OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/McCormick, Charles

​McCORMICK, CHARLES (1755?–1807), historian and biographer, born about 1755, was son of Charles McCormick of Rathkeal, near Limerick, gentleman. He kept his terms as a student of the Middle Temple, London. On 18 July 1783 he matriculated at Oxford as a member of St. Mary Hall, and on 18 June 1794 he graduated B.C.L. He abandoned law for literature, and died in London 20 July 1807, so poor that an appeal was made to the public on behalf of his widow.
His works are:
* 'The History of England, from the Death of George the Second to the Peace of 1783. Designed as by Continuation to Hume and Smollett,' 3 vols. Lond. n.d. 12mo.
* 'The Secret History of the Court and Reign of Charles the Second, by a Member of his Privy Council … with Notes and a Supplement by the Editor,' 2 vols. Lond. 1792, 8vo.
* 'Memoirs of …, Edmund Burke; or an impartial Review of his Private Life, his Public conduct, &c., interspersed with … Extracts from his Secret Correspondence with some of the most distinguished characters in Europe,' Lond. 1797, 2nd edit. 1798, 4to, 'a disgraceful piece of party virulence' (Lowndes).
* 'Light Reading at Leisure Hours' [anon.]. Lond. 1805, 12mo.
* A continuation of Rapin's History of England.
He is said to have left collections in manuscript for a history of Ireland.
His portrait, has been engraved by Ridley from a painting by Corbould,
[Gent. Mag, 1807. pp. 889, 973; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits. n. 18634; Watts Bibl. Brit.; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 1434; Cm. of Oxford Graduates, 1851, p. 428; Foster's Alumni Oxon. iii. 890.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/McDonnell, Alexander

​McDONNELL, Sir ALEXANDER (1794–1875), commissioner of national education in Ireland, eldest son of James McDonnell, M.D., was born at Belfast in 1794. He gained a king's scholarship at Westminster school in 1809, and was elected in 1813 to Christ Church, Oxford, where he held a studentship till 1826. He graduated B.A. 1816, and M.A. 1820, and won four university prizes—those for Latin and English verse and for the Latin and English essays—an accumulation of honours only once before achieved. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, 23 Nov. 1824, went the midland circuit, attended the Leicester and Northampton sessions, and served as a commissioner of inquiry into public charities. Of an exceedingly sensitive temperament, he broke down in pleading a case before a committee of the House of Lords, and, mortified beyond expression, renounced the bar, returned to Ireland, and accepted the position of chief clerk in the chief secretary's office under Thomas Drummond (1797–1840) [q. v.] In 1839 he was appointed resident commissioner of the board of education, of which he became the presiding genius. While himself an ardent protestant, he persistently sought to provide for his poorer countrymen the religious instruction of their choice. He was made a privy councillor of Ireland in 1846, resigned his commissionership in December 1871, and was created a baronet 20 Jan. 1872. Study of the classics and history formed the chief solace of his retirement. He was deeply attached to Ireland, which he desired to see drawn closer to England by means of just and generous government. He died at 32 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin, 21 Jan. 1875, and was buried at Kilsharvan, near Drogheda. He married in 1826 Barbara, eldest daughter of Hugh Montgomery of Benvarden, co. Antrim, and widow of Richard Staples. She died at Kilsharvan, 6 April 1865, leaving no issue.
[Welch's Alumni Westmon. p. 476; Times, 25 Jan. 1875, p. 7; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography, 1878, p. 311; Illustrated London News, 1875, lxvi. 115; Spectator, 20 Feb. 1875, pp. 240–1.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/McConnell, William

​McCONNELL, WILLIAM (1833–1867), illustrative artist, born in 1833, made his mark early in life as a draughtsman on wood of illustrations to books of a humorous nature. Among his earliest works were the illustrations to Oliver Oldfellow's 'Our School' (1857), G. F. Pardon's 'The Months' (1858), and G. A. Sala's 'Twice Round the Clock;' the last work attracted considerable attention. Subsequently, however, McConnell fell into ill-health, which impeded his progress in his profession, and after being generously supported in his last days by his brother artists, he died of consumption in London on 14 May 1867. A few weeks before his death he made a series of rough sketches, which he did not live to place on the wood, but which were publishesd after his death under the title of 'Upside Down, or Turnover Traits,' with illustrative verses by Thomas Hood the younger.
[Art Journal, 1867. p. 172; Brit. Mus. Cat.; books illustrated by McConnell.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/McCracken, Henry Joy

