OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walker, John (1770-1831)

​WALKER, JOHN (1770–1831), antiquary, son of John Walker of London, was baptised at the church of St. Katherine Cree on 18 Feb. 1770, and was elected scholar at Winchester in 1783. He matriculated from Brasenose College on 14 Jan. 1788, graduating B.C.L. in 1797. In the same year he was elected fellow of New College, retaining his fellowship till 1820. He also filled the posts of librarian and of dean of canon law. In 1809 he published a 'Selection of Curious Articles from the "Gentleman's Magazine"' (London, 8vo) in three volumes. This undertaking had been ​suggested by Gibbon to the editor, John Nichols, some time before, but Nichols could not find leisure for the task (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. viii. 557; Lit. Illustr. vol. viii. p. xi). Walker accomplished it with great judgment, and was rewarded by the sale of a thousand copies in a few months. A second edition, with an additional volume, appeared in 1811; and a third, also in four volumes, in 1814.
Walker made valuable researches in the archives of the Bodleian Library and of other university collections. In 1809 he brought out ‘Oxoniana’ (London, 4 vols. 12mo), consisting of selections from books and manuscripts in the Bodleian relating to university matters. This was followed in 1813 by ‘Letters written by Eminent Persons, from the Originals in the Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Museum’ (London, 2 vols. 8vo). Both are works of value, and have been largely used by succeeding writers. Walker was one of the original proprietors of the ‘Oxford Herald,’ and for several years assisted in the editorial work.
In 1819 Walker was presented by the warden and fellows of New College to the vicarage of Hornchurch in Essex, and resided there during the rest of his life. He died at the vicarage on 5 April 1831.
Besides the works mentioned, he was the author of ‘Curia Oxoniensis; or Observations on the Statutes which relate to the University Court’ (3rd edit. Oxford, 1826, 8vo). He was the first editor of the ‘Oxford University Calendar,’ first published in 1810. An ‘auction catalogue of his library’ was published in 1831 (London, 8vo).
[Gent. Mag. 1831, i. 474; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Allibone's Dict. of English Lit.; Macray's Annals of the Bodleian Library, 1890.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walker, John (1781?-1859)

​WALKER, JOHN (1781?–1859), inventor of friction matches, was born at Stockton-on-Tees in 1780 or 1781. He was articled to Watson Alcock, the principal surgeon of the town, and served him as assistant-surgeon. He had, however, an insurmountable aversion from surgical operations, and in consequence turned his attention to chemistry. After studying at Durham and York, he set up a small business as chemist and druggist at 59 High Street, ​Stockton, about 1818. He was a tolerable chemist, and was especially interested in searching for a means of obtaining fire easily. Several chemical mixtures were known which would ignite by a sudden explosion, but it had not been found possible to transmit the flame to a slow-burning substance like wood. While Walker was preparing a lighting mixture on one occasion, a match which had been dipped in it took fire by an accidental friction upon the hearth. He at once appreciated the practical value of the discovery, and commenced making friction matches. They consisted of wooden splints or sticks of cardboard coated with sulphur and tipped with a mixture of sulphide of antimony, chlorate of potash, and gum, the sulphur serving to communicate the flame to the wood. The price of a box containing fifty was one shilling. With each box was supplied a piece of sandpaper, folded double, through which the match had to be drawn to ignite it. Two and a half years after Walker's invention was made public Isaac Holden arrived, independently, at the same idea of coating wooden splinters with sulphur. The exact date of his discovery, according to his own statement, was October 1829. Previously to this date Walker's sales-book contains an account of no fewer than two hundred and fifty sales of friction matches, the first entry bearing the date 7 April 1827. He refused to patent his invention, considering it too trivial. Notwithstanding, he made a sufficient fortune from it to enable him to retire from business. He died at Stockton on 1 May 1859.
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walker, John (d.1588)

