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

​LEACH, THOMAS (1746–1818), legal writer, born in 1746, was called to the bar from the Middle Temple. In 1790 he was appointed police magistrate at Hatton Garden, and was also chairman of the county court of requests in Fulwood's Rents, Holborn. He was an able lawyer, but ill-health made him irritable. He sent in his resignation in November 1818, and died unmarried on 31 Dec. following.
He published:
* ‘Considerations on the matter of Libel, suggested by Mr. Fox's Notice in Parliament of an intended Motion on that subject,’ 8vo, London, 1791.
* ‘Reports of Sir George Croke,’ 4th edit. 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1790–2.
* ‘Modern Reports, or Select Cases adjudged in the Courts of King's Bench, Chancery, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, from the Restoration of Charles II to the 28th of George II,’ 5th edit. 12 vols. 8vo, London, 1793–6.
* ‘Sir B. Shower's Reports of Cases adjudged in the Court of King's Bench during the reigns of Charles I, James II, and William III,’ 2nd edit. 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1794 (3rd edit. 1836).
* ‘Hawkins's Pleas of the Crown, 7th edit., digested under proper heads,’ 4 vols. 8vo, London, 1795.
* ‘Cases in Crown Law determined by the Twelve Judges, by the Court of King's Bench, and by Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, and General Gaol Delivery, 1730–1815,’ London, 1789, 1792, 1800, and in 2 vols. 8vo, 1815.
Leach was for some years editor of the ‘Whitehall Evening Post.’ His portrait has been engraved by Audinet.
[Gent. Mag. 1818, pt. ii. p. 647; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leadbetter, Charles

​LEADBETTER, CHARLES (fl. 1728), astronomer, was for many years a gauger in the royal excise, and afterwards taught mathematics, navigation, and astronomy at the 'Hand and Pen' in Cock Lane, London. Although stated to have died in November 1744 (London Mag. xiii. 569), there is evidence from the successive editions of his works that he was alive as late as 1769. He wrote: 1. 'A Treatise of Eclipses.' London, 1727. 2. 'Astronomy, or the True System of the Planets demonstrated.' 1727. 3. 'A Compleat System of Astronomy.' 1728; 2nd edit. 1742; the second volume containing new tables of the planetary motions. He gave in this work perhaps the earliest demonstration of a well-known property of stereographic projection. 4. 'Astronomy of the ​Satellites of the Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, grounded upon Newton's Theory of the Earth's Satellite; also New Tables of the Motions of the Satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.' 1729. 5. 'Uranoscopia, or the Contemplation of the Heavens,' 1735. 6. 'Mechanick Dialling.' 1737, adapted to new style in editions of 1756 and 1769. 7. 'The Royal Ganger.' 1739; 4th edit. 1756. 8. 'The Young Mathematician's Companion.' 1739; 2nd edit. 1748. Leadbetter was one of the first commentators on Newton, and his writings were useful in their time.
[Delambre's Hist, de l'Astronomie en XVIII$^e$ Siècle, p. 87; Mädler's Geschichte der Himmelskonde, ii. 531; Lalande's Astronomie, ii. 222; Lalande's Bibl. Astr.; Weidler's Bibl. Astr.; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
A. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leach, James

​LEACH, JAMES (1762–1798), musical composer, was born at Wardle, Rochdale, Lancashire, in 1762. He became a hand-loom weaver, but having studied music in his leisure hours, ultimately devoted himself entirely to the art. He early attained proficiency as a player, and was made a member of the king's band. He gained some distinction both as a teacher and choir-leader, and as a counter-tenor singer took a prominent part in the Westminster Abbey and other musical festivals. He removed about 1795 to Salford, where he died from the effects of a stage-coach accident on 8 Feb. 1798. He was buried in the cemetery of Union Street Wesleyan Chapel, Rochdale, where his grave is marked by a stone on which is cut his short-metre tune 'Egypt,' in G minor.
It is as a composer of psalmody that Leach is remembered. He published 'A New Sett of Hymns and Psalm Tunes.' &c. (London, 1789), containing twenty-two hymn-tunes and two long pieces, with instrumental accompaniment. This was followed by a 'Second Sett of Hymn and Psalm Tunes' (London, n.d., 1794 P), which contains forty-eight tunes and three longer compositions. To an edition of the latter published after his death an advertisement is appended dated 'Manchester, 1798.' soliciting subscriptions towards publishing sundry manuscript anthems, &c., for the benefit of his family. Later impressions of both 'Setts' were printed from the original plates, but without the prefaces. A reprint, under the title of 'Leach's Psalmody.' edited by Newbigging and Butterworth, was issued in 1884 (London, 4to), with a sketch of his life. His tunes were mostly of the florid class popular in his day. They irritate the modern ear because of their erratic rhythmic form. At one time they were widely used both here and in America. Many of them were printed in American collections, notably in 'The David Companion, or the Methodist Standard' (Baltimore, 1810), which contains forty-eight of his pieces. Besides his tunes, Leach's published works include some anthems, and trios for two violins and a bass-viol.
J. C. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Le Strange, Thomas

