OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gregory, George (1754-1808)

​GREGORY, GEORGE, D.D. (1754–1808), divine and man of letters, son of an Irish clergyman, was educated at Liverpool for the counting-house. For several years he was clerk to Alderman C. Gore, merchant of Liverpool, but took more interest in literature and the drama than in his employment, and was director of a small private theatre, for which he wrote several farces and plays. Resolving to give up business, he studied at the university of Edinburgh, and was ordained in the established church. He was admitted to the degree of D.D. in 1792. Gregory settled in London in 1782, and became evening preacher at the Foundling Hospital. In 1802 he was presented to the living of West Ham, Essex, a preferment said to have been given him by Addington for his support of the administration. He became prebendary of St. Paul's in 1806, and at the time of his death was also chaplain to the Bishop of Llandaff. Gregory was a hard-working parish priest, and an energetic member of the Royal Humane Society. He died on 12 March 1808.
Gregory was for the most part self-educated, and acquired a very creditable amount of erudition. His first work was a volume of ‘Essays Historical and Moral’ (1st ed. published anonymously 1783, 2nd 1788). In 1787 he published a volume of sermons to which are prefixed ‘Thoughts on the Composition and Delivery of a Sermon’(2nd edition, 1789). He was also the author of a ‘Translation of Bishop Lowth's Lectures on the Poetry of the Hebrews’ (2 vols. 8vo, 1st ed. 1787, last 1847); ‘The Life of T. Chatterton’ (1789, a reprint from Kippis's ‘Biog. Brit.,’ iv. 573-619); ‘An History of the Christian Church’ (1790, 2nd ed. 1795); a revised edition of Dr. Hawkesworth's translation of Fénelon's ‘Télémaque’ (1795); ‘The Economy of Nature Explained and Illustrated on the Principles of Modern Philosophy’ (1796, 2nd ed. 1798, 3rd 1804); ‘The Elements of a Polite Education, carefully selected from the Letters of Lord Chesterfield’ (1800, new ed. 1807); ‘Letters on Literature, Taste, and Composition’ (1808); and ‘A Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences’ (1808). On the death of Dr. Kippis in 1795 Gregory was appointed edit or of the ‘Biographia Britannica,’ but he made little progress with the work, and the sixth volume, to which he had contributed a preface, was burnt in the warehouse of Nichols & Son on 8 Feb. 1808. He was also for some years editor of the ‘New Annual Register,’ a publication started by Kippis in opposition to the ‘Annual Register’ in 1780, probably as successor to Kippis. Gregory changed its politics from whig to tory during the premiership of Addington.
[Gent. Mag. 1808, lxxviii. pt. i. pp. 277. 386; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
L. C. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gregor, William

