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

​SHEPHERD, LUKE (fl. 1548–1554), poet, born at Colchester in Essex, is called by Bale and others ‘Opilio,’ a latinised form of his surname. Bale considered his poetry, which was chiefly of a satirical character, not inferior to Skelton's (Scriptorum Illustrium Majoris Britanniæ Catalogus, ed. 1557–1559, p. 109). He may with great probability be identified with a certain ‘Doctor Luke,’ a physician of Colman Street, and a friend of Edward Underhill [q. v.] and other early reformers. According to Strype, Luke was imprisoned in the Fleet in Henry VIII's reign for some of his pamphlets (Ecclesiastical Memorials, 1822, II. i. 181–3). In 1548 he published a poem entitled ‘John Bon and the Mast Person,’ printed by John Day, an extremely powerful satire directed against the real presence. It was reprinted in facsimile, by J. Smeeton, in 1807 from the only copy extant, formerly in the possession of Richard Forster, and in 1852 it was edited for the Percy Society by William Henry Black (Early English Poetry, vol. xxx.). It is in the form of a conversation (in 164 rhyming lines) ‘more resembling the religious plays of John Bale than the poetry of Skelton.’ Sir John Gresham, lord mayor of London in 1547–8, was much incensed by the accounts given him of the book, and de​termined to imprison John Day the printer, but after perusing a copy, which Underhill showed him, he came to the conclusion that it was ‘bothe pythie and mery,’ and suffered Day to depart unpunished. Luke, however, appears to have been incarcerated in the Fleet for a second time, in the reign of Mary, on account of this book. He was the author of several other anonymous controversial pamphlets, and, according to Warton, of a translation of some psalms, published about 1554 (Hist. English Poetry, iii. 261).
[Black's Introduction; Nichols's Narratives of the Reformation (Camd. Soc. Publ. 1859), pp. 171–2, 325–6; Holinshed's Chronicle, 1587, iii. 1168; Brydges's Censura Literaria, v. 277–80; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, 1785, i. 619–20; Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica, 1802, p. 330.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Shepherd, Richard Herne

​SHEPHERD, RICHARD HERNE (1842–1895), bibliographer, born at Chelsea early in 1842, was a younger son of Samuel Shepherd, F.S.A. His grandfather, Richard Herne Shepherd (1775–1850), was from 1818 to 1848 a well-known ‘revivalist’ preacher at the Ranelagh Chapel, Chelsea, and published, besides sermons and devotional works, a volume of meditative verse entitled ‘Gatherings of Fifty Years’ (1843).
The younger Richard was educated largely at home, developed a taste for literature, and published at the age of sixteen a copy of verses entitled ‘Annus Moriens’ (1858). In 1861 he issued an essay on ‘The School of Pantagruel,’ in which he traced ‘Pantagruelism’ in England from Rochester to Sterne. Subsequently he edited booksellers' editions of the classics, including Blake's ‘Poems’ (1868 and 1874), Shelley's ‘Poems’ (1871), Lamb's ‘Poetry for Children’ (1872 and 1878), Chapman's ‘Works’ (1874), Lamb's ‘Works’ (1875), Ebenezer Jones's ‘Poems’ (1879), Poe's ‘Works’ (1884), Dickens's ‘Speeches’ (1884), Dickens's ‘Plays and Poems’ (1885), and Shelley's ‘Prose Works’ (1888). In 1869 he published ‘Translations from Beaudelaire’ (reissued 1877, 12mo); in 1873 he printed, with notes, Coleridge's forgotten tragedy ‘Osorio,’ and in 1875 ‘The Lover's Tale’ (of 1833) and other early uncollected poems of Tennyson (unearthed from albums and periodicals). Fifty copies were privately printed in 1875, but the volume was suppressed by injunction in the court of chancery. In 1878 he published Mrs. E. Barrett Browning's ‘Earlier Poems’ ​without the assent of the writer's living representatives, who warmly resented his action. In the like character of literary chiffonnier, he prepared editions in the same year of the ‘Juvenilia’ of Longfellow and Moore; and ‘Sultan Stork,’ a volume of juvenile pieces by Thackeray, in 1887. In 1878 there appeared an agreeable pasticcio of biographical and bibliographical gossip in his ‘Waltoniana.’ Next year he obtained 150l. damages from the ‘Athenæum’ newspaper for an ‘injurious review’ of his revised edition of Lamb's ‘Poetry for Children.’ In 1881 he issued a dull ‘Memoir of Thomas Carlyle,’ some passages in which had to be cancelled. Meanwhile he closely studied modern bibliography, and prepared bibliographical accounts of Ruskin (1879), Dickens (1880, revised 1884), Thackeray (1881, revised 1887 and appended to ‘Sultan Stork’), Carlyle (1881), Mr. A. C. Swinburne (1883 and 1887), and Tennyson (issued posthumously in 1896, being an expansion of ‘Tennysoniana,’ 1866 and 1879). He died in London on 15 July 1895. At the time of his death he was preparing a bibliography of Coleridge for ‘Notes and Queries,’ to which he was a frequent contributor.
[Memoir of the Rev. R. H. Shepherd, by his sons, 1854 (with portrait); Shepherd's Bibliography of Tennyson, 1896 (prefatory note); Times, 30 July 1895; Athenæum, 1878, 1879, 1881, and 1895 ii. 323.]
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Shepherd, Antony