​WALKER, JOHN, D.D. (d. 1588), archdeacon of Essex, graduated from Cambridge, B.A. in 1547, B.D. in 1563, and D.D. in 1569. He was presented to the small living of Alderton, Suffolk, and at some time was a noted preacher at Ipswich. In February 1563 he attended convocation as proctor for the clergy of Suffolk. In this capacity he voted in favour of the six articles for reforming rites and ceremonies, and signed the petition of the lower house for improved discipline. In 1564 he was licensed to be parish chaplain in St. Peter's, Norwich. Here his gift of preaching was so much admired that Matthew Parker, finding in 1568 that Walker was about to return to Alderton to avoid an information for non-residence, suggested that one of the prebendaries named Smythe, 'a mere lay body,' should resign in Walker's favour, who else 'might go and leave the city desolate.' Parker also appealed to Lord-chancellor Bacon, as did the Duke of Norfolk, with the result that, after some delay, Walker was installed a canon of Norwich on 20 Dec. 1569. In September of the following year Walker and some other puritan prebendaries protested against the ornaments in Norwich Cathedral. He was cited, it appears, to Lambeth in 1571 in consequence of his puritanism, but was collated to the archdeaconry of Essex on 10 July 1571, to the rectory of Laindon-cum-Basildon, Essex, on 12 Nov. 1573, and on 14 Aug. 1575 was installed prebendary of Mora in St. Paul's Cathedral.
Bishop Aylmer summoned Walker in 1578 to elect sixty of the clergy to be visitors during the prevalence of the plague. In 1581 he was prominent in the conviction of Robert Wright, Lord Rich's chaplain, who because of his ordination at Antwerp was refused a license by the bishop; and on 27 Sept. of the same year he assisted William Charke at a conference in the Tower with Edmund Campion [q. v.], the Jesuit. The fourth day's dispute was chiefly in Walker's hands (cf. A Remembrance of the Conference had in the Tower betwixt M. D. Walker [sic] and M. William Charke, Opponents, and Edmund Campion, 1583, 4to). Bishop Aylmer also employed him to collect materials for a work in refutation of Campion's 'Decem Rationes,' and in 1582 appointed him to confer with captured catholic priests. He preached at Aylmer's visitation on 21 June 1583, but resigned the archdeaconry about August 1585, and died before 12 Dec.1588, on which date the prebend in St. Paul's was declared vacant by his death.
Walker wrote a dedicatory epistle to 'Certaine Godlie Homilies or Sermons,' translated by Robert Norton from Rodolph Gualter, London, 1573, 8vo.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Dowse, Richard

​DOWSE, RICHARD (1824–1890), Irish judge, son of William Henry Dowse of Dungannon, by Maria, daughter of Hugh Donaldson of the same town, was born in Dungannon on 8 June 1824, and received his early education in the royal school there. In 1845 he entered Trinity College, obtaining a sizarship, and, gaining the distinction of a classical scholarship in 1848, graduated with honours in 1849. In 1852 Dowse was called to the Irish bar. Joining the north-west circuit, he early displayed marked forensic ability, and in 1863 became a queen's counsel. In 1869 he was appointed one of the queen's serjeants-at-law, and in the same year was elected a bencher of the King's Inns. A liberal in politics, Dowse was a successful candidate for the parliamentary representation of Londonderry city (18 Nov. 1868), and, taking his seat as a supporter of Gladstone's Irish Church Act, he was appointed in February 1870 solicitor-general for Ireland, being re-elected for Londonderry on 15 Feb. In the House of Commons, where the prominence of Irish questions during his career in it gave him exceptional opportunities, Dowse quickly obtained a high reputation both for ability and wit, his speeches being marked by a racy humour, joined to a keen incisiveness, which made him a very effective parliamentary debater. In January 1872 Dowse became attorney-general for Ireland in succession to Charles Robert Barry (1834–1897), raised to the bench, and was appointed a member of the Irish privy council; but in November of the same year his parliamentary career was closed by his acceptance of the office of a baron of the Irish court of exchequer, a title which Dowse was the last among Irish judges to accept. He remained a member of the Irish bench until his death, which occurred suddenly in the court-house at Tralee, where he was sitting as judge of assize, on 14 March 1890. His career as a judge was not one of special distinction, nor did Dowse ever attain the reputation of a lawyer of the first rank; but his judgments were marked by sound common sense and breadth of view, and pointed by his always ready wit.
Dowse was a visitor of the Queen's College, Galway, and was twice appointed a lord justice for the government of Ireland in the absence of the viceroy.
He married, on 29 Dec. 1852, Catherine, daughter of George Moore of Clones, co. Monaghan, who died in 1874.
[Private information; Todd's Graduates of Dublin University; Official Return of Members of Parl.; Haydn's Book of Dignities, ed. Ockerby.]
C. L. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Doyle, Henry Edward