​McCRACKEN, HENRY JOY (1767–1798), United Irishman, was born in Belfast on 31 Aug. 1767, and brought up to the linen business. At the age of twenty-two he was placed at the head of a cotton factory. Adopting nationalist sentiments, he in 1791 joined with Thomas Russell [q. v.] in the formation of the first society of United Irishmen in Belfast, and gave himself enthusiastically to the working of designs. In October 1796 he was along with his brother William, and imprisoned in Kilmainham gaol for thirteen months. Ultimately he was liberated on bail, and returning to Belfast threw himself with great ardour into plans for an insurrection. In the spring of 1798 he was appointed to the chief command of the rebels in co. Antrim, and on 6 June issued a manifesto calling the people to arms. On 7 June, along ​with a large body of men, he attacked the king's troops at Antrim, but, notwithstanding the great bravery which he displayed, were defeated after a smart action, in which Lord O'Neill [q, v.] and others were killed. Along with some others he fled to Slemish mountain, near Ballymena, where he lay concealed for several weeks. When about to sail for America be was arrested by some Carrickfergus yeomen, tried by court-martial in Belfast, and hanged, amid general regret, at the market-house there on 17 July 1798. His body was buried in the old churchyard at the foot of High Street, the graves in which have all since been levelled. A striking portrait of him is given in Madden's 'United Irishmen,' vol. iv. 'He was,' say Mt. Lecky, 'a man of singularly amiable private character, and is said to have formerly taken a part in establishing the first Sunday school in Belfast' (History, viii. 129).
[Madden's United Irish Personal Narrative, pp. 27; Teeling's Personal Narative, pp. 230 at seq.; Mr Skimin's Annals of Ireland; Benn's Hist. of Belfast; Lecky's Hist. of England; Musgrave's Rebellions in Irelund, pp. 547, &c.]
T. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gorton, John

​GORTON, JOHN (d. 1835), compiler, accomplished a considerable amount of bookwork of a meritorious character, including a translation of Voltaire's ‘Dictionnaire Philosophique,’ 1824; ‘A General Biographical Dictionary’ (2 vols. 1828, with an appendix, 1830 (?), new edition, with a supplement by Cyrus Redding [q. v.], bringing the work as far as 1850, in 4 vols. 1851), which is compiled from rather obvious sources of information; and ‘A Topographical Dictionary of Great Britain and Ireland, the Irish and Welsh Articles by G. N. Wright, with fifty fine maps by S. Hall,’ 3 vols. 1831–3, a work of some accuracy and value; this was first published in separate parts. Gorton was also the author of a poem in indifferent blank verse, ‘Tubal to Seba, the Negro Suicide,’ 1797, and a pamphlet entitled ‘A Solution of that great Scriptural Difficulty the Genealogy of Jesus … with a treatise on the Fall of Adam.’ Gorton died early in 1835.
L. C. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gosling, Ralph

