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

​KIRBY, ELIZABETH (1823–1873), writer for the young, youngest child of John Kirby, manufacturer, of Leicester, by his wife, Sarah Bentley, was born in Southgate Street, Leicester, on 15 Dec. 1823. She displayed at an early age a faculty for storytelling and a taste for literary composition both in verse and prose. In 1854 she published, under the title of 'The Discontented Children,' a story which she had frequently told to small audiences. She removed from Leicester to Norwich in 1855, and the new society and surroundings stimulated her literary zeal. After a few years her younger sister, Mary, married the Rev. Henry Gregg, rector of Brooksby, Leicestershire, and Miss Kirby settled in Melton Mowbray, to share for the rest of her life Mrs. Gregg's home. With her sister she wrote a long series of books for children. Twenty-four volumes under the joint authorship are in the British Museum Library. They are homely and unpretentious little works, written in a style specially calculated to interest children. Among the best are 'The Italian Goldsmiths, a Story of Cellini,' 1861, 16mo; 'Chapters on Trees,' 1873, 8vo; 'Stories about Birds of Land and Water,' 1873, 4to. Two little books on insects, 'Caterpillars, Butterflies, and Moths,' 1857, 18mo, and 'Sketches of Insect Life,' London, 1874, 8vo, embody much original observation. The sisters also published a number of serial tales, including 'The Desboroughs' and 'Deepdale Vicarage,' in various magazines. Miss Kirby's last work, a little story, entitled 'Hold fast by your Sundays,' was published in 1872. She died at Melton Mowbray in June 1873. 'Her literary talents,' says the 'Athenæum,' were at all times exercised for the good, intellectual and moral, of her readers.'
[Information kindly supplied by Mrs. Gregg and the latter's Leaflets from my Life (1887); Athenæum, 12 July 1873; Allibone, Supplement, ii. 956; Miss Kirby's Works.]
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kirby, John (1690-1753)

​KIRBY, JOHN (1690–1753), Suffolk topographer, born in 1690 at Halesworth, Suffolk, was originally a schoolmaster at Orford in that county, and afterwards occupied a mill at Wickham Market. In 1735 he published at Ipswich, in duodecimo, 'The Suffolk Traveller; or, a Journey through Suffolk,' a road-book with antiquarian notices, from an actual survey which he made of the whole county in 1732, 1733, and 1734. Prefixed is a small map of the county. A new edition was published by subscription, with 'many alterations and large additions by several hands,' in 1764, 8vo, London, under the editorship of the Rev. Richard Canning, of which a reprint was issued from Woodbridge about 1800, containing some trifling additions, and a fourth edition, with additions, appeared as 'A Topographical . . . Description of the County of Suffolk,' 8vo, Woodbridge, 1829, with Ebden's map in place of Kirby's. A 'Supplement to the Suffolk Traveller' was published in 1844 by Augustine Page (cf. his Introduction, p. vi). In 1736 Kirby issued 'A Map of the County of Suffolk,' illustrated with coats of arms and views. An improved edition, engraved by John Ryland, was published on a larger scale in 1766 by his sons John Joshua and William Kirby (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. vi. 541-4). Kirby died on 13 Dec. 1753, at Ipswich, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary at Tower, Ipswich. His portrait, by Thomas Gainsborough, R.A., was in 1868 in the possession of the Rev. Kirby Trimmer. He married in 1714 Alice Brown; his eldest son, John Joshua Kirby, is separately noticed.
[Life of Mrs. Trimmer, i. 5; Cat. of the Third Exhibition of Portraits at South Kensington, 1868, No. 752.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kinwelmersh, Francis