​LE STRANGE, Sir THOMAS (1494–1545), of Hunstanton, Norfolk, born in 1494, son of Robert le Strange (d. 1511), sixth in descent from Hamo le Strange, brother of John le Strange, sixth baron of Knockyn [see under Le Strange, John, d. 1260], was esquire of the body to Henry VIII, and attended the king when he went to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520; he was knighted by Henry at Whitehall in 1529, and served as high sheriff of Norfolk in 1532. Extracts from the ‘Household Accounts’ kept at Hunstanton in the time of Sir Thomas and his successor, from 1519 to 1578, were published in the ‘Archæologia’ for 1833. Sir Thomas was in attendance on Anne Boleyn at her coronation in 1533, her father, Sir Thomas ​Boleyn, being a Norfolk neighbour, who is mentioned repeatedly in the above accounts as a visitor at Hunstanton. In 1536 Sir T. le Strange was appointed to attend on the king's person during the Pilgrimage of Grace, and to bring fifty men with him; in July of that year he was placed on the commission to inquire into the revenues of the wealthy abbey of Walsingham, near his own Norfolk estate. It is to his credit that, though a personal friend of the king, and employed on business connected with the dissolution of the monasteries, Sir Thomas does not appear to have used his influence at court to secure for himself any church lands whatever. His picture, by Holbein, hangs at Hunstanton Hall, and a pencil sketch of him is among the Holbein drawings at Windsor; both these were exhibited at the Tudor Exhibition in 1890. He married Anne, daughter of Nicholas, lord Vaux; died 16 Jan. 1545, and was buried at Hunstanton.
The son, Sir Nicholas le Strange (1515-1580), became steward for life of the manors of Mary, duchess of Richmond (25 Jan. 1547); was knighted by Protector Somerset while serving with him in Scotland in 1547 (Metcalfe, Knights, p. 96); was elected M.P. for Norfolk (November 1547), for King's Lynn (1555), for Castle Rising (1571); and was sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1548. On 15 Sept. 1549 he wrote to William Cecil, the king's attorney, denying any sympathy with Kett's rebellion (State Papers, Dom. Edw. VI, viii. No. 60). In 1559 he was a member of the household of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, went with the duke to Scotland, and in February 1560 carried messages from him to the privy council. On 4 Oct. 1571 Le Strange denied, when examined by the council, all knowledge of the duke's treasonable negotiations with Mary Queen of Scots (Hatfield MSS. i. 533). He married, first, Ellen, daughter of Sir William Fitzwilliam of Milton, Northamptonshire; and secondly, Katharine, daughter of Sir John Hide of Aidborough. By his first wife he had three sons and two daughters (Inq. post mort. in Public Record Office; Chanc. Inq. 24 Eliz. pt.i.p.20).
H. le S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jardine, George

​JARDINE, GEORGE (1742–1827), professor of logic at Glasgow, was born in 1742 at Wandel in Lanarkshire, where his paternal ancestors had dwelt for nearly two centuries. His mother was a daughter of Weir of Birkwood, in the parish of Lesmahagow. Jardine was transferred in October 1760 from the parish school to Glasgow College, and after passing with distinction through the arts and divinity courses, was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Linlithgow. In 1770 he went to Paris as tutor to the sons of Baron Mure of Caldwell, who obtained for him from David Hume introductions to Helvetius and D'Alembert. Soon after his return from France in July 1773, he failed to secure election to the chair of humanity at Glasgow by a single vote, but in June 1774 was appointed professor of Greek and assistant professor in logic. In 1787 he became sole professor of logic. Jardine gave a more practical and less metaphysical turn to the teaching of his chair, established a system of daily examination, and bestowed infinite pains upon his classes, which rose from an average of fifty to one of nearly two hundred. He expounded his principles of teaching in his 'Outlines of Philosophical Education,' published at Glasgow, 1818; 2nd edit. 1825. His business powers restored the finances of the college to order. He was one of the founders in 1792, and afterwards for more than twenty years secretary, of the Royal Infirmary at Glasgow. For upwards of thirty years he was the representative of the presbytery of Hamilton in the general assembly. He retired from the chair of logic in 1824, and died on 27 Jan. 1827.
Jardine married in 1776 Miss Lindsay of Glasgow, whom he survived about twelve years. They had one son, John Jardine, advocate, who held the office of sheriff of Ross and Cromarty, and died in 1850.
J. T-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jarlath (fl.540)

