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

​MARTINDELL or MARTINDALL, Sir GABRIEL (1756?–1831 ), major-general H.E.I.C. service, a Bengal cadet of 1772, with other cadets of his year bore arms in the 'Select Picket,' which greatly distinguished itself in the Rohilla battle of St. George in 1774. He was appointed ensign in the Bengal native infantry 4 Aug. 1776, and became lieutenant in 1778, captain 1793, major 1797, lieutenant-colonel 1801, colonel 1810, and major-general 4 June 1813. As a subaltern he was long adjutant of the native corps to which he belonged, and as lieutenant-colonel his battalion was counted one of the best native corps in the army. He was employed with a detached force in Bundelkund, then in a state of anarchy, during the Mahratta war of 1804-1805. On 2 July 1804 he attacked and routed an invading force of Mahrattas, under Ameer Khan, at Paswarree, and covered Lord Lake's army during the siege of Bhurtpore in the following December-January. In 1809 Martindell captured the strong fortress of Ajagerh in Bundelkund (see Mill, vii. 174-7). In 1812 he attacked the city and celebrated hill-fort of Kalinjar (Callinger), also in Bundelkund. The assault proved unsuccessful, but Daryan Singh, who held the fort, surrendered eight days afterwards, on receiving an equivalent of territory in the plains (Hunter, Gazetteer of India, vii. 333). For each of these services Martindell received the thanks of the governor-general in council. After the fall of Robert Rollo Gillespie at Kalanga in the Himalayas, in October 1814, Martindell was appointed to the command of a division of the army for the invasion of Nepaul, with which he made some unsuccessful attacks on Jytak. He commanded the division in the subsequent operations under Sir David Ochterlony, who assumed command of the army in February 1815 (see Mill, viii. 31, 35-6 et seq.) When the order of the Bath was extended to include the East India Company's officers in 1815, Martindell was one of the first selected for the distinction of K.C.B. (7 April 1815). He commanded a column of troops during the Pindarree war; and in 1818, as commander of ​the troops and joint civil-commissioner, rendered valuable service in restoring order in Cuttack (ib. viii. 142-4). In April 1820 he was appointed to the command of the 1st division of the field army (headquarters, Cawnpore) and the general command of the field army, an appointment which ceased in July 1882. Martindell, who was married, died at Buxar, 2 Jan. 1831.
[East India Registers and Army Lists, under dates; Mill's Hist, of India, vols, vii-viii.; Philippart's East India Military Calendar (London, 2 vols., 1823) contains a biography of Martindell in i. 406-8. and some useful notes on other pages of the same volume; but, by an extraordinary blunder, the unsuccessful attack on Kalinjar in Bundelkund, by Martindell in 1812, is confounded with Gillespie's attack on the now effaced fort of Kalanga, near Deyrah Dhoon, in 1814. The obituary notice in Gent. Mag. 1831, pt. i. p. 83, is based on Philippart.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Martine, George (1635-1712)

​MARTINE, GEORGE, the elder (1635–1712), of Clermont, historian of St. Andrews, born 5 Aug. 1635, was eldest son of James Martine (1615–1684), minister successively of Cults (1639), Auchtermuchty (1641), and Ballingry (1669), all in Fifeshire. His mother—his father's first wife—was Janet Robinson, who died 13 Sept. 1644 (Hew Scott, Fasti, pt. iv. 52). His grandfather was Dr. George Martine, principal of St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews. George became commissary clerk of St. Andrews in August 1666, and held that office till August 1690, when he was deprived ‘for not taking the assurance to King William and Queen Mary’ (Macfarlane). He was ‘secretary and companion’ to Archbishop Sharp, for whom he kept a memorandum-book of household and travelling expenses, selections from which are printed by the Maitland Club (Miscellany, ii. 497). In June 1668 he married Catherine, eldest daughter of James Winchester of Kinglassie, Fifeshire, by whom he had several children, one of whom, George, is separately noticed; succeeded his father in ‘seven aikirs at St. Andrews which belonged to the Priorie there’ in 1696 (Hew Scott), and died 26 Aug. 1712. His claim to remembrance rests on the ‘Reliquiæ divi Andreæ, or the State of the Venerable See of St. Andrews’ (St. Andrews, 1797). This work, written in 1683, but not published till 1797, was printed from a manuscript copy in the possession of a descendant (there were at least three copies in existence), and contains some valuable information which has been of use to succeeding historians of St. Andrews. He is referred to as having ‘done several other things in our Scots antiquitys’ (Wodrow, Diary, as below), but nothing further was published from his pen.
[Macfarlane's MS. Genealogical Collections concerning Families in Scotland, in Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, which gives a very full account of the Martine family, as well as Excerpts from the Genealogical Collections of Mr. Martine of Clermont, of which nothing is known; Wodrow's Analecta (Maitland Club), vol. i. p. xxxiv; Miscellany of Maitland Club as above; Editor's Preface to Reliquiæ divi Andreæ; Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scot., Synod of Fife.]
J. C. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Merbury, Charles

