OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kidd, William (d.1701)

​KIDD, WILLIAM (d. 1701), pirate, is said to have been a native of Greenock, to have settled in Boston, Massachusetts, to have commanded a trading vessel in the West Indies, and to have distinguished himself in command of a privateer during William III's war with France. In 1695, when the Earl of Bellomont was appointed governor of Massachusetts Bay, with especial instructions to suppress the piracy which infested the coast, Robert Livingstone, a man of good repute in the colony, brought Kidd to the earl's notice in London as a fit man for the work [see Coote, Richard, Earl of
[Johnson's General History of the Pirates; Macaulay's History of England (Cab. ed.), viii. 240–4. Macaulay's account is more than usually inaccurate. Kidd was brought to Lord Bellomont's notice in London, not in New York; and the whole story, as told in brilliant language with picturesque detail, is very doubtful. The contemporary pamphlets, which give the commonly accepted account, are: Articles of Agreement made this 10th day of October 1695 between the Right Honourable Richard, Earl of Bellomont, on the one part, and Robert Levingston, Esq., and Capt. William Kid of the other part (printed 1701); The Arraignment, Trial, and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd for Murder and Piracy. … Perused by the Judges and Council (fol. 1701); A True Account of the Behaviour, Confession, and last Dying Speeches of Captain William Kidd and the rest of the Pirates … (1701); A Full Account of the Proceedings in relation to Captain Kidd, in two Letters written by a Person of Quality to a kinsman of the Earl of Bellomont … (4to, 1701). Lord Bellomont's Official Correspondence in the Public Record Office (Colonial, Board of Trade, New England, vol. ix.) gives a full account of Kidd's arrest; one paper, 24 June 1699, is a letter from Kidd, apparently written and signed by himself. Cf. Admiralty Minutes, 8–15 April 1700. Watson's Annals of Philadelphia (ii. 212) is very inaccurate.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Browne, Henry

​BROWNE, HENRY (1804–1875), classical and biblical scholar, son of the Rev. Henry John Browne, rector of Crownthorpe, Norfolk, was born in 1804. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he gained Bell's university scholarship in 1823; he graduated B.A. in 1826, and M.A. in 1830. From 1842 to 1847 he was principal of the theological college, Chichester; on 9 Dec. 1842 he was collated to the prebendal stall of Waltham in Chichester cathedral; in 1843 he was appointed examining chaplain to the bishop of Chichester; and in 1854 he was preferred to the rectory of Pevensey in the same diocese. Here he remained till his death, 19 June 1875. Besides editions and translations of the classics, Browne applied himself chiefly to the elucidation of sacred chronology. His published works are numerous:
* 'Ordo Sæclorum, a treatise on the Chronology of Holy Scripture.' The argument, which is subtle, is mainly on the same lines as Clinton's, and the latest contemporary knowledge of oriental archæology is brought to bear on the biblical statements (1844).
* 'Examination of the Ancient Egyptian Chronographies,' commenced in 1852 in Arnold's 'Theological Critic'
* 'Remarks on Mr. Greswell's "Fasti Catholici"' (1852). This is a criticism which aims at completely annihilating the conclusions of Greswell.
* He translated for the 'Library of the Fathers' seventeen short treatises of St. Augustine, in conjunction with C. L. Cornish, and also St. Augustine's Homilies on the Gospel and First Epistle of St. John (1838, &c.)
* Several volumes of Greek and Latin classics for Arnold's 'School and College Series' (1851, &c.)
* ' A translation of Madvig's 'Greek Syntax' (1847).
* 'A Handbook of Hebrew Antiquities' (1851).
* 'An English-Greek Lexicon,' conjointly with Rädersdorf (1856).
* 'Hierogrammata' (1848). The aim is to show that Egyptian discoveries do not invalidate the Mosaic account.
He was also the author of several articles in the last edition (1862-6) of Kitto's ' Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature.'
[Men of the Time, ninth edition ; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), i. 285; British Museum Catalogue.]
A. G-n.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Browne, John (1741-1801)

