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

​DEERING, GEORGE CHARLES (1695?–1749), botanist, was born in Saxony, educated at Hamburg and Leyden, and came to London in 1713 as secretary to Baron Schach, envoy extraordinary to Queen Anne from Czar Peter. He remained in this country as a tutor till November 1718, then he married, and three days afterwards returned to the continent, where he took his degree at Rheims, 13 Dec. 1718, according to his diploma now in the British Museum; he is also stated to have taken a degree at Leyden. Thence he proceeded to Paris, studying anatomy and botany under Bernard de Jussieu. In August 1719 he came back to England, and having a strong bias towards the study of botany, he became a member of the society established by Dillenius and Professor John Martyn, which existed from 1721 to 1726.
In 1736, having lost his wife while living in London, he thought to improve his position by removing to Nottingham, with a letter of recommendation from Sloane. Two years after his removal he published a list of Nottingham plants which he had observed in the neighbourhood, and in some of the cryptogams he had been aided by his countryman ​Dillenius, then Sherardian professor at Oxford, who afterwards acknowledged the help received from Deering in the preface to his classical work, the noble ‘Historia Muscorum.’ At first Deering was successful in his practice, and issued a small tract on his method of treating the small-pox; but an unfortunate temper seems to have interfered with his duties, and afterwards seriously reduced his former good fortune to something like poverty. He was made ensign, 29 Oct. 1745, in the Nottingham foot regiment, raised on account of the Young Pretender's advance, but the appointment was more of honour than profit. By the good office of friends, the materials collected by John Plumptre for a history of Nottingham were placed in his hands. These he prepared for publication, and the work appeared posthumously as ‘Nottinghamia Vetus et Nova.’ Throughout his life he had suffered much from gout, in late life he became asthmatical, and sank under the complications of disease and a state of dependence, which his spirit could not endure. He died 12 April 1749, and was buried in St. Peter's churchyard, Nottingham, opposite the house he lived in. His name is commemorated by the genus Deeringia of Robert Brown.
[R. Pulteney's Sketches, ii. 257–64; Nichols's Illustr. i. 211, 220; Nouvelle Biographie Générale, xiii. 348.]
B. D. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Degge, Simon

​DEGGE, Sir SIMON (1612–1704), author of the ‘Parson's Counsellor,’ born 5 Jan. 1612, was eldest son of Thomas Degge of Strangsall, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire. As a royalist he was imprisoned by the Long Parliament, but was released on promising to return to Stafford, 14 March 1643–4. He was admitted a student ​of the Inner Temple in 1649, and was called to the bar in 1653. In 1660 he became judge of West Wales, in 1661 recorder of Derby, on 5 Feb. 1662 steward of the manor court of Peverel, later in 1662 justice of the Welsh marches, and was knighted at Whitehall 2 March 1669. Soon afterwards he was fined a hundred marks for declining ‘to come to the bench when called,’ but before the end of 1669 he was a bencher of his inn. In 1673 he was high sheriff of Derbyshire. In 1674 he failed to ‘read’ the autumn lecture, and obtained a royal letter excusing him ‘from any penalty’ for his dereliction of duty. On 25 Oct. 1674 he was elected Lent reader, but on his refusing to serve was fined 200l. and disbenched 22 Nov. following. He is said to have died before the end of 1704. In 1676 appeared his ‘Parson's Counsellor and Law of Tithes,’ a leading text-book on its subject for many years. A sixth edition appeared in 1703, and a seventh revised edition in 1820. Degge was also greatly interested in the history of Staffordshire, and wrote a long letter (‘Observations upon the Possessors of Monastery Lands in Staffordshire’), which was published in Erdeswicke's ‘Staffordshire,’ 1717. Degge married (1) Jane, daughter of Thomas Orrell, and (2) Alice, daughter of Anthony Oldfield. By his first wife (d. 1652) he had a son, Whitehall, and by his second wife, who died in 1696, a son, Simon.
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Deios, Laurence

