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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Samuel (d.1865)

​LEWIS, SAMUEL, the elder (d. 1865), publisher, carried on business successively in Aldersgate Street, Hatton Garden, and Finsbury Place South, London, under the style of ‘S. Lewis & Co.’ He is probably the Samuel Lewis who died at 19 Compton Terrace, Islington, on 28 Feb. 1865.
His best known publications, edited by Joseph Haydn [q. v.], were:
* ‘A Topographical Dictionary of England … and the Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, and Man … with Maps … and a Plan of London,’ &c., 4 vols. 4to, London, 1831 (7th edit. 1849). With the third edition (1835) was issued a supplementary volume, comprising a ‘View of the Representative History of England, with 116 engraved Plans.’
* ‘A Topographical Dictionary of Wales … with an Appendix, describing the Electoral Boundaries of the several Boroughs,’ &c., 2 vols. 4to, London, 1833 (4th edit. 1849).
* ‘A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland … with an Appendix describing the Electoral Boundaries of the several Boroughs,’ &c., 2 vols. 4to, London, 1837 (2nd edit. 1842). It was severely criticised in the ‘Dublin University Magazine’ (xii. 226–32).
* ‘Lewis's Atlas, comprising the Counties of Ireland and a general Map of the Kingdom,’ fol. London, 1837.
* ‘An Atlas, comprising Maps of the several Counties [of England and Wales], divided into Unions, and of the Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, and Man,’ 4to, London, 1842.
His son, Samuel Lewis the younger (d. 1862),wrote:
* ‘The History and Topography of the Parish of Saint Mary, Islington,’ 4to, London, 1842, founded upon John Nelson's work (1811).
* ‘Islington as it was and as it is,’ 8vo, London, 1854.
* ‘The Book of English Rivers. An Account of the Rivers of England and Wales,’ 8vo, London, 1855.
He died at Priory Villas, Canonbury, on 4 May 1862, having married Jane Burn Suter in 1859.
[Brit. Mus. Cat.; wills at Somerset House.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Thomas Taylor

​LEWIS, THOMAS TAYLOR (1801–1858), geologist and antiquary, was born at Ludlow in Shropshire in 1801. He was educated at Cheam school, Surrey, under the Rev. James Welchin, was admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge, 5 Oct. 1819, graduated B.A. in 1825, and proceeded M.A. in 1828. In 1826 he became curate of Aymestrey, Herefordshire; he was subsequently vicar of Bridstow, near Ross, and on 17 March 1832 he was appointed in addition perpetual curate of Leinthall Earls, all in the same county. He died at Bridstow on 28 Oct. 1858. Lewis was a diligent local antiquary, and formed large collections of fossils in the neighbourhood of Aymestrey, and especially investigated what was afterwards termed the Silurian system. He communicated the results of his researches to Sir Roderick Murchison [q. v.], and his memory has been preserved in the names of local fossils, such as the ‘Lingula Lewisii,’ ‘Spirorbis Lewisii,’ and ‘Cephalapis Lewisii.’ Lewis also edited for the Camden Society in 1853 the ‘Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley.’
[Gent. Mag. 1859, pt. i. p. 93; Foster's Index Ecclesiasticus; information kindly furnished by R. F. Scott, esq.]
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Titus

