OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Samson (fl.550)

​SAMSON (fl. 550), British saint, appears to have been the son of Amon of Dyfed and Anna of Gwynedd, parents of noble but not royal rank. Dedicated from his infancy to a clerical career, he was sent to the monastic school of Illtud [see Illtyd or Iltutus] at Llantwit Major, where he made rapid progress, and was in course of time ordained deacon by Dubricius (Dyfrig) [q. v.] His rise was so marked as to attract the jealous notice of Illtud's nephews, who feared he might oust them from the succession; but they plotted against him in vain. Having received priest's orders from Dubricius, he withdrew to the monastery of one ‘Piro’ (possibly on Caldy Island). In the course of a visit to his home he persuaded his father, mother, uncle, aunt, and brothers to take monastic vows. Not long after he became ‘pistor’ or steward of his monastery, and, on the disgrace of Piro, succeeded him as abbot. A visit to Ireland resulted in his receiving the submission of a monastery there; on his return he sent his uncle across the Channel to take charge of the new acquisition. He resolved himself to found a new cell, and, journeying to the banks of the Severn, established there a small community in a ‘castellum’ far from the haunts of men. Discovered by his fellow-countrymen, he was appointed by a synod abbot of the old monastery of Germanus, and there consecrated bishop by Dubricius, with no reference, it would appear, to any special see. Warned by an angel that he was to be ‘peregrinus,’ he crossed the Severn sea, but for some time got no further than the shores of the English Channel, where he founded another monastery. Finally, however, he set sail for Brittany, landing near Dol, where he built the monastery which served as his centre during his Breton ministrations. Iudual (Idwal), the rightful heir of ‘Domnonia,’ having been dispossessed by ‘Conmorus’ (Cynfor?), Samson visited Paris in order to aid him, and, with the aid of Childebert (511–558), restored him to his territory. He died on 28 July, and was buried at Dol.
He was no doubt the ‘Samson peccator episcopus’ who in 557 (or 555) signed the decrees of the council of Paris. Dol, nevertheless, did not become a regular episcopal see until 850, and in Samson's time the place was only a monastery. His archiepiscopate (in the modern sense) is a late fiction; Geoffrey of Monmouth makes him, first, archbishop of York (viii. 12, ix. 8), and then, after his expulsion by the Saxons, of Dol (ix. 15); Giraldus Cambrensis asserts, in defiance of chronology, that he was twenty-fifth bishop of St. David's, whence, at the time of the ‘yellow plague,’ he carried off the pall to Dol (Itin. Cambr. ii. 1; de Jure et Statu Men. Eccl. ii.).
The Welsh hagiologies connect Samson and his father with the princely family of Emyr of Brittany, but their authority must yield to that of the early lives (Myvyrian Archaiology, 2nd edit. pp. 415, 431; Iolo MSS. 107, 111, 132). There are no Welsh dedications to St. Samson, but, according to Borlase (Age of the Saints, p. 140), he is patron of Samson Island in Scilly and the Cornish churches of Golant and South Hill.
J. E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Samuel, Richard

​SAMUEL, RICHARD (fl. 1770–1786), portrait-painter, twice obtained the gold medal of the Society of Arts for the best original historical drawing, and in 1773 was awarded a premium for an improvement in laying mezzotint grounds, but there is no record of his having practised this art. From 1772 to 1779 he contributed to the Royal Academy exhibitions portraits, small whole-lengths, heads, and conversation pieces, with an occasional subject-piece. In 1784 he painted a large portrait of Robert Pollard [q. v.] the engraver, which is now in the National Portrait Gallery; this is a work of some distinction, painted somewhat in the manner of Gainsborough. In 1786 he published a short pamphlet ‘On the Utility of Drawing and Painting.’ A group of female portraits by him was engraved as ‘The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain.’ As none of his works show maturity in his art, it is probable that he died young.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sams, Joseph