​BROWNE, JOHN (1741–1801), engraver, was born at Finchfield, Essex, 26 April 1741. He was the posthumous son of the rector of Boston, Norfolk, and was educated at Norwich. In 1756 he was apprenticed to John Tinney, the engraver, who was also William Woollett's master. With Tinney he remained till 1761, and then placed himself under Woollett, many of whose plates were commenced by Browne. On leaving Woollett he engraved a series of plates after N. Poussin, P. P. Rubens, Claude Lorraine, and other eminent masters. Browne practised exclusively as an engraver of landscape, and attained to a high degree of excellence in that department. He was elected an associate engraver of the Royal Academy in 1770, and exhibited thirteen plates between 1767 and 1801. He died in West Lane, Walworth, 2 Oct. 1801. The following are some of his most important works, which are to be seen in our national collection of prints: 'The Watering Place,' after Rubens; 'The Forest,' after Sir George Beaumont; 'St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness,' after S. Rosa; 'A View of the Gate of the Emperor Akbar at Secundrii,' after Hodges; 'The Cascade,' after G. Poussin; and four plates from his own designs, 'Morning,' 'Evening,' 'After ​Sunset,' and 'Moonlight ;' also several large plates after Claude Lorraine.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878.]
L. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Browne, George (1698-1792)

​BROWNE, GEORGE, Count de (1698–1792), Irish soldier of fortune, was descended from a family which could trace its descent to the time of the Conqueror, and had settled in Ireland at a very early period. His immediate ancestors were the Brownes of Camas, Limerick, where he was born 15 June 1698. He was educated at Limerick diocesan school. A catholic and a Jacobite, he, like several of his other relations, sought scope for his ambition in a foreign military career. In his twenty-seventh year he entered the service of the elector palatine, from which he passed in 1730 to that of Russia. He distinguished himself in the Polish, French, and Turkish wars, and had risen to the rank of general, with the command of 30,000 men, when he was taken prisoner by the Turks. After being three times sold as a slave, he obtained his freedom through the intervention of the French ambassador Villeneuve, at the instance of the Russian court, and, remaining for some time at Constantinople in his slave's costume, succeeded in discovering important state secrets which he carried to St. Petersburg. In recognition of this special service he was raised by Anna to the rank of major-general, and in this capacity accompanied General Lacy on his first expedition to Finland. On the outbreak of the Swedish war his tactical skill was displayed to great advantage in checking Swedish attacks on Livonia. In the seven years' war he rendered important assistance as lieutenant-general under his cousin Ulysses Maximilian, count von Browne [q. v.] His fortunate diversion of the enemy's attacks at Kollin, 18 June 1757, contributed materially to the allied victory, and in token of her appreciation of his conduct on the occasion Maria Theresa presented him with a snuff-box set with brilliants and adorned with her portrait. At Zorndorf, 25 Aug. 1758, he again distinguished himself in a similar manner, his opportune assistance of the right wing at the most critical moment of the battle changing almost inevitable defeat into victory. By Peter III he was named field-marshal, and appointed to the chief command in the Danish war. On his addressing a remonstrance to the czar against the war as impolitic, he was deprived of his honours and commanded to leave the country, but the czar repenting of his hasty decision recalled him three days afterwards and appointed him governor of Livonia. He was confirmed in the office under Catherine II, and for thirty years to the close of his life administered its affairs with remarkable practical sagacity, and with great advantage both to the supreme government and to the varied interests of the inhabitants. He died 18 Feb. 1792.
[Histoire de la Vie de G. de Browne, Riga, 1794; Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Encyclopädie, sect. i. vol. xiii. pt. i. pp. 112–13; Ferrar's History of Limerick.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1745-1818)

​BROWNE, ISAAC HAWKINS, the younger (1745–1818), only child of Isaac Hawkins Browne the elder [q. v.], was born 7 Dec. 1745. He was educated at Westminster School and Hertford College, Oxford. Long after taking his M.A. in 1767, he kept his rooms at Oxford and frequently resided there; in 1773 he received the degree of D.C.L. Having made a tour of the continent, he settled on his property in Shropshire, and in 1783 served as sheriff for the county. In 1784 he entered the House of Commons as member for Bridgnorth, which he represented for twenty-eight years (1784-1812); he was a supporter of Pitt. Like his father, he seems to have had no gift for oratory, but when he spoke ‘his established reputation for superior knowledge and judgment secured to him that attention which might have been wanting to him on other accounts’ In 1815 he published, anonymously, ‘Essays, Religious and Moral;’ this work he afterwards acknowledged, and an edition published two years later bears his name. His ‘Essays on Subjects of important Inquiry in Metaphysics, Morals, and Religion’ (1822) were not published till after his death; if the seriousness of his mind is shown by the spirit of this volume, his exactness and capacity for taking pains are illustrated by the array of authorities by which the text is supported. Bishop Newton (Life of Thomas Newton, D.D., Bishop of Bristol, 1782) speaks of him as ‘a very worthy, good young man, possessed of many of his father’s excellencies without his failings,’ and this portrait is completed by a contemporary biographer, who, mentioning that Charles James Fox was a fellow-student with Browne and of the same college, is careful to add that they formed no intimacy, ‘their pursuits, habits, and connections being of a widely different character.' In 1768 he edited his father’s poems in two editions, the best of which, with plates by Sterne, was not for sale. This edition, it may be presumed, contained the memoir of his father, which he is said to have issued with his works; in any case there is no memoir in the edition offered to the public, which is the only one generally accessible, though ​the material facts in the life of Browne the elder in the 'Biographia Britannica' were, as appears from an acknowledgment in that work, supplied by his son. Browne was twice married (1788 and 1805), his first wife being the daughter of the Hon. Edward Hay, son of the seventh earl of Kinnoul. Browne died in London 30 May 1818.
[Gent. Mag. lxxxviii. part ii. 179.]
J. M. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Browne, James (1616-1685)