​KINWELMERSH, KYNWELMERSH, or KINDLEMARSH, FRANCIS (fl. 1570), poet, belonged to an Essex family, whose name is spelt in a variety of ways. Thomas Kinwolmersh of Much Dunmow, Essex, served in the war in France in 1513 (Letters, &c., of Henry VIII, i. 596). Richard Kinwelmersh held in 1562 the manor of Newton Hall, now Great Dunmow (Morant, Essex, ii. 424). He entered Gray's Inn in 1557. Two students of the same surname, Anthony and Robert, were admitted to the same inn in 1561 and 1563 respectively, and were probably Francis's brothers (Foster, Gray's Inn Reg. pp. 27, 29, 32). Francis became intimate with the poet, George Gascoigne [q. v.], who was his fellow-student at Gray's Inn, and in 1566 they produced conjointly a blank-verse rendering of Euripides's ‘Phœnissæ,’ which they entitled ‘Jocasta.’ It was performed in the hall of their inn in the course of 1566, and was first published in Gascoigne's ‘Hundredth Sundrie Flowres’ in 1572. Kinwelmersh was responsible for acts i. and iv. Gascoigne wrote poems upon mottos suggested by Francis and his brother Anthony about 1566 (see Gascoigne, Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 64–5). Francis was a contributor to the ‘Paradyse of Daynty Devises,’ 1576, and his initials, ‘F. K.,’ appear on the title-page in the list of ‘sundry learned gentlemen’ whose poems are included. In the title-pages of the editions of 1580 and 1600 the initials are expanded into ‘F. Kindlemarsh.’ Seven poems, chiefly on religious topics, bear the signature ‘F. K.’ in the first edition, and six in that of 1600. A poem (‘for Whitsunday’) in all the editions is signed ‘M. Kindlemarsh,’ and another piece is subscribed ‘M.K.’ In Bodenham's preface to ‘Belvedere, or the Garden of the Muses,’ 1600, ‘Francis Kindlemarsh, Esq.,’ figures, together with Norton, Gascoigne, Atchelow, and Whetstone, among deceased authors, to whose published and unpublished writings ‘due right’ is given by the compiler. According to a letter from Sir Francis Englefield [q. v.] to the Duchess of Feria [see Dormer, Jane], on ‘Kindlemarsh,’ who seems to have been friendly with the Dormer family, was at Louvain in August 1569 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Add. 1566–79, p. 285). ‘Francis Kinwelmarshe, Esq.,’ was elected M.P. for Bossiney, Cornwall, on 27 April 1572, at the same time as Gascoigne was returned for Midhurst.
[Ritson's Biographia Poetica, p. 264; Brydges's Censura Literaria, i. 258, 264; Gascoigne's Works; Return of Members of Parl. i. 408; see art. George Gascoigne.]
S. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kip, Johannes

​KIP, JOHANNES (1653–1722), draughtsman and engraver, born at Amsterdam in 1653, was married there in 1680 (contract on 5 April) to Elizabeth Breda of Amsterdam (Oud-Holland, iii. 77). He was employed in Amsterdam as an engraver, at first of book illustrations (cf. plate of ‘The Siege of Groningen,’ etched in 1672). In 1685 he etched a large view of Amsterdam, and in 1686 a long procession of William III and his wife, Mary of England, outside the Hague. Shortly afterwards Kip appears to have come to London, where he settled in Westminster. He was employed by the booksellers in engraving portraits, such as that of Marcellus Malpighi, M.D., prefixed to an edition of his works in 1697; frontispieces, such as that of an edition of ‘Bibliotheca Patrum,’ in 1693; book illustrations, such as plates of birds after Barlow, or separate prints, such as one of a new water-engine in the manner of J. Van der Heyden, a view of the Danish Church in London after C. G. Cibber, a view of the German Chapel, St. James's, a design for a fountain as a monument to the Duke of Marlborough, after Claude David, and a view of Bridge Town in Barbadoes in 1695. Kip's most important work, however, was the series of etchings done by him from the drawings of Leonard Knyff [q. v.], and published in London by David Mortier of Amsterdam. The first volume appears to have been published in 1708, with a title-page ‘Britannia Illustrata, or Views of several of the Queen's Palaces, as also of the principal Seats of the Nobility and Gentry of Great Britain, curiously engraven on 80 copper-plates,’ dated 1707, and a second title-page in French, commencing ‘Nouveau Théâtre de la Grande Bretagne,’ &c., dated 1708. This volume consists of a series of bird's-eye views drawn by L. Knyff and etched by Kip. Three other volumes followed in 1709 and subsequent years. The second volume consisted of similar bird's-eye views, drawn as well as etched by Kip; and subsequent volumes contained the works of other artists. A supplement contains the twenty-five views of Audley End engraved by Henry Winstanley in 1676. A later edition was published with a few additions by Joseph Smith in 1724–8. Though of little artistic merit this series of engravings is of the greatest archæological interest. Copies of the work are frequently made up from the various editions. In 1710 Kip published a ‘Prospect of the City of London, Westminster, and St. James's Park,’ drawn by himself from Buckingham House, and engraved by himself on twelve sheets; a second edition of this was printed on eight sheets in 1726. From a view of St. Clement Danes Church we learn that Kip resided and sold prints in St. John's Street, near Storyes Back Gate in Westminster. He died in Westminster in April 1722, leaving a daughter, who was also an ingenious artist.
[Vertue's MSS. (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 23069); Dodd's manuscript Hist. of English Engravers (ib. 33402); Immerzeel's Levens en Werken der Hollandsche Konstschilders, &c., and Kramm's supplement to the same; Lowndes's Bibl. Man.; Brunet's Manuel du Libraire.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kippist, Richard

