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

​AYLWARD, THEODORE (1730–1801), musician, was born, probably at Chichester, in 1730. of his early life and education nothing is known, though when young he seems to have sung at Drury Lane Theatre. He became a member of the Royal Society of Musicians 9 July 1763 (Records of Roy. Soc. Musicians), and was elected by a unanimous vote into the Madrigal Society 15 Nov. 1769 (Records of Madrigal Soc.). He was appointed organist of St. Lawrence Jewry in 1762, a post he held until 1788. In 1764 he was organist of Oxford Chapel, and from 1768 to 1781 organist of St. Michael's, Cornhill. In 1771 he was appointed professor of music at Gresham College, and in 1788 he succeeded Edward Webb as organist of St. George's Chapel, Windsor. In November 1791 he took the accumulated degrees of Mus. Bac. and Mus. Doc. at Oxford. He died at Windsor 27 Feb. 1801, and was buried in St. George's Chapel. Aylward published a few songs, duets, glees, and organ pieces; but most of his music is still in manuscript.
W. B. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ayloffe, William

​AYLOFFE, WILLIAM (d. 1585), judge of the Queen's Bench, was descended from a very ancient family settled originally in Kent and subsequently in Essex, whose origin has been traced to Saxon times. On 14 Feb. 1553-4 he was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn, where two other near relatives, bearing the same name, distinguished themselves in the sixteenth century, and in 1560 he was called to the bar. After being appointed 'reader' at his inn of court in Lent term, 1571, he was made serjeant-at-law in 1577, at the same time as Sir Edmund Anderson, afterwards the well-known lord chief justice of the Common Pleas. A notice of a banquet in the Middle Temple hall, given by Ayloffe with other barristers upon whom a similar distinction had just been conferred, to celebrate their promotion, is preserved among the Ashmolean MSS. at Oxford (Ashm. MS. 804, ii. 1). No record is known of Ayloffe's elevation to the bench, but he is found acting as judge in the court of Queen's Bench in 1579 (Calendar of State Papers, 1547-1580, p. 637), and his judgments are reported by Dyer, Coke, and Savile after that date, which may therefore be regarded as the probable year of his appointment. He was present in 1581 at the trial of Edmund Campion and other seminary priests, and special attention is called to the part he played on that occasion in a pamphlet published by English catholics at Pans shortly afterwards, and bearing the title 'An Epistle of Comfort to the Reverend Priestes and to the Honorable, Worshipful and other of the Laye sort restrayned in Durance for the Catholike Fayth,' ​12mo. It is there stated (p. 202), on the evidence of eye-witnesses, that while sitting in court after the other judges had retired, and while the jury were considering their verdict, Ayloffe took off his glove and found his hand and ring covered with blood without any apparent cause, and that, in spite of his endeavours to wipe it away, the blood continued to flow as a miraculous sign of the injustice that polluted the judgment-seat. Some letters that passed between Ayloffe and the lord mayor of London with reference to the appointment of his brother as town clerk, are preserved among the city archives for the years 1580 and 1581 (Remembrancia, pp. 149, 150, 271).
Ayloffe died on 8 Nov. 1585. He married Jane, daughter of Sir Eustace Sulyard, by whom he had three sons. A baronetcy conferred by James I in 1612 upon William, the eldest of them, who had been knighted in 1603, continued in the family till 1781. Sir William, the first baronet, was thrice married, and a large family survived him.
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Freston, Anthony

​FRESTON, ANTHONY (1757–1819), divine, born in 1757, was the son of Robert Brettingham of Norwich, and nephew of Matthew Brettingham [q. v.], the architect of Holkham, the Earl of Leicester's seat in Nor-. ​folk. While a child Anthony took the name of Freston, in pursuance of the will of his maternal uncle, William Freston of Mendham, who died in 1761, and devised to him his estates in Norfolk and Suffolk. He matriculated at Oxford as a commoner of Christ Church, 26 Dec. 1775, and proceeded B.A. in 1780 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. ii. 497). Having married a Cambridge lady, the widow of Thomas Hyde, he removed in 1783 to Clare Hall in that university, where he was incorporated B.A., and commenced M.A. the same year (Graduati Cantabr. edit. 1826, p. 119). In 1792 he was licensed to the perpetual cure of Needham, Norfolk, in his own patronage, and in 1801 he was presented by a college friend to the rectory of Edgworth, Gloucestershire. Dr. Huntingford, bishop of Gloucester, appointed him rural dean of the deanery of Stonehouse. He died on 25 Dec. 1819.
His works are: 1. ‘Provisions for the more equal Maintenance of the Clergy,’ 1784, 12mo (anon.). 2. ‘An Elegy,’ 1787, 4to. 3. ‘Poems on Several Subjects,’ 1787, 8vo. 4. ‘A Discourse on Laws, intended to show that legal Institutions are necessary, not only to the Happiness, but to the very Existence of Man,’ London, 1792, 4to. 5. ‘Address to the People of England,’ 1796, 8vo (anon.). 6. ‘A Collection of Evidences for the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ London, 1807, 8vo. 7. ‘Six Sermons on some of the more important Doctrines of Christianity; to which are added five Sermons on Occasional Subjects,’ Cirencester, 1809, 8vo.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frere, Philip Howard