​MERBURY or MARBURY, CHARLES (fl. 1581), author, is described by Strype as the son of a dependent ‘on the Duchess of Suffolk and the Duke of Suffolk.’ The patrons of the father, who are said to have continued a revenue and pension to the son, were probably Richard Bertie [q. v.] and his wife Catharine, whose first husband was Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk (d. 1545). There were no other persons who could claim any connection with the title of Duke or Duchess of Suffolk in Elizabeth's reign. Merbury graduated B.A. at Oxford on 18 March 1569–70, and speaks of studying under ‘Master Humfrey,’ apparently a reference to Laurence Humphrey [q. v.], president of Magdalen College. In 1571 he entered Gray's Inn, but soon afterwards left England for a long sojourn in Italy, and acquired perfect familiarity with the language. He was a friend of Henry Unton, and on returning home obtained a post in the household of the lord chamberlain, the Earl of Sussex. He was thus often about the court. In 1581 he published a defence of absolute government, which was licensed, after it had been carefully read and approved in manuscript by Thomas Norton (1532–1584) [q. v.] It was entitled: ‘A briefe Discourse of Royall Monarchie, as of the best Common Weale: wherein the subiect may beholde the Sacred Majestie of the Princes most Royall Estate: written by Charles Merbury, Gentleman, in duetifull Reuerence of Her Majesties Most Princely Highnesse: Whereunto is added by the same Pen a Collection of Italian Prouerbes in Benefite of such as are studious of that Language,’ London, 1581, 4to (by ​Thomas Vautrollier). A dedication in Italian to Queen Elizabeth is followed by a commendatory address to ‘the vertuous reader,’ by Henry Unton.
In 1582–3 Merbury was employed on official business in France, probably as a spy. In April and August 1582 he corresponded with Walsingham from Paris and Orleans, and complained of robbery by pirates (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Add. 1580–1625, pp. 56–72). In Nov. 1583 he was at La Rochelle, and sent Anthony Bacon [q. v.] an account of current gossip there. In December he wrote to Bacon from Poitiers (Birch, Memoirs of Elizabeth, i. 42–4).
[Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Strype's Annals, iii. i. 104–5.]
S. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mercer, Hugh

​MERCER, HUGH (1726?–1777), American brigadier-general, is described by American biographers as a native of Aberdeen, Scotland, born about 1721, who studied medicine at Aberdeen University. The name ‘Hugo Mercer’ is among the fourth-year students of 1744 in the ‘Album Studiensis’ of Marischal College, Aberdeen. His age, probably, was between sixteen and eighteen. The academic records afford no other particulars. Mercer was a surgeon's mate in the Pretender's army, and afterwards went to America in 1747, and settled as a doctor near what is now Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. He is said to have served in the expedition against Fort Du Quesne, under General Edward Braddock [q. v.], and to have been wounded at the Monaghahela 9 July 1756, for which he received a medal from the corporation of Philadelphia. Winthrop Sargent, in his monograph of the expedition, implies uncertainty on this point. Among the provincial officers engaged were two other Mercers, George and John, who were thanked by the burgesses (see Trans. Hist. Soc. of Philadelphia, v. 240, 329). Mercer became a lieutenant-colonel of provincials in 1758, and accompanied the expedition under Brigadier-general John Forbes against the new Fort Du Quesne, where he was for several months in command (see Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, xi. 49, 130–162). Mercer then returned to medical practice, establishing himself at Fredericksburg, Virginia. He organised and drilled the Virginia militia; commanded the minute men at the outbreak of the revolution; was appointed colonel of the 3rd Virginia regiment; and in June 1776, at the desire of Washington, was chosen by congress a brigadier-general, with command of a flying brigade. He accompanied Washington in his retreat through New Jersey. He led the attack on the Hessians at Trenton, and advised the night march on Princeton, in which he led the advance. His horse was disabled while he was attempting to rally his troops, mostly raw militia, and he was himself knocked down with the butt of a musket and bayoneted when on the ground. After several days of severe suffering he died of his wounds 12 Jan. 1777. His funeral was attended by 20,000 people. The St. Andrew Society of Philadelphia raised a monument to him in the Laurel Hill cemetery, and in 1790 congress made provision for the education of his youngest son, Hugh. Mercer County, Kentucky, is named after him.
Mercer had an elder son, John, who died a colonel in the United States army in 1817. The younger, Hugh, died at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1853, aged 77. A married daughter, Anna Gordon Patton, died in 1832, aged 58.
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mercer, Andrew