​JARLATH or IARLATH (fl. 540), Irish saint, was a native of Connaught, where both his father Lugh and his mother Mong-finn were well descended. In the reign of Tuathal Maolgarbh, king of Ireland 533–44, he started on a journey with the intention of founding a church and religious community in some suitable place. Before he reached the frontier of Connaught his chariot-wheels were broken, and he took the accident as a divine indication of the proper site for his church, which he built at Tuam-da-gualann. It was the first bishopric founded in Connaught, and still retains the primacy of that province. The town now known as Tuam, co. Galway, grew up around his church, and his relics were long preserved there in a chapel called Scrin. His obit is celebrated on 26 Dec., but no ancient life of him is extant.
This saint is sometimes confounded with the Jarlath (424–481) [q. v.], third archbishop of Armagh. Colgan is clear that they are distinct. O'Clery seems no less clear, but it is a suspicious circumstance that O'Clery derives the archbishop of Tuam from the Clan Rudhraighe, a family of Ulster closely allied, and in later times united, with the Dal Fiatach, from whom the Archbishop of Armagh was descended.
[Felire of Œngus, ed. Stokes, p. 184; Colgan's Acta Sanctorum Hib.; Martyrology of Donegal, Dublin ed., 1864, p. 349.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jarrett, Thomas

​JARRETT, THOMAS, D.D. (1805–1882), orientalist, born in 1805, was educated at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1827 as thirty-fourth wrangler, and seventh in the first class of the classical tripos. In the following year he was elected a fellow of his college, where he resided as classical and Hebrew lecturer till 1832. In 1832 he was presented by his college to the rectory of Trunch in Norfolk. In 1831 he was elected to the professorship of Arabic at Cambridge, and held the chair till 1854, when he was appointed regius professor of Hebrew and canon of Ely. He died at Trunch rectory on 7 March 1882.
As a linguist Jarrett was chiefly remarkable for the extent and variety of his knowledge. He knew at least twenty languages, and taught Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit, Persian, Gothic, and indeed almost any language for which he could find a student. He spent much time in the transliteration of oriental languages into the Roman character, according to a system devised by himself; and also in promulgating a system of printing English with diacritical marks to show the sound of each vowel without changing the spelling of the word.
He published in 1831 an ‘Essay on Algebraic Development,’ intended to illustrate and apply a system of algebraic notation submitted by him to the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1827, and printed in the third volume of their ‘Transactions;’ in 1830, ‘Grammatical Indexes to the Hebrew ​ Text of Genesis;’ in 1848, a ‘Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew Lexicon;’ in 1857, ‘The Gospels and Acts so printed as to Show the Sound of each Word without Change of Spelling,’ a work which was intended to illustrate his ‘New Way of Marking Sounds of English words without Change of Spelling,’ published in 1858; in 1866, an edition of Virgil with all the quantities marked; in 1875, ‘Nalopākhyānam,’ or the Sanskrit text of the Story of Nala transliterated into Roman characters; and in 1882, the ‘Hebrew Text of the Old Covenant printed in a modified Roman Alphabet.’ He had besides prepared transliterated editions, which were never published, of the Rāmāyana, the Shāhnāmah, and the Korān.
E. J. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jardine, John

​JARDINE, JOHN (1716–1766), Scottish divine, son of Robert Jardine of Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, was born 3 Jan. 1716. He was licensed by the presbytery of Lochmaben 7 Sept. 1736, was appointed to Liberton by George II, and was ordained 30 July 1741. On 26 July 1750 he received a call to Lady Yester's Church at Edinburgh, and on 24 April 1754 was transferred to the collegiate or second charge of the Tron Church there. He was created D.D. by the university of St. Andrews 20 Nov. 1758, and became one of his majesty's chaplains in ordinary in September 1759, and one of the deans of the Chapel Royal in August 1761. He was made dean of the order of the Thistle in January 1763. On 30 May 1766 Jardine died suddenly while attending a meeting of the general assembly. He married Jean (d. 1767), eldest daughter of George Drummond [q. v.], lord provost of Edinburgh. By her he left a son, Henry (afterwards Sir Henry) (1766–1851), sometime king's remembrancer, and a daughter, Janet, who married George Drummond Home of Blair Drummond. Jardine was a good preacher, and a man of great social qualities. He moved in the Edinburgh literary set of the time, was a member of the ‘Select Society’ of 1759, and a friend of Home, Hume, and Dr. Alexander Carlyle, but is only known to have written a few articles in the first ‘Edinburgh Review,’ which was founded, largely by his influence, in 1755.
[Scott's Fasti, i. 60, 62, 116; Annals of the General Assembly; Cunningham's Church Hist. of Scotland; Mackenzie's Life of Home, p. 14, &c.; Anderson's Scottish Nation, ii. 568; Carlyle's Autobiography, p. 238, &c.]
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jarlath (424-481)