​BROWNE or BROWN, JAMES (1616–1685), theologian, son of a father of the same names, of Mangotsfield, Gloucestershire, matriculated at Oxford as a student of Oriel in 1634, and took his B.A. degree in 1638. He then left the university, and is said to have become a chaplain in the parliamentarian army and to have been an eager disputant. On the Restoration he conformed. He wrote:
* 'Antichrist in Spirit,' a work answered by George Fox in his 'Great Mystery of the Great Whore,' pp. 259, 260, where the author's name is spelt Brown.
* 'Scripture Redemption freed from Men's Restrictions,' 1673, and printed with it.
* 'The Substance of several Conferences and Disputes … about the Death of our Redeemer.'
[Wood's Athenæ Ozon. (ed. Bliss), iv. 604 Fox's Great Mystery (ed. 1669), 259.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Giffard, Stanley Lees

1904 Errata appended.
​GIFFARD, STANLEY LEES (1788–1858), editor of the ‘Standard’ newspaper, youngest son of John Giffard of Dromartin, co. Dublin, and brother of Sir Ambrose Hardinge Giffard [q. v.], was born in Dublin 4 Aug. 1788. He was first educated by Thomas White, the schoolmaster of Sheridan the politician and Moore the poet. He then studied at Trinity College, Dublin, where he proceeded B.A. 1807, M.A. 1811. He afterwards took the degree of LL.D., entered at the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar by that society in 1811. Making no way as a barrister, he soon turned his attention to literature. After some anonymous hack-work in classics and Hebrew he began his journalistic career by an engagement on the ‘St. James's Chronicle,’ of which paper he was editor for some years. He was chosen editor of the ‘Standard’ when that paper was founded in 1827, and this post he filled for more than a quarter of a century. During this period he opposed catholic emancipation, championed the cause of the Irish state church, and defended the corn and navigation laws (being attacked by name in Mr. Bright's speech at the famous repeal meeting in Covent Garden Theatre in 1845). Giffard died at Folkestone, Kent, 6 Nov. 1858. His first wife was Susannah Meares Moran, and his third son by her, Hardinge Stanley, was raised to the peerage as Lord Halsbury in 1885 on first becoming lord chancellor, and was promoted to an earldom in 1898, during his third tenure of the chancellorship, which he retained till 1905. His second wife was Mary Anne, daughter of Henry Giffard, R.N.
Giffard's life is almost entirely bound up with that of the paper he edited. He was once candidate for the representation in parliament of Trinity College, Dublin, but withdrew before the poll. He contributed articles to the ‘Quarterly’ and ‘Blackwood,’ and began a ‘Life of the Great Duke of Ormonde,’ and ‘Vindiciæ Anglicanæ,’ being an account of the ‘English in Ireland.’ No part of this was published. Giffard was thus described in the ‘Standard’ obituary notice: ‘In the obduracy of his sympathies and antipathies in politics he was a man after Dr. Johnson's own heart; and with him departed perhaps the last of the school of Georgian political writers, who brought so great a fund of learning to the pursuit of the press.’ The story told in Grant's ‘History of the Press’ and elsewhere, that in the early days of the ‘Standard’ the Duke of Newcastle sent the editor 1,200l. as a mark of admiration of the article against catholic emancipation which had appeared on the previous day, is an entire fiction.
F. W-t.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.135 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Giffard, Roger