​DEIOS, LAURENCE (fl. 1607), divine, a native of Shropshire, matriculated in the university of Cambridge as a pensioner of St. John's College in 1571, perhaps coming from Oxford. He graduated B.A. at Cambridge in January 1572–3, was admitted on 12 March following a fellow of St. John's on the Lady Margaret's foundation, commenced M.A. in 1576, and proceeded B.D. in 1583. At different periods he held in his college the offices of Hebrew lecturer, preacher, sacrist, and junior dean. From 24 June 1590 to December 1591 he was rector of East Horsley, Surrey. Subsequently he became a preacher in London. He was in needy circumstances in 1607. Some Latin verses by him preface John Stockwood's ‘Disputationes Grammaticales;’ and he published: ‘That the Pope is that Anti-Christ; and an answer to the objections of Sectaries, which condemn this Church of England,’ London, 1590, 8vo, containing two treatises, or sermons, one of which was preached at St. Paul's Cross.
[Baker's St. John's (Mayor), i. 289, 333, 334; Baker's MS. xxxix. 98; Brayley and Britton's Surrey, ii. 70; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. ii. 476, 555; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), pp. 915, 1151.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Delamaine, Alexander

​DELAMAINE, ALEXANDER (fl. 1654–1683), Muggletonian, was probably originally a baptist; his brother Edward was, in 1668, a baptist preacher at Marlborough, Wiltshire. In 1654 he was a quaker, as appears from his letter of 27 June in that year. He first appears as a Muggletonian in 1671, and it is probable that he attached himself to the following of Lodowicke Muggleton [q. v.] about the time when Muggleton obtained complete control over his sect by putting down ‘the rebellion against the nine assertions,’ which began in 1670. At this period Delamaine was a London tobacconist, carrying on business ‘at the sign of the three tobacco pipes’ on Bread Street Hill. He became a very staunch disciple of Muggleton, collecting money and receiving letters for him during his troubles with the authorities. After the release of Muggleton from Newgate on 19 July 1677, Delamaine composed a ‘song,’ dealing with the circumstances of his trial before Chief-justice Rainsford in the previous January. This was first printed in ‘Divine Songs of the Muggletonians,’ 1829, 12mo, p. 267. In 1682 he finished transcribing into a folio volume the letters of Muggleton (with a few by John Reeve [q. v.]), addressed to various persons, from 1653 onward. On 19 April 1682 he began a second volume of additional letters ‘that would not goe into my grate Book.’ Both these manuscript volumes are preserved among the Muggletonian archives. Their contents have been edited in ‘A Volume of Spiritual Epistles,’ &c., 1755, 4to; 2nd edit. 1820, 4to.
Delamaine died between 25 June 1683 and 26 Dec. 1687. His second wife, who survived him, was Anne Lowe, first married to William Hall. By his first wife he had a son, Alexander, and several daughters, of whom the last survivor was Sarah, married to Robert Delamaine. All were zealous Muggletonians.
A. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Delamaine, Richard (fl.1631)

Surname Delamain in the ODNB.
​DELAMAINE, RICHARD, the elder (fl. 1631), mathematician, speaks of himself in his earliest published work, 'Grammelogia,' as a 'teacher and student of the mathematics,' and dedicates the book to King Charles. It was attacked in Oughtred's 'Circles of Proportion' (1631). The date of this publication is 1631, and we may infer that it procured him royal favour and the appointment of tutor to the king in mathematics and quartermaster-general. It is in these terms that his widow describes him in 1645, when she petitioned the House of Lords for relief (Lords' Journals). He left ten children at his decease, one of whom bore his name, but the exact date of his death has not been ascertained.
He wrote: 1. 'Grammelogia or the Mathematicall Ring, extracted from the Logarythmes and projected Circular,' 8vo, 1631. (He explains that his title, intended to express 'the speech of lines,' has been taken in imitation of Lord Napier's 'Rabdologia,' to which he is indebted for the system set forth.) 2. 'The Making, Description, and Use of a small portable Instrument called a Horizontall Quadrant,' 1631, 12mo. A 'ring-sundial of silver,' made upon the plan here described, was sent by Charles I just before his death to his son, the Duke of York (Wood, Athenae, iv. 34).
C. J. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Delamaine, Richard (fl.1654)