​KIPPIST, RICHARD (1812–1882), botanist, was born at Stoke Newington, London, on 11 June 1812. His first experience was gained in the office of Joseph Woods the architect and a distinguished botanist. Kippist travelled with Woods and helped to compile the still useful ‘Tourist's Flora.’ After Woods retired to Lewes in 1830, Kippist entered the service of the Linnean Society, helping to distribute the vast herbarium amassed by Dr. Wallich, until, on the death of David Don the librarian in 1842, he was chosen to succeed him. After two or three years of broken health he retired in ​1881 on a pension of his full salary, but died at Chelsea on 14 Jan. 1882. He had an excellent knowledge of plants, especially those of Australia, and twice has a genus been dedicated to him as Kippistia, but in both cases they have been merged in older genera.
[Proc. Linn. Soc. 1881-2, pp. 64-5.]
B. D. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kinsey, William Morgan

​KINSEY, WILLIAM MORGAN (1788–1851), divine and traveller, born in 1788 at Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, was son of Robert Morgan Kinsey, solicitor and banker at Abergavenny, and Caroline Hannah, his wife, daughter of Sir James Harington, bart. He matriculated at Oxford on 28 Nov. 1805, became a scholar of Trinity College, graduated B.A. in 1809, and proceeded M.A. in 1813. In 1815 he was elected a fellow of his college, dean in 1822, vice-president in 1823, and bursar in 1824. In 1822 he proceeded to the degree of B.D. In 1827 Kinsey made a tour in Portugal with the intention of making the country better known to the English people. From his journals and a series of letters written to his friend Thomas Haynes Bayly [q. v.], as well as from historical and other sources, Kinsey compiled a book, which appeared in 1828 under the title of ‘Portugal Illustrated.’ The work excited some little interest as a good account of the country, and was well illustrated with engravings by G. Cooke and Skelton, from drawings chiefly made by a companion during his tour. It was dedicated to Lord Auckland, to whom Kinsey was chaplain, and a second edition appeared in 1829. In 1830 Kinsey was travelling with Viscount Alford in Belgium, and, happening to be at Brussels at the outbreak of the revolution in August of that year, was an eye-witness of the conflict between the troops and the populace. About 1832 he was appointed minister of St. John's Church, Cheltenham, where he obtained some repute as a preacher, and published a few sermons. In 1843 he was appointed rector of Rotherfield Greys, Oxfordshire, where he resided until his death on 6 April 1851. He was the author of a few other pamphlets, and in January 1848 contributed a paper to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ entitled ‘Random Recollections of a Visit to Walton Hall.’
[Gent. Mag. 1851, new ser. xxxvi. 95; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Kinsey's Portugal Illustr.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mageoghegan, Conall

​MAGEOGHEGAN, CONALL (fl. 1635), Irish historian, born in Westmeath, was descended from Cucochrich Mac Eochagain, the third son of Donnchadh, chief of Cinel Fhiachach. He became head of the sept of this clan, which was settled at Lismoyny, co. Westmeath, and there translated into English a volume of Irish annals, of which the original is not now extant. They are sometimes called ‘The Annals of Clonmacnois,’ and extend from the earliest times to 1408. He undertook the work for his kinsman, Turloch Mac Cochlain of Delvin, co. Westmeath, and finished it 30 June 1627. The translation is into good English of the time, and the Irish names are phonetically rendered into English; thus, Nial Glundubh is written Neal Glunduffe, and Gormflaidh is written Gormphley. Several manuscript copies exist: one in the British Museum, one in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and one at Monasterevan, co. Kildare, in Lord Drogheda's library. On a blank leaf of a fifteenth and sixteenth century manuscript, which probably belonged to Mageoghegan, and is now in the British Museum, is an entry in Irish in his hand and signed by him, headed ‘Iongnad mor, 1635,’ ‘great marvel, A.D. 1635.’ It gives an account of a great hailstorm in that year, on 25 March, in the King's and Queen's Counties. The hailstones were four inches round, a hen was slain and both her legs broken by them at ​Ballymacgillamuire, two grey-backed crows were killed, a woman's headdress was knocked off, a farm labourer's feet were blistered from the blows they received. The stones sank two inches into the earth, and went to the bottom of ponds. The manuscript contains several other autograph entries illustrating his kinship and reading. Mageoghegan knew Michael O'Clery [q. v.], who began the ‘Reim Rioghraidhe’ in his house at Lismoyny, in the parish of Ardnurcher, co. Westmeath. O'Curry and O'Donovan both thought that the original manuscript of Mageoghegan's translation was in the possession of Sir Richard Nagle [q. v.], but never succeeded in seeing it.
[O'Donovan's Preface to Annals of the Four Masters, Dublin, 1851, he also quotes large fragments of the translation in his notes; O'Curry's Lectures on MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History, Dublin, 1873; Miscellany of Irish Archæological Soc. Dublin, 1846, p. 182; Add. MS. 30512, ff. 15 b, 17, 72, 73, 74, in Brit. Mus.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Maginn, Edward

