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

1904 Errata appended.
​ARNOT, HUGO (1749–1786), historical writer, was son of a merchant at Leith, where he was born 8 Dec. 1749. He changed his name from Pollock to Arnot on succeeding to his mother's property of Balcormo, Fifeshire. He became an advocate 5 Dec. 1772. In 1777 he published a satirical paper, called an 'Essay on Nothing,' read before the Speculative Society, and made himself unpopular by his sarcasms. In 1779 he published his 'History of Edinburgh' (a second edition appeared in 1817), and in 1785 a 'Collection of Celebrated Criminal Trials in Scotland.' Both works were pirated in Ireland. He published the second at his own expense in defiance of the Edinburgh booksellers, and the gross proceeds were 600l. His books show reading and shrewdness. He became prematurely old from asthma, and his irritability and caustic language hindered his success at the bar. Many anecdotes are told of his eccentricity. He wrote many papers on local politics, opposed local taxation, and is said to have retarded for ten years the erection of the South Bridge in Edinburgh. He died 20 Nov. 1786, and left eight children. He was a favourite subject with John Kay, the Edinburgh caricaturist, who took full advantage of the extreme slimness of his figure.
[Kay's Edinburgh Portraits, with biographic sketches, Nos. v, viii, lxvi, cxxxii, and pp. 16, 25, 157, 324, ed. 1877; Anderson's Scottish Nation.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.8 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 119 | ii | 29 | Arnot, Hugo: for 1777 read 1776 |
| | | 35 | for 1817 read 1816 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Arnott, George Arnott Walker

1904 Errata appended.
​ARNOTT, GEORGE ARNOTT WALKER (1799–1868), botanist, was born at Edinburgh, 6 Feb. 1799. His early years were spent at Edenshead and Arlary, on the borders of Fife and Kinross; in 1807 he went to Edinburgh, entering the university in 1813, where he took his A.M. degree in 1818. He studied for the law, and was admitted to the faculty of advocates in 1821; but the profession was uninteresting to him, and he soon abandoned it. His attention some three or four years previously had been turned to botany, and to this study he now devoted himself, becoming acquainted with Wight and Greville, and a little later with Dr. (afterwards Sir William) Hooker. In 1821 he went to France, where he worked in the Paris herbaria, and published two papers on mosses. He afterwards visited Spain and Russia, and, on his return to Scotland, married in 1831 Miss Mary Hay Barclay, of Paris, Perthshire. From 1830 to 1840 he was engaged with Sir William Hooker upon an account of the plants collected in Captain Beechey's voyage to the Pacific and Behring's Straits, which formed a quarto volume published in 1841. During these ten years he was very active in publishing descriptions of new plants from South America, India, and Senegambia, in various periodicals; he co-operated with Wight in his 'Illustrations of Indian Botany,' and in the 'Prodromus Floræ peninsulæ Indiæ Orientalis.' In 1839 he temporarily took Dr. ​Hooker's place as botanical lecturer at Glasgow, and in 1845 was appointed professor of botany in that university, leaving Arlary in 1846, and taking up his residence in Glasgow. In 1850 he was associated with Sir William Hooker in the sixth edition of the 'British Flora.' About this time he took up the study of Diatoms, of which he formed a large and valuable collection, publishing several memoirs on the subject. In 1868 his health, which had previously begun to fail, gave way, and the delivery of his university course had to be abandoned. Jaundice set in, and he died on 17 April 1868, and was buried in the Lighthill cemetery, Glasgow, He left three sons and five daughters. His large collections subsequently became the property of the university of Glasgow. He was a good correspondent, an esteemed professor, an accurate observer, and a zealous worker.
J. B.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.9 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 121 | i | 15 | Arnott, George A. W.: for Lighthill cemetery read Sighthill cemetery |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Arnold, William Delafield

