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

​LAPRAIK, JOHN (1727–1807), Scottish poet, was born at Laigh Dalquhram (Dalfram), near Muirkirk, Ayrshire, in 1727. After education in the parochial school he succeeded his father on the estate, which was of considerable extent, and had been in the family for generations. He also rented the lands and mill of Muirsmill, in the neighbourhood. In 1754 he married Margaret Rankine, sister of Burns's friend, 'rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine.' She died after the birth of her fifth child, and in 1766 Lapraik married Janet Anderson, a farmer's daughter, who bore nine children, and survived her husband fifteen years. Ruined by the collapse of the Ayr Bank in 1772, Lapraik had first to let and then to sell his estate, and after an interval to relinquish his mill and farms, on which for several years he struggled to exist. Confined for a time as a debtor, he figured as a prison bard. After 1796 he opened a public-house at Muirkirk, conducting also the village post-office on the same premises. Here he died, 7 May 1807.
Early in 1785 Burns heard the song 'When I upon thy bosom lean' at a 'rocking,' or social gathering, in his house at Mossgiel Farm, Muirkirk. Learning that Lapraik was the author, he made his acquaintance, and within the year addressed to him his three famous 'Epistles.' Burns, who sent an improved version to Johnson's 'Museum,' never knew that the song was a clever adaptation from a lyric published in the 'Weekly Magazine,' 14 Oct. 1773 (Chambers, Burns, i. 254, library ed.). Burns's generous patronage encouraged Lapraik to publish his verses, which appeared at Kilmarnock in 1788 as 'Poems on Several Occasions.' The volume contains nothing equal to the 'Rocking Song.' James Maxwell of Paisley notices Lapraik unfavourably in his 'Animadversions on some Poets and Poetasters of the Present Age,' Paisley, 1788.
[Contemporaries of Burns; Chambers's Life and Works of Burns; Lockhart's Life of Burns, ed. Scott Douglas.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laporte, John

​LAPORTE, JOHN (1761–1839), water-colour painter, was born in 1761, and became a drawing-master at the military academy at Addiscombe. He was also a successful private teacher, and Dr. Thomas Monro [q. v.], the patron of Turner, was one of his pupils. From 1785 he contributed landscapes to the Royal Academy and British Institution exhibitions, and was an original member of the short-lived society 'The Associated Artists in Water-colours,' from which he retired in 1811. He published: 'Characters of Trees,' 1798–1801, 'Progressive Lessons sketched from Nature,' 1804, and 'The Progress of a Water-colour Drawing;' and, in conjunction with William F. Wells [q. v.], executed a set of seventy-two etchings, entitled 'A Collection of Prints illustrative of English Scenery, from the Drawings and Sketches of T. Gainsborough,' 1819. His 'Perdita discovered by the Old Shepherd' was engraved by Bartolozzi, and his 'View of Millbank on the River Thames near London' by F. Jukes. Laporte died in London 8 July 1839. Three of his drawings are in the South Kensington Museum. His daughter, Miss M. A. Laporte, exhibited portraits and fancy subjects at the Academy and the British Institution from 1813 to 1822; in 1835 she was elected a member of the Institute of Painters in Water-colours, but withdrew in 1846.
Laporte, George Henry (d. 1873), animal painter, son of the above, exhibited sporting subjects at the Academy, British Institution, and Suffolk Street Gallery from 1818, and was a foundation member of the Institute of Painters in Water-colours, to which he sent clever representations of animals, hunting scenes, and military groups. Some of his works were engraved in the 'New Sporting Magazine.' Laporte held the appointment of animal painter to the king of Hanover. He died suddenly at 13 Norfolk Square, London, 23 Oct. 1873.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Roget's History of the Old Water-colour Society, 1891; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1880; Royal Academy and British Institution Catalogues; Year's Art, 1886; Times, 25 Oct. 1873.]
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lantfred