​FRERE, PHILIP HOWARD (1813–1868), agriculturist, the eldest son of William Frere [q. v.] by his wife Mary, daughter of Brampton Gurdon Dillingham, was born in 1813. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1836 was placed among the senior optimes in the mathematical, and in the first class in the classical tripos. In the following year he was elected a fellow of Downing College, and in 1839 became tutor and bursar. The endowments of Downing consisted almost entirely of agricultural lands, the management of which devolved on the bursar, and Frere's previous residence on his father's estate at Balsham, Cambridgeshire, rendered him admirably suited to the post. He travelled much in Europe, and became a good linguist. His combination of a knowledge of agriculture and foreign languages led to his appointment as editor of the ‘Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society’ in 1862, when the council determined to raise the standard of their publication. He conducted the journal with success, contributing papers on agricultural subjects till his death at Cambridge in May 1868. Frere married in 1859 Emily, daughter of Henry Gipps, canon of Carlisle Cathedral, and vicar of Crosthwaite, Keswick, and left issue.
A. V.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frewin, Richard

​FREWIN, RICHARD, M.D. (1681?–1761), physician and professor of history, son of Ralph Frewin of London, was admitted king's scholar at Westminster in 1693, and elected thence to a Westminster studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1698. He took the degrees of B.A. in 1702, M.A. in 1704, M.B. in 1707, and M.D. in 1711. In 1708 he is described at the foot of a Latin poem which he contributed to 'Exequiæ Georgio principi Daniæ ab Oxoniensi academia solutæ' (Oxford, 1708) as professor of chemistry; he was also in 1711 rhetoric reader in Christ Church. As a physician he had an excellent reputation; he attended Dean Aldrich on his deathbed. John Freind's 'Hippocrates de Morbis Popularibus' is dedicated to him, and contains a letter from him (dated Christ Church, 20 July 1710), giving an account of a case of variolæ cohærentes which he had been attending. In 1727 he was unanimously elected to the Camden professorship of ancient history, no other candidate offering himself. Hearne relates that soon after his election he bought a hundred pounds' worth of books on history and chronology, 'on purpose to qualify him the better to discharge' the duties of the office. He died 29 May 1761, having survived his children, who died young, and three wives, Lady Tyrell, Elizabeth Woodward, and Mrs. Graves, daughter of Peter Cranke. He bequeathed 2,000l. intrust for the king's scholars of Westminster elected to Christ Church, and another 2,000l. in trust for the physicians of the Radcliffe Infirmary, and left his house in Oxford, now known as Frewin Hall, to the regius professor of medicine for the time being. His library of history and literature, consisting of 2,300 volumes, he left to the Radcliffe Library. There is in that library a volume containing a collection of dried specimens of plants made by him, with his notes in manuscript on their medicinal uses. Portraits are in the hall and common room at Christ Church, and a bust, presented by Dr. Hawley in 1757, in the library there.
E. C-n.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fridegode

​FRIDEGODE (fl. 950). [See Frithegode.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Freville, George

​FREVILLE, GEORGE (d. 1579), judge, of a family settled at Little Shelford, Cambridgeshire, from the reign of Edward II, was the second son of Robert Freville and Rose Peyton (see MSS. Coll. Arms, c. 41; Inquis. p. m. Cambr. 6 Edw. VI). He was educated at Cambridge, and studied common law at Barnard's Inn, and afterwards became a member of the Middle Temple, where he was reader in 1558, performing his duties by Edmund Plowden, his deputy, and again in Lent 1559. On the death of his elder brother John without issue in 1552, he succeeded to the family estates. On St. Matthias day 1552 he was elected recorder of Cambridge, and admitted to office 25 March 1553. He was in the special commission of oyer and terminer issued for Cambridgeshire 8 Aug. 1553, when indictments for high treason were found against the Duke of Northumberland and other adherents of Lady Jane Grey. By patent, 31 Jan. 1559, though not yet a serjeant, he was created third baron of the exchequer. He obtained the royal permission to retain his office of recorder of Cambridge, but the town refused to submit to this. On 28 April 1564 he became second baron, and in May 1579 he died, and was succeeded by Robert Shute 1 June.
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frere, William