​SAMS, JOSEPH (1784–1860), orientalist, born in 1784 at Somerton, Somerset, was educated at Ackworth school, Yorkshire, from 1794 to 1798, and became a teacher there in 1804. He left in 1810 to start a school at Darlington, but relinquished it to open a bookseller's shop. Later he travelled over the continent of Europe and elsewhere in search of antiquities. During his many visits to the East he formed a valuable collection of Egyptian papyri, mummies, and sarcophagi. The objects were intelligently collected to show the workmen's method, and included half-finished inscriptions, palettes with the colours prepared, and children's toys. Among the jewellery was said to be the ring presented by Pharaoh to Joseph. In the course of his visits to Palestine, Sams visited every spot mentioned in the New Testament that could be identified.
In 1832 he obtained from a banker in Girgenti 150 Græco-Sicilian vases of much interest, which he exhibited and described. Sams was somewhat eccentric, wore a ‘three-decker’ hat, and secreted the money for which his circular notes were changed in a screw ferrule at the end of a walking-stick. He carried with him religious books and tracts in Italian, Arabic, and other tongues. When granted an interview with Mohammet Ali at Alexandria he gave him a copy of the scriptures, and deposited another in the monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai.
Sams's curiosities were exhibited at 56 Great Queen Street, London, and at Darlington. Many collections were enriched from them. The bulk, which was offered to the British Museum, was purchased by Joseph Mayer [q. v.] about 1850, was exhibited with his own collection in Great Colquith Street, Liverpool, and in 1867 presented to the town by him.
Sams died on 18 March 1860, and was buried at Darlington. He married, in 1807, Mary Brady of Doncaster (d. 1834); by her he had several children. His books, pictures, tapestries, and manuscripts, were sold by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson in London on 2 Nov. 1860. ​Sams issued a ‘Descriptive Catalogue’ of his collection of rare books, illustrated by Bewick, and with critical and biographical notes (pt. i. 1822, pt. ii. 1824). He also printed drawings of the Egyptian remains; in 1839 an illustrated catalogue of them, and a catalogue of ancient and modern books relating chiefly to the Society of Friends (Durham, 1856, 8vo). A notice of his Egyptian curiosities, with plates, appeared in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ April 1833, pp. 312–15, and was separately issued.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rud, Thomas

​RUD, THOMAS (1668–1733), antiquary, baptised at Stockton on 2 Jan. 1667–8, was son of Thomas Rud (1641–1719), curate of Stockton, afterwards vicar of Norton and rector of Long Newton, all in the county of Durham, who married at Stockton, on 13 Nov. 1666, Alice, daughter of Thomas Watson of Stockton. From Durham grammar school he was admitted as subsizar at Trinity College, Cambridge, on 2 Feb. 1683–4, and graduated B.A. 1687, M.A. 1691. From 1697 to 1699 he was the master of his old school at Durham, and from 1699 to 1710 he was head master at Newcastle grammar school and master of St. Mary's Hospital. In 1707 he printed at Cambridge a Latin syntax and prosody compiled for the use of his scholars.
In 1711 Rud returned to Durham, where he was instituted to the vicarage of St. Oswald (1 Sept.); he received in the same year the posts of lecturer of holy-day sermons in the cathedral and librarian to the dean and chapter. He was promoted in 1725 to the vicarage of Northallerton, and held with it, from June 1729, the rectory of Washington, co. Durham. He was collated, on 9 July 1728, as prebendary of the fifth stall at Ripon collegiate church, and retained these preferments until his death. He died on 17 March 1732–3. His wife was Isabel, daughter of Cuthbert Hendry of Shincliffe, near Durham, and they had several children.
Rud compiled with much labour and learning, and with beautiful penmanship, a catalogue of the manuscripts at Durham Cathedral, which he completed at North Allerton on 15 Sept. 1727. It was printed for the dean and chapter under the editorship of the Rev. James Raine [q. v.], and with an appendix by him, in 1825. To Rud Raine owed much of the material embodied in the latter's ‘Catalogi veteres Librorum Eccl. Cathedralis Dunelm.’ (Surtees Soc. 1838). To Thomas Bedford's edition of the treatise of Symeon of Durham, ‘De exordio atque procursu Dunhelmensis ecclesiæ’ (1732), there was prefixed a Latin dissertation (pp. i–xxxv) by Rud, proving, in opposition to the views of Selden, that Symeon of Durham, and not Turgot, was its author. Rud's copy of this work, with the errors of the press corrected, and with some important additions, ultimately passed to Dr. Raine (Surtees Soc. vii. 149–50). Rud contributed to the two volumes of ‘Miscellaneous Observations upon Authors, Ancient and Modern,’ which were edited by Dr. Jortin in 1731–2, several articles signed T. R., chiefly relating to the Arundelian marbles. A copy of Beza's New Testament (1582), at the British Museum, has many manuscript notes by Rud.
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rudborne, Thomas (d.1442)