​JARLATH or IARLAITHE (424–481), Irish saint, third archbishop of Armagh, was born at Rath-trena in the east of Ulster. His father was named Trien, and was of the Dal Fiatach, the race of Fiatach the Fair, which furnished kings to Ulster for the seven hundred years preceding the Norman invasion. He was born a pagan, was baptised in childhood, administered the last sacrament to St. Benan, and after Benan's death became archbishop of Armagh in 464. He died on 11 Feb. 481.
[Colgan's Acta Sanctorum Hib.; Reeves's Antiquities of Down, Connor, and Dromore, p. 352; Annals of Ulster, ed. Hennessy, i. 25.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jardine, David

​JARDINE, DAVID (1794–1860), historical and legal writer, born at Pickwick, near Bath, in 1794, was son of David B. ​Jardine (1766–1797), unitarian minister at Bath from 1790, by his wife, a daughter of George Webster of Hampstead. The father died on 10 March 1797, and John Prior Estlin [q. v.] of Bristol edited, with a memoir, two volumes of his sermons. The son graduated M.A. at Glasgow University in 1813, was called to the bar as a member of the Middle Temple (7 Feb. 1823), chose the western circuit, and became recorder of Bath. In 1839 he was appointed police magistrate at Bow Street, London. He died at the Heath, Weybridge, Surrey, on 13 Sept. 1860; his wife, Sarah, died three weeks later (Gent. Mag. 1860, ii. 446, 565).
In 1828 Jardine published an admirably compiled ‘General Index’ to Howell's ‘Collection of State Trials.’ In 1840 and 1841 he communicated to the Society of Antiquaries two papers of ‘Remarks upon the Letters of Thomas Winter and the Lord Mounteagle, lately discovered by J. Bruce. … Also upon the Evidence of Lord Mounteagle's implication in the Gunpowder Treason’ (printed in ‘Archæologia,’ xxix. 80–110, and also separately). These formed the materials for an elaborate volume entitled ‘A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot,’ 8vo, London, 1857. Jardine also edited from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library ‘A Treatise of Equivocation,’ 8vo, 1851, and translated F. C. F. von Mueffling's ‘Narrative of my Missions in 1829 and 1830,’ 8vo, 1855.
For the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge he selected and abridged from Howell's ‘State Trials of England’ two volumes of ‘Criminal Trials,’ 12mo, 1832–3 (in Library of Entertaining Knowledge). To the ‘Lives of Eminent Persons,’ in the Library of Useful Knowledge, published by the same society, he contributed a ‘Life’ of Lord Somers. He wrote also: 1. ‘A Reading on the use of Torture in the Criminal Law of England previously to the Commonwealth,’ 8vo, London, 1837, which was described by Macaulay as ‘very learned and ingenious.’ 2. ‘Remarks on the Law and Expediency of requiring the presence of Accused Persons at Coroners' Inquisitions,’ 8vo, London, 1846.
[Annual Register, 1860, p. 453; Law Mag. November 1860, pp. 198, 199; information from Jerom Murch, esq., and Albert Nicholson, esq.; Estlin's Memoir of David B. Jardine.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jardine, James

​JARDINE, JAMES (1776–1858), engineer, was born at Applegarth, Dumfriesshire, on 30 Nov. 1776. Having shown great aptitude for mathematics at the Dumfries academy he made his way in 1795 to Edinburgh, with a letter of introduction to John Playfair, professor of mathematics at Edinburgh University from 1785 to 1805. He was warmly befriended both by Playfair and by Dugald Stewart, and obtained many mathematical pupils, including Lord John Russell and Henry John Temple (afterwards Lord Palmerston). About 1806 he began, by Playfair's advice, to practise the profession of a civil engineer, and soon found abundant employment. He introduced the Crawley water into Edinburgh, constructed the Union Canal, and, having been employed in 1809 to take a series of levels in the Firth of Tay, he was the first to determine, by observations of the tides over a great extent of ​coast, the mean level of the sea. He did valuable work on the commission appointed in 1825 to determine the proportions borne by the old Scottish weights and measures to the imperial standard, and was subsequently engineer of the Dalkeith railway. ‘All Jardine's works,’ says Professor Rankine, ‘are models of skilful design and solid construction.’ Jardine died at Edinburgh on 20 June 1858. He was a friend of Stephenson and Telford.
[Notice by Professor W. M. J. Rankine in Imperial Dict. of Univ. Biog. vol. xii.; Glasgow Courier, 24 June 1858; information kindly supplied by Professor Ball of Glasgow.]
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jarrold, Thomas