​FRERE, WILLIAM (1775–1836), law-serjeant and master of Downing College, Cambridge, the fourth son of John Frere [q. v.] of Roydon, Norfolk, and younger brother of John Hookham Frere [q. v.], was born 28 Nov. 1775. He was sent to Felstead and Eton, and in 1796 obtained a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge. In the same year he was elected to the Craven scholarship, and subsequently won several university honours, among them the senior chancellor's medal. He graduated fifth senior optime in 1798. In 1800 he became fellow of the newly founded Downing College. He was called to the bar, and joined the Norfolk circuit in 1802. He was serjeant-at-law in 1809, and three years later was elected master of Downing College, his appointment being unsuccessfully contested at law. He was made recorder of Bury St. Edmunds in 1814, and in 1819 became vice-chancellor of Cambridge University. He resided for a considerable part of each year on an estate which he bought at Balsham, Cambridgeshire. He proceeded LL.D. at Cambridge 1825, and D.C.L. at Oxford 1834. In 1826 he finally quitted the bar. He edited, with additions, Baron Glenbervie's ‘Reports of Cases,’ 1813, and the fifth volume of the ‘Paston Letters’ from the manuscript of Sir John Fenn [q. v.], his uncle. Some Latin and Greek verse by Frere was published with W. Herbert's ‘Fasciculus Carminum stylo Lucretiano scriptorum,’ 1797. He died 25 May 1836. He married in 1810 Mary, daughter of Brampton Gurdon Dillingham. His son, Philip Howard, is separately noticed. During Frere's time, chiefly through his wife, Downing College was a social centre at Cambridge.
A. V.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frewen, Thomas

​FREWEN, THOMAS, M.D. (1704–1791), physician, was born in 1704. He practised as a surgeon and apothecary at Rye in Sussex, and afterwards as a physician at Lewes, having obtained the M.D. degree previous to 1755. He became known as one of the first in this country to adopt the practice of inoculation with small-pox. In his essay on ‘The Practice and Theory of Inoculation’ (Lond. 1749) he narrates his experience in three hundred and fifty cases, only one having died by the small-pox so induced. The common sort of people, he says, were averse to inoculation, and ‘disputed about the lawfulness of propagating diseases’—the very ground on which small-pox inoculation was made penal a century later (1842). The more refined studies of our speculative adepts in philosophy, he says, have let them into the secret that the small-pox and many other diseases are propagated by means of animalcula hatched from eggs lodged in the hairs, pores, &c. of human bodies. In 1759 he published another short essay on small-pox, ‘Reasons against an opinion that a person infected with the Small-pox may be cured by Antidote without incurring the Distemper.’ The opinion was that of Boerhaave, Cheyne, and others, that the development of small-pox after exposure to infection could be checked by a timely use of the æthiops mineral. Frewen's argument was that many persons ordinarily escape small-pox ‘who had been supposed to be in the greatest danger of taking it,’ and that the æthiops mineral was irrelevant. His other work, ‘Physiologia’ (Lond. 1780), is a considerable treatise applying the doctrines of Boerhaave to some diseases. One of his principles is: ‘Wherever nature has fixed a pleasure, we may take it for granted she there enjoins a duty; and something is to be done either for the individual or for the species.’ He died ​at Northiam in Sussex, on 14 June 1791, aged 86.
C. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Greswell, Richard