​SHEPHERD, ANTONY (1721–1796), Plumian professor of astronomy at Cambridge, elder son of Arthur Shepherd, was born at Kendal in 1721, was admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge 27 June 1740, at the age of nineteen, graduated B.A. in 1743, M.A. (from Christ's College) in 1747, B.D. in 1761, and D.D. in 1766. He took holy orders and held a long succession of livings—Eastling, Kent, 1745 to 1752; Croxton, near Thetford, from 21 Jan. 1756; Bourne from 30 March 1758 to 1763; and Barton Mills from 1778. He was fellow of Christ's College from 9 Jan. 1747 to 22 Nov. 1783. He had (December 1765) a lease of the tithes of Burnham Westgate, out of which arose a lawsuit which lasted twenty years. He was appointed sole tutor at Christ's in 1768, but entrusted his duties as lecturer to W. Paley and J. Law, who, however, did not obtain a very fair share of the tuition fees till 1772.
Meanwhile Shepherd had devoted himself to astronomy. He was elected Plumian professor of astronomy at Cambridge in 1760, and F.R.S. in 1763. In 1768 he was appointed master of mechanics to his majesty, doubtless owing to the influence of John Montagu, fourth earl of Sandwich [q. v.], whose favour he had secured (Cambridge Chronicle, 28 May 1768; cf. Paley's ‘Life’ by E. Paley, Works of W. Paley, 1825, i. 80–1; and Meadley's Memoirs of W. Paley); and in 1772 wrote the preface to the quarto volume, ‘Tables for correcting the apparent Distance of the Moon and a Star from the effects of Refraction and Parallax,’ which was published by order of the commissioners of longitude. In 1776 Shepherd published the syllabus of a course of lectures on experimental philosophy, given at Trinity College.
In July 1777 he was made canon of Windsor, and strenuous efforts were made to eject him, as a pluralist, from his fellowship at Christ's College (cf. Cat. Cambridge Univ. MSS. pp. 360*, 361, 362). He resigned the fellowship six years later. Frances Burney describes him as ‘prodigiously tall and stout’ and as ‘dullness itself;’ but it is said that Captain Cook named an island ‘after his friend, Dr. Shepherd’ (Early Diary of Frances Burney, 1768–78, ed. Ellis, 1889, i. 109, 206, 282). He was credited with ‘a taste for wine and music,’ but he ‘did not shine more in music than he did in astronomy’ (Nichols, Illustrations of Lit. vi. 677, and Lit. Anecdotes, viii. 395). He died at his house in Dean Street, Soho, on 15 June 1796. There is a painting of him in the library of the university of Cambridge, by Vanderpuyl, and a bust of him in the library of Trinity College.
H. F. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Shepherd, George