​LEWIS, TITUS (1773–1811), baptist minister, son of Lewis Thomas, baptist minister at Cilfowyr, Pembrokeshire, was born at Cilgerran on 21 Feb. 1773. On 1 June 1794 he and thirty-two others were admitted as church members at Blaen-y-waun. In January 1798 he was set apart for the ministry by prayer and the laying on of hands of the elders. In 1800 he married Miss Howard of Carmarthen, and soon after removed to take charge of the baptist church in that town. He worked hard and travelled much, visiting the churches both in North and South Wales. He engaged in frequent controversy on the subject of baptism, exhibiting, according to his biographer, more of the fortiter in re than the suaviter in modo. He wrote simply and naturally. His last sermon was preached at the quarterly meeting of the denomination, held at Cwmifor on 1 Jan. 1811, and his death took place on 1 May of the same year. His remains were interred in what is now the burying-ground of the baptist church at Carmarthen.
He published besides tracts the following works (all in Welsh): 1. ‘Mawl i'r Oen a laddwyd’ (a hymn-book), Caerfyrddin, 1802. 2. ‘Testament Newydd ein Harglwydd,’ &c. (a New Testament for the Sunday school), Carmarthen, 1802, 12mo. 3. ‘Geirlyfr Cymraeg a Saesneg’ (a Welsh and English Dictionary), Carmarthen, 1805, 8vo; 2nd edit. Carmarthen, 1815, 8vo. 4. ‘Llyfr Rhyfeddodau, neu Amlygiadau o Waredigaethau Rhyfeddol Duw i'w Weision’ (‘A Book of Wonders, or Examples of God's Wonderful Deliverances of his Servants’), Carmarthen, 1808, 8vo. 5. ‘Hanes Wladol a Chrefyddol Prydain Fawr’ (‘The Political and Religious History of Great Britain’), Carmarthen, 1810, 8vo; 2nd edit., with introduction by the Rev. Owen Williams, and edited and continued from 1800 to 1850 by Dr. John Emlyn Jones, Carmarthen, 1855–7. 6. ‘Esponiad ar y Cyffelybiaethau a roddir yn yr Ysgrythyrau Sanctaidd i Dduw 'r Tad’ (based chiefly on the ‘Tropologia, or Key to open Scripture Metaphors,’ by Benjamin Keach [q. v.]), Carmarthen, 1811, 12mo; another edition, 8vo, Carnarvon [1820?]. 7. ‘A Translation of Dr. Gill on the Gospels and Book of Acts,’ Carmarthen, 1811, 12mo; 2nd edit., edited and completed by Dr. J. Emlyn Jones, Cardiff, 1854. In this work Joseph Harris and Christmas Evans were associated with Lewis.
[Jones's Geiriadur Bywgraffyddol, ii. 161–3; Spurrell's Carmarthen, p. 136; Essay on Welsh Periodical Literature in Cardiff Eisteddfod Transactions, 1883; Brit. Mus. Cat.; information from the librarian of the Swansea Free Library.]
R. J. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Mark

​LEWIS, MARK (fl. 1678), financial and miscellaneous writer, was apparently in 1670 a master in a school conducted on improved principles by A. Bret at Tottenham High Cross, Middlesex. His method of teaching so pleased the Earl of Anglesey, then lord privy seal, that he placed his grandsons at the school, and secured Lewis's rights to the invention by letters patent. About 1676 Lewis devoted himself to the concoction of various quackish schemes for the reduction of taxation, the increase of trade, and the establishment of banks. In 1677 he affixed the letters ‘D.D.’ to his name.
His writings are:
* ‘An Essay to facilitate the Education of Youth by bringing down the Rudiments of Grammar to the Sense of Seeing,’ 8vo (London, 1670?).
* ‘[Rudimenta?] Grammaticæ Puerilis, or the Rudiments of the Latin and Greek Tongues, &c. (an Apologie for a Grammar printed about twenty years since, … and reprinted for the use of a private school, &c.),’ 8vo, London [1671].
* ‘Plain and Short Rules for pointing Periods and reading Sentences grammatically,’ 8vo (London, 1675?).
* ‘Vestibulum Technicum, or an Artificial Vestibulum. Wherein the sense of Janua Linguarum is contained and most of the leading Words are compiled into Plain and Short Sentences,’ &c., 8vo, London, 1675.
* ‘A Model for a School for the better Education of Youth,’ 8vo, London ​[1675?].
* ‘Proposals to increase Trade and to advance his Majesties Revenue, without any hazard, … and with apparent Profit to Everybody,’ 8vo, London, 1677.
* ‘Proposals to the King and Parliament how this Tax of one hundred sixty thousand pounds per moneth may be raised by a monethly Tax for one year … by setting up Banks here like the Bank at Venice,’ 4to, London, 1677.
* ‘A Short Model of a Bank, … which … will be able to give out bills of credit to a vast extent, that all persons will accept of rather than mony,’ 8vo [London, 1677].
* ‘Proposals to the King and Parliament, or a large Model of a Bank,’ 4to, London, 1678.
[Lewis's Works.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Samuel Savage