​MAGINN, EDWARD, D.D. (1802–1849), Irish catholic prelate, son of Patrick Maginn, a farmer, and Mary Slevin, his wife, was born at Fintona, co. Tyrone, on 16 Dec. 1802, and was educated at the Irish College in Paris. He was ordained priest in Ireland in 1825, and appointed to the curacy of Moville, co. Donegal. Some time afterwards he took an active part in a public discussion held at Londonderry between champions of the protestant and Roman churches. In 1829 he was appointed to succeed his uncle as parish priest of the united parishes of Fahan and Deysertegny. At this period he ardently joined in the agitation for the repeal of the ​union. On 18 Aug. 1845 he was appointed coadjutor to Dr. John MacLaughlin, bishop of Derry, and was nominated to the see of Ortosia, in the archbishopric of Tyre, in partibus infidelium. The election was confirmed by the pope on 8 Sept., and Maginn was consecrated in the cathedral at Waterside on 18 Jan. 1846. An enthusiastic politician, he zealously promoted all the nationalist and clerical movements of his time. He gave evidence before Lord Devon's commission on the occupation of land in Ireland, wrote a series of letters on tenant right, and published ‘A Refutation of Lord Stanley's Calumnies against the Catholic Clergy of Ireland’ (reprinted at Dublin, 1850, 12mo). Lord Stanley (afterwards fourteenth earl of Derby) had stated in 1847 that in Ireland there was a fatal breach between the Roman catholic clergy and the law, and that the confessional was conducted with a degree of secretness, and carried to an extent, dangerous alike to the civil government and the peace of the country. Maginn died on 17 Jan. 1849, and was buried in the catholic cathedral at Londonderry. A highly eulogistic and inflated ‘Life’ of him by Thomas D'Arcy McGee, with selections from his correspondence, was published at New York, 1857, 8vo.
[Life by McGee; Brady's Episcopal Succession, i. 322.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Magrath, John Macrory

Seaán mac Ruaidhrí Mac Craith in the ODNB.
​MAGRATH, JOHN MACRORY, in Irish Eoghan MacRuadhri MacCraith (fl. 1459), Irish historian, was born in Munster of a family of hereditary men of letters, other members of which mentioned in the Irish chronicles are: Eoghan (d. 1240), poet; Ruadhri (d. 1342), historian; Maelmuire (d. 1390), poet, author of a long lament on the death of Domhnall MacCarthy; Thomas (d. 1410), chief poet of Thomond, son of Maelmuire; Diarmait (d. 1411), chief poet of Thomond, son of Gilla Isa; Aedh Og (d. 1426), chief poet of Thomond, plundered by Sir John Talbot in 1415; Oengus (d. 1461), poet. John MacRory became chief historian to the Dal Cais in Thomond. He wrote a history of the wars of Thomond from 1194 to 1318, called ‘Cathreim Thoirdhealbhaigh.’ This is not a chronicle, but a finished historical composition, giving a very full account from contemporary sources of the long struggle for the possession of Clare with the De Clares, which ended in the defeat and death of Robert de Clare and his son, and the final expulsion of the Normans and their allies at the battle of Disert O'Dea in 1318. Important events are celebrated in verse, which is as good as the admirable prose which makes up the great part of the book. The best existing copy is one made by Andrew MacCuirtin [q. v.] for Teigne MacNamara of Ranna in 1721 (H. 1. 18, in library of Trinity College, Dublin); an imperfect copy, made in 1509, is in the library of the Royal Irish Academy. The ‘Cathreim’ has been translated by Standish Hayes O'Grady.
Subsequent members of the literary family of Magrath were: Flann (d. 1580), poet, son of Eoghan, author of a poem on Thomas Butler, tenth earl of Ormonde [q. v.], beginning ‘Eolach me air mheirge an iarla’ (‘I know the standard of the earl’), of verses on death, and of a poem on the woes of Ireland; and Eoghan (fl. 1620), poet, author of verses on the death of Donough O'Brien, fourth earl of Thomond.
[Manuscript translation of Cathreim Thoirdhealbhaigh, kindly lent by the author, S. H. O'Grady; O'Curry's Lectures, vol. i.; Transactions of Iberno-Celtic Society, 1820; Annala Rioghachta Eireann, ed. J. O'Donovan.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/McNeill, Duncan