​GREGOR, WILLIAM (1761–1817), chemist and mineralogist, younger son of Francis Gregor, a captain in General Wolfe's regiment, by Mary, sister of Sir Joseph Copley, bart., was born at Trewarthenick in the parish of Cornelly, Cornwall, 25 Dec. 1761, and educated at Bristol grammar school under the Rev. Charles Lee. In 1778 he was placed under the care of a tutor at Walthamstow, and in 1780 was admitted at St. John's College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1784, and having gained a prize given for Latin prose by the representatives of the university in parliament, he was elected a Platt fellow of his college. Proceeding M.A. in 1787 he vacated his fellowship, and was collated to the rectory of Diptford, near Totnes, which had been purchased for him by his father. In 1790 he married Charlotte Anne, only daughter of David Gwatkin, by Anne, daughter of Robert Lovell, by whom he had issue one child, a daughter. Dr. John Ross, bishop of Exeter, to whom his wife was related, presented him in 1793 to the rectory of Bratton Clovelly, Devonshire, which in the same year ​he exchanged for the rectory of Creed in Cornwall, where he continued for the rest of his life. He was distinguished as a painter of landscapes, as an etcher, and as a musician. While attending Mr. Waltier's lectures at Bristol he acquired a taste for chemical pursuits, but he gave his chief attention to analytical mineralogy. In 1791 a peculiar black sand, found in the Menacchan or Manaccan Valley, Cornwall, was sent to him for analysis, which he ascertained to be a compound of iron, with traces of manganese and of an unknown substance, which by a series of experiments he proved to possess a metallic base, although he was unable to reduce it to its simple form. In an article in Crell's ‘Annals’ he gave the name of Menacchanite to the sand, and that of Menacchine to the metallic substance which he had proved it to contain. No further notice was taken of this matter for six years. In 1795 Klaproth published the analysis of red schorl, showing that it was composed of the oxide of a peculiar metal to which he gave the name of Titanium. Two years after the same chemist analysed some Menacchanite, and was surprised to find that it contained his new metal, when he abandoned his claim to the discovery of Titanium, and acknowledged that the merit belonged solely to Gregor. This substance was afterwards found in the United States of America and in other places, and is sometimes called Gregorite. Gregor next made experiments on zeolite and wavellite, in both of which he found fluoric acid, while in uran glimmer he discovered oxide of lead, lime and silica, and in the topaz he was enabled to detect lime and potash, which had escaped the observation of Klaproth. He published sermons in 1798, 1805, 1809, three pamphlets, and in 1802 ‘A Letter on the Statute 21 Hen. VIII, c. 13, and on the Grievances to which the Clergy are exposed,’ besides papers in scientific journals. He died of consumption at the rectory, Creed, 11 July 1817. His wife died at Exeter, 11 Sept. 1819.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gregory, David (1627-1720)

​GREGORY, DAVID (1627–1720), inventor, son of the Rev. John Gregory, parish minister of Drumoak, on the Kincardineshire border, and elder brother of James Gregory (1638-1675) [q. v.], was born in 1627. He was apprenticed by his father to a mercantile house in Holland. He returned to his native country in 1655, and succeeded, on the death of an elder brother, to the estate of Kinardie, some forty miles north of Aberdeen. Here he resided for many years, and was the father of no less than thirty-two children by two wives. Three of his sons, David (1661-1708) [q. v.], Charles, and James, were good mathematicians. A daughter was the mother of ​Thomas Reid [q. v.], who recorded most of what is known of his grandfather's career.
Gregory was ridiculed by his neighbours for his ignorance of farming, but regarded as an oracle in medicine. He had a large gratuitous practice among the poor, and was often called in by people of standing also, but would never accept a fee. Being much occupied by his practice by day, he retired to bed early, rose about 2 or 3 a.m., shut himself in with his books and instruments for several hours, and then had another hour's rest before breakfast. He was the first man about Aberdeenshire to possess a barometer, and it is said that his forecasts of weather exposed him to suspicions of witchcraft or conjuration. About the beginning of the eighteenth century he removed to Aberdeen, and during the wars of Queen Anne turned his attention to the improvement of artillery. With the help of an Aberdeen watchmaker he constructed a model of improved cannon, and prepared to take it to Flanders. Meanwhile he forwarded his model to his son David (1661-1708) [q. v.], the Savilian professor, and to Newton. Newton held that it was only calculated for the diabolical purpose of increasing carnage, and urged the professor to break up the model, which was never afterwards found. During the rebellion of 1715 Gregory went a second time to Holland, returning when the trouble had subsided to Aberdeen. He appears to have been discouraged from further invention, and devoted the later years of his long life to the compilation of a history of his time and country which was never published. He died in 1720.
J. B-y.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Conquest, John Tricker