​LEWIS, SAMUEL SAVAGE (1836–1891), librarian of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, was born at Spital Square, London, on 13 July 1836. His father, William Jones Lewis, youngest son of George Lewis (1763–1822) [q. v.], was a surgeon, and his mother, Elizabeth Bunnell, descended from Philip Henry. He entered the City of London school in 1844, won the Carpenter scholarship in 1847, and matriculated from St. John's College, Cambridge, on 10 Oct. 1854. His eyesight failing, he studied farming, and from 1857 to 1860 lived in Canada. He then tried teaching in London, and in 1861 obtained a situation on the prince consort's model farm near Windsor. His eyesight improved after operations in 1864, and he returned to Cambridge, migrating to Corpus Christi College at Easter 1865, and graduating B.A., with a first class in classics, in 1869, and M.A. in 1872. On 14 May 1869 he was elected fellow of Corpus Christi, on 22 March 1872 he became F.S.A., and in the same year was ordained. He was librarian of his college (1870–91), travelled widely, and was good-natured and hospitable. He was a diligent antiquary, and collected coins, gems, and seals with great assiduity and success, obtaining them from all parts of Europe, and forming a valuable museum in his college rooms. Lewis died suddenly in the train near Oxford on 31 March 1891. He married, on 12 Dec. 1887, Agnes Smith, a writer of novels and of works on modern Greece. Among Lewis's antiquarian papers, a list of which is given in his life by his widow, may be mentioned: 1. ‘On a Roman Lanx found at Welney in Norfolk,’ Cambridge, 1870. ​2. ‘Report on the Age of the Utrecht Psalter,’ 1874. 3. ‘The Library of Corpus Christi College,’ 1891. He left by will to his college his collection of coins, gems, vases, and archæological books (now known as the Lewis collection), and the reversion of his personal estate. The gems were catalogued by Professor Middleton in 1892.
[Life by Agnes Smith Lewis, 1892; information kindly furnished by C. W. Moule, esq.]
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Thomas Frankland

​LEWIS, Sir THOMAS FRANKLAND (1780–1855), politician, only son of John Lewis of Harpton Court, Radnorshire, by his second wife, Anne, second daughter of Admiral Sir Thomas Frankland, bart. [q. v.], was born in London 14 May 1780. He was educated at Eton, where his name appears in the school lists for 1793 and 1796, and afterwards proceeded to Christ Church, but took no degree there. From 1806 to 1815 he was lieutenant-colonel of the Radnorshire militia. He was M.P. for Beaumaris from 1812 till 1826, when he was returned for Ennis. This seat he quitted in February 1828 for Radnorshire, which he represented till his retirement in 1834 on becoming chairman of the poor-law commission, but he again sat in parliament for the Radnor Burghs from 1847 until his death. From an early date he was employed in political and administrative posts of the second rank. He was appointed a member of the commission to inquire into the Irish revenue in 1821, of that to inquire into the revenue of Great Britain and Ireland in 1822, and was from 1825 to 1828 a member of the commission on Irish education. Being an adherent of Canning, he was, on 4 Sept. 1827, appointed joint-secretary to the treasury, and from February to May 1828, when he retired with Huskisson, he was vice-president of the board of trade. On taking this office he was sworn of the privy council. In February 1830 he succeeded John Charles Herries [q. v.] in the treasurership of the navy, when Herries was sent to the board of trade; but he personally added little strength to the Wellington administration, and, although the salary of his post was reduced from 3,000l. to 2,000l. by the pressure of the opposition, the fact that the post was filled up at all exposed the ministry to the charge of having broken their pledges of economy. In August 1834 the whig ministry made him chairman of the new English poor-law commission. He displayed much administrative prudence, and in 1836, when the Irish poor-law commissioners had reported somewhat hastily in favour of extensive reclamation works (see State Papers, 1836, xxx. 3), he induced the ministry to send his colleague, Nicholls, to Ireland to report independently on the subject (for this report see Parl. Papers, 1839, li. 255). In 1839 he resigned ​his chairmanship of the poor-law commission. He was a member of the commission upon the ‘Rebecca’ riots in Wales in 1843, and on 27 June 1846 he was rewarded with a baronetcy. He died at Harpton Court 22 Jan. 1855. He was twice married; first, on 10 March 1805, to Harriet, fourth daughter of Sir George Cornewall, bart., of Moccas Court, Hereford, by whom he had two sons, Sir George Cornewall Lewis [q. v.], and Gilbert, afterwards a prebendary of Hereford Cathedral; and, secondly, in 1839, to Mary Anne, daughter of John Ashton. M'Cullagh Torrens (Life of Lord Melbourne, i. 327) describes him as ‘a careful and accomplished man, but formal, verbose, and dull.’
[Spencer Walpole's Hist. of England, ii. 540, iii. 449; Letters of Madame de Lieven and Earl Grey, i. 306–441; Times, 24 Jan. 1855; Gent. Mag. 1834 and 1855; Moore's Memoirs.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Stuart