​MERCER, ANDREW (1775–1842), poet and topographer, was born in Selkirk in 1775. He was destined for the ministry, and in 1790 entered the university of Edinburgh. Ultimately he gave up theology, studied the fine arts, and endeavoured unsuccessfully to make a living in Edinburgh as a miniature-painter and man of letters. He wrote both in prose and verse for the ‘Edinburgh’ and ‘Scots’ magazines, and edited the ‘North British Magazine’ during its short existence. He subsequently settled in Dunfermline, where he lived by teaching and by drawing patterns for the damask manufacturers. His best-known work is a ‘History of Dunfermline from the earliest Records’ (Dunfermline, 1828). There was also published in his name an ‘Historical and Chronological Table of the Ancient Town of Dunfermline from 1064 to 1834,’ which was really an abridgment, with the consent of the author, Mr. E. Henderson, of a manuscript volume entitled ‘Annals of Dunfermline from the earliest Records to 1833.’ He was the author of a poem on ‘Dunfermline Abbey’ (Dunfermline, 1819), and a volume of verse, ‘Summer Months among the Mountains’ (Edinburgh, 1838). A man of considerable ingenuity and scholarship, he lacked steadiness of application, and his last years were clouded by poverty (Chalmers). He died at Dunfermline, 11 June 1842.
[Rogers's Scottish Minstrel, p. 150; Chalmers's Historical and Statistical Account of Dunfermline, 1844, pp. 77, 552; Grant Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland, ii. 531.]
J. C. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Meredith, Edward

​MEREDITH, EDWARD (1648–1689?), Roman catholic controversialist, was son of Edward Meredith, rector of Landulph, Cornwall, in which county he was born in 1648. He was elected a king's scholar at Westminster School, and was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1665. He left the university without having taken a degree in order to enter into the service of Sir William Godolphin, whom he accompanied on his embassy to Spain in the capacity of secretary. While in Spain he followed the example of his patron by professing himself a Roman catholic. On his return he took part in the current controversy between the Anglican and Roman churches. He was present at the singular conference between Tenison and Andrew Pulton the jesuit on 29 Sept. 1687. Tenison denied Meredith's competency to act as an umpire, one of his objections being that Meredith was converted when very young. The latter replied: ‘I know not what the Doctor calls young, but it was not 'till I had gone through one of the best and most careful schools in England, and spent above three years at the university, and as many in Spain.’ Some time after the revolution of 1688 Meredith went abroad, and, as Dodd was informed, died in Italy.
His works are: 1. ‘Some Remarques upon a late popular piece of Nonsense called Julian the Apostate [by the Rev. Samuel Johnson]. Together with a particular Vindication of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. … By a Lover of Truth, Vertue, and Justice,’ London, 1682, fol. 2. ‘A Journal of Meditations for every Day in the Year. Gathered out of divers Authors. Written first in Latin by N. B., and newly translated into English by E. M.,’ 3rd edition, London, 1687, 8vo. 3. ‘A Letter to Dr. E. S[tillingfleet] concerning his late Letter to Mr. G[odden] and the Account he gives of it in a Conference between Mr. G. and himself,’ London, 1687, 4to. 4. ‘Remarks on a late Conference between Andrew Pulton, Jesuit, and Thomas Tenison, D.D.,’ London, 1687, 4to. 5. ‘Some further Remarks on the late Account given by Dr. Tenison of his Conference with Mr. Pulton, wherein the Doctor's three exceptions against Edward Meredith are examined, &c.,’ London, 1688, 4to. James Harrington published anonymously ‘A Vindication of Protestant Charity, in answer to some passages in Mr. E. M[eredith's] Remarks on a late Conference,’ Oxford, 1688, 4to.
[Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. p. 348; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 465; Jones's Popery Tracts, pp. 128, 137, 140, 434; Welch's Alumni Westmon. (Phillimore), p. 161; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 393, 653; Wood's Autobiog. (Bliss), p. xcv.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooke, John (1763-1805)