​JARROLD, THOMAS (1770–1853), physician, born at Manningtree, Essex, on 1 Dec. 1770, was educated at Edinburgh, where he is said to have taken his degree of M.D., though his name does not appear in the published list of graduates. He was in practice at Stockport, Cheshire, in 1806, and soon afterwards removed to Manchester, where he died on 24 June 1853. He was buried at the Congregational Chapel, Grosvenor Street. He was twice married, his first wife Susanna dying on 12 March 1817, aged 51, and the second at Norwich in 1886, aged 91. His son, Edgar T. Jarrold, died at New York on 25 Feb. 1890.
Jarrold published: 1. ‘Dissertations on Man … in answer to Mr. Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population,’ Stockport, 1806, 8vo, pp. 367. 2. ‘A Letter to Samuel Whitbread, M.P. … on the Poor's Laws,’ 1807, 8vo, pp. 32. 3. ‘Anthropologia, or Dissertations on the Form and Colour of Man,’ Stockport, 1808, 4to, pp. 261. 4. ‘An Inquiry into the Causes of the Curvature of the Spine,’ 1823, 8vo. 5. ‘Instinct and Reason philosophically investigated, with a view to ascertain the Principles of the Science of Education,’ Manchester, 1836, 8vo, pp. 348. 6. ‘Education of the People,’ pt. i., Manchester, 1847, 8vo. He was a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and in 1811 contributed to its ‘Memoirs’ a paper on ‘National Character’ (2nd series, ii. 328).
[Earwaker's Local Gleanings, i. 137, 143; Cheshire Notes and Queries, new ser. iii. 154; Allibone's Dict. of Authors, i. 955; communications from his daughter, Mrs. T. Jarrold of Norwich, and Mr. W. I. Wild.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Haselwood, Thomas

Thomas Hasilwode in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​HASELWOOD, THOMAS (fl. 1380), historian, was a canon regular at the monastery of Leeds in Kent, where he was employed as a schoolmaster. Bale, on the ​thority of William Botoner or William of Worcester, asserts that he lived about 1320, but Weever in his ‘Funerall Monuments’ quotes from Haselwood a eulogy of Edward the Black Prince. Haselwood's only work is said to have been a ‘Chronicon Compendiarium Cantuariense;’ Weever states that it was in the Cottonian Library, but gives no more exact reference, and it seems impossible to decide for certain whether it is still preserved there; if so it has been lost sight of. The last words of the extract given by Weever are ‘inter regales regum memorias dignum [sc. Edwardum principem] duximus commendandum,’ which looks as if Haselwood's work was a series of short lives of English kings, perhaps a compilation made for the use of his scholars.
[Bale, v. 20; Weever's Funerall Monuments, p. 206; Fuller's Worthies, Kent, p. 81; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 383.]
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harwood, Isabella

​HARWOOD, ISABELLA (1840?–1888), dramatist and novelist, daughter of Philip Harwood [q. v.], editor of the ‘Saturday Review,’ and of a Scotch lady of the name of Neil, was born about 1840. She commenced her literary career as a reviewer and writer of fiction, and between 1864 and 1870 produced a series of successful novels, among which ‘Abbot's Cleve,’ ‘Carleton Grange,’ and ‘Raymond's Heroine’ deserve especial notice. At a later period she found her true sphere in the almost utterly neglected department of the poetical drama. Her plays, published under the pseudonym of Ross Neil, ‘Lady Jane Grey,’ ‘Inez’ (1871), ‘The Cid,’ ‘The King and the Angel,’ ‘Duke for a Day’ (1874), ‘Elfinella,’ ‘Lord and Lady Russell’ (1876), ‘Arabella Stuart,’ ‘The Heir of Linne,’ ‘Tasso’ (1879), ‘Andrea the Painter,’ ‘Claudia's Choice,’ ‘Orestes,’ ‘Pandora’ (1883), are always elegant and often truly poetical, and merit a high rank as literary compositions, though too purely literary and too little substantial for the stage. Miss Harwood was most amiable, sensible, and accomplished, and shared her father's musical taste and proficiency. She did not long survive him, dying at Hastings in June 1888.
[Personal knowledge.]
R. G.