​LEWIS, STUART (1756?–1818), Scottish poet, born about 1756 at Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, son of an innkeeper with Jacobite sympathies, was named after Prince Charles the young Pretender. His school career was shortened by his father's early death. For a time he was in partnership as a merchant tailor in Chester, but being ruined by his partner returned to Ecclefechan to carry on the same occupation. He read much and wrote popular verses, besides establishing and fostering a village library and a debating club. But his business did not prosper, and he enlisted into the Hopetoun Fencibles. Here he somewhat augmented his regulation pay by what he received for writing suitable lyrics for the officers. On the disbanding of the regiment in 1799 Lewis was employed as a travelling cloth-merchant in the west of England, but he fell a victim to intemperance, and from about his fiftieth year roamed over Scotland as ‘the mendicant bard,’ picking up a livelihood as ‘beggar, ballad-vendor, and tinker’ (Bards of Bon-Accord, p. 648). Fever, induced by a fall into the Nith, ended in his death at Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, 22 Sept. 1818. His wife died a year before.
While at Ecclefechan Lewis produced his poem on ‘Fair Helen of Kirkconnell,’ Edinburgh, 1796, 8vo. The poem was afterwards published for the author at Aberdeen in 1816. The preface, in which he tries to settle the history of the famous legendary ballad on the same theme, is interesting and valuable (Scots Musical Museum, iv. 208*). ‘Moranza, or the African Slave, an Address to Poverty, and an Elegy on a Young Gentleman who died at Angola,’ was published at Edinburgh, 1816, 8vo. Of his miscellaneous lyrics ‘O'er the Muir’ is noteworthy both for its intrinsic merits and because it is either an anticipation or an expansion of ‘O'er the Muir amang the Heather,’ by Jean Glover (1758–1801) [q. v.] Lewis averred that his piece was the earlier (Gallovidian Encyclopædia, p. 338), but the precise relationship of the two cannot be determined.
[Authorities in the text; Rogers's Scottish Minstrel; Whitelaw's Book of Scottish Song, 1866, p. 356.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Smith, Jeremiah (1771-1854)

​SMITH, JEREMIAH (1771–1854), master of Manchester grammar school, son of Jeremiah and Ann Smith, was born at Brewood, Staffordshire, on 22 July 1771, and educated under Dr. George Croft at Brewood school. He entered Hertford College, Oxford, in 1790, and graduated B.A. in 1794, M.A. in 1797, B.D. in 1810, and D.D. in 1811. He was ordained in 1794 to the curacy of ​Edgbaston, Birmingham, which he soon exchanged for that of St. Mary's, Moseley. He was also assistant, and then second master, in King Edward's School, Birmingham; and on 6 May 1807 was appointed high master of the Manchester grammar school, a position he retained for thirty years. An enduring memorial of the success which distinguished his career as a schoolmaster exists in the third volume of the ‘Admission Register of the Manchester School,’ which was edited by his eldest son. While at Manchester he held successively the curacies of St. Mark's, Cheetham Hill, St. George's, Carrington, and Sacred Trinity, Salford, and the incumbency of St. Peter's, Manchester (1813–25), and the rectory of St. Ann's in the same town (1822–1837). He also held the small vicarage of Great Wilbraham, near Cambridge, from 1832 to 1847, and was from 1824 one of the four ‘king's preachers’ for Lancashire, a sinecure office which was abolished in 1845. His sole publication was a sermon preached before the North Worcester volunteers in 1805.
He died at Brewood on 21 Dec. 1854. There is a portrait of him, from a miniature by G. Hargreaves, in the ‘History of the Foundations in Manchester’ (vol. ii. 1831), and in the ‘Manchester School Register’ (vol. iii.). Another portrait, by Colman, is in the possession of the family.
He married, at King's Norton, Worcestershire, on 27 July 1811, Felicia, daughter of William Anderton of Moseley Wake Green, by whom he had eight children.
His eldest son, Jeremiah Finch Smith (1815–1895), was rector of Aldridge, Staffordshire, from 1849, rural dean of Walsall from 1862, and prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral. He published, besides many sermons and tracts, the valuable and admirably edited ‘Admission Register of the Manchester School,’ 3 vols., 1866–1874, and ‘Notes on the Parish of Aldridge, Staffordshire,’ 1884–9, 2 pts. (Manchester Guardian, 17 Sept. 1895).
The third son, James Hicks Smith (1822–1881), barrister-at-law, was author of: 1. ‘Brewood, a Résumé, Historical and Topographical,’ 1867. 2. ‘Reminiscences of Thirty Years, by an Hereditary High Churchman,’ 1868. 3. ‘Brewood Church, the Tombs of the Giffards,’ 1870. 4. ‘The Parish in History, and in Church and State,’ 1871. 5. ‘Collegiate and other Ancient Manchester,’ 1877 (Manchester Guardian, 4 Jan. 1882; Church Review, 6 Jan. 1882).
Isaac Gregory Smith (b. 1827), prebendary of Hereford Cathedral, and John George Smith (b. 1829), barrister-at-law, were respectively fourth and fifth sons.
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Smith, James (1645-1711)