Contains subarticles George Sidney Shepherd (d. 1858) & Thomas Hosmer Shepherd (fl. 1825–1840)
​SHEPHERD, GEORGE (fl. 1800–1830), watercolour-painter, enjoyed a considerable reputation in his day as a topographical artist, painting views in various parts of England, but chiefly in the metropolis. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1800 to 1829, and with the Society of British Artists from 1827 to 1830, when his name disappears. Shepherd was one of the draughtsmen employed upon Clarke's ‘Architectura Ecclesiastica Londini, or Graphical Survey of the Churches of London, South​wark, and Westminster,’ 1819; Wilkinson's ‘Londina Illustrata,’ 1808; Ireland's ‘History of the County of Kent,’ 1829–30; ‘The Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain;’ and ‘Beauties of England and Wales.’ He also drew some of the illustrations to the ‘European Magazine.’ The Crace collection of London topography, now in the British Museum, contains many of his drawings.
George Sidney Shepherd (d. 1858), his son, practised watercolour-painting in the same style, but his works were more artistic in treatment; they were mainly topographical views, but also included rustic subjects and still life. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and Suffolk Street from 1830 to 1837, and with the New Watercolour Society, of which he was elected a member in 1833, from that year until his death in 1858.
Thomas Hosmer Shepherd (fl. 1825–1840), probably a brother of George Sidney Shepherd, painted exclusively views of streets and old buildings in London and other cities, which he executed with great truth and accuracy. He drew the whole of the illustrations for the following topographical works: ‘Metropolitan Improvements, or London in the Nineteenth Century,’ 1827; ‘London and its Environs in the Nineteenth Century,’ 1829; ‘Modern Athens displayed, or Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century,’ 1829; ‘Views of Bath and Bristol,’ 1829–31; ‘London Interiors, with their Costumes and Ceremonies,’ 1841–3; and ‘A Picturesque Tour on the Regent's Canal.’ Shepherd was largely employed by Frederick Crace [q. v.] in making watercolour views of old buildings in London previous to their demolition, and some hundreds of these are in the Crace collection in the British Museum.
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Shepherd, John (1759-1805)

​SHEPHERD, JOHN (1759–1805), divine, son of Richard Shepherd of Goderthwaite, Cumberland, was born in 1759 at Beckermet in Cumberland. He received his education at Arthuret, near Longtown, and in November 1777 matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford. He graduated B.A. in 1781 and M.A. in 1787. In 1782 he took deacon's orders, in 1783 was ordained priest, and early in 1785 obtained the curacy of Paddington, London. Through his exertions the church was rebuilt between 1788 and 1791. In 1797 he brought out the first volume of his ‘Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer.’ The first edition was exhausted before the second volume was ready for the press. A second edition of the first volume was prepared and issued with the first edition of the second in 1798. In 1799 Bishop Beilby Porteus [q. v.] conferred on him the perpetual curacy of Pattiswick in Essex. He died at Stisted on 2 May 1805. In 1783 he married Frances, niece of his guardian, John Benson of Egremont, Cumberland. At the time of his death he was engaged on a third volume of his ‘Elucidation,’ but it was never published. A fifth edition of the first volume and a fourth of the second appeared in 1836.
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Shepherd, Richard (1732?-1809)

​SHEPHERD, RICHARD (1732?–1809), versifier and theologian, born about 1732, son of Henry Shepherd (d. 1764), vicar of Mareham-le-Fen, Lincolnshire, matriculated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 1 Dec. 1749, at the age of seventeen. He graduated B.A. 1753, M.A. 1757, B.D. 1765, and D.D. 1788, and was elected probationary fellow of his college in 1760. His first intention was to follow a military life, but he took orders in the English church. After residing for many years at Oxford, he became chaplain to Thomas Thurlow [q. v.], successively bishop of Lincoln and Durham, by whose nomination he was installed on 26 July 1783 in the archdeaconry of Bedford. In 1788 he was Bampton lecturer at Oxford, publishing his lectures as ‘Ground and Credibility of the Christian Religion,’ 1788. ‘Additional Discourses’ thereto were published by him in 1792, and three were republished by his son in 1848, with the title ‘Salvation is of the Jews.’ By the gift of Lord-chancellor Thurlow he was instituted in 1792 to the rectory of Wetherden and Helmingham in Suffolk, and held these preferments until his death at Wetherden, on 3 Jan. 1809, in his seventy-eighth year. He had been elected F.R.S. on 10 May 1781.
The numerous works of Shepherd included, in addition to sermons and charges:
* ‘Ode to Love’ (anon.), 1756; this was afterwards reissued under the title of ‘The Philologist.’
* ‘Review of a Free Enquiry [by Soame Jenyns] into the Nature and Origin of Evil’ (anon.), 1759; 2nd ed. 1768.
* ‘Odes, Descriptive and Allegorical’ (anon.), 1761.
* ‘The Nuptials, a didactic Poem in three books’ (anon.), 1761.
* ‘Hector, a dramatic Poem’ (anon.), 1770.
* ‘Bianca, a Tragedy,’ 1772 (most of the above were reprinted in ‘Miscellanies,’ 2 vols. 1776).
* ‘Reflections on Materialism, addressed to Priestley; by Philalethes Rusticans,’ 1779.
* ‘Examination of the Socinian Exposition of the Prefatory Verses of St. John's Gospel,’ 1781.
* ‘Essay on Education, in a Letter to William Jones,’ 1782.
* ‘Polyænus's Stratagems of War,’ translated from the original Greek, 1793; this had lain in his desk for more than thirty years, when Lord Cornwallis advised its publication.
* ‘Notes on the Gospel and Epistles of St. John,’ 1796; new ed. 1841, edited by his son.
* ‘The new Boethius; or of the Consolation of Christianity,’ 1806.
* ‘Religious Union perfective, and the support of Civil Union’ (anon.), 1807.
* ‘No False Alarm, or a Sequel to Religious Union,’ 1808.
[Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, ii. 328–9, 361; Gent. Mag. 1809, i. 91–2; Halkett and Laing's Anon. Lit. pp. 1080, 1761, 1802–3, 2109, 2183, 2194.]
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Warneford, Reginald Alexander John