​LANTFRED or LAMFRID (fl. 980), hagiographer, was a priest and monk of Winchester, being a disciple of Bishop Æthelwold. He wrote:
* 'De Miraculis Swithuni,' the first forty-six chapters of which are printed in the Bollandists' 'Acta Sanctorum,' 1 July, pp. 292–9, together with a narrative of the saint's translation. The whole work is contained in Cotton. MS. Nero E. i. ff. 35–53, and Reg. 15, C. vii. ff. 1–50, both being of nearly contemporary date.
* 'Epistola præmissa historiæ de Miraculis Swithuni,' a prefatory letter prefixed to the foregoing. It is printed in the 'Acta Sanctorum,' 1 July, p. 28, and in Wharton's 'Anglia Sacra,' i. 322.
It is often found in manuscripts of Alcuin's letters, e.g. in Cotton. Vesp. xiv., and Tiberius, A. xv. Lantfred says he had little knowledge of Swithun's life, and wrote only of his miracles. His style is inflated and obscure, and words of Greek origin are frequent in his diction.
John Joscelyn [q.v.] says he had an Anglo-Saxon book containing 'Depositio Swithuni per Lantfredum.' Tanner suggests that this was a translation by another hand. Thomas Rudborne cites from a 'Liber de fundatione ecclesiæ Wentanæ' by Lantfred two hexameters, and also some verses, which are given at the end of the manuscripts of the treatise 'De Miraculis.' Bale and Pits wrongly ascribe to Lantfred a 'Life of Swithun.'
[Bale, ii. 37; Pits, p. 178; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 463; Leyser's Hist. Poet. et Poem. medii ævi, p. 286; Wright's Biog. Brit. Litt. Anglo-Saxon, p. 469.]
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lanyon, Charles

​LANYON, Sir CHARLES (1813–1889), civil engineer, son of John Jenkinson Lanyon of Eastbourne, Sussex, by Catherine Anne Mortimer, was born at Eastbourne, 6 Jan. 1813. Having received his early education at a private school in his native place, he was articled to the late Jacob Owen of the Irish board of works, Dublin, in preparation for the profession of civil engineer. He subsequently married Owen's daughter Elizabeth Helen. In 1835, at the first examination for Irish county surveyorships, Lanyon took second place; he was appointed county surveyor of Kildare, and in the following year transferred at his own request to co. Antrim. Here he executed several works of great importance, among others the constructing of the great coast road from Larne to Portrush, and he designed and erected the Queen's and Ormeau bridges over the Lagan at Belfast. He made several of the chief local railways, such as the Belfast and Ballymona line and its extensions to Cookstown and Portrush, now amalgamated with other lines, and forming part of the Belfast and Northern Counties railway. He was also engineer of the Belfast, Holywood, and Bangor railway, and the Carrickfergus and Larne line. He was architect of some of the principal buildings in Belfast, such as the Queen's College, the Court-house, the County Gaol, the Custom House, and the Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind. In 1860 he resigned the county surveyorship. In 1862 he became mayor of Belfast, and in 1866 was returned in the conservative interest as one of the members for the borough. In 1868 he was defeated at the polls. In 1876 he served as high sheriff of co. Antrim. He was one of the Belfast harbour commissioners and a deputy lieutenant and magistrate of the county. In 1862 he was elected president of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, and held ​office till 1868, when he was knighted by the Duke of Abercorn, then lord-lieutenant. He was also a fellow of the Institute of British Architects and a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers both of England and Ireland. For a long time he was a prominent member of the masonic body, in which he rose to be grand master of the province of Antrim. He died, after a protracted illness, at his residence, The Abbey, White Abbey, co. Antrim, on 31 May 1889, and was buried in the churchyard of Newtownbreda, near Belfast. His wife died in 1858, leaving a son, William, afterwards Sir William Owen Lanyon, who is separately noticed.
T. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Polton, Thomas

​POLTON, THOMAS (d. 1433), bishop successively of Hereford, Chichester, and Worcester, may be the Thomas Polton who was temporarily archdeacon of Taunton in 1395, and again about 1403, and held a prebend at Hereford between 1410 and 1412 (Le Neve, i. 167, 516). From 1408 he was prebendary of York, of which cathedral he was elected dean on 23 July 1416, being then described as bachelor of laws, but of what university does not appear (ib. iii. 124, 196, 215; cf. Fœdera, ix. 370). Meanwhile he had acted, from 8 June 1414, as the king's proctor at the papal court, and simultaneously with his promotion to the deanery of York was appointed one of the English ambassadors to the council of Constance (ib.) As papal prothonotary and head of the English ‘nation,’ he took a very prominent part in the proceedings of the council (Von der Hardt, vols. iv–v.; St.-Denys, v. 467, 620). After the council broke up, Polton continued to reside at Rome as papal notary and proctor for Henry V, and even when Pope Martin provided him by bull, dated 15 July 1420, to the bishopric of Hereford, and consecrated him at Florence six days later, he did not at once return to England (Le Neve, i. 464). On the death of Richard Clifford, bishop of London, in August 1421, the chapter, on 22 Dec., elected Polton in his place, but the pope had already (17 Nov.) translated John Kemp [q. v.] from Chichester to London, and Polton from Hereford to Chichester (ib. i. 245, 294). In January 1426, as part of a compromise with the pope with regard to the filling up of several sees then vacant, the privy council agreed that Polton, who was then in ​England, should be translated from Chichester to Worcester, and this was done by papal bull dated 27 Feb. 1426 (Ord. Privy Council, iii. 180, 190).
In November 1432 he was appointed to go to the council of Basle, with license to visit the ‘limina apostolorum’ for a year after the dissolution of the council (Fœdera, x. 527–9). He does not seem to have set out until the following spring, and shortly after his arrival at Basle he died (23 Aug. 1433), and was buried there. His will, dated 6 Dec. 1432, was proved on 18 Oct. 1433 (Ord. Privy Council, iv. 156; Le Neve, iii. 60). In the Cottonian Collection (Nero E. V.) there is a fine manuscript entitled ‘Origo et Processus Gentis Scotorum ac de Superioritate Regum Angliæ super regnum illud’ which belonged to Polton, and was bought from his executors by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester.
[Rymer's Fœdera, orig. ed.; Proceedings … of Privy Council, ed. Nicolas; Von der Hardt's Concilium Constantiense, 1697, &c.; Lenfant's Concile de Basle, 1731; Godwin, De Præsulibus Angliæ, ed. Richardson, 1743, pp. 466, 491, 509; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglic. ed. Hardy; Stubbs's Reg. Sacrum.]
J. T-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pollard, William

