OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reid, Thomas (1791-1825)

​REID, THOMAS (1791–1825), naval surgeon, born of protestant parents in 1791, was educated near Dungannon, co. Tyrone. He passed his examination at the Royal College of Surgeons in England on 7 May 1813, when he was found qualified to act as ‘surgeon to any rate.’ He was admitted on 3 Nov. 1815 a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in England, and at the end of 1817 he made a voyage in the Neptune to New South Wales as superintendent of male convicts. A few years later he went in the same capacity in the female convict ship Morley. He revisited his native country in 1822, and made an extended tour through the central, northern, and southern parts of the island. He died at Pentonville on 21 Aug. 1825.
Reid was a sincerely religious man who laboured earnestly to ameliorate the condition of the prison population of the country. In early life he drew attention to the conditions attending the transportation of convicts, male as well as female, to the penal settlements in Australia. He showed how bad was the discipline to which they were subjected on board ship during their transference, and how atrocious were the arrangements made for their reception when they arrived in New South Wales. He strongly advocated that convicts should no longer remain idle, but should be employed in a rational manner.
Reid's works are:
* ‘Two Voyages to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, with a Description of the Present Condition of that Colony … Observations relative to … Convicts; also Reflections on Seduction,’ London, 8vo, 1822; this book is dedicated to Mrs. Elizabeth Fry. The language, if somewhat inflated, gives a vivid picture of the treatment received by convicts at the beginning of last century.
* ‘Travels in Ireland in the year 1822, exhibiting brief Sketches of the Moral, Physical, and Political State of the Country,’ London, 1823, 8vo. The book is prefaced with a brief history of the country. The second part contains an account of the tour in the form of a diary. The condition of the poor and of the prisoners is carefully considered.
[Gent. Mag. 1825, ii. 377; information kindly given by the secretary of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.]
D’A. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reimes, Philip de

​REIMES, PHILIP de (1246?–1296), romance writer. [See Philip de Remi.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Penn, John (1729-1795)

​PENN, JOHN (1729–1795), colonist, born in London on 14 July 1729, eldest son of Richard Penn (d. 1771), and grandson of William Penn (1644–1718) [q. v.], was appointed by the proprietaries, his father and his uncle, Thomas Penn [q. v.], to be lieutenant-governor of the colony of Pennsylvania in November 1763; he retained this post until 16 Oct. 1771, and resumed it 1773–6. The chief event of his administration was the treaty with the Indians at Fort Stanwix in 1768. During the revolutionary contest he attempted to steer a middle course, with the result that in 1775 his council was supplanted by a committee of safety. In 1778 the royal charter was annulled, and the Penns were allowed 130,000l. for their unsettled lands in the state. This sum was supplemented in 1786 by an annuity on behalf of the residue of their estates; and of these amounts, besides the annuity of 4,000l. granted to the family by the British government, and only recently commuted, John Penn enjoyed a fourth part. He died at Philadelphia on 10 Feb. 1795, and was buried in Christ Church in that city, but his remains were afterwards removed to England. With him ended all administrative connection between Pennsylvania and the family of its great founder. Penn built Lansdowne House, on the Schuylkill river. The place was subsequently converted into the Fairmount public park, which formed part of the exhibition grounds of 1876. He married, on 31 May 1766, Ann, daughter of Chief-justice William Allen of Philadelphia, but had no issue. Portraits of Governor John Penn, his wife, and members of her family were included in a picture by Benjamin West [q. v.] which was in the possession of John Penn Allen, nephew of the governor, in 1867.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Penn, James