​RUDBORNE or RODEBURNE, THOMAS (d. 1442), bishop of St. Davids, probably a native of Rodbourne, Wiltshire, was educated at Merton College, Oxford, ​where he was bursar 1399–1400, and was proctor of the university in 1399 and 1401. In 1411 he was with others appointed by the university to examine the doctrines of Wiclif, and was presented to the living of Deeping, Lincolnshire. Having been collated to the archdeaconry of Sudbury in 1413, he the same year exchanged that office for the deanery of the collegiate church of Tamworth. He was elected warden of Merton in 1416, and apparently resigned the following year, when he accompanied Henry V to Normandy as one of his chaplains. In 1419 he was admitted prebendary of Sarum, and in 1420 was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford. Being provided by papal bull to the bishopric of St. Davids in 1433, he was consecrated on 31 Jan. 1434. In 1436 Henry VI, whose chaplain he was, nominated him for election to the see of Ely, but the monks would not elect him. He built the tower over the gate of Merton College, and gave books to the library and to the library of the university. He died in 1442. His character is said to have been good and his manners affable, and he is described as an eminent divine, mathematician, and historian. He was a correspondent of Thomas Netter or Walden [q. v.] The works attributed to him are a book of letters to Thomas Netter (Waldensis) and others, to which a reference is made by his namesake Thomas Rudborne (fl. 1460) [q. v.], monk of St. Swithun's, Winchester, in the ‘Prologus in Historiam suam Minorem’ (Anglia Sacra, i. 287), and a chronicle not now known to exist.
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rudborne, Thomas (fl.1460)

​RUDBORNE, THOMAS (fl. 1460), historian, was a monk of St. Swithun's, Winchester, and not, as Bale and others following him state, of the monastery of Hyde or Newminster. His date is fixed by references in his works (see Oudin, De Scriptt. Eccles. iii. cols. 2722–5). He states that he was allowed to use the records of Durham Cathedral through the courtesy of Robert Neville (1404–1457) [q. v.], who was bishop there between 1438 and 1457. He alludes to his namesake, Thomas Rudborne (d. 1442) [q. v.], the bishop of St. David's, but no relationship has been traced between them.
He was author of: 1. ‘Annales Breves Ecclesiæ Wintoniensis a Bruto ad Henricum VI regem.’ This was written in 1440, and was apparently a sketch, and not an epitome, of his larger work, the ‘Historia Major.’ It was extant in Cotton MS. Galba A. xv., of which only a few unintelligible fragments now remain. Wharton called it the ‘Historia Minor,’ and used it to fill in some of the blanks in the ‘Historia Major.’ 2. ‘Historia Major, lib. v.,’ which was completed in 1454, and printed by Wharton in his ‘Anglia Sacra,’ i. 179–286, from two manuscripts, one being Cod. 183 in Lambeth Library, and the other in Corpus Christi Library, Cambridge; neither of these manuscripts is perfect, and Wharton's edition ends with the reign of Stephen. Distinct from both of these appears to be 3. ‘Chronica Thomæ Rudborn monachi ecclesiæ Wintoniensis a Bruto ad annum 18 Henrici III’ [1234], a copy of which, in a sixteenth-century hand, is extant in Cotton MS. Nero A. xvii.; this manuscript was compiled by the author, at the request of his fellow-monks, from the works of Gildas, Beda, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Matthew Paris, Thomas Rudborn, bishop of St. David's, whose chronicle is now lost, and other writers. According to Bernard, a copy of it was No. 25 among the manuscripts of Sir Simonds D'Ewes [q. v.] Oudin also states that among the Ashmolean manuscripts was ‘Additio Chronicæ Wintoniensis per fratrem Thomam Rudborn monachum S. Swithini, scilicet, Genealogia comitum Warwicensium;’ but the only work of Rudborn's now extant in that collection is ‘Appendix e Thoma Rudborn de rege Oswio et fundatione eccl. Lichefeld’ (Black, Cat. Ashmolean MSS. p. 770). In Cotton MS. Claudius B. VII. i. is ‘Excerpta e Breviario Chronicorum Thomæ Rudborn monachi Wintoniensis de Matilda filia Malcolmi regis Scotorum.’ Rudborne's must be distinguished from the earlier ‘Annales de Wintonia,’ printed by H. R. Luard in the Rolls Series.
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rudd, Sayer