​POLLARD, WILLIAM (1828–1893), quaker, born on 10 June 1828, was ninth child of James and Susanna Pollard of Horsham, Sussex, where the family had been settled for several generations. After attending the Friends' school, Croydon, Pollard proceeded to the Flounders Training College at Ackworth, Yorkshire. From 1853 he was a teacher at Ackworth school. For the use of his pupils he wrote a ‘Reading Book,’ 1865, a ‘Poetical Reader,’ 1872, and ‘Choice Readings.’ From 1866 to 1872 he was in the employ of Francis Frith, the well-known photographer at Reigate.
From 1872 to 1891 he was secretary and lecturer to the Manchester Peace and Arbitration Society, and lived at Sale, Cheshire. During this period he wrote articles for the ‘Manchester Examiner.’ In the winter of 1891 he became co-editor with W. E. Turner of the ‘British Friend,’ a monthly periodical first published at Glasgow in 1843.
Pollard was a successful minister among the Friends from 1865, and was an able exponent of the fundamental principles of quakerism in its quietist phase. A ‘Reasonable Faith, by Three Friends’ (W. Pollard, Francis Frith, and W. E. Turner), London, 1884 and 1886, was well received, though it met with some opposition from the more evangelical section of the society. His other works were: ‘Old-fashioned Quakerism: its Origin, Results, and Future. Four Lectures,’ London, 1887; the first lecture, on ‘Primitive Christianity,’ was reissued in ‘Religious Systems of the World,’ London, 1890. His ‘Primitive Christianity revived’ and ‘Congregational Worship’ were contributed to the ‘Old Banner’ series of quaker tracts, London, 1864–1866.
Pollard died on 26 Sept. 1893, and was buried in the Friends' burial-ground at Ashton-on-Mersey, Manchester. His wife, Lucy Binns of Sunderland, whom he married in 1854, survived him with five sons and three daughters.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pollexfen, John

1904 Errata appended.
​POLLEXFEN, JOHN (fl. 1697), merchant and economic writer, born about 1638, was younger son of Andrew Pollexfen of Stancombe, in the parish of Sherford, Devonshire, and was brother of Sir Henry Pollexfen [q. v.] He settled in the parish of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, London. A member of the committee of trade and plantations in 1675, and of the board of trade from 1696 to 1705, he exercised much influence. He agitated for withdrawing the privileges of the old East India Company, and establishing a new company on a national basis. In 1697 he published ‘A Discourse of Trade, Coyn, and Paper Credit, and of ways and means to gain and retain riches. To which is added the Argument of a Learned Counsel [Sir Henry Pollexfen] upon an Action of the Case brought by the East India Company against Mr. Sand[y]s, an Interloper,’ London, 8vo. In this important pamphlet Pollexfen treats labour as the sole source of wealth, and points out that national wealth depends on the proportion between ‘those that depend to have their riches and necessaries from the sweat and labour of others,’ and ‘those that labour to provide those things’ (p. 44). Like ​all free traders of the seventeenth century, he was equally opposed to monopoly and to ‘leaving trade to take its own course,’ but favourable to the state regulation of industry and commerce. His main object, however, was to attack the East India Company, and to urge the claims of the private traders. He discusses at length the ‘interlopers,’ particularly Captain Thomas Sandys, to whose enterprises he, together with other merchants, probably contributed, so that a test case might be submitted to the courts. When the company employed Charles Davenant to write ‘An Essay on the East India Trade,’ Pollexfen replied to him in ‘England and East India inconsistent in their Manufactures,’ &c., London, 1697, 8vo. A reply to this was published, with the title ‘Some Reflections on a Pamphlet, intituled England and East India,’ &c., London, 1696 (sic), 8vo. Pollexfen married, on 10 May 1670, at St. Mary Undershaft, Mary, daughter of Sir John Lawrence.
W. A. S. H.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.225 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 62 | ii | 21 f.e. | Pollexfen, John: after about 1638. insert He was second son of Andrew Pollexfen, of Stancombe, in the parish of Sherford, Devonshire, and was younger brother of Sir Henry Pollexfen [q. v.]. |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pollock, David