​PENN, JAMES (1727–1800), divine, son of John Penn, citizen and stationer, of St. Bride's parish, London, was baptised there on 9 June 1727. He was admitted a scholar of Christ's Hospital from the parish of St. Dunstan's in the West in April 1736, and obtained in 1745 an exhibition at Balliol College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 4 July of that year. He proceeded B.A. in 1749, M.A. in 1752. He was elected under grammar master of Christ's Hospital in 1753, and while there compiled a Latin grammar which was for many years in use in the school. In 1756 he was curate of St. Andrew Undershaft, Leadenhall Street, and the next year was curate of the united parishes of St. Ann, St. Agnes, and St. John Zachary.
Penn was a candidate for the upper grammar or head mastership of Christ's Hospital in 1760, but lost the election by one vote. He was appointed by the governors of the hospital to the vicarage of Clavering-cum-Langley, Essex. Penn continued teaching in the school until 1767. From about 1769 until 1779 he was domestic chaplain to Granville, earl Gower. From March 1781 until his death on 15 Aug. 1800 he resided at Clavering-cum-Langley. He was buried in London.
Penn's writings were chiefly miscellaneous tracts and sermons, but some of them show considerable humour and satirical power. They include four volumes of collected tracts, London, 1756; 1757, containing ‘The Fair Sex vindicated from Folly and Extravagance’ (republished singly, London, 1769); 1762 and 1777. ‘By way of Prevention; a Sleepy Sermon, calculated for the Dog-days, with an Address to the Clergy and another to the Laity of the City of London,’ London, 1767, is one of Penn's most characteristic productions. Other works are:
* ‘The Farmer's Daughter of Essex,’ London, 1767, 12mo. republished as ‘The Life of Miss Davis, the Farmer's Daughter of Essex.'
* ‘The Reasonableness of Repentance, with a Dedication [commencing ‘Tremendous Sir’] to the Devil, and an Address to the Candidates for Hell,’ London, 1768.
* ‘Seven Sermons,’ London, 1769, 8vo.
* ‘The Surrey Cottage,’ London, 1779, 12mo.
[Works above mentioned; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Wilson's Hist. of Christ's Hospital, pp. 55, 98; List of Exhibitioners at Christ's Hospital, p. 30; Orme's Bibliotheca Biblica, p. 345; Pink's Hist. of Clerkenwell, p. 237; Register of Clavering-cum-Langley, per the Rev. F. Gifford Nash.]
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Spratt, Thomas Abel Brimage

​SPRATT, THOMAS ABEL BRIMAGE (1811–1888), vice-admiral, hydrographer, and author, eldest son of Commander James Spratt [q. v.], was born at East Teignmouth on 11 May 1811. He entered the navy in 1827, and from 1832 served in the Mastiff, and afterwards in the Beacon, surveying vessels in the Mediterranean, under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Graves, who had himself been trained as a surveyor under Captain Philip Parker King [q. v.] He passed his examination in January 1835; but though specially recommended in October 1837 for gallantry in saving a man who had fallen overboard, as well as for the valuable work he was doing in the survey, he was not promoted to be lieutenant till 15 Oct. 1841. Graves had just been promoted to the rank of commander, but remained in the Beacon, as also did Spratt till 1847, when he was appointed to command the Volage, on the same service. On 5 March 1849 he was promoted to commander's rank, and succeeded Graves in command of the Spitfire, in which he continued the surveying work in the Mediterranean. During the Crimean war the Spitfire was attached to the fleet in the Black Sea, and Spratt's trained ability as a surveyor was frequently utilised in ​laying down positions for the ships, especially in the attack on Kertch and Kinburn; his service was specially acknowledged by the commander-in-chief. On 3 Jan. 1855 he was promoted to the rank of captain, and on 5 July was nominated a C.B. After the peace he commanded the Medina, still on the Mediterranean survey, where he remained till 1863. He had no further service afloat, and retired in 1870. From 1866 to 1873 he was a commissioner of fisheries, and from 1879 was chairman of the Mersey conservancy board, an office he held till his death, at Tunbridge Wells, on 10 March 1888.
Spratt, who was elected F.R.S. in 1856, was known not only as an accomplished surveyor and hydrographer, but as a cultivated archæologist. ‘During his long career in the Mediterranean he not only rendered great service to the seamen and the navigators of all nations by his numerous and excellent surveys, but his cultured tastes and his scientific training enabled him to combine with his practical contributions to navigation the classical and geological history of the various islands of the Grecian Archipelago, the coasts of Asia Minor, and other portions of the Mediterranean Sea’ (Richards).
In conjunction with Edward Forbes [q. v.], the naturalist, Spratt published, in 1847, ‘Travels in Lycia’ (2 vols. 8vo); and, single-handed, ‘The Delta of the Nile’ (1859, fol.), ‘Sailing Directions for the Island of Candia’ (official, 1861, 8vo), and ‘Travels and Researches in Crete’ (1865, 2 vols. 8vo). He edited the ‘Autobiography’ of his ancestor, the Rev. Devereux Spratt, a kinsman of Thomas Sprat [q. v.], bishop of Rochester; and was also the author of several smaller works and of numerous papers in scientific journals (Royal Society's Index of Scientific Papers; British Museum Library Catalogue).
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sprigg, William