​ARNOLD, WILLIAM DELAFIELD (1828–1859), Anglo-Indian official and novelist, the second son of Thomas Arnold, D.D., was born at Laleham, 7 April 1828, and was educated at Rugby. He was elected a student of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1847, and in the following year proceeded to India as ensign in the 58th regiment of native infantry. He soon became an assistant commissioner in the Punjab, and in 1856 was appointed by Sir John Lawrence director of public instruction. The department was new, and its organisation fell entirely upon Arnold, who, after much invaluable service, was obliged to quit India on sick leave, and died at Gibraltar on his way home, 9 April, 1859. His wife, Frances Anne, daughter of Major-general Hodgson, had died shortly before in India. Their joint memories are celebrated by his brother Matthew in 'A Southern Night,' one of the most beautiful memorial poems in our language. Arnold's name is further perpetuated by an annual distribution of medals, bearing his likeness, to the best pupils in the schools which he founded, provided from a fund subscribed by his fellow-workers in the Punjab. He is the author of 'Oakfield, or Fellowship in the Fast,' a novel in two volumes, published in 1853 under the pseudonym of 'Punjabee.' It depicts the struggles of a young officer of exceptional culture and seriousness to elevate the low tone of the military society about him, and the trials and problems forced upon him by this peculiar form of quixotism. It is well written and deeply interesting, imbued in every line with the spirit of the author's illustrious father; but, as is usually the case when the ethical element largely predominates, is open to the charge of insufficient sympathy with types of character alien from the writer's own. He also translated Wiese's 'Letters on English Education' (1854), and published in 1855 four lectures, treating respectively of the Palace of Westminster, the English in India, Caste, and the Discovery of America.
[Prospective Review, x. 274-303; information from Miss Frances Arnold.]
R. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Arnold, Thomas James

1904 Errata appended.
​ARNOLD, THOMAS JAMES (1804?–1877), barrister and man of letters, was the son of Stephen James Arnold, and was born about 1804. He was called to the bar in 1829, was appointed magistrate at the Worship Street police-court in 1847, and transferred to the Westminster court in 1851. He died, still holding this appointment, on 19 May 1877, being then senior London police magistrate. He wrote legal manuals on the law of municipal corporations, the labour laws, and other subjects. As a translator he is known by his versions of Goethe's 'Reineke Fuchs' (1860), of 'Faust' (1877), and of Anacreon (1869). The translation of 'Reineke Fuchs' is a very creditable work; that of 'Faust' is respectable, but inferior to some other recent versions, and, having been published in folio form as an accompaniment to a volume of illustrations, is but little known. The translator of Anacreon has only the alternative of baldness or infidelity, and Mr. Arnold chose the former. He also translated Schiller's 'Song of the Bell,' and wrote an able review of the controversy respecting Mr. Collier's annotated Shakespeare folio in 'Fraser's ​Magazine' for January 1860, This was to have been continued, but the sequel never appeared. He was a man of great culture and accomplishments, an intimate friend of Shelley's friend, Thomas Love Peacock, and the son-in-law of Shelley's biographer, Thomas Jefferson Hogg.
[Annual Register, 1877; private information.]
R. G.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.8 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 117 | ii | 36 | Arnold, Thomas J.: for Stephen read Samuel |
| 118 | i | 1-3 | omit This was . . . . appeared |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burgess, Richard

​BURGESS, RICHARD (1796–1881), biblical scholar, was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated, and was ordained deacon in 1820, priest 1823, by Dr. Vernon-Harcourt, archbishop of York. In 1828 he was domestic chaplain to Lord Aylmer, and chaplain to the English residents at Geneva. In 1831 he became chaplain to a Church of England congregation at Rome. He was made rector of Upper Chelsea in 1836. He continued his incumbency for twenty-five years. In 1861 a testimonial worth 1,200l. was presented to him by his parishioners and friends. Mr. Gladstone, on behalf of the crown, presented him in 1869 to the rectory of Horningsheath-with-Ickworth, near Bury St. Edmunds, and the prebendal stall of Tottenhall in St. Paul's Cathedral was conferred upon him in 1850. He died on 12 April 1881 at Brighton, aged 85. Burgess was honorary secretary to the Foreign Aid Society, honorary member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, corresponding member of the Pontifical Archæological Academy at Rome, and for eight years the honorary secretary to the London Diocesan Board of Education. He was deeply interested in the subject of national education, and wrote several pieces on national schools, school teachers, education by rates or taxes, besides letters to Sir James Graham, Sir George Grey, Dr. Hook, the Bishop of London, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, on kindred subjects. He was a voluminous writer. In addition to a variety of sermons, his chief works are:
* 'Description of the Circus on the Via Appia near Rome, with some account of the Circensian Games,' Lond. 1828, translated into Italian in 1829 by Giuseppe Porta.
* 'The Topography and Antiquities of Rome, including the recent discoveries made about the Forum and the Via Sacra,' 2 vols. Lond. 1831.
* 'Lectures on the Insufficiency of Unrevealed Religion, and on the succeeding influence of Christianity, delivered in the English Chapel at Rome,' Lond. 1832.
* 'Greece and the Levant, or Diary of a Summer's Excursion,' 2 vols. Lond. 1835.
* 'An Enquiry into the state of the Church of England Congregations in France, Belgium, and Switzerland,' Lond. 1850.
* 'Sermons for the Times,' ​Lond. 1851.
* ‘The Confessional,’ Lond. 1852.
* ‘Constantinople, and Greek Christianity,’ Lond. 1855.
* ‘A City for the Pope, or the Solution of the Roman Question,’ Lond. 1800.
[Cooper's Men of the Time (10th edit); Brit. Mus. Cat.; Times, 19 April 1881.]
J. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burgess, Thomas (1784?-1807)