​DOYLE, HENRY EDWARD (1827–1892), director of the National Gallery of Ireland, born in 1827, was third son of John Doyle [q. v.], 'H. B.' the well-known political cartoonist, and brother of Richard, better known as 'Dick,' Doyle [q. v.], and of James William Edmund Doyle [q. v. Suppl.] A Roman catholic by religion, Henry Doyle was appointed, through the influence of Cardinal Wiseman, commissioner for the Papal States to the London International Exhibition of 1862, when he received the order of 'Pio Nono' in recognition of his services. He was art superintendent for the Dublin exhibition three years later; between 1865 and 1869 he was honorary secretary to the National Portrait Gallery and one of the committee for the three special portrait exhibitions held at South Kensington in 1866-8. In 1869 he was appointed director of the National Gallery of Ireland, in succession to George Mulvany. Early in life Doyle had studied art practically, but never attained any great proficiency. For some time, however, he was political cartoonist to 'Fun,' and never entirely abandoned his pencil. A good many portraits by him are in existence, including two 'Cardinal Wiseman' and 'Richard Doyle' in the Irish National Gallery. Most of these are in a mixture of pencil and water-colour.
Doyle was created a C.B. in 1880, and a J.P. for Wicklow in 1884. He married in 1866 Jane, daughter of Nicholas Ball [q. v.]
He died suddenly on 17 Feb. 1892. During his twenty-three years' incumbency of the directorship of the Irish National Gallery, he raised that collection from insignificance to a more than respectable place among the minor galleries of Europe, and that in spite of extreme parsimony on the part of the treasury.
[Times, 20 Feb. 1892; Men of the Time, ed. 1891; private information.]
W. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Douglas, John Sholto

​DOUGLAS, Sir JOHN SHOLTO, eighth Marquis of Queensbury (1844–1900), eldest son of Archibald William Douglas (1818–1858), seventh marquis, who married on 2 June 1840 Caroline Margaret, younger daughter of General Sir William Robert Clayton, bart., was born on 20 July 1844, and succeeded his father as eighth marquis in 1858. He served in the navy for five years (1859–64) and held a commission in. the first Dumfriesshire volunteers. From 1872 until 1880 he sat as a representative peer for Scotland, but he was not re-elected in 1880. Except in this capacity his public acts were of a strictly unofficial character. He became somewhat notorious as a supporter of Charles Bradlaugh [q. v. Suppl.] and secularism, and at the Globe Theatre on 14 Nov. 1882 he rose in the stalls and denounced Tennyson's 'imaginary free-thinker' in the 'Promise of May' as an 'abominable caricature.' The marquis became even more notorious in 1895, when he was charged at Marlborough Street police-court with publishing a defamatory libel on Oscar Wilde [q. v. Suppl.], and on taking his trial at the central criminal court was acquitted (5 April) on the grounds that the 'libel' was justifiable and was published 'for the public benefit.'
Queensberry is best remembered as a patron of boxing. When the prizerring fell into final disrepute in England about 1860, the Amateur Athletic Club was founded by John Chambers, whom Queensberry supported, with a view to encourage boxing contests. Handsome challenge cups were offered by Queensberry, and in 1867 a body of special rules was drawn up under his supervision, which have since borne the name of 'Queensberry rules.' In 1881 Queensberry published a meditation in blank verse entitled 'The Spirit of the Matterhorn.' He died in London on 31 Jan. 1900, and his remains after cremation were buried in the family burying place at Kinmount, Dumfriesshire, on 3 Feb. 1900. He married, first, on 26 Feb. 1866, Sibyl (who divorced him on 22 Jan. 1887), younger daughter of Alfred Montgomery, and had issue four sons and one daughter. He married, secondly, on 7 Nov. 1893 Ethel, daughter of Edward Charles Weedon of Exeter (marriage annulled 1894). He was succeeded as ninth marquis by his eldest surviving son, Percy Sholto Douglas.
His elder son, Francis Archibald Douglas, called Viscount Drumlanrig (1867–1894), lord-in-waiting to the queen (1892–4), acted as assistant private secretary to Lord Rosebery when the latter became foreign secretary in Gladstone's 1892 ministry. In order ​that he might be able to sit in the House of Lords with his chief he was created a peer of the United Kingdom on 22 June 1893, and took his seat in the House of Lords (from which his father, after 1880, was excluded) as Baron Kelhead.
[Times, 1, 5, and 7 Feb. 1900, and April and May 1895, passim; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; Burke's Peerage; Archer's About the Theatre, 1886, p. 85; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Dowell, Stephen