​SPRIGG, WILLIAM (fl. 1655-1695), pamphleteer, born in or near Banbury, Oxfordshire, was younger son of William Sprigg, steward of New College, Oxford, and brother of Joshua Sprigg [q. v.] He matriculated at Oxford on 2 Oct. 1652, and the same year graduated B.A. (12 Oct.), and was elected (11 Dec.) fellow of Lincoln College, on the recommendation of the chancellor of the university, Oliver Cromwell. Having proceeded M.A. on 15 June 1655, he was elected fellow of Cromwell's new foundation at Durham in 1657, and on the dissolution of that college in 1659 he was incorporated at Cambridge. He was admitted on 27 Nov. 1657 a member of Gray's Inn, where he was called to the bar in 1664. He had been ejected from the Lincoln fellowship on the Restoration, and soon after his call to the bar he migrated to Dublin, where he married and resided for some years. On his brother's death in 1684 he returned to England, and thenceforth resided on the Crayford estate. He was living in 1695.
Sprigge was author of:
* 'Philosophical Essays, with brief Advisos, accommodated to the capacity of the Ladies and Gentlemen sometime Students of the English Academy lately erected at London,' &c., London, 1657, 12mo.
* 'A Modest Plea for an equal Commonwealth against Monarchy, in which the genuine Nature and true Interest of a Free State is briefly stated, and its consistency with a National Clergy, Mercenary Lawyers, and Hereditary Nobility examined; together with the expediency of an agrarian and rotation of officers asserted.'
* Also 'An Apology for Younger Brothers, the Restitution of Gavilkind and Relief of the Poor. With a lift at Tythes, and Reformation of the Lawes and Universities,' London, 1659, 4to.
* 'The Royal and Happy Poverty; or a Meditation on the Felicities of an Innocent and happy Poverty, grounded on Matt. v. 3,' London, 1660, 8vo.
[Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Gray's Inn Register; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 136, 560.].
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pett, Peter (1630-1699)

​PETT, Sir PETER (1630–1699), lawyer and author, son of Peter Pett (1593–1652), master-shipwright at Deptford, grandson of Peter Pett of Wapping, shipbuilder, and great-grandson of Peter Pett (d. 1589) [q. v.], was baptised in St. Nicholas Church, Deptford, on 31 Oct. 1630. He was educated in St. Paul's School and at Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1645. After graduating B.A. he migrated to Pembroke College, Oxford, and in 1648 was elected to a fellowship at All Souls'. He then graduated B.C.L. in 1650, was entered as a student at Gray's Inn, and settled there ‘for good and all’ about a year before the Restoration. From 1661 to 1666 he sat in the Irish parliament as M.P. for Askeaton. He was called to the bar from the Middle Temple in 1664. When the Royal Society was formed, in 1663, Pett was one of the original fellows, elected on 20 May, but was expelled on 18 Nov. 1675 for ‘not performing his obligation to the society.’ He was probably absorbed in other interests. He had been appointed advocate-general for Ireland, where he was knighted by the Duke of Ormonde. He was also much engaged in literary work, more or less of a polemical nature. A short tract of his, headed ‘Sir Peter Pett's Paper, 1679, about the Papists,’ is in the Public Record Office (Shaftesbury Papers, ii. 347). His published works are: 1. ‘A Discourse concerning Liberty of Conscience,’ London, 1661, 8vo. 2. ‘The Happy future Estate of England,’ 1680, fol.; republished in 1689 as ‘A Discourse of the Growth of England in Populousness and Trade … By way of a Letter to a Person of Honour.’ 3. ‘The obligation resulting from the Oath of Supremacy …,’ 1687, fol. He edited also the ‘Memoirs of Arthur [Annesley], Earl of Anglesey,’ 1693, 8vo, and ‘The genuine Remains of Dr. Thomas Barlow, late Lord Bishop of Lincoln,’ 1693, 8vo. He died on 1 April 1699. Pett has been often confused with his father's first cousin, Peter, commissioner of the navy at Chatham, who is separately noticed.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Petrus