​GRESWELL, RICHARD (1800–1881), 're-founder of the National Society,' born at Denton, Lancashire, on 22 July 1800, the fourth son of the Rev. William Parr Greswell [q. v.], was educated first by his father, and afterwards at Worcester College, Oxford, on the foundation of which college he was placed on 1 June 1818. In 1822, having gained a 'double-first,' he was appointed assistant tutor of Worcester, and in the next year full tutor, an office he retained for thirty years. He became fellow in June 1824. He graduated B.A. in 1822, M.A. in 1825, and B.D. in 1836. As a tutor he was learned and skilful, and his lectures were considered models in their way. For many years he devoted the proceeds of his tutorship to public and charitable objects, his personal expenses being defrayed from a modest fortune brought by his wife, Joana Julia Armitriding, whom he married in 1836. In 1843 he opened a subscription on behalf of national education, with a donation of 1,000l., and ultimately raised 250,000l. for the funds of the National Society. He was largely instrumental in establishing the new museum at Oxford, and was one of the founders of the Ashmolean Society. From 1847 to 1865 he acted as chairman of Mr. Gladstone's election committee at Oxford. He was a great benefactor to his father's parish of Denton, and by his exertions a new church, called Christ Church, was built and provided with parsonage, schools, and endowment (1853). Many kindly and beneficent acts are related of Greswell, whose 'chief characteristics were great and varied learning, boundless benevolence, and a childlike simplicity' (Burgon, Lives, ii. 118). His only publications were a paper 'On Education and the Principles of Art,' 1843, and a 'Memorial on the Proposed Oxford University Lecture-rooms, Library, Museums, &c.,' 1853. He died at Oxford on 22 July 1881, aged exactly 81 years. His daughter, Joanna Julia Greswell, published at Oxford in 1873 a 'Grammatical Analysis of the Hebrew Psalter.'
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gresse, John Alexander

​GRESSE, JOHN ALEXANDER (1741–1794), painter and drawing-master, was born in London in 1741. His father was a native of Rolle, on the Lake of Geneva, and owned a small property close to Oxford Street, on which the present streets, Stephen Street and Gresse Street, Rathbone Place, were built about 1771. Gresse studied drawing under Gerard Scotin, the engraver, and was one of the first students to work in the gallery of casts founded by the Duke of Richmond. In 1755 he obtained a premium at the Society of Arts for a drawing by a student under the age of fourteen years, and in 1759 he gained three premiums for drawings and studies from the human figure. He was successful again in 1761 and 1762, obtaining in all nine premiums before attaining the age of twenty-one. He was for a short time pupil of Major the engraver, and worked for several years under Cipriani, profiting at the same time by the instruction of Zuccarelli. He was employed by John Boydell to make drawings. Gresse lacked the industry and application necessary to succeed in the higher branches of his art, and as he inherited a sufficient income from his father, he did not exert his full powers. In 1763 he exhibited a landscape at the Free Society of Artists, and in 1764 two miniatures and a Madonna. In 1765 he became a member of the rival Incorporated Society of Artists, and exhibited with them for four years, chiefly miniatures. In 1768 he sent a stained drawing of the Earl of Bessborough's seat at Roehampton. Gresse excelled in this branch of water-colour painting, and some of his views were engraved. He became one of the most fashionable drawing-masters of his day. In 1777 he was appointed drawing-master to the royal princesses, and was soon a favourite at court. His corpulence obtained for him the nickname of ‘Jack Grease.’ He occasionally practised etching, and etched the plates for Kennedy's ‘Account of the Statues and Pictures at Wilton House’ (1769). He published a few other etchings, including one of ‘St. Jerome’ after Guido, and ‘A Satyr Sleeping’ after N. Poussin. Gresse died on 19 Feb. 1794, in his fifty-third year, and was buried at St. Anne's, Soho. He was a great collector of works of art, which were sold by auction shortly after his death, the sale occupying six days.
[Edwards's Anecd. of Painters; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Dodd's MS. Hist. of English Engravers, Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 33401; exhibition catalogues.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Greswell, Edward