​DELAMAINE, RICHARD, the younger (fl. 1654), mathematician, perhaps eldest son of Richard Delamaine the elder [q. v.], seems to have held some position in the customs (‘sate at the receipt of customs,’ Impostor Magnus, 1654), and in 1641 published a folio sheet dedicated to the House of Peers containing ‘A Table shewing instantly by the eye the number of Acres belonging to any summe of money, according to the rate settled by Parliament upon any of the lands within the Foure Provinces of Ireland,’ &c. He took the side of the parliament in the great constitutional struggle, and in 1648 was an active preacher in the county of Hereford and a trooper and paymaster of the militia. He seems to have combined these offices successfully for a while, occupying the pulpit in Hereford Cathedral and taking a prominent part in the defence of the city. In 1654 he was superseded (State Papers, Dom. Ser. 27 June), and whatever could be said to his discredit was collected by an anonymous writer and published under the title ‘Impostor Magnus: the legerdemain of Richard Delamaine, now Preacher in the city of Hereford. Being a narrative of his life and doctrine since his first coming into that country,’ 1654, 4to.
C. J. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gravet, William

​GRAVET, WILLIAM (d. 1599), divine, a native of Buckinghamshire, was matriculated as a pensioner of Peterhouse, Cambridge, in November 1554, proceeded B.A. in 1557–1558, and in 1558 was elected a fellow of Pembroke Hall. He commenced M.A. in 1561. On 8 Oct. 1566 he was instituted to the vicarage of St. Sepulchre in London, on the presentation of the queen. On 28 July 1567 he was collated to the prebend of Willesden in the church of St. Paul. He attended at the deathbed of Roger Ascham. In 1569 he proceeded B.D. On 3 Dec. in that year he was instituted to the rectory of Little Laver in Essex, on the presentation of John Collyer. He also held the rectory of Bradfield in Berkshire. In 1582 he is mentioned as a fit person to confer with seminary priests and jesuits. In Trinity term 1597 he was defendant in an action for slanderously charging one John Rogers with being a witch and a sorcerer. He died shortly before 5 March 1598–9. He is author of: 1. ‘Sermon at S. Paul's Cross, 18 Aug. 1566, on 1 Cor. xii. 1 seq.’ 2. ‘A Short Catechism for the use of some in S. Pulcre's parish,’ 1575 (anon.) 3. ‘A Sermon preached at Paules Crosse, 25 June 1587, intreating of the Holy Scriptures and the use of the same,’ 8vo, London, 1587. If Martin Mar-Prelate is to be credited, Gravet was notoriously addicted to excessive drinking.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gray, David

​GRAY, DAVID (1838–1861), Scotch poet, was born on 29 Jan. 1838 at Merkland, Kirkintilloch, Dumbartonshire. He was the eldest of eight, his father being a hand-loom weaver. After leaving the parish school, he became a pupil-teacher in Glasgow, and managed to give himself a university career. His parents wished him to be a Free church minister, but he became a contributor to the poet's corner of the ‘Glasgow Citizen,’ and resolved to devote himself to literature. He made various metrical experiments—some of them in the manner of Keats, and one after the dramatic method of Shakespeare—and then settled to the composition of his idyllic poem, ‘The Luggie,’ named after the stream flowing past his birthplace. An expression of friendly interest in his work by Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton) induced Gray to go to London in May 1860. Milnes strongly urged his return to Scotland and his profession, but, finding Gray resolved on staying, gave him some light literary work. Soon his health became troublesome, and a severe cold (probably contracted in Hyde Park, where he spent his first London night) gradually settled on his lungs. After revisiting Scotland, he went south again for the milder climate, sojourning first at Richmond, and then (through the intervention of Milnes) in the hospital at Torquay. Finding his health no better, and becoming hysterically nervous, he determined on going home at all hazards, and he returned finally to Merkland, January 1861. Lingering through that year, he wrote a series of sonnets, with the general title ‘In the Shadows.’ He died on 3 Dec. 1861, having the previous day been gladdened through seeing a proof of a page of ‘The Luggie,’ which was at length being printed. His friend, Mr. Robert Buchanan, who shared in his London hardships, tells his brief, pathetic story in ‘David Gray and other Essays,’ and worthily embalms their friendship in ‘Poet Andrew’ and ‘To David in Heaven.’ Another friend with whom Gray corresponded much, and whose exertions led to the publication of his poems, was Sydney Dobell. Lord Houghton's interest in Gray was generous and practical to the last, and he wrote the epitaph for his monument erected by friends in 1865 over his grave in Kirkintilloch churchyard.
‘The Luggie,’ with its sense of natural beauty, and its promise of didactic and descriptive power, constitutes Gray's chief claim as a poet, but his sonnets are remarkable in substance, and several of them are felicitous in structure and expression. ‘The Luggie and other Poems’ by Gray first appeared in 1862, with a memoir by Dr. Hedderwick of the ‘Glasgow Citizen,’ and a valuable prefatory notice by Lord Houghton. An enlarged edition was published in 1874, but unfortunately the editor, Henry Glassford Bell [q. v.], died before writing his projected introduction to the volume. An appendix contains the speech he delivered at the unveiling of Gray's monument.
[Gray's Works, as above; R. Buchanan's David Gray and other Essays; Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gray, Andrew (1805-1861)