​BURGESS, THOMAS (1784?–1807), painter, a son of William Burgess (d. 1812) [q. v.], and grandson of Thomas Burgess (fl. 1786) [q. v.], made his first appearance at the Royal Academy in 1802, when he contributed 'Market Gardener's House at Walham Green.’ In 1803 he exhibited ‘Landscape and Flowers;’ in 1804, ‘Ruins of a Fire in Soho;’ and in 1805 and 1806, ‘Derbyshire and Devonshire Views.’ Of a delicate constitution, he was attacked with consumption, and died at his father’s house in Sloane Square, Chelsea, on Nov. 1807, aged 23, an artist of great promise.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists. 1878, p. 62; Gent. Mag. lxxvii. ii. 1177.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burgess, Thomas (fl.1786)

​BURGESS, THOMAS (fl. 1786), painter, received his art education at the St. Martin's Lane academy, and on becoming in 1766 a member of the Incoporated Society of Artists, sent to its exhibitions numerous portraits, conversation-pieces, and studies of various life. In 1778, when living in Kemp’s Row, Chelsea, he was represented for the first time at the Royal Academy by three pictures, ‘William the Conqueror dismounted by his eldest Son,’ ‘Hannibal swearing Enmity to the Romans,’ and ‘Our Saviour.s Appearance to Mary Magdalen.’ He afterwards exhibited a portrait of himself and some landscapes. In 1786 appeared ‘The Death of Athelwold,’ his last contribution to the Academy. As a teacher Burgess attained a high reputation, and for some time kept a drawing school in Maiden Lane which had considerable success.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists (1878), p. 62.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burgess, William (1749?-1812)

​BURGESS, WILLIAM (1749?–1812), painter, son of Thomas Burgess (fl. 1786) [q. v.], achieved his first success as early as 1761, when he was awarded a premium by the Society of Arts. ‘He exhibited portraits ​and conversation-pieces with the free Society of Artists in 1769 and 1771, and at the Royal Academy, commencing in 1774, portraits in chalk, small whole-lengths, groups, “Gipsy Boy and Girl,” and occasionally landscape views. He last exhibited in 1799.' Like his father, he was probably better known as a successful teacher of drawing, in which occupation he made more money than by his pictures. Burgess died in Sloane Square, Chelsea, on 12 May 1812, at the age of 63. He was the father of H. W. Burgess, landscape-painter to William IV.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists (1878), p. 62; Gent. Mag. lxxxii. i. 50l.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burgess, John Cart

​BURGESS, JOHN CART (1798–1863), flower and landscape painter, born in 1798, was a grandson of the portrait-painter, William Burgess (d. 1812) [q. v.]. He commenced the profession as a painter of flowers and fruit in water-colours, and first exhibited at the Royal Academy three flower pieces in 1812; at that time residing at 46 Sloane Square, Chelsea. He also exhibited in Suffolk Street and at the British Institution. His works were much admired, and in brilliancy and beauty of execution rivalled those of Van Huysum. Marrying at the age of twenty-seven, the requirements of a growing family compelled him to relinquish painting for the more lucrative occupation of teaching, and for many years he held a prominent position as a master. Among his pupils he numbered several members of the royal family. Burgess died at the residence of his son, Mr. John Burgess, Leamington, on 20 Feb. 1863. In 1811 he published a book on flower-painting and a treatise on perspective which has gone through several editions. Two studies by him are in the British Museum.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists (1878).]
L. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burgess, Thomas (1791-1854)