1904 Errata appended.
​GRESWELL, EDWARD (1797–1869), chronologist, son of the Rev. William Parr Greswell [q. v.], was born at Denton,near Manchester, on 3 Aug. 1797, and educated by his father and at the Manchester grammar school. He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, on 5 April 1815, and was elected scholar of that college in the same year. Early in 1816 he obtained the `Lancashire' scholarship at Corpus Christi College, and graduated B.A. in 1819, M.A. in 1822, and B.D. in 1830. He was ordained deacon in 1825, and priest in 1826, and held the office of college tutor from 1822 to 1834. He was fellow of Corpus Christi College from 1823 until his death in 1869, Latin reader in 1824, junior dean 1825, Greek reader 1827, librarian 1830, and vice-president of his college from 1840 to 1869. He took part in the disputes at Oxford about 1836 in connection with Dr. Hampden's appointment to the regius professorship of divinity, and published a `Letter to his Grace the Duke of Wellington, Chancellor of the University,' on the subject (Oxford, 1837). Otherwise his life at the university was spent uneventfully in the performance of his academical duties and the systematic prosecution of his studies. He died on 29 June 1869.
His works include several of high value and usefulness, the 'Harmony of the Gospels' having long been used as a text-book. He published: 1. 'Dissertations upon the Principles and Arrangement of a Harmony of the Gospels,' Oxford, 1830, 8vo, 3 vols. 2. 'Harmonia Evangelica,' 1830, 1837, 1840; 5th edit. 1855. 3. 'Joannis Miltoni Fabulæ, Samson Agonistes et Comus Græcè,' 1832, 8vo. 4. Supplementary dissertations on the 'Harmonies,' 1834. 5. 'An Exposition of the Parables, and of other parts of the Gospels,' 1834-5, 6 vols. 8vo. 6. 'Prolegomena ad Harmoniam Evangelicam,' 1840. 7. 'Fasti Temporis Catholici and Origines Kalendariæ: History of the Primitive Calendar, Part 1,' 1852, 4 vols. 8vo. 8. `General Tables of the Fasti Catholici, or Fasti Temporis Perpetui, from B.C. 4004 to A.D. 2000,' 1852, 4to. 9. `Supplementary Tables and Introduction to the Tables of the Fasti Catholici,' 1852, 8vo. 10. `Origines Kalendariæ Italicæ,' 1854, 4 vols. 11. 'Origines Kalendariæ Hellenicæ, 6 vols. 1861, 8vo. 12. `The Three Witnesses and the Threefold Cord; being the testimony of the Natural Measures of Time, of the Primitive Civil Calendar, and of Antediluvian and Postdiluvian Tradition, on the Principal Questions of Fact in Sacred and Profane Antiquity,' 1862, 8vo. 13. `The Objections to the Historical Character of the Pentateuch in Part I of Dr. Colenso's "Pentateuch and Book of Joshua," considered and shewn to be unfounded,' London, 1863. 14. 'The Zulus and the Men of Science,' London, 1865. He also printed for private circulation a translation into Greek iambics of three hymns by Bishop Ken, 1831, and a hymn of praise in English.
C. W. S.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.142 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Greswell, William Parr

​GRESWELL, WILLIAM PARR (1765–1854), clergyman and bibliographer, son of John Greswell of Chester, was baptised at Tarvin, Cheshire, on 23 June 1765. He was ordained on 20 Sept. 1789 to the curacy of Blackley, near Manchester, and succeeded on 24 Sept. 1791 to the incumbency of Denton, also near Manchester, on the presentation of the first Earl of Wilton, to whose son he was tutor. This living, which when he took it was only worth 100l. a year, he held for the long period of sixty-three years. To add to his income he opened a school. He educated his own seven sons, five of whom went to Oxford and won high honours. They were William, M. A., fellow of Balliol, and author of works on ritual, died 1876; Edward [q.v.], B.D., fellow and tutor of Corpus Christi College; Richard [q. v.], B.D., fellow and tutor of Worcester College; Francis Hague, M.A., fellow of Brasenose; Clement, M.A., fellow and tutor of Oriel, and rector of Tortworth, Gloucestershire. His other sons were Charles, a medical man, and Thomas, master of Chetham's Hospital, Manchester.
Greswell wrote: 1. 'Memoirs of Angelus Politianus, Picus of Mirandula, Sanazarius, Bembus, Fracastorius, M. A. Flaminius, and the Amalthei,' with poetical translations, Manchester, 1801, 8vo, 2nd ed. 1805. The 'Retrospective Review' (ix. 64, note) condemns this work as careless and unmethodical. 2. 'Annals of Parisian Typography' (privately printed), 1818, 8vo. 3. 'The Monastery of Saint Werburgh, a Poem,' 1823, 8vo. To some copies are added `Rodrigo, a Spanish Legend,' and shorter pieces. 4. 'A View of the Early Parisian Greek Press, including the Lives of the Stephani,' Oxford, 1833, 8vo, 2 vols.; 2nd ed. with an appendix of Casauboniana, 1840. He also edited the third volume of the catalogue of the Chetham Library, 1826. The two works on the Parisian press are said by Brunet to be 'inexact' (Man. du Libraire, 5th edit. ii. 1735).
He resigned his incumbency of Denton in 1853, and died on 12 Jan. 1854, aged 89, and was buried at Denton. His large library was sold at Sotheby's rooms in February 1855.
C. W. S.