​POLLOCK, Sir DAVID (1780–1847), judge, eldest son of David Pollock, saddler, of Charing Cross, by Sarah Homera, daughter of Richard Parsons of London, receiver-general of customs, was of Scottish extraction, his grandfather, John Pollock, having been a native of Tweedmouth. Sir George Pollock [q. v.] and Sir Jonathan Frederick Pollock [q. v.] were his brothers. He was born in London on 2 Sept. 1780, and was educated at St. Paul's School and the university of Edinburgh, but did not graduate. On 28 Jan. 1803 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple. Pollock practised as a special pleader on the home circuit, at the Kent sessions, and in the insolvent debtors' court. He took silk in Hilary vacation 1833, was appointed recorder of Maidstone in 1838, and commissioner of the insolvent debtors' court in 1842.
By patent of 2 Sept. 1846 he was created a knight of the United Kingdom on succeeding Sir Henry Roper as chief justice of the supreme court of Bombay. where he was sworn in on 3 Nov. following, and died of liver complaint on 22 May 1847. His remains were interred in Bombay cathedral.
Pollock married, on 12 Dec. 1807, Elizabeth Gore, daughter of John Atkinson, by whom he had issue seven sons and a daughter. Lady Pollock died on 16 April 1841.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pollock, William Frederick

​POLLOCK, Sir WILLIAM FREDERICK (1815–1888), queen's remembrancer and author, eldest son of Sir Jonathan Frederick Pollock [q. v.] by his first wife, was born on 13 April 1815. He was educated under private tutors, at St. Paul's School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a scholarship in 1835, graduated B.A. in 1836, and proceeded M.A. in 1840. Although of junior standing to Tennyson, he was a member of the little society whose debates are celebrated in ‘In Memoriam’ (lxxxvi).
Pollock was called to the bar at the Inner Temple on 26 Jan. 1838, and went the northern circuit, in which he held for some years the post of revising barrister. He was appointed a master of the court of exchequer in 1846, and in 1874 to the ancient office of queen's remembrancer. On the fusion of the courts of law and equity in the supreme court of judicature (1875) the office of queen's remembrancer was annexed to the senior mastership, and continued to be held by Pollock until September 1886, when he resigned. He died at his residence in Montague Square on 24 Dec. 1888.
Pollock married, on 30 March 1844, Juliet, daughter of the Rev. Henry Creed, vicar of Corse, Gloucestershire; of his three sons, the eldest, Sir Frederick Pollock, bart., editor of the Law Reports, was Corpus professor of jurisprudence at Oxford (1883–1903).
Pollock was a man of liberal culture and rare social charm. His entertaining ‘Personal Remembrances,’ which he published in 1887, show how various were his accomplishments, and how numerous his friendships in the world of letters, science, and art. He was one of Macready's executors, and edited his ‘Reminiscences’ (London, 1876, 2 vols. 8vo). His portrait was painted by W. W. Ouless, R.A.
Pollock was author of ‘The Divine Comedy; or the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise of Dante rendered into English’ (in closely literal blank verse, with fine plates by Dalziel from drawings by George, afterwards Sir George, Scharf [q. v.], mostly after Flaxman), London, 1854, 8vo.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pollard-Urquhart, William