​BURGESS, THOMAS, D.D. (1791–1854), catholic prelate, was born in Lancashire 1 Oct. 1791, and educated at Ampleforth, where he became a professed monk of the order of St. Benedict 13 Oct. 1807. In 1830 he was secularised, and in conjunction with Father Edward Metcalfe he endeavoured to raise up a new collegiate establishment at Prior Park, near Bath. After he had stayed there some time Bishop Baines transferred him to Cannington, then appointed him to the charge of Portland Chapel, Bath (1832), and finally ordered him to Monmouth. On the resignation of Dr. Hendren, the first bishop of Clifton, Burgess was elected to 'succeed him, and was consecrated 27 July 1851. His death occurred at Westbury-on-Trym 27 Nov. 1854.
[Tablet, December 1854, pp. 760, 773, 788; Catholic Directory (1854), 77 ; Gent. Mag. new ser. xliii. 109; O1iver‘s Catholic Religion in Cornwall, 255.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brailsford, John (d.1775)

​BRAILSFORD, JOHN, the younger (d. 1775), divine, after completing his education at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (B.A. 1744, M.A. 1766), was appointed in 1766 to the head-mastership of the free school at Birmingham, which situation he held till his death on 25 Nov. 1775. He was also vicar of North Wheatley, Nottinghamshire, and chaplain to Francis, lord Middleton. He published 'The Nature and Efficacy of the Fear of God,' an assize sermon preached at Warwick (London, 1761, 4to); and an octavo volume, containing 'Thirteen Sermons on various Subjects' by him, was published at Birmingham the year after his death.
[Carlisle's Endowed Grammar Schools, ii. 639; Graduati Cantab. (1823), 59; Cooke's Preacher's Assistant (1783), ii. 51.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Braithwaite, John (d.1818)

​BRAITHWAITE, JOHN, the elder (d. 1818), engineer, is best known as the constructor of one of the earliest successful forms of diving-bell. In 1783 he descended in one of his own construction into the wreck of the Royal George, which had gone down off Spithead in the August of the previous year, and recovered her sheet anchor and many of her guns. In the same year, and by the same means, he recovered a number of guns sunk in the Spanish flotilla off Gibraltar, In 1788 again he made a descent to the wreck of the Hartwell, an East Indiaman, lost off Bonavista, one of the Cape de Verd islands, and recovered dollars to the value of 38,000l., 7,000 pigs of lead, and 360 boxes of tin. In 1806 he raised from the Abergavenny, an East Indiaman, lost off Portland, 75,000l. worth of dollars, a quantity of tin, and other property to the value of 30,000l., and successfully blew up the wreck with gunpowder. For these purposes, in addition to perfecting the actual diving apparatus, he devised machinery for sawing ships asunder under water. His ancestors had carried on a small engineers' shop at St. Albans since 1695. His own engineering works were in the New Road, London. Braithwaite died in June 1818 at Westbourne Green from the effects of a stroke of paralysis. His business was afterwards carried on by his two sons, Francis and John. The latter is noticed below.
[Gent. Mag. 1818, pt. i. 644.]
R. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Braidwood, James

​BRAIDWOOD, JAMES (1800–1861), superintendent of the London fire-brigade, was born at Edinburgh in the year 1800, and was the son of a respectable tradesman in that city. He was educated at the High School, and afterwards he followed the building trade. In 1824 he joined the police, and, having been appointed superintendent of fire-engines in Edinburgh, he at once set to work to organise efficient fire-brigade.
Nor was it too soon; for in that year Edinburgh was visited by a terrible conflagration, which destroyed a great part of the High Street and the steeple of the Tron Church. At this fire his coolness, determination, and daring were conspicuously shown: an ironmonger's shop was in flames, and Braidwood, hearing there was gunpowder on the premises, entered, and at the utmost personal risk to himself carried out first one and then another barrel of powder.
In 1830 he published a pamphlet 'On the Construction of Fire-engines and Apparatus, the Training of Firemen, and the Method of Proceeding in Cases of Fire.' This little work brought him into more than local notoriety, and eventually led to his appointment, in 1832, as superintendent of the London Fire-engine Establishment, then supported by the different insurance companies. On leaving Edinburgh the firemen gave him a gold watch, and the committee made him a present of a valuable piece of plate.
In London he had but the very small force of 120 men under him; yet, by his activity, energy, and perseverance, he kept the fires which occurred in the metropolis in very fair subjection. He fell a victim to his duty on 22 June 1861, while endeavouring to subdue a huge conflagration at Cotton's Wharf and Depot, Tooley Street, London Bridge, where he was crushed by a falling wall, and buried in the ruins. His body, terribly mutilated, was recovered two days afterwards, and he was buried at Abney Park Cemetery on 29 June.
He was for nearly thirty years an associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers, and to that learned body, as well as to the Society of Arts, be read many papers connected with the prevention and extinction of fires.
[Gent. Mag. 1861. p. 212.]
J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Braithwaite, John (1700?-1768?)