​COOKE, JOHN (1763–1805), captain in the royal navy, entered the navy at the age of thirteen, on board the Eagle, carrying Lord Howe's flag on the North American station, and, having remained in her through her whole commission, was promoted to be lieutenant on 21 Jan. 1779. He was then appointed to the Superb, with Sir Edward Hughes, in the East Indies; and having been obliged to invalid from that station was appointed to the Duke with Captain (afterwards Lord) Gardner, who went out to the West Indies and took a distinguished part in the glorious action off Dominica on 12 April 1782. After the peace Gardner was for some time commodore at Jamaica, Cooke remaining with him as first lieutenant of the Europa. In 1790 he served for some time as a lieutenant of the London, bearing the flag of Vice-admiral Sir Alexander Hood, and in February 1793 was appointed first lieutenant of the Royal George, bearing Sir Alexander's flag. After the battle of 1 June 1794 he was promoted to be commander, and a few days later, 23 June, to be captain. He then served for a year in Newfoundland as flag captain to Sir James Wallace, in the Monarch, and on his return home was appointed, in the spring of 1796, to command the Nymphe, which, in company with the San Fiorenzo, on 9 March 1797, captured the two French frigates Resistance and Constance. These were at the time on their way back to France after landing the band of convicts in Fishguard Bay; in memory of which, the Resistance, a remarkably fine vessel, mounting forty-eight guns, on being brought into the English navy, received the name of Fisgard (James, Nav. Hist., 1860, ii. 91). When the mutiny broke out in April and May, the Nymphe was at Spithead, and her crew joined the mutineers. On Cooke's attempting to give some assistance to Rear-admiral John Colpoys [q. v.], he was ordered by the mutineers to go on shore; nor was it thought expedient for him to rejoin the ship. Two years later he was appointed to the Amethyst, which he commanded in the Channel till the peace. In October 1804 he was invited by Sir William Young, the commander-in-chief at Plymouth, to come as his flag captain; but a few months later, having applied for active service, he was appointed to the Bellerophon, in which he joined the fleet off Cadiz in the beginning of October 1805. To be in a general engagement with Lord Nelson would, he used to say, crown all his military ambition. In the battle of Trafalgar the Bellerophon was the fifth ship of the lee line, and was thus early in action; in the thick of the fight Cooke received two musket-balls in the breast; he fell, and died within a few minutes, saying with his last breath, ‘Tell Lieutenant Cumby never to strike.’ A monumental tablet to his memory was placed by his widow in the parish church of Donhead in Wiltshire. His portrait, presented by the widow of his brother, Mr. Christopher Cooke, is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich.
[Naval Chronicle, xvii. 354.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooke, Robert (1820?-1882)

​COOKE, ROBERT (1820?–1882), catholic divine, was born at Waterford about 1820, and for some time studied medicine, but subsequently, during a visit to France, joined the congregation of Oblates of Mary Immaculate. After his ordination he was stationed at Grace Dieu, Leicestershire. Thence he was sent in 1847 to Everingham Park, Yorkshire, and while there he established missions at Howden and Pocklington. In 1851 he removed to Leeds. He established houses of his order at Inchicore in Ireland, and at Kilburn, London. His last missionary labour was in the east end of London, where he founded the church of the English Martyrs, Tower Hill. He died on 18 June 1882.
His principal works are: 1. ‘Catholic Memories of the Tower of London,’ Lond. 1875, 8vo, which has been translated into French. 2. ‘Sketches of the Life of Mgr. de Mazenod, bishop of Marseilles, and Founder of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and of the Missionary Labours of the French Oblates of Mary Immaculate,’ 2 vols. Lond. 1879–82, 8vo.
[Tablet, 24 June 1882; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Gillow's Bibl. Dict. i. 557; Athenæum, 1879, i. 697.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooke, Roger