​RUDD, SAYER (d. 1757), divine, was assistant in 1716, ‘when very young,’ to the baptist church at Glasshouse Street, London. Later he was a member of Edward Wallen's church at Maze Pond, Southwark. There he was publicly set apart for the ministry, with laying on of hands, on 2 July 1725, as successor to Thomas Dewhurst at Turner's Hall, Philpot Lane, London. In 1727 the congregation of the baptist chapel in Devonshire Square was united with his own, which removed to Devonshire Square. In April 1733 he became much unsettled in mind, and applied to his congregation for leave to visit Paris. This being refused, he ‘took French leave.’ At this time he offered his services as preacher to the quakers, apparently having failed to grasp their leading principle of unpaid ministry. He then applied to the lord chancellor for admission into the established church, but his ambition being beyond the living of 60l. per annum, which was offered him, he finally studied midwifery under Grégoire and Dussé of Paris, and proceeded to the degree of M.D. at Leyden. On returning to London he had some practice, and attended and took down in shorthand the lectures of Sir Richard Manningham [q. v.] One of these, ‘The certain Method to know the Disease,’ he published at London in 1742, 4to.
Meanwhile the Calvinistic baptist board accused him of unitarianism, and issued a minute against him. He defended himself in three ‘Letters,’ published 1734, 1735, and 1736, and in ‘Impartial Reflections,’ London, 1735, 8vo. The board, which met at Blackwell's Coffee House, Queen Street, disowned him on 26 Feb. 1735. He then preached for two years at a church built for him in Snow's Fields by Mrs. Ginn. After her death in 1738 he conformed to the established church, and was presented by Archbishop Potter to the living of Walmer, Kent, and in 1752 to the vicarage of Westwell in the same county. He then lived near Deal, and kept a school. Rudd died at Deal on 6 May 1757.
Besides many separate sermons he published:
* ‘An Elegiac Essay on the Death of John Noble,’ London, 1730, 8vo.
* ‘Poems on the Death of Thomas Hollis,’ London, 1731, 8vo.
* ‘An Essay towards a New Explication of the Doctrines of the Resurrection, Millennium, and Judgment,’ London, 1734, 8vo.
* ‘Six Sermons on the Existence of Christ's Human Spirit or Soul,’ 1740, 8vo. ​
* ‘Defense of the Plain Account of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper by Bishop Hoadley,’ London, 1748, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1752, 8vo.
* ‘The Negative of that Question whether the Archangel Michael, &c. In a Letter to Robert Clayton, the Bishop of Clogher,’ London, 1753, 8vo.
* ‘Prodromus, or Observations on the English Letters. An attempt to reform our Alphabet and regulate our Spelling,’ London, 1755, 8vo.
[Wilson's Hist. of Dissenting Churches, i. 145, 439, iv. 42, 280–2; Christian Examiner, vi. 95; Hasted's Hist. of Kent, iv. 175; works above mentioned; Watt's Bibl. Brit. ii. 820 g; Nichols's Lit. Illustr. iv. 189–99; Gent. Mag. 1757, p. 241.]
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rudder, Samuel

​RUDDER, SAMUEL (d. 1801), topographer, was born at Cirencester, Gloucestershire, where he carried on business as a ​printer. For many years he collected materials for a new history to supersede ‘The Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire’ (1712) of Sir R. Atkyns. He issued proposals for the publication of his book in 1767, but W. Herbert brought out a new edition (1768) of Atkyns's work to forestall him. Rudder printed as a specimen of his proposed history ‘The History of the Parish and Abbey of Hales’ (1768), and in 1779 published his ‘New History of Gloucestershire’ (Cirencester, folio). Horace Walpole, in writing to Cole the antiquary, 27 Dec. 1779, says that Rudder's ‘additions to Sir R. Atkyns make it the most sensible history of a county we have had yet’ (Letters, 1858, vii. 299, see also pp. 280, 337). ‘The History and Antiquities of Gloucester’ (Cirencester, 1781, 8vo) is taken from Rudder's larger work, as is also his ‘History of the Ancient Town of Cirencester’ (1800, 2nd edit.) In 1763 first appeared his ‘History of Fairford Church,’ of which the tenth edition is dated 1785.
Rudder died 15 March 1801, at Chelsea.
[Gent. Mag. 1801, i. 285; Nichols's Illustrations, vi. 397; Upcott's Bibl. Account of English Topogr. 1818, i. 250–3.]
H. R. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rudd, Anthony