​GIFFARD, ROGER, M.D. (d. 1597), president of the College of Physicians, was the son of Ralph Giffard of Steeple Claydon, Buckinghamshire, by his wife Mary, daughter of Sir Edward Chamberlain of Woodstock, ​Oxfordshire. He was educated at Merton College, Oxford, of which house he became a fellow, and took the degree of B.A. on 14 Aug. 1556, proceeding M.A. on 15 Feb. 1559–60 (Reg. of Univ. of Oxford, Oxford Hist. Soc. i. 232, 238, 321). On 8 April 1562 he was elected junior university proctor, and was re-elected on 21 April 1563 (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss. i. 160, 162). As a bachelor of medicine of 23 June 1563, ‘sometime fellow of Merton College, now or lately fellow of All Souls' College,’ he was, on 30 Aug. 1566, created M.D. by Drs. Walter and Henry Baylie by virtue of a commission directed to them by the convocation, which had selected him to dispute before Elizabeth on her intended visit to the university in the ensuing September (ib. i. 176). Giffard was afterwards appointed physician to the queen. He was censor of the College of Physicians from 1570 to 1572, consiliarius from 1585 to 1587, and again in 1591, and president from 1581 to 1584. He died on 27 Jan. 1596–7, and was buried in the parish of St. Bride, Fleet Street. His will, made on the day of his death, was not proved until 1 Aug. 1597 (registered in P. C. C. 77, Cobham). Therein he bequeathed to Lord-keeper Sir Thomas Egerton ‘the Jewell wherein the Quenes mat$^{ies}$ picture is which he vsed to weare aboutes his necke.’ He possessed lands in the county of Durham and a lease of the farm of Tollesbury in Essex. By his wife Frances, who survived him, he had a son Thomas, a daughter Mary, another daughter married to Thomas Harries, and probably other children. Giffard was a man of wide culture, well read in French, Italian, and Flemish literature. He requested his executors to deliver to Merton College ‘suche of his bookes as Mr. Henry Savill should choose to be placed in the Librarye of the same Colledge for the vse of the ffellowes and Schollers of the same howse.’
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gifford, Andrew

​GIFFORD, ANDREW (1700–1784), baptist minister and numismatist, was the son of Emanuel Gifford, and grandson of Andrew Gifford, both baptist ministers at Bristol. He was born on 17 Aug. 1700, and was sent to the academy of Samuel Jones at Tewkesbury. After leaving that academy he studied for a time under Dr. John Ward. He seems to have performed ministerial work in Nottingham in 1725, and to have been assistant to his father at Bristol in 1726, in which year he was invited to become pastor of the congregation in Devonshire Square, London. He declined this position, but in the beginning of 1730 he accepted a call from the baptist meeting in Eagle Street, London. He was chaplain to Sir Richard Ellys [q. v.], and after Sir Richard's death to Lady Ellys, from 1731 to 1745. In 1754 he received the degree of D.D. from Aberdeen.
He collected coins, of which he had a great knowledge, and was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Owing to this, and to the influence of powerful friends with whom he had become acquainted during his chaplaincy to Ellys, and also probably owing to the fact that his old tutor, Dr. John Ward, was one of the trustees, he was appointed assistant librarian in the British Museum in 1757. He held this office till his death on 19 June 1784. He edited for the Society of Antiquaries ‘Folkes' Tables of English Silver and Gold Coins,’ which was published, in 2 vols. 4to, in 1763. His own collection of coins was purchased by George II for his private cabinet, but he left a valuable collection of books, manuscripts, pictures, and curiosities to the baptist academy at Bristol. His second wife, Grace Paynter, whom he married in 1737, died in 1762. She brought him a fortune of 6,000l. (Gent. Mag. vii. 637, xxxii. 600). He had no children. Pastor of the Eagle Street meeting till his death, he bequeathed 400l. to it, making the six deacons his executors.
Two of his sermons were published, one on ‘the Great Storm in 1703,’ 1734, and the other, preached ten days before his death, ‘To the Friendly Society,’ 1784.
E. C-n.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gifford, George (fl.1635)

​GIFFORD, GEORGE (fl. 1635), engraver, one of the earliest English engravers, is principally known from the interesting portrait of Bishop Hugh Latimer, engraved as frontispiece to the edition of Latimer's sermons published in 1635. It is well engraved, in a manner superior to that of some of the contemporary engravers. Gifford engraved a portrait of John Bate as frontispiece to the second edition of his ‘Mysteries of Art and Nature,’ published in the same year. He also engraved a portrait of Sir Edmund Marmion. An engraving of St. Peter, evidently one of a set, in the print room at the British Museum, bears his name in full. All his engravings are scarce.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Linnecar, Richard