​GRAY, ANDREW (1805–1861), Scottish presbyterian divine, born at Aberdeen, 2 Nov. 1805, went first to a school kept by Gilbert, father of Forbes Falconer [q. v.], and afterwards to Marischal College, where he graduated A.M. in 1824, and passed through the theological course (1824–8). He was licensed to preach by the Aberdeen presbytery 25 June 1829, and became minister of a chapel-of-ease at Woodside, near Aberdeen, 1 Sept. 1831. Gray was from the first an orthodox evangelical, a vigorous supporter of reform in the church of Scotland, and a pronounced enemy to all that savoured of Romish doctrine. He publicly defended the Anti-Patronage Society as early as 1825, and agitated for the Chapels Act, by which ministers of chapels-of-ease became members of presbyteries. In 1834 he was admitted under this act a member of the Aberdeen presbytery. On 14 July 1836 he was appointed minister of the West Church, Perth, where he remained till his death. Gray was a very energetic leader in the controversies which resulted in the disruption of 1843 and the foundation of the Free church. A pamphlet by him, ‘The present Conflict between Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts examined,’ Edinburgh, 1839, 8vo, had a wide circulation and great influence. On his secession from the church of Scotland nearly all his congregation followed him. His new church was opened 28 Oct. 1843.
In 1845 he drew up at the request of the Free church leaders ‘A Catechism of the Principles of the Free Church’ (1845 and 1848), which involved him in a controversy with the Duke of Argyll. In December 1841 Gray was commissioned to visit Switzerland to express the sympathy of the Free church with the suspended ministers of the Canton de Vaud; he extended his tour to Constantinople. In 1855 he was appointed convener of the Glasgow evangelisation committee, and he was always active in home missions and in spreading education. Failing health made another long continental tour necessary in 1859. He died at Perth 10 March 1861. He married, 23 July 1834, Barbara, daughter of Alexander Cooper. Robert Smith Candlish [q. v.] collected nineteen of Gray's sermons, with memoir and portrait, under the title ‘Gospel Contrasts and Parallels,’ Edinburgh, 1862.
[Dr. Candlish's Memoir, 1862; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Hew Scott's Fasti, pt. iv. p. 618.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gray, Andrew (d.1728)

​GRAY, ANDREW (d. 1728), divine, of Scottish family, was the first minister of a congregation of protestant dissenters at Tintwistle in the parish of Mottram-in-Longdendale, Cheshire. He subsequently joined the church of England, and was appointed vicar of Mottram, and while there published a volume entitled ‘A Door opening into Everlasting Life,’ 1706, which was reprinted in 1810, with an introductory ‘recommendation’ by the Rev. M. Olerenshaw. Another book, ‘The Mystery of Grace,’ is also ascribed to him. He left Mottram about 1716, and died at Anglezark, near Rivington, Lancashire. His will was proved by his widow, Dorothy Gray, on 19 Feb. 1727–8, so that he died shortly before that date.
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gray, Charles