​GOSLING, RALPH (1693–1758), topographer, youngest son of Charles Gosling, yeoman, of Stubley, in the parish of Dronfield in Derbyshire, was baptised in the parish church on 15 July 1693. He was probably educated at the Elizabethan grammar school of Dronfield, but appears to have married at a comparatively early age, and to have settled at Sheffield, where he found employment as a writing-master, a schoolmaster, and perhaps also as a surveyor. In the baptismal register of his son John, 7 Sept. 1720, he is described as a writing-master; in the register of John's burial, 26 Dec. 1720, he is described as a schoolmaster; and in his will (proved 7 March 1758), in which he is still described as a schoolmaster, he mentions his surveying instruments.
In 1732 he published the earliest known map of Sheffield, which is referred to in Hunter's ‘Hallamshire’ (Gatty's edit. p. 18), where he is also said to have made some collections for the history of Sheffield. Of these no trace remains, and the map, of which another edition appears to have been published in 1736 (Gatty, Sheffield Past and Present, p. 121), is very scarce. There is no copy of either edition in the British Museum. At his death in 1758 he seems to have been in comfortable circumstances, a schedule of money owing to him amounting to 1,205l. His wife Mary had died previously in February 1755. Besides a daughter, Mary, whose name has no place in his will, and who presumably died before him, he had a son and a daughter who both died in infancy. Joseph Hunter [q. v.], the historian of Hallamshire, speaks of Jane Gosling (d. 1804), the wife of Gosling's grandson, who eked out her husband's narrow means by keeping a dame's school, which he himself attended when four years old (Add. MS. 24440, f. 33). It is, however, almost certain that Gosling had no other children than those mentioned above, and that the husband of Jane Gosling was his grand-nephew. Besides keeping the school, Jane was the author of ‘Moral Essays and Reflections’ (Sheffield, 1789), and of ‘Ashdale Village,’ a tale of which only the first two volumes were published. She died in 1804. Her name does not appear in the Catalogue of the British Museum.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gosnold, Bartholomew

​GOSNOLD, BARTHOLOMEW (d. 1607), navigator, sailed from Falmouth on 25 March 1602, in command of the Concord of Dartmouth, fitted out, it appears, mainly at the expense of Sir Walter Raleigh. After touching at the Azores, and holding a westerly course towards Virginia, the Concord finally made the land on 14 May, in latitude 43°; and standing south along the coast discovered Cape Cod, so named by them from the extraordinary abundance of cod-fish. Gosnold and four others of the party landed there. They afterwards sailed round the Cape and came in among ‘many fair islands.’ One of these, abounding in strawberries, grapes, and other fruit, they called Martha's Vineyard; to another, which they found to be extremely fertile, they gave the name of Elizabeth's Island. The natives were friendly, the climate delightful, and many of the men were inclined to stay. But quarrels arose and that purpose was foiled. Gosnold, taking on board a cargo of ‘sassafras, cedar, furs, skins, and other commodities as were thought convenient,’ returned to England, arriving at Exmouth on 23 July. The following years he seems to have spent in endeavouring to promote an expedition on a larger scale. In 1606 an association was formed consisting partly of London merchants, and partly of merchants in the west of England, influenced by Sir Ferdinando Gorges [q. v.] A charter was obtained from the king, and the affairs of the colony committed to the government of a council, the names of whose members were given under seal, to be opened only after landing at Virginia. In three ships, the largest of a hundred tons burden, under the command of Christopher Newport [q. v.], they put to sea on 19 Dec. 1606; and after a ​tedious voyage, watering at the Canaries, trading with the savages at Dominica, and refreshing at Guadeloupe. Towards the end of April they discovered the Capes of Virginia, to which they gave the names of Cape Henry and Cape Charles. Inside these, and on the banks of the river, which they called by the name of their king, they formed the settlement of Jamestown. Then they opened the list of council, of which Gosnold was one, and after some debate elected Edward Maria Wingfield as their president. But quarrelling began almost at once; John Smith (1579–1631) [q. v.] was turned out of the council, and was not readmitted till 20 June. Newport, with the ships, returned to England; provisions fell short; Wingfield proved incapable and selfish; deadly sickness broke out, and the colonists died fast. Out of 105 that were left there by Newport fifty were buried before the end of September; among these was Gosnold, who died on 22 Aug. A ‘most honest, worthy, and industrious gentleman’ of the same party, named Anthony Gosnold, was lost in a boat expedition on 7 Jan. 1609. ‘So violent was the wind that the boat sunk; but where or how none doth know, for they were all drowned,’ to the number of ten.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gosnold, John