​LINNECAR, RICHARD (1722–1800), dramatist, born at Wakefield in 1722, was for some time postmaster there. In 1763 he was elected one of the coroners for the West Riding of Yorkshire. For many years he was a prominent freemason. He died while holding an inquest at Swillington on 14 March 1800, aged 78 (Gent. Mag. 1800, pt. i. p. 391).
Linnecar published by subscription in 1789 a volume of ‘Miscellaneous Works’ (8vo, Leeds), containing two comedies, ‘The Lucky Escape,’ described by Genest ‘as insipid to the last degree,’ and ‘The Plotting Wives,’ the latter of which was acted at York on 6 Feb. 1769; a tragedy, ‘The Generous Moor;’ some prose ‘Strictures on Freemasonry,’ and numerous songs and other trifles in verse.
His portrait was painted by Singleton and engraved by T. Barrow.
[Lupton's Wakefield's Worthies, pp. 254–5; Linnecar's Works; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. p. 1367; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, i. 210.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Linton, William (1801-1880)

​LINTON, Sir WILLIAM (1801–1880), army physician, eldest son of Jabez Linton of Hardrigg Lodge, Dumfriesshire, by Jane, daughter of William Crocket of Grahamshill in the same county, was born in 1801 at Kirkpatrick Fleming. He was educated at Edinburgh University, and graduated L.R.C.S. in 1826. But he had already utilised four summer vacations as surgeon on a whaler in the arctic regions. He entered the army medical department in 1826, graduated M.D. at Glasgow in 1834, and became staff surgeon of the first class in 1848. After serving in Canada, the Mediterranean, and the West Indies, he was appointed deputy inspector-general of hospitals of the first division of the army in the Crimea, was present in every action up to the battle of Balaclava, and had care of the barrack hospital in Scutari shortly after its establishment in 1854 until the British forces came home. On his return in 1856 he was created C.B. In the following year he proceeded to India as inspector-general of hospitals, to which was soon added the post of principal medical officer of the European army. He held the offices throughout the Indian mutiny. His unremitting zeal was rewarded by his being in 1859 enrolled among her majesty's honorary physicians, and in 1865 he was advanced to the dignity of K.C.B. Linton retired from the active list in 1863, and died unmarried at his residence of Skairfield, Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, on 9 Oct. 1880.
[Times, 12 Oct. 1880; Ann. Reg. 1880, p. 205; Lancet, 1880, ii. 639, and Brit. Med. Journal, ii. 644; Irving's Scotsmen, Additions; Report upon the State of Hospitals in the Crimea and Scutari (Parl. Papers, 1854–5, vol. xxxiii.), pp. 12, 173; Med. Direct. 1880, p. 1257.]
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Linley, Mary

​LINLEY, MARY, afterwards Mrs. Tickell (1758–1787), vocalist, the second daughter of Thomas Linley the elder [q. v.], musician, was born in Bath 4 Jan. 1758. In 1771 she appeared at the Three Choirs Musical Festival at Hereford, and in 1772 ​at Gloucester, with her more celebrated sister Elizabeth Ann, afterwards Mrs. Sheridan [q. v.] On the retirement of Mrs. Sheridan, Mary Linley filled her place in oratorio and concert room. On 25 July 1780 she married Richard Tickell, pamphleteer and commissioner of stamps. She died at Clifton on 27 July 1787, leaving two sons and a daughter, and was buried in Wells Cathedral.
Mrs. Sheridan was passionately attached to this sister, and on her death in 1788 wrote some pathetic verses, which are quoted by Moore (Life of R. B. Sheridan, pp. 392–6). Moore also gives some letters written from Bath by Mary Linley upon the production there of the ‘Rivals’ in 1775.
Gainsborough painted Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs. Tickell together, the original picture being at present in the Dulwich College Gallery. A miniature by Cosway, after a sketch of Mrs. Tickell taken shortly before her death, while asleep (see Moore, Sheridan, p. 390), by a Bristol artist, is in the possession of Lumsden Propert, esq., M.D.; another miniature, by Gainsborough, belongs to C. E. Lees, esq.
[Annals of the Three Choirs, pp. 48, 49; Brayley's Surrey, iii. 242; Gent. Mag. 1787, pt. ii. p. 741.]
L. M. M.