​POLLARD-URQUHART, WILLIAM (1815–1871), miscellaneous writer, eldest child of William Dutton Pollard (1789–1839), of Kinturk, Castlepollard, co. Westmeath, by his second wife, Louisa Anne, eldest daughter of Admiral Sir Thomas Pakenham, was born at Kinturk on 19 June 1815. He was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. as eighteenth wrangler in 1838, and M.A. in 1843. He kept his terms at the Inner Temple, but was never called to the bar. In 1840 he was gazetted high sheriff of Westmeath, and in 1846, on his marriage, took by royal license the additional name of Urquhart. He sat in parliament for Westmeath as a liberal from 1852 to 1857, and from 1859 to his death. ​He died at 19 Brunswick Terrace, Brighton, on 1 June 1871. He married, on 20 Aug. 1846, Mary Isabella, only daughter of William Urquhart of Craigston Castle, Aberdeenshire. The second son, Francis Edward Romulus Pollard Urquhart (b. 1848), became a major in the royal horse artillery in 1886.
Pollard-Urquhart was the author of: 1. ‘Agricultural Distress and its Remedies,’ Aberdeen, 1850. 2. ‘Essays on Subjects of Political Economy,’ 1850. 3. ‘The Substitution of Direct for Indirect Taxation necessary to carry out the Policy of Free Trade,’ 1851. 4. ‘Life and Times of Francisco Sforza, Duke of Milan,’ Edinburgh, 1852, 2 vols. (adversely criticised by the ‘Athenæum’). 5. ‘A short Account of the Prussian Land Credit Companies, with Suggestions for the Formation of a Land Credit Company in Ireland,’ Dublin, 1853. 6. ‘The Currency Question and the Bank Charter Committees of 1857 and 1858 reviewed. By an M.P.,’ 1860. 7. ‘Dialogues on Taxation, local and imperial,’ 1867.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pollexfen, Henry

​POLLEXFEN, Sir HENRY (1632?–1691), judge, born about 1632, was eldest son of Andrew Pollexfen of Stancombe, in the parish of Sherford, Devonshire. John Pollexfen [q. v.] was a brother. Called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1658, he became a bencher of his inn in 1674. His practice was soon extensive; known as a prominent whig, he appeared frequently for the defence in state trials. During the reigns of Charles II and James II he was counsel for Lord Arundel of Wardour on the trial of the ‘Five Popish Lords’ in 1680, for Colledge in 1681, for Fitzharris in the same year, for William Sacheverell in 1684, for the corporation of London in defence of its charter in 1682 (Burnet, folio ed. i. 532, 533, gives Pollexfen's argument in this case as communicated by himself), and for Sandys when sued for infringing the monopoly of the East India Company in 1684. He had earned the reputation of being an antagonist of the court and crown. Consequently his appearance as prosecutor for the crown, on the nomination of Chief-justice Jeffreys, against Monmouth's followers, and particularly Lady Alice Lisle, in 1685 at the assizes in the west, caused some surprise and gained him much unpopularity. The fact is probably explained by his being leader of the circuit, and he merely laid the evidence before the court (State Trials, xi. 316). In June 1688 he was employed in his accustomed kind of practice when, with Somers, for whose assistance he stipulated, he defended the seven bishops (ib. xii. 370). Upon the Revolution he was well known to be an adherent of the Prince of Orange, and to hold the opinion that the throne was left vacant by the late king (see Speaker Onslow's note to Burnet, ed. 1823, iii. 341; and Clarendon, Diary, 14 Dec. 1688). He was accordingly among those summoned by the peers to advise them in the emergency, and also sat for Exeter in the Convention parliament. In February 1689 he was knighted and appointed attorney-general, and on 4 May promoted to be chief justice of the common pleas. Next month he was summoned before the House of Lords for expelling the Duke of Grafton from the treasury office of the common pleas granted to him by the crown. As a judge he scarcely increased his fame. His reports, which begin in 1670 and were posthumously published, are inferior; and Burnet (fol. ed. i. 460, 8vo, ii. 209) describes him as ‘an honest and learned, but perplexed lawyer.’ On 15 June 1691 he died at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was buried in Woodbury in Devonshire. Two engraved portraits by W. Elder and J. Savage are mentioned by Bromley.
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Hartagain, Cineth

Cináed ua hArtacáin in the ODNB.
​O'HARTAGAIN, CINETH (d. 975), Irish poet, was a native of the north of Ireland, and his death is recorded by Tighearnach under the year 975. A poem on the former grandeur and present desolation of Tara, beginning 'Domhan duthain alainne' ('Transitory, beautiful World'), is attributed to him in the 'Leabhar Gabhala' of the O'Clerys. Several long poems ascribed to him occur in the 'Dinnsenchus,' a work which relates the legendary history of the duns, lakes, plains, mountains, and other topographical features of Ireland. It gives a prose account of each place, followed by an account in verse.
[Book of Leinster, facsimile; Book of Ballymote, photograph; Transactions of Iberno-Celtic Society, Dublin, 1820.]
N. M.