​BRAITHWAITE, JOHN (1700?–1768?), was the author of 'The History of the Revolution in the Empire of Morocco upon the Death of the late Emperor Muley Ishmael,' a spirited work which was published in 1729, and translated into Dutch 1729, German 1730, and French (Amsterdam) 1731. In his preface Braithwaite describes himself as being in the service of the African Company, and as having, when very young, served in the fleet in Anne's reign, and then having been a lieutenant in the Welsh fusiliers, ensign in the royal guards, and secretary to his kinsman Christian Cole, British resident at Venice, with whom he travelled through Europe. He also states that he was in the Santa Lucia and St. Vincent expeditions, and was present at the siege of Gibraltar (1727). Thence he crossed to Morocco and joined the British consul-general, John Russel, in his expedition in the emperor's dominions, the experiences of which he relates in his book. The diary of the narrative extends from July 1727 to February 1728. A Captain Braithwaite is mentioned in the 'London Gazette' as being appointed in 1749 to command the Peggy sloop, and again in 1761 as commanding the Shannon; and in February 1768 John Braithwaite was 'removed' from the post of secretary to the governor of Gibraltar; but the connection of these notices with the subject of this article is merely conjectural.
[Gent. Mag. for 1749, 1761, and 1768.]
S. L-P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Braham, Robert

​BRAHAM, ROBERT (fl. 1555), edited in 1555 'The Auncient Historic and onely trewe and syncere Cronicle of the warres ​betwixte the Grecians and the Troyans … translated into Englyshe verse by J. Lydgate,' Thomas Marshe, London, 1555, folio. Lydgate's work had already appeared in print under the title of 'The hystory, sege, and dystruccyen of Troy ' (1513). Braham prefixes a preface of very high interest. He criticises adversely Caxton's uncritical 'Recueil des Histoires de Troye;' speaks in high praise of William Thynne, who had recovered the works of Chaucer; and desired to emulate Thynne's example with respect to Lydgate. Braham condemns severely the carelessness of the printers of the first edition of Lydgate's 'Troy,' and charges them with a fatal ignorance of English. Braham's edition is a well-printed black-letter folio.
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Braidley, Benjamin

​BRAIDLEY, BENJAMIN (1792–1845), writer on Sunday schools, the son of Benjamin Braidley, a farmer, was born at Sedgefield, Durham, on 19 Aug. 1792. He was apprenticed to a firm of linen importers in Manchester, and in 1813 first became an active worker in the Bennett Street Sunday schools. In 1815, 1,635 pupils received prizes for regular attendance, and in 1816, 2,020 scholars were on the rolls of the schools. In 1830 Braidley was constable, and in 1831 and 1832 boroughreeve of Manchester. He was also high constable of the hundred of Salford. In 1835 he was twice the unsuccessful candidate in the conservative interest for the parliamentary representation of Manchester. Braidley visited America in 1837, and his diary during his visit shows his great interest in education, the slavery question, and religion, as regarded from an evangelical standpoint. He was a commission agent, and became wealthy; but by the failure of the Northern and Central Bank he lost the greater part of his fortune. Braidley was the author of ‘Sunday School Memorials,’ Manchester, 1831, 12mo, which contains short biographies of persons connected with the Bennett Street Sunday schools. This work, some portions of which first appeared in the ‘Christian Guardian,’ has passed through four editions, the last of which, greatly enlarged, was published in 1880, under the title of ‘Bennett Street Memorials.’ Braidley also contributed to the ‘Shepherd's Voice,’ a religious magazine, and wrote several tracts in a local controversy as to the doctrines of the church of Rome. He died of apoplexy 3 April 1845. He was unmarried.
[Memoir of Benjamin Braidley, Esq. (by William Harper), 1845, 12mo, contains extracts from his diary; Bennett Street Memorials, 1880, containing a portrait of Braidley, with a memoir by the Rev. Henry Taylor.]
E. C. A. A.