​DOWELL, STEPHEN (1833–1898), legal and historical writer, born at Shorwell in the Isle of Wight on 1 May 1833, was the eldest son of Stephen Wilkinson Dowell (1802–1870), rector of Mottiston and Shorwell, and from 1848 till his death vicar of Gosfield, Essex; his mother was Julia, daughter of Thomas Beasley of Seafield, co. Dublin. He was educated at Cheltenham College and Highgate school, whence he proceeded to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, matriculating on 7 June 1851. He graduated B.A. in 1855 and M.A. in 1872. In 1855 he was articled to R. Bray, a solicitor of 99 Great Russell Street, W.C., and on 1 May 1863 he was admitted student of Lincoln's Inn. In the latter year Palmerston appointed him assistant solicitor to the board of inland revenue. He resigned this post in August 1896 and died of pneumonia at 46 Clarges Street on 27 March 1898; he was unmarried. Besides writing various legal tracts, one of which, on 'The Income Tax Laws,' was published in 1874 and reached a third edition in 1890, and compiling a privately printed selection from various writers entitled 'Thoughts and Words' (3 vols. 1891, 1898), Dowell made a valuable contribution to historical knowledge by his work on taxation. In 1876 he published 'A Sketch of the History of Taxes in England,' ​which was followed in 1884 by his 'History of Taxation and Taxes in England from the Earliest Times to the Present Day,' London, 4 vols. 8vo. This is the standard work on the subject, and reached a second edition in 1888.
[Works in Brit. Mus. Library; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715-1886; Lincoln's Inn Records, 1896, ii. 307; Times, 16 June 1898; Athenæum, 1898, i. 792; information kindly supplied by the Rev. A. G. Dowell.]
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Planta, Joseph (1744-1827)

​PLANTA, JOSEPH (1744–1827), librarian, was born on 21 Feb. 1744, at Castegna in the Grisons, Switzerland. His father, the Rev. Andrew Planta, belonged to an old Swiss family, and was pastor of a reformed church at Castegna; he resided in England from 1752 as minister of the German reformed church in London, and from 1758 till his death in 1773 was an assistant-librarian at the British Museum. He was F.R.S. and a ‘reader’ to Queen Charlotte.
Joseph Planta was educated by his father, and afterwards studied at Utrecht and Göttingen. After visiting France and Italy he acted as secretary to the British minister at Brussels. In 1773 he returned to England, and was in that year appointed to succeed his father as an assistant-librarian at the British Museum. In 1776 he was promoted to the keepership of manuscripts. From 1799 till 1827 he was principal librarian of the museum. He granted additional facilities to the public, and during his administration there was a great increase in the number of visitors to the reading-room and the department of antiquities. He was a man of polished manners and catholic tastes, and did much to increase the collections and to stimulate the official publications. He wrote part of the published ‘Catalogue of the Printed Books,’ and much of the ‘Catalogue of the MSS. in the Cottonian Library’ (1802, fol.) From 1788 till 1811 he also held the post of paymaster of exchequer bills.
Planta died on 3 Dec. 1827, aged 83. He married, in June 1778, Elizabeth Atwood, by whom he had one child, Joseph [q. v.] A Miss Planta, probably a sister, who was teacher to George III's children, died on 2 Feb. 1778 (Gent. Mag. 1778, p. 94). Planta was elected F.R.S. in 1774, and secretary to the Royal ​Society in 1776. A portrait of him in oils, presented by his son to the British Museum, hangs in the board-room. There is also an engraving (1817), by W. Sharp, of a portrait medallion of Planta by Pistrucci. Another by Engleheart, and engraved by H. Hudson in 1791, is mentioned by Bromley.
Planta published: 1. ‘An Account of the Romansch Language,’ London, 1776, 4to (Phil. Trans. of Roy. Soc. lxvi. 129). 2. ‘The History of the Helvetic Confederacy,’ 2 vols. London, 1800, 4to; 2nd edit. 1807, 8vo (chiefly based on the work of J. Von Müller). 3. ‘A View of the Restoration of the Helvetic Confederacy,’ London, 1821, 8vo (a sequel to No. 2).
W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Planta, Joseph (1787-1847)