​COOKE, ROGER (b. 1553), astrologer, was born in 1553, and became Dr. Dee's assistant at the age of fourteen. He seems to have shown considerable aptitude; for Dr. Dee instructed him in many of his discoveries. Thus we find in Dr. Dee's ‘Diary’ in the Ashmolean Library at Oxford, under date 28 Dec. 1579, ‘I reveled to Roger Coke the gret secret of the salt οφ ακετελε ονε υππον α υνδρεδ,’ and in the Ashmolean MS. 1788, fol. 147, ‘he revealed to Roger Cooke the great secret of the Elixar, as he called it, of the salt of metalls, the projection whereof was one upon an hundred.’ Cooke would seem to have been a man of morose and often violent temper; but for reasons which do not appear Dr. Dee seems to have been loth to part with him. Thus, we find under date 12 July 1581, ‘About 10 of the clock ½ before noone Roger, his incredible doggednes and ingratefulnes agains me to my face, almost redi to lai violent hand on me, major Henrik can partly tel’ (the passage is in Greek character). Things culminated in the same year, on 5 Sept., when we read: ‘Roger Cook, who had byn with me from his 14 yeres of age till 28, of a melancholik nature, pycking ​and divising occasions of just cause to depart on the suddayn, abowt 4 of the clok in the afternone requested of me lycense to depart, wheruppon rose whott words between us; and he imagining with his self that he had on the 12 of July deserved my great displeasure, and finding himself barred from vew of my philosophicall dealing with Mr. Henrik, thowght that he was utterly recist from intended goodnes toward him. Notwithstanding Roger Cook, his unseamly dealing, I promised him, yf he used himself toward me now in his absens, one hundred pounds as sone as of my own clere liability I might spare so much; and moreover, if he used himself well in lif toward God and the world, I promised him some pretty alchemicall experiments, wheruppon he might honestly live.’ ‘Sept. 7th.—Roger Cook went for altogether from me.’ After this Cooke seems to have set up for himself. An almanack for 1585 bears his name, after which all trace of him is lost.
[Dr. Dee's Diary, published by Camden Society; Black's Cat. of MSS. in Ashmolean Library.]
E. H.-A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooke, John (1756-1838)

​COOKE, JOHN (1756–1838), physician, born in 1756 in Lancashire, was educated by Dr. Doddridge to be a dissenting minister. He preached at Rochdale and at Preston, but preferred medicine, came to study at Guy's Hospital in London, completed his education at Edinburgh and Leyden, and graduated in the latter university. His thesis was on the use of Peruvian bark in cases where there is no rise of temperature. He settled in London and became physician to the Royal General Dispensary in Bartholomew Close. No out-patients were then seen at the neighbouring hospital, so that the dispensary offered a large field of observation. In April 1784 he was elected physician to the London Hospital, which office he held for twenty-three years, and delivered the first clinical lectures ever given in that institution. On 25 June in the same year he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians. In 1799 an alarm of plague was raised in London by the sudden death of two men who had been employed in carrying bales of cotton ashore. Cooke, at the request of the lord mayor, investigated the circumstances, and showed that the alarm was groundless. In 1807 he was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians, and ten years later F.R.S. He delivered the Croonian lectures at the College of Physicians in 1819, 1820, 1821, and the Harveian oration in 1832. In 1820 he began the publication of ‘A Treatise on Nervous Diseases,’ which was continued in 1821 and completed in 1823, and is usually bound in two volumes. An American edition, in one volume, was published at Boston in 1824. This work is based on his Croonian lectures. It gives an account of the existing knowledge of hemiplegia, paraplegia, paralysis of separate nerves, epilepsy, apoplexy, lethargy, and hydrocephalus internus. It shows considerable clinical acquaintance with the subject and a careful study of old writers, but the imperfect state of knowledge of this part of medicine is illustrated by the fact that apoplexy and hemiplegia are treated as subjects having no relation to one another. Cooke and Dr. Thomas Young were friends, and there is considerable resemblance between the general method of Young's ‘Treatise on Phthisis’ and Cooke's ‘On Nervous Diseases.’ Both show careful thought on the subject and much reading, and both are trustworthy as representations of all that was known in their time, while neither contains any important addition to medical knowledge. Cooke was president of the Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1822 and 1823. During his latter years he gave up practice and went little into society. He was a well-read man, and throughout life studied and enjoyed Homer. He died at his house in Gower Street, London, 1 Jan. 1838.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 53; Pettigrew's Biographical Memoirs; Curling's Address at the London Hospital, 1846.]
N. M.