​CONQUEST, JOHN TRICKER, M.D. (1789–1806), man-midwife, was born in 1789. He graduated M.D. at Edinburgh in 1813, and became a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London in December 1819. In 1820 he published 'Outlines of Midwifery,' of which a second edition appeared in 1821. He used to give four courses of lectures on midwifery in each year at his own house, 4 Aldemanbury Postern, London, and charged three guineas to each student attending. The lectures included remarks on the diseases of children and on forensic medicine. In a few years he moved into Finsbury Square, became lecturer on midwifery in the medical school of St. Bartholomew's Hospital (1825), and attained considerable practice. In 1830 he published an address to the Hunterian Society on puerperal inflammation (16 pp. 8vo), and in 1848 'Letters to a Mother on ​the Management of herself and her children in Health and Disease.' This work reached a fourth edition in 1852, but is written in a sickly style, and has no scientific or practical merit. A physician who remembered the men-midwives of Conquest's period of practice used to relate that they were divided into two classes by their conversation: one section quoted texts whenever they spoke, the other section poured forth stories which were more indecent than the drama of the Restoration. Never was midwifery, as a special branch of practice, less worthily represented. Conquest did not rise above the level of his fellows, but it must at least be admitted that his 'Letters to a Mother,' if tainted with cant, are free from indecency. He retired from practice, and after several years of a melancholy decay died at Shooter's Hill on 24 Oct. 1866.
[Conquest's Prospectus of Lectures, 1820; Musk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, iii. 204.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Constable, Cuthbert

​CONSTABLE, CUTHBERT, M.D. (d. 1746), antiquary, was son of Francis Tunstall, esq., of Wycliffe Hall and Scargill Castle, Yorkshire, by Cicely, daughter of John Constable, second viscount Dunbar. He was educated in the English college at Douay, which he entered in 1700, and afterwards he took the degree of M.D. in the university of Montpellier. In 1718 he inherited from his uncle, the last Viscount Dunbar, the estate of Burton Constable, near Hull, Yorkshire, and in consequence assumed the name of Constable. He has been styled the 'catholic Mæcenas of his age.' He was an accomplished scholar, and corresponded with the most eminent literary men of the kingdom, particularly with the antiquary Thomas Hearne. He rendered great assistance to Bishop Challoner in the compilation of the 'Memoirs of Missionary Priests,' and contributed to the cost of publishing Dodd's 'Church History.' At Burton Constable he formed an extensive library, enriched with valuable manuscripts. Among the latter was a biography by himself of Abraham Woodhead; his correspondence with Mr. Nicholson, formerly of University College, Oxford, in reference to Woodhead; and a volume of his correspondence with Hearne. Constable died 27 March 1746.
[Dr. Kirk's Biographical MSS. quoted in Gillow's Bibl. Dict. i. 548; Catholic Miscellany (1830), 136.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Conolly, Erskine

​CONOLLY, ERSKINE (1796–1843), Scotch poet, was born at Crail, Fifeshire, on 12 June 1796. He was educated at the burgh school of his native town, and afterwards apprenticed to a bookseller at Anstruther. Subsequently he began business on his own account in Colinsburgh, but not succeeding to his satisfaction went to Edinburgh, where, after serving for some time as clerk to a writer to the signet, he obtained a partnership with a solicitor, and after his partner's death succeeded to the whole business. He died at Edinburgh on 7 Jan. 1843. Among the best known of his songs is 'Mary Macneil,' which appeared in the 'Edinburgh Intelligencer,' 23 Dec. 1840. He never made any collection of his poems.
[Conolly's Dictionary of Eminent Men of Fife, p. 126; Charles Roger's Modern Scottish Minstrel, pp. 247–8; Grant-Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland, ii. 175–6.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Conolly, William