​PETRUS (d. 606?), first abbot of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, was both a monk and a priest (Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, i. cc. 27, 33), and was one of the companions of St. Augustine [q. v.] on his mission to England in 596–7. Either at the end of 597 or the beginning of 598, Augustine sent him in company with Lawrence or Laurentius [q. v.], afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, to Pope Gregory to announce the success of the mission and to lay before him certain questions. He apparently brought back the pope's replies in 601. Ethelbert (552?–616) [q. v.], king of Kent, was building the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, later called St. Augustine's, at the time of Augustine's death, and Petrus was appointed its first abbot. His name appears in a charter of Ethelbert to the monastery recording his appointment as abbot, and in a charter of Augustine concerning the exemption of the house, but both are undoubtedly spurious (Elmham, pp. 114, 119–21). While fulfilling a mission to Gaul on which he had been sent by Ethelbert, he was drowned in a creek of the sea at Amfleet or Ambleteuse, a short distance north of Boulogne, probably on 30 Dec. 606. The year of his death, given by Elmham as 607, depends on the date assigned to the death of Augustine, for it is said by Elmham to have taken place one year seven months and three weeks afterwards (ib. p. 126). The year of Augustine's death, which is not certainly ascertained, is taken here to be 604. The people of the country buried the body of Petrus without any marks of respect, not knowing who he was. A miraculous light appeared by night above his grave, and those who lived in the neighbourhood were thus taught that he was a holy man; so they made inquiries as to who he was and whence he came, removed his body to Boulogne, and there buried it in the church of St. Mary the Virgin with fitting honour (Bede, u.s. c. 33). Petrus is said to have been highly esteemed by Augustine, so that for his sake Augustine gave to the new monastery the gifts sent him by Gregory. An epitaph on him is given by Elmham. There is an unprinted ‘Life of Petrus,’ written by Eadmer, in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, manuscript no. 371, f. 416, and it is perhaps to this that Elmham refers in his ‘History of the Monastery’ (p. 111). Malbrancq, writing in the seventeenth century and quoting from the records of the church of Boulogne, gives some particulars of his life, on which it would at least not be safe to lay any stress, such as that Petrus was employed by Ethelbert to preach to the Northumbrians and did so with success, that his habits were ascetic, that he worked miracles, and that his body was translated to Boulogne by an earl named Fumertius. His obit was kept at Canterbury, and was, according to the Benedictine martyrology, on 30 Dec., though the English martyrology places it on 6 Jan., which, it is suggested, may have been the day of his translation (Stubbs).
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Petronius

​PETRONIUS (d. 654), fifth abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, is said to have been a Roman, and to have been hallowed abbot of St. Augustine's by Archbishop Honorius [q. v.] in 640, two years after the date assigned to the death of his predecessor Gratiosus. This delay is explained by the supposition that Honorius was absent on some journey. The date assigned to the death of Petronius is 654. There was no record or tradition of his place of burial in the fifteenth century, nor is there any early authority known for his existence. An epitaph describes him as a good man, a teacher of his monks, and a lover of purity.
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pett, Peter (d.1589)