1904 Errata appended.
​GRAY, CHARLES (1782–1851), captain in the marines and song-writer, was born at Anstruther, Fifeshire, on 10 March 1782. His education and early training fitted him for the sea, and in 1805, through the influence of a maternal uncle, he received a commission in the Woolwich division of the royal marines. He was thirty-six years in the service, and retired on a captain's full pay in 1841. He spent the remainder of his days in Edinburgh, devoting himself zealously to the production and the criticism of Scottish song. He had published in 1811 a volume entitled ‘Poems and Songs,’ which went into a second edition at the end of three years. ​In 1813, on a visit to Anstruther, he had joined in the formation of a ‘Musomanik Society,’ a medium through which, in the four years of its existence, the members made original contributions to Scottish song.
All through his naval career, Gray had practised lyric composition, and when he retired his friends induced him in 1841 to publish his second volume, ‘Lays and Lyrics.’ Several of these were set to music by Peter M'Leod, and it is in one of them—‘When Autumn has laid her sickle by’—which Gray himself liked to sing, that he makes almost the only pointed allusion to his life at sea. He contributed to Wood's ‘Book of Scottish Song,’ and he is one of the numerous lyrists in ‘Whistle-Binkie.’ He was a genial, humorous man, greatly beloved by many literary friends, and his best songs are social and sentimental. Besides his original verse Gray wrote some noteworthy criticism. About 1845 he contributed to the ‘Glasgow Citizen’ ‘Notes on Scottish Song,’ which include appreciative and discriminating passages on Burns. These papers have been largely utilised in illustrative notes to collections of Scottish lyrics. Gray married early, his wife, Jessie Carstairs, being sister of the Rev. Dr. Carstairs, of Anstruther. She and one of her two sons predeceased Gray, at whose death, on 13 April 1851, the remaining son was a lieutenant in the royal marines.
[Conolly's Eminent Men of Fife; Anderson's Scottish Nation; Whistle-Binkie; Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland.]
T. B.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.141 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gray

​GRAY. [See also Grey.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jewsbury, Maria Jane

​JEWSBURY, MARIA JANE, afterwards Mrs. Fletcher (1800–1833), authoress, eldest daughter of Thomas Jewsbury, was born at Measham, Derbyshire, on the border of Leicestershire, on 25 Oct. 1800. She was educated at a school at Shenstone kept by a Mrs. Adams, but when fourteen years old she was taken away on account of her delicate health. About 1818 her family removed to Manchester. Shortly afterwards she lost her mother, whereupon the charge of her sister Geraldine [q. v.] and three brothers fell upon her. Her first published poem came out in ‘Aston's Manchester Herald.’ In 1824 she was induced by Alaric A. Watts, editor of the ‘Manchester Courier,’ to adopt literature as a profession, and through his introduction her first work, ‘Phantasmagoria, or Sketches of Life and Character,’ was published at Leeds (2 vols. 8vo), with a dedication to Wordsworth. About this time she had a long and serious illness, in the course of which she wrote her ‘Letters to the Young,’ published in 1828, 12mo; 2nd edition 1829, 3rd edition 1832. In 1829 her ‘Lays of Leisure Hours’ were issued with a dedication to Mrs. Hemans. In the following year she brought out her last work, ‘The Three Histories: the History of an Enthusiast, the History of a Nonchalant, the History of a Realist,’ 8vo; 2nd edition 1832, 3rd edition, Derby, 1838. Much of her best writing appeared from 1830 to 1832 in the ‘Athenæum.’ She also wrote in one or more of the annuals, but nothing she ever wrote, clever though it was, gave an adequate idea of her actual talents.
On 1 Aug. 1832 she married, at Penegroes, Montgomeryshire, the Rev. William Kew Fletcher, a chaplain in the East India Company's service, with whom she sailed for Bombay. She died fourteen months later, on 4 Oct. 1833, at Poonah, a victim to cholera. Some extracts from the journal of her voyage to and residence in India are given in Espinasse's ‘Lancashire Worthies.’
In person she was tall and well-formed. Her vivacity and conversational powers rendered her remarkably fascinating to her friends. Wordsworth, who addressed his poem of ‘Liberty’ to her in 1829, said that in the quickness of the motions of her mind she had no equal within the range of his acquaintance. Miss Landon spoke of the ‘extreme perfection of her language; it was like reading an eloquent book full of thought and poetry.’ Christopher North, in ‘Noctes Ambrosianæ,’ March 1829, speaks in eulogistic terms of her genius.
There are portraits of her in William Cooke Taylor's ‘National Portrait Gallery,’ vol. iii., and the ‘Christian Keepsake.’ Mr. Fletcher died in 1867 at Worthing.
[National Portrait Gallery, iii. 36; Espinasse's Lanc. Worthies, vol. ii.; Athenæum, February 1845, p. 114; Chorley's Memorials of Mrs. Hemans, i. 180; Life of Alaric A. Watts, 1884, i. 178, ii. 16; S. C. Hall's Retrospect, 1883, ii. 148; Knight's Life of Wordsworth, iii. 108–110, 112; Knight's edition of Wordsworth, viii. 204, 212.]
C. W. S.