​WARNEFORD, REGINALD ALEXANDER JOHN (1891–1915), airman, was born at Darjeeling, India, 15 October 1891, the eldest child and only son of Reginald William Henry Warneford, civil engineer, of Puddletrenthide, Dorset, by his wife, Dora Alexandra Campbell. He was educated at the English College, Simla, and at King Edward's grammar school, Stratford-on-Avon, from which he entered the merchant service. On the outbreak of the European War, Warneford joined the second (‘Sportsmen's’) battalion, Royal Fusiliers, in August 1914. In February 1915 he was granted a commission as probationary flight sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service, and gained his certificate at Hendon, flying a Bristol biplane, on 25 February. He was sent to No. 1 wing at Dunkirk, where his commanding officer reported on his ‘remarkable keenness and ability’. On 7 June, flying a Morane monoplane, he attacked at 6,000 feet, between Ghent and Bruges, a zeppelin airship, on which he dropped six bombs from close range. The last bomb set fire to the zeppelin, but the force of the bomb's explosion turned the aeroplane upside down, the engine stopped, and Warneford was compelled to land in enemy territory. He was able to restart his engine after fifteen minutes and to return to his aerodrome. His achievement, brilliant in itself, robbed the zeppelin of much of its terror and pointed the way to the true method of defending England against airship raids. He was awarded the Victoria cross—the first officer of the naval air service to be so honoured. He did not long survive to enjoy his fame. On 17 June he went up from the aerodrome at Buc, near Paris, to test a Henri Farman machine which he was to fly to Dunkirk. The machine broke in the air, and Warneford and an ​American passenger were killed. His body was brought to England for burial in Brompton cemetery.
[Official records; personal knowledge.]
H. A. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wagstaffe, Joseph

