwood, descended from the ancient Lancashire families of Hesketh and Fleetwood, son of Robert Hesketh, esq., of Rossall, Lancashire, was born at Wennington Hall, near Lancaster, on 9 May 1801. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1823 and M.A. in 1826. He was high sheriff of Lancashire in 1830, and sat as M.P. for Preston from 1832 to 1847, at first as a conservative, and subsequently as a member of the opposite party. He assumed the surname of Fleetwood by royal license 5 March 1831, and was created a baronet in June 1838. He projected, and in 1836 commenced to build the present flourishing town and port of Fleetwood, situated on his estate of Rossall, at the mouth of the river Wyre, in the Fylde, Lancashire. He was a strong advocate for the abolition of the death penalty, and in 1840 published a translation of Victor Hugo's 'Last Days of a Condemned,' to which he prefixed 'Observations on Capital Punishment.'
He was twice married : first in 1826 to Eliza Debonnaire, daughter of Sir T. J. Metcalfe ; and secondly, in 1837, to Virginia Marie, daughter of Seiior Pedro Garcia, who still (1889) survives. Sir Peter died at his residence, 127 Piccadilly, London, on 12 April 1866. His son, the Rev. Sir Peter Louis Hesketh Fleetwood, died in 1880, when the baronetcy became extinct.
C. W. S.