​GOSNOLD, JOHN (1625?–1678), anabaptist preacher, born in 1625 or 1626, was educated at the Charterhouse, from which he proceeded to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. He took orders in the established church, and in early life became chaplain to Lord Grey, but during the civil war he embraced the principles of the baptists, and gathered a congregation in Paul's Alley, Barbican, London. This church existed under a long succession of ministers for about a hundred and twenty years. His preaching attracted people of all denominations. His audience was usually computed to be nearly three thousand, and ‘among them very often six or seven clergymen in their gowns, who sat in a convenient place under a large gallery, where they were seen by few’ (Walter Wilson, Dissenting Churches, iii. 235). The number and quality of his auditors occasioned after the fire of London an application from the officers of the parish of Cripplegate requesting a collection for the poor of that parish. The request was complied with, upwards of 50l. was raised, and the church voluntarily continued the collection for above twenty years. Gosnold was one of the ministers who subscribed the apology presented to Charles II on occasion of Venner's conspiracy. He was a strenuous opponent of Socinianism, and strove to keep his flock from imbibing its principles. He died 3 Oct. 1678, in the fifty-third year of his age, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. Wilson represents him as ‘a man of great learning and piety; a serious practical preacher; of singular modesty and moderation; unconcerned in the disputes of the times; and much esteemed and valued by men of note and dignity in the established church, particularly by Dr. Tillotson, whose weekly lecture he used to attend’ (ib. iii. 234). He published two tracts against infant baptism, entitled: 1. ‘Of Laying on of Hands, Heb. 6. 2,’ &c., 4to, London, 1656. 2. ‘Bαπτισμῶν Διδαχῆς, Of the Doctrine of Baptisms, Heb. 6. 2. Or, a Discourse of the Baptism of Water and of the Spirit,’ 4to, London, 1657. Before one of these treatises should be a small portrait of Gosnold by Van Hove, which is, however, seldom found.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jenkins, Joseph (1743-1819)

​JENKINS, JOSEPH (1743–1819), particular baptist, born at Wrexham, Denbighshire, in 1743, was son of Evan Jenkins, former pastor of the baptist church at Wrexham. He learned when sixteen ‘Greek and Hebrew under Mr. Walker,’ in London; in 1761 was awarded one of Dr. Ward's exhibitions to King's College, Aberdeen, where he was laureated in 1765; was baptised in London on 6 April 1766 by Dr. Stennet, and became a member of his church in Little Wild Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Three years later he returned to Wrexham, and exercised for a time some pastoral authority over an independent church in Common Hall Lane, Chester. In 1773 he was ordained to the pastorate of ‘the old meeting,’ the baptist church formerly under the guidance of his father, and published his ‘Confession of Faith,’ at Shrewsbury. Many curious notices of his pastorate at Wrexham exist in the church-book which he kept during most of his stay there. While at Wrexham he was an important member of the Midland Association of Particular Baptist Churches, being appointed in 1792 to draw up the circular ​letter to the member churches (see Baptist Annual Register, 1792, p. 409). In 1790 he received the degree of D.D. from the university of Edinburgh. Four years later he became the minister of ‘the newly raised baptist church in Blandford Street,’ London.
In 1798 he succeeded Joseph Swain in the Wednesday-evening lectureship at Devonshire Square, and in the pastorate of the particular baptist church in East Street, Walworth. He remained there till his death, at Walworth, on 21 Feb. 1819. He was buried in Bunhill Fields. He was twice married and left issue. In the ‘Baptist Annual Register’ for 1801, p. 26, there is a fine engraving of him.
Jenkins published many separate sermons and religious tracts, chiefly in defence of his views on baptism. Some of the former were collected in 1779, in two vols., and the latter before 1795, in one vol. He was also author of: 1. ‘The Orthodox Dissenting Minister's Reasons for a further Application to Parliament for Relief in the matter of Subscription,’ London, 1775. 2. ‘Discourses on Select Passages of Sacred History,’ Shrewsbury, 1779. 3. ‘The Orthodox Dissenting Minister's Reasons against Subscribing the Articles of the Church of England’ (before 1781). 4. ‘Reflexions on the Apology of the Rev. Theophilus Lindsay: being a defence of the Doctrine of the Trinity’ (before 1781). 5. ‘A Week well spent, … or plain and serious Reflexions for every day in the week,’ Wrexham, 1791.
Another Joseph Jenkins (fl. 1730) was minister of general baptist congregations in Hart Street, Covent Garden (1702–9), at High Hall (1709–16), and in Duke Street, Southwark (1716–31). He published seven sermons between 1702 and 1725, and was alive in 1736.
[Wilson's Dissenting Churches; Gent. Mag. vol. lxxxix.; Baptist Annual Register; Bunhill Memorials; Palmer's Nonconformity in Wrexham; Joshua Thomas's Hanes y Bedyddwyr (quoted in Palmer); Watt's Bibl. Brit.; General Baptist Repository; works quoted.]
W. A. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jenkins, Henry