​RUDD, ANTHONY (1549?–1615), bishop of St. David's, born in Yorkshire in 1549 or 1550, was admitted socius minor at Trinity ​College, Cambridge, on 6 Sept. 1569, and socius major on 7 April 1570, having graduated B.A. 1566–7 and M.A. 1570. He became B.D. 1577, and incorporated in that degree at Oxford on 9 July of the same year. He proceeded D.D. at Cambridge in 1583. He was installed dean of Gloucester on 10 Jan. 1584. Rudd was chosen bishop of St. David's early in 1594. He was consecrated by Whitgift at Lambeth on 9 June 1594, when his age was stated to be forty-five. He was ‘a most excellent preacher, whose sermons were very acceptable to Queen Elizabeth,’ and the queen on one occasion, after hearing him preach, told Whitgift to tell him that he should be his successor in the archbishopric. Whitgift gave Rudd the queen's message, and though ‘too mortified a man intentionally to lay a train to blow up this archbishop-designed,’ he assured the bishop of St. David's that the queen best liked ‘plain sermons, which came home to her heart’ (Fuller, Church History, bk. x. p. 69). When Rudd next preached, in 1596, he alluded to the queen's age, her wrinkles, and the approach of death, whereat her majesty was highly displeased, and he lost all chance of further preferment.
In his administration of his diocese he ‘wrought much on the Welsh by his wisdom and won their affection;’ but he built up a property for his children by his thrift and by leases of ecclesiastical property (Fuller; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 10 Jan. 1598). He was one of the bishops summoned to the Hampton Court conference. He opposed the oath framed against simony in the convocation of 1604, on the ground that the patron, as well as the clerk, should be obliged to take it (Fuller, Church History, x. 28). He supplied the government from time to time with evidence touching the recusants in his diocese (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 2 Nov. 1611). He died on 7 March 1614–15, leaving three sons—Antony, Robert, and Richard—and was buried with his wife, Anne Dalton, in the church of Llangathen, Carmarthenshire (in which parish he had purchased ‘a good estate’), where a fine tomb, with life-size figures, commemorates them both. His will, dated 25 Jan. 1614, leaves many charitable bequests. The Llangathen estate continued in his family till 1701.
Rudd published four sermons preached at court before Queen Elizabeth.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses and Fasti; Baker MSS., Trinity College, Cambridge; State Papers, Dom.; Fuller's Church History; Register of the University of Oxford, ed. Andrew Clark; Browne Willis's Survey of the Cathedral Church of St. David, 1717; Archdeacon Yardley's MS. Menevia Sacra, and other manuscripts belonging to the Chapter of St. David's Cathedral.]
W. H. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rudge, Edward

1904 Errata appended. Contains subarticle Edward John Rudge (1792–1861).
​RUDGE, EDWARD (1763–1846), botanist and antiquary, born on 27 June 1763, was son of Edward Rudge, a merchant and alderman of Salisbury, who possessed a large portion of the abbey estate at Evesham. He matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford, on 11 Oct. 1781, but took no degree. His attention was early turned to botany, through the influence of his uncle, Samuel Rudge (d. 1817), a retired barrister, who formed an herbarium, which passed to his nephew. His uncle's encouragement and the purchase of a fine series of plants from Guiana, collected by M. Martin, led Rudge to study the flora of that country, and to publish between 1805 and 1807 ‘Plantarum Guianæ rariorum icones et descriptiones hactenus ineditæ,’ fol. London.
Between 1811 and 1834 he conducted a series of excavations in those portions of the Evesham abbey estate under his control, and communicated the results to the Society of Antiquaries, who figured the ruins and relics discovered in their ‘Vetusta Monumenta,’ accompanied by a memoir from Rudge's son. ln 1842 he erected an octagon tower on the battlefield of Evesham, commemorative of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester.
Rudge was at an early period elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and was elected to the Linnean Society in 1802, and to the Royal Society in 1805. In 1829 he was sheriff of Worcestershire. He died at the Abbey Manor House, Evesham, on 3 Sept. 1846. He married twice. A genus of the botanical order Rubiaceæ was named Rudgea ​in his honour by Richard Anthony Salisbury in 1806 (Trans. of Linn. Soc. viii. 326).
Besides the work above named, Rudge was author of some seven botanical papers in the Royal and Linnean societies' publications, and of several papers in ‘Archæologia.’
His son, Edward John Rudge, M.A. (1792–1861), of Caius College, Cambridge, and barrister-at-law, was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and author of ‘Some Account of the History and Antiquities of Evesham,’ 1820, and ‘Illustrated and Historical Account of Buckden Palace,’ 1839.
B. B. W.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.240 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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