​PETT, PETER (d. 1589), master-shipwright at Deptford, is described as the great-grandson of Thomas Pett of Skipton in Cumberland (Le Neve, Pedigrees of the Knights, pp. 155–6). But Skipton is in Yorkshire, and, though some of his kin may have settled in the north, it is more probable that he belonged to the family of the name which early in the fifteenth century owned property at Pett in the parish of Stockbury in Kent (Hasted, Hist. of Kent, ii. 525 n.) Heywood stated in 1637 that for two hundred years and upwards men of the name had been officers and architects in the royal navy (Charnock, Hist. of Marine Architecture, ii. 284). It appears well established that Pett's father, also Peter, was settled at Harwich, probably as a shipbuilder. Pett himself was certainly in the service of the crown from an early age; he was already master-shipwright at Deptford in the reign of Edward VI, and there he continued till his death on or about 6 Sept. 1589. During this time he had a principal part in building most of the ships of the navy, though the details are wanting. Richard ​Chapman, who built the Ark, was brought up by Pett, and so also, in all probability, was Matthew Baker, with whom, from 1570, Pett was associated in the works at Dover. In 1587 he and Baker accused Sir John Hawkyns [q. v.], then treasurer of the navy, of malpractices in connection with the repair of the queen's ships. The charges were apparently held to be the outcome of pique or jealousy. Hawkyns was annoyed, but suffered no material injury, and Pett remained in his office. In 1583 he was granted arms, or, on a fess gules between three ogresses, a lion passant of the field; and the crest, out of a ducal coronet, a demi-pelican with wings expanded. He was twice married. By his first wife he had at least two sons: Joseph, who succeeded him at Deptford as master-shipwright, and died on 15 Nov. 1605; and Peter, who carried on business as a shipbuilder at Wapping. By his second wife, Elizabeth Thornton, sister of Captain Thornton of the navy, he had also two sons—Phineas [q. v.], who is separately noticed; and Noah, who in 1594 was master of the Popinjay with his uncle Thornton—and four daughters, one of whom, Abigail, was cruelly beaten to death with a pair of tongs by her stepfather, Thomas Nunn, in 1599. Nunn, who was a clergyman, received the queen's pardon for his crime, but died immediately afterwards (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 28 May 1599).
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walker, John (1768-1833)

​WALKER, JOHN (1768–1833), founder of the ‘Church of God,’ born in Roscommon in January 1768, was the son of Matthew Walker, a clergyman of the established church of Ireland. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, on 18 Jan. 1785, was chosen a scholar in 1788, graduated B.A. in 1790, was elected a fellow in 1791, and proceeded M.A. in 1796, and B.D. in 1800.
Walker was ordained a priest of the established church of Ireland. About 1803 he began to study the principles of Christian fellowship prevailing among the earliest Christians. Convinced that later departures were erroneous, he joined with a few others in an attempt to return to apostolic practices. Their doctrinal beliefs were those of the more extreme Calvinists, and they entirely rejected the idea of a clerical order. On 8 Oct. 1804 Walker, convinced that he could no longer exercise the functions of a clergyman of the Irish church, informed the provost of Trinity College, and offered to resign his fellowship. He was expelled on the day following. He was connected with a congregation of fellow-believers in Stafford Street, Dublin, and supported himself by lecturing on subjects of university study. After paying several visits to Scotland, he removed to London in 1819.
Walker was no mean scholar, and published several useful educational works. In 1833 the university of Dublin granted him a pension of 600l. as some amends for their former treatment of him. He returned to Dublin, and died on 25 Oct. of the same year. His followers styled themselves ‘the Church of God,’ but were more usually known as ‘Separatists,’ and occasionally as ‘Walkerites.’
Among Walker's publications were: 1. ‘Letters to Alexander Knox,’ Dublin, 1803, 8vo. 2. ‘An Expostulatory Address to Members of the Methodist Society in Ireland,’ 3rd ed. Dublin, 1804, 12mo. 3. ‘A Full and Plain Account of the Horatian Metres,’ Glasgow, 1822, 8vo. 4. ‘Essays and Correspondence,’ ed. W. Burton, London, 1838, 8vo. 5. ‘The Sabbath a Type of the Lord Jesus Christ,’ London, 1866, 8vo. He also edited: 1. Livy's ‘Historiarum Libri qui supersunt,’ Dublin, 1797–1813, 7 vols. 8vo; Dublin, 1862, 8vo. 2. ‘The First, Second, and Sixth Books of Euclid's Elements,’ Dublin, 1808, 8vo; first six books with a treatise on trigonometry, London, 1827, 8vo. 3. ‘Selections from Lucian,’ Glasgow, 1816, 8vo; 9th ed. Dublin, 1856, 12mo. For the opening of the Bethesda Chapel, Dorset Street, Dublin, on 22 June 1794, he wrote two hymns, one of which, ‘Thou God of Power and God of Love,’ has been included in several collections.
[Walker's Essays and Corresp. (with portrait), 1838; Madden's Memoir of Peter Roe, 1842; Wills's Irish Nation, iv. 452; Gent. Mag. 1833, ii. 540; Remains of Alexander Knox, 1835; Millennial Harbinger, September 1835; A Brief Account of the People called Separatists, Dublin, 1821; Julian's Dict. of Hymnology, 1892.]
E. I. C.