​JENKINS, HENRY (d. 1670), called the ‘modern Methuselah,’ was a native of Ellerton-upon-Swale, Yorkshire. He subsisted as a labourer and fisherman. Latterly he gained a livelihood by begging, and to attract attention regaled his patrons with anecdotes of his younger days. He claimed to have been born about 1501; to have been sent at the time of the battle of Flodden (1513), being then between ten and twelve years of age, to North Allerton with a horse-load of arrows for the army; to have been butler to Lord Conyers, whose carouses with Marmaduke, abbot of Fountains Abbey, he recollected; and to have witnessed the dissolution of the monasteries. He had sworn, he said, as a witness in a cause at York assizes, to 120 years. In an interview with Miss Ann Savile of Bolton-on-Swale, in 1662 or 1663, Jenkins asserted his age to be 162 or 163; but in April 1667, when he was called as a witness in a tithe cause between Charles Anthony, vicar of Catterick, and Calvert Smithson, a parishioner, he declared himself to be actually five or six years younger, that is to say, only 157. Anthony, a very careful parish priest, who conducted Jenkins's funeral at Bolton, in December 1670, merely described him in the register as ‘a very aged and poore man.’ Jenkins's wife, too, had predeceased him only a very few years, having been buried at Bolton on 27 Jan. 1667–8.
In 1743 an obelisk to Jenkins's memory was erected in Bolton churchyard. In the church a black marble tablet was placed, recording that he lived to the ‘amazing age of 169.’ But the belief in his marvellous age rests upon no better evidence than Jenkins's own contradictory statements.
There are two engravings said to represent Jenkins, executed by Worlidge and R. Page respectively ‘from an original painting done by Walker.’
[Miss Savile's letter in Phil. Trans. xix. 266–268; Thoms's Longevity of Man, 1879, pp. 67–84; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, i. 187; Whitaker's Richmondshire, 1823, ii. 39–40; Evidences of the Great Age of H. Jenkins, Richmond, 1859, 8vo; Clarkson's Richmond, pp. 396–7; Wilson's Wonderful Characters, i. 412–414; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 2nd edit., iv. 212.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jenkins, Joseph John

​JENKINS, JOSEPH JOHN (1811–1885), engraver and water-colour painter, born in London in 1811, was son of an engraver, who brought him up to the same profession. He engraved many portraits, and among other works, ‘Susanna and the Elders,’ after Francesco Mola, and ‘The Greenwich Pensioner’ and ‘The Chelsea Pensioner,’ after M. W. Sharp. He engraved plates and drew illustrations for the annuals, such as ‘The Keepsake,’ ‘Heath's Book of Beauty,’ &c. Plates from his drawings will also be found in Heath's ‘Illustrations to Byron’ and similar works. Finding his health unsuited to the practice of engraving, he abandoned it for water-colour painting. He soon became known as a painter of domestic subjects or single figures. In 1842 he was elected an associate of the New Water-colour Society, and a member in 1843. He exhibited fifty-seven drawings at their exhibitions in Pall Mall. In 1847 he seceded from that society, and joined the Old Society, being elected an associate in 1849, and a full member in 1850. The remainder of his life was devoted to the service of that society, and to collecting materials for a history of it and its members. He was secretary for ten years, from 13 Feb. 1854, and was a constant contributor to its exhibitions, sending 271 drawings in all. Some of his drawings were engraved. In 1884 he resigned his membership of the society, and died unmarried on 9 March 1885, at 67 Hamilton Terrace, St. John's Wood. The history of the Old Society of Painters in Water-colours, for which Jenkins had collected so many materials, was completed by Mr. John L. Roget in 1891. Special private views of exhibitions for members of the press were first introduced by Jenkins.
[Roget's Hist. of the Old Water-colour Soc.; Athenæum, 21 March 1885.]
L. C.