​WAGSTAFFE, Sir JOSEPH (fl. 1655), royalist, born about 1612, was probably the seventh and youngest son of Richard Wagstaffe of Herberbury in Warwickshire, by his wife Anne, daughter of John Hanslap of Stonythorpe in the same county (Visit. Warwickshire, 1619, p. 289; Dugdale, Warwickshire, i. 354, 531). Thomas Wagstaffe [q. v.], the nonjuror, and William Wagstaffe [q. v.] were connected with the same family.
Joseph was a soldier of fortune, and at the beginning of 1642 was major in an Irish regiment in the service of France (Cal. Clarendon State Papers, i. 222). In June 1642 he became lieutenant-colonel in the army destined by the parliament for the recovery of Ireland, and in the following autumn held the same rank in Hampden's regiment of foot in the Earl of Essex's army (Peacock, Army Lists, pp. 46, 70). Taken prisoner by the royalists in January 1643, he changed sides and accepted a commission to raise a regiment for the king (Mercurius Aulicus, 5 Jan. 1643; Black, Oxford Docquets, p. 1). Subsequently he was major-general of foot under Prince Maurice in the west of England, was knighted at Crediton on 27 July 1644, and distinguished himself by his soldierly retreat in the disastrous battle of Langport (Symonds, Diary, p. 2; Memoirs of Sir Richard Bulstrode, p. 140; Cal. Clarendon Papers, i. 263, 290).
In 1655 the western royalists asked for Wagstaffe to be their leader in their intended rising against Cromwell, he being well known to them and generally beloved. Clarendon characterises him as fitted ‘rather for execution than counsel, a stout man who looked not far before him, yet he had a great companionableness in his nature, which exceedingly prevailed with those who in the intermission of fighting loved to spend their time in jollity and mirth.’ With about two hundred Wiltshire royalists Wagstaffe entered Salisbury early on 12 March 1655, and proclaimed Charles II. The judges on circuit and sheriff were seized in their beds, and Wagstaffe thought of hanging them as a seasonable example, but was prevented by the opposition of Colonel Penruddock and the country gentlemen. Leaving Salisbury with about four hundred men, the royalists marched into Dorset, but gained few recruits on their way. When they entered Somerset their numbers began to diminish, and the few who remained were taken or dispersed by Captain Unton Croke at South Molton on the night of 14 March. Wagstaffe himself escaped all the searches made after him, and was back in Holland by July (Clarendon, Rebellion, xiv. 130–4; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1655, p. 245; Nicholas Papers, ii. 240, 243, 259–62). He survived the Restoration, petitioned for the reversion of an office which he did not obtain, and received a small grant of some of the late king's goods in 1662 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1 p. 288, 1661–2 p. 535).
[Authorities mentioned in the article. On the rising headed by Wagstaffe, see ‘Cromwell and the Insurrection of 1655,’ in the English Historical Review for 1888–9.]
C. H. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wagstaffe, John

​WAGSTAFFE, JOHN (1633–1677), writer on witchcraft, born in Cheapside in 1633, was the son of John Wagstaffe of London. He was educated in St. Paul's school, and was Pauline exhibitioner from 1649 to 1658. He matriculated from Oriel College, Oxford, on 22 Nov. 1650, proceeded B.A. on 18 Oct. 1653, and M.A. on 9 July 1656. He was incorporated at Cambridge in 1668. On the death of his uncle he succeeded to his estate at Hasland in Derbyshire. Wood says that after taking his degrees he ‘applied himself to the study of politics and learning.’ He wrote little, ​and injured his health by the ‘continued bibbing of strong and high-tasted liquors,’ and died ‘in a manner distracted’ at his lodgings in Holborn, opposite Chancery Lane, on 2 Sept. 1677, and was buried in Guildhall Chapel. He was unmarried. Letters of administration were granted to his aunt (father's sister), Judith How, on 4 Sept. 1677. In person he was ‘a little, crooked man, and of a despicable presence,’ and his book on witchcraft created much mirth among the wits of Oxford, as he himself ‘looked like a little wizard.’ In his book he threw doubt on the truth of the alleged instances of contracts between spirits and men and women, pronounced them to be ‘ridiculously absurd, and some of them so impossible for all the devils in hell to accomplish.’ He considered the tales as ‘partly founded in mistaken interpretations of Scripture, partly in the knavish and gainful impostures of some men, partly in the vain, foolish credulity of other men.’ His position was assailed by Meric Casaubon [q. v.] in the second part of his book ‘Of Credulity and Incredulity,’ 1670, and in a work entitled ‘The Opinion of Witchcraft vindicated,’ by R. T., 1670. The attacks called forth a second and enlarged edition of Wagstaffe's book. He published:
* ‘Historical Reflections on the Bishop of Rome,’ Oxford, 1660.
* ‘The Question of Witchcraft debated,’ London, 1669, 1671, 1711 (in German under the title of ‘Ausgeführte Materie der Hexerey, oder die Meinung derjenigen, die glauben dass es Hexen gebe, deutlich widerlegt’).
He contributed a Greek poem to ‘Britannia Rediviva,’ Oxford, 1660.
[Harl. MS. 6670, f. 317; Gardiner's Reg. of St. Paul's School, p. 44; Foster's Alumni; Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iii. cols. 1113–14; Admon. Act Book, September, 1677.]
B. P.