1904 Errata appended.
​McNEILL, DUNCAN, Baron Colonsay and Oronsay (1793–1874), Scottish judge, second, but eldest surviving son of John McNeill of Colonsay and Oronsay, Argyllshire, by his wife Hester, eldest daughter of Duncan McNeill of Diinmore, Argyllshire, was born in the island of Oronsay in August 1793. A portrait by Thomas Duncan of the father, an agriculturist of note and an improver of the breed of highland cattle, is in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. A brother, Sir John McNeill, diplomatist, is noticed separately. Duncan was educated at the universities of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, taking honours in mathematics and graduating M.D. at the former. He read law in Edinburgh in the chambers of Michael Linning, writer to the signet, and in 1816 became a member of the Scottish bar. He at first undertook criminal practice in the courts of justiciary, and he consequently was appointed an advocate-depute in 1820 and sheriff of Perthshire in 1824. In November 1834 he became solicitor-general for Scotland in Sir Robert Peel's first administration, quitting office in April 1835, and he again held this post when Peel returned to office, from September 1841 till October 1842, when he was promoted to be lord advocate, in succession to Sir William Rae. In this capacity he introduced the Scottish Poor Law Bill. He retired from office on the fall of Peel in July 1846. He had been elected dean of the Faculty of Advocates in 1843 and continued to be annually reelected until he was raised to the bench. He was M.P. for Argyllshire from 1843 to 1861 and enjoyed a lucrative legal practice, especially in House of Lords appeals. In May 1861 he became an ordinary lord of session, assuming the title of Lord Colonsay and Oronsay. In 1862, when Lord-justice-general Boyle retired, he was appointed to succeed him as lord justice general and lord president of the court of session, and was sworn of the privy council. After holding that office with distinction for fourteen years, he retired in 1867 upon a pension, was raised to the peerage as Baron Colonsay and Oron- ​say on 26 Feb., and took his share in the judicial business of the House of Lords. He was the first Scottish lawyer raised to the peerage for the purpose of being constituted a member of the court of ultimate appeal. His knowledge of Scottish, and even of English, law was extensive, and his mental powers commanding. The sole defect of his judgments, if it be one, is their modest brevity. He died unmarried at Pau on 31 Jan. 1874, and the title became extinct. A memorial to him was erected in October 1874 in the court hall at Inverary, and a portrait by Thomas Duncan in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, has been engraved. A bust by Sir John Steell is in the same collection.
[Law Journal, 7 Feb. and 7 Nov. 1874; Law Times, 7 Feb. 1874; Solicitors' Journal, 7 Feb. 1874; Times, 2 Feb. 1874.]
J. A. H.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.190 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mclean, John (1828-1886)

​MACLEAN, JOHN (1828–1886), first bishop of Saskatchewan, born in 1828, was son of Charles Maclean of Portsoy, Banffshire. In 1847 he gained a bursary at King's College, Aberdeen, and in 1861 became M.A. Through relations in business in London, he entered a counting-house there; became interested in the Church of England Young Men's Society and took to studying foreign languages. In 1858 he was ordained by the Bishop of Ripon, and went out to Canada ​under the auspices of the Colonial and Continental Church Society, but soon became assistant to the Bishop of Huron in the cathedral at London, Toronto. In 1866 the Bishop of Rupertsland who had been at Aberdeen with Maclean, invited him to come into his diocese, and Maclean was appointed warden of St. John's College, rector of St. John's Cathedral, Winnipeg, and archdeacon of Assiniboia, a title afterwards altered to archdeacon of Manitoba. Maclean worked hard; the population increased greatly with the growth of Winnipeg, and consisted in the country districts of very poor settlers. Visiting England in order to raise money for a new bishopric, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts granted a certain income, and on 3 May 1874 he was consecrated bishop of Saskatchewan. His diocese consisted of 420,000 square miles of very poorly settled country, and no large subscriptions could be relied on from the inhabitants. However, Maclean managed, by energetically calling attention in England and Canada to the needs of the district, to secure a permanent endowment for the see and for Emanuel College at Alberta, which under his care became a university. He died about 12 Nov. 1886, and left a widow and children. At the time of his death he had been created doctor of divinity and laws by several universities in America, and by Trinity College, Toronto.
[Times, 15 Nov. 1886; Record, 12 Nov. 1886; Guardian, 17 Nov. 1886; Men of the Time, 11th ed.]
W. A. J. A.