​CONOLLY, WILLIAM (d. 1729), speaker of the Irish House of Commons, was the son of a publican, or, as some say, of a blacksmith. Having been called to the bar, he soon made way in his profession; but he distinguished himself more particularly in the Irish House of Commons, of which he was chosen speaker 12 Nov. 1715. He continued to hold this post until his resignation through failure of health, 12 Oct. 1729, only a few days before he died. He was likewise a member of the privy council; was ten times appointed to the exalted office of a lord justice of Ireland between 1710 and 1729, during the absence of successive viceroys; and was chief commissioner of the Irish revenues. Swift says that Wharton, when lord-lieutenant, sold this place to Conolly for 3,000l. He married Catherine, daughter of Sir Albert Conyngham, knt., lieutenant-general of the ordnance in Ireland, and sister of Henry, first earl Conyngham; and dying without issue 30 Oct. 1729, he was buried in Celbridge church, co. Kildare, being succeeded in his large estates by his nephew, the Right Hon. William Conolly, M.P., of Stratton Hall, Staffordshire. Archbishop Boulter, in a letter from Dublin of the above date, thus refers to Conolly's death, and to the consequent official changes: 'After his death being expected for several days, Mr. Conolly died this morning about one o'clock. He has left behind him a very great fortune, some talk of 17,000l. per ann. As his death makes a vacancy among the commissioners of the revenue, my lord chancellor and I have been talking with my lord-lieutenant on that subject, and we all agree it will be for his majesty's service that a native succeed him; and as Sir Ralph Gore, the new speaker, does not care to quit the post of chancellor of the exchequer, which he is already possessed of, and which by an addition made to the place by his late majesty is worth better than 800l. per ann., and is for life, to be made one of the commissioners, we join in our opinion that the most proper person here to succeed Mr. Conolly is Dr. Coghill, who is already a person of weight, and has done service in the parliament. It is worthy of note that the plan which still prevails in Ireland of wearing linen scarfs at funerals, established with the view of encouraging the linen manufacture, was observed for the first time at Conolly's funeral.
[Noble's continuation of Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, iii. 188; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland (Archdall), vii. 184; Archbishop Boulter's Letters, i. 334; Warburton, Whitelaw, and Walsh's Hist. of Dublin, i. 37; Gilbert's Hist. of Dublin, iii. 370; Swift's Works (Scott), ii. 27, 179, 467, iv. 28. xviii. 251.]
B. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Const, Francis

​CONST, FRANCIS (1751–1839), legal writer, was called to the bar at the Middle Temple on 7 Feb. 1783. He wrote some epilogues and prologues, and numbered among his convivial companions Henderson, John Kemble, Stephen Storace, Twiss, Person, Dr. Bumey, and Sheridan. He edited several editions of J. T. Pratt's 'Laws relating to the Poor,' and was chairman of the Middlesex magistrates and the Westminster sessions, holding the latter office till his death on 16 Dec. 1839. By extreme parsimony and skilful speculations he amassed a fortune of ​150,000l., and left legacies to many of his friends.
[Gent. Mag. new ser. xiii. 212.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Henderson, George

​HENDERSON, GEORGE (1783–1855), lieutenant-colonel royal engineers, son of Captain Henderson of the 4th royals, was born on 4 June 1783 at Newton, his father's property, on the banks of the Dee, Aberdeenshire. He passed through the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and obtaining a commission in the corps of royal engineers joined at Portsmouth as second lieutenant in March 1800. He was promoted lieutenant the following year, and in 1803 was sent to Ceylon, where he served for nine years. He returned to England in August 1812 with the rank of captain, and in September was sent to Spain to join the Duke of Wellington's army operating in the Peninsula. He distinguished himself at the siege of St. Sebastian, for which he was mentioned in despatches and received the gold medal; he also took part in the battles of the Nive, Nivelle, and Orthes, for which he received the war medal with two clasps. At the close of the war he was stationed in Ireland and, after his marriage, in Canada till 1819, when he returned to England. He attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel on 30 Dec. 1824, and retired from the service on 9 April 1825. In 1830 he devoted himself to the formation of the London and South-Western Railway Company, and was connected with that line, first as general superintendent, and subsequently as director, from its commencement until his death, which took place at Southampton on 21 April 1855. In May 1837 he was elected an associate of the Institution of Civil ​Engineers. For some years prior to his death he was chairman both of the London Equitable Gas Company and of the Southampton Gas Company.
[Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. xv.; Corps Records.]
R. H. V.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Henderson, Ebenezer (1809-1879)