​PLANTA, JOSEPH (1787–1847), diplomatist, was born on 2 July 1787 at the British Museum, of which institution his father, Joseph Planta [q. v.], was an official. He was educated by his father (Gent. Mag. 1827, pt. ii. p. 565), and at Eton, and in 1802, when only fifteen, was appointed by Lord Hawkesbury a clerk in the foreign office. In 1807 Canning promoted him to the post of précis writer, and employed him as his private secretary till 1809. Planta was an intimate friend of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and made a tour of the English lakes with him in 1813. He was secretary to Lord Castlereagh in the same year, during the mission to the allied sovereigns, which terminated by the treaty of Paris in 1814. He attended Castlereagh at the congress of Vienna in 1815, and brought to London the treaty of peace signed at Paris in November 1815. He was also with Castlereagh at the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. From May 1827 till November 1830 he was one of the joint secretaries of the treasury, and in 1834 was made a privy councillor. He was elected M.P. for Hastings in 1827, 1830, 1837, and 1841. In 1844 he resigned his seat through ill-health, and his death took place in London on 5 April, 1847. By his will Planta left his entire property to his wife, and recommended the destruction of his papers. He lived in London for many years, at No. 10 Chandos Street, Cavendish Square (Walford, Old and New London, iv. 447), and about 1832 resided at Fairlight House, near Hastings in Sussex. Lord Stratford describes Planta as ‘an amiable, kind-hearted friend, and an excellent man of business.’
W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Plant, Thomas Livesley

​PLANT, THOMAS LIVESLEY (1819–1883), meteorologist, the son of George Halewood Plant, iron merchant, by his wife Ann Livesley, was born at Low Moor, Bradford, Yorkshire, and educated at St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, near Durham. From 1849 to 1881 he represented Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son, advertising contractors, in Birmingham. He died suddenly on 31 Aug. 1883. He married, on 21 June 1845, Jane Horne.
His attention had early been turned to the study of meteorology, and for the last forty-six years of his life he kept systematic records. He was author of ‘Meteorology: its Study important for our Good,’ 8vo, Birmingham, 1862. He read a paper before the British Association in 1862 ‘On Meteorology, with a Description of Meteorological Instruments,’ which contained an account of Osler's anemometer, and another paper in 1865 ‘On the Anomalies of our Climate;’ but neither was printed in the ‘Report.’ Plant was a constant contributor to the local press on meteorological subjects, and furnished meteorological information to the ‘Times’ newspaper.
B. B. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Platt, Thomas Joshua

​PLATT, Sir THOMAS JOSHUA (1790?–1862), baron of the exchequer, born about 1790, was son of Thomas Platt of London, solicitor, who was principal clerk to three chief justices, Lords Mansfield, Kenyon, and Ellenborough, during a period of thirty years. He was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1810, and M.A. 1814. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple on 9 Feb. 1816, and named a king's counsellor on 27 Dec. 1834, when he became a favourite leader on the home circuit. As an advocate he was remarkable for the energy of his manner and the simplicity of his language. Before a common jury he was usually invincible, but met with fewer successes before special juries. He succeeded Baron Gurney as baron of the court of exchequer on 28 Jan. 1845, and sat until failing health obliged him to retire on 2 Nov. 1856. He was knighted at St. James's Palace on 23 April 1845. Though not deeply read, he proved a sensible judge, while his blunt courtesy and amiability made him popular with the bar. He died at 59 Portland Place, London, on 10 Feb. 1862, and was buried in Highgate cemetery. His widow Augusta died at 61 Queen's Gardens, Hyde Park, London, on 16 Feb. 1885, in her eighty-ninth year. By her Platt had a numerous family.
G. C. B.