​HENDERSON, EBENEZER, the younger (1809–1879), author of ‘The Annals of Dunfermline,’ was born at Dunfermline in February 1809, and educated there (Stewart, Reminiscences of Dunfermline). He was son of John Henderson, watch and clock maker, and nephew of Ebenezer Henderson the elder [q. v.] He learned his father's business, but gave his real strength to scientific pursuits, producing by 1827 an orrery and an astronomical clock, both of which were much admired. Between 1829 and 1863 he was in England, mainly at Liverpool and in London. His nominal post at first was clerk and assistant to his brother, an extensive tanner at St. Helens, but for a time he was curator of the Liverpool Astronomical Institution and Observatory, where he also lectured. He continued his astronomical studies, becoming a member of thirteen scientific societies in England, and receiving (at a date now unknown) the degree of LL.D. from an American college. In 1850 he was highly commended by Airy, Arago, and other European experts, for an ingenious combination of wheels designed to show and check sidereal time (see letters to him in Chalmers, History of Dunfermline, vol. ii.) He was busy meanwhile with the archæological and historical notes that ultimately developed into the ‘Annals of Dunfermline,’ and he secured in 1856 the recognition of Dunfermline as a city. The freedom of Elgin and of Dunfermline was conferred upon Henderson in 1858 and 1859 respectively. In 1866 he settled in Muckhart, Perthshire, where he died 2 Nov. 1879. He became a member of five Scottish scientific societies, and wrote papers both for these and for English societies. In his latter years he was instrumental in restoring the old market cross of Dunfermline (1868) and ‘Queen Margaret's Stone,’ on the Dunfermline and Queensferry road, for which he wrote the inscription. His wife's name was Betsy Coldstream Brodie. He had no issue.
Besides smaller works, Henderson published ‘Historical Treatise on Horology,’ London, 1836; ‘Treatise on Astronomy,’ which reached a third edition in 1848; ‘Life of James Ferguson, F.R.S., in a brief autobiographical account and further extended Memoir,’ 1867; and in 1879 ‘The Annals of Dunfermline and Vicinity, from the earliest authentic period to the present time, A.D. 1069–1878’ (Glasgow, 8vo). The last work, though not without instances of unsifted legends and specimens of archæological credulity, is on the whole a monument of patient industry and conspicuous ability.
[Works mentioned above; Dunfermline Free Press, November 1879; information from George Robertson, esq., F.S.A. Scotl., Dunfermline.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Henderson, John (1797-1878)

​HENDERSON, JOHN (1797–1878), collector of works of art and archæologist, born in Adelphi Terrace, London, in 1797, was son of John Henderson and Georgiana Jane, only child of George Keate, F.R.S. His father, an amateur artist of great merit, was an early patron of Thomas Girtin and J. M. W. Turner, who frequently worked together in his house, which was next door to that of Dr. Monro [q. v.] John Henderson the younger went at the age of sixteen as a fellow-commoner to Balliol College, Oxford (B.A. 1817 and M.A. 1820). He read ​for the bar, but devoted his life to the study of archæology and the collection of works of art. His collections, which he kept at his house, 3 Montague Street, Bloomsbury, were extremely valuable, and were formed with learned discrimination. He was an excellent artist, and was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and other archæological societies, and a frequent attendant at their meetings and contributor to their ‘Proceedings.’ He died unmarried in 1878. By the codicil to his will, dated 1 Nov. 1877, Henderson bequeathed to the university of Oxford all his Greek and Roman vases and Egyptian antiquities; to the trustees of the British Museum his valuable collection of water-colour drawings by Canaletto, Turner, Girtin, Cozens, David Cox, and W. J. Müller (now in the print room), his collection of Russian silver and enamels, his Damascus, Persian, Rhodian, and majolica porcelain and pottery, his oriental and Venetian metal-work, his oriental arms, his Roman, Greek, and Venetian glass (all now in the department of general antiquities), and the correspondence of his grandfather, George Keate, with Voltaire and Dr. Edward Young (now in the department of manuscripts, Addit. MSS. 30991–2). To the trustees of the National Gallery he bequeathed his water-colour drawings by G. Cattermole and P. De Wint, two pictures by A. Canaletto, and any others of his old masters which they might select. Charles Cooper Henderson [q. v.] was his brother.
[Private information.]
L. C.