​SMITH, JAMES, D.D. (1645–1711), Roman catholic prelate, born at Winchester in 1645, was educated in the English College at Douay, and was created D.D. on 5 Feb. 1679–80. He was appointed president of Douay College, in succession to Dr. Francis Gage [q. v.], on 28 Aug. 1682, and while occupying that post he succeeded to a large paternal estate, the chief part of which he granted to a younger brother. In 1687 he was nominated by James II to be one of the four vicars-apostolic of England, each of whom had an annual stipend of 1,000l. out of the royal exchequer, with 500l. upon entering into office. He was elected by Propaganda on 12 Jan. 1678, and was consecrated at Somerset House on 13 May (O.S.) 1688 as bishop of Calliopolis in partibus. After his consecration he went to his vicariate, arriving on 2 Aug. at York, where he was received with great ceremony by the secular and regular clergy, who sang the Te Deum publicly. In one of his visitations Smith was deprived of his large crozier by Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby and first duke of Leeds [q. v.], who deposited it in York Minster. This beautiful work of art was exhibited before the Society of Antiquaries on 23 Feb. 1888 (Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2nd ser. xii. 105). On the flight of the king, Smith left York and sought refuge in the house of Francis Tunstall, esq. of Wycliffe, who afforded him hospitality and protection till the time of his death. In 1700 it was contemplated that he should be promoted to the cardinalate and to the office of Protector of England, which had been vacant since the death of Cardinal Howard; the Duke of Berwick and Dr. George Witham were commissioned from St. Germains to solicit this appointment from Clement XI. Smith died at Wycliffe on 13 May 1711. Dodd characterises him as ‘a fine gentleman, a good scholar, and a zealous prelate.’
His name is subscribed to ‘A Pastoral Letter from the four Catholic Bishops to the Lay Catholics of England,’ on the re-establishment of Catholic episcopal authority in England, London, 1688 and 1747, 8vo. His portrait, engraved from the original picture in the chapel-house at York, appeared in the ‘Laity's Directory’ for 1819.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Smith, James (1775-1839)

​SMITH, JAMES (1775–1839), author and humourist, born in London on 10 Feb. 1775, was elder brother of Horatio Smith [q. v.] Like his brother, he received his education at Chigwell, but, instead of being sent to business, entered his father's office and succeeded him as solicitor to the board of ordnance in 1812. Like Horatio, James greatly preferred theatrical and literary amusement to the dry details of business, but, like him too gave business an attention particularly exemplary under the circumstances, and eventually attained considerable eminence in his profession. His first production was a hoax, being a series of letters descriptive of alleged natural phenomena which imposed upon the ‘Gentleman's Magazine.’ He was closely connected with his brother in his literary undertakings, writing in particular the larger and better portion of the metrical imitations of Horace, which appeared in Thomas Hill's ‘Monthly Mirror,’ and were subsequently collected and published under the title of ‘Horace in London’ (1813). To the ‘Rejected Addresses’ (1812) he contributed Nos. 2, 5, 7, 13, 14, 16, 17, ​18 [see under Smith, Horatio]. James Smith's contributions to these famous parodies were perhaps the best, though not the most numerous, but he appeared contented with the celebrity they had brought him, and never again produced anything considerable. Universally known, and everywhere socially acceptable, ‘he wanted,’ says his brother, ‘all motive for further and more serious exertion.’ He produced, however, the text for Charles Mathews's comic entertainments, ‘The Country Cousins,’ ‘The Trip to France,’ ‘The Trip to America’ (1820–2), and the two latter brought him in 1,000l. ‘James Smith,’ said Mathews, ‘is the only man who can write clever nonsense.’ He also produced much comic verse and prose for periodicals, not generally of a very high order, but occasionally including an epigram turned with point and neatness. His reputation rather rested upon his character as a wit and diner-out; most of the excellent things attributed to him, however, were, in the opinion of his biographer in the ‘Law Magazine,’ impromptus faits à loisir. He was less genial than his brother, ‘circumscribed in the extent of his information, and, as a natural consequence, more concentrated in himself,’ says a writer in the ‘New Monthly Magazine.’ When in his office ‘he looked as serious as the parchments surrounding him.’ Keats, after dining with both the Smiths and their friends, left with a conviction of the superiority of humour to wit. James Smith, nevertheless, was a general favourite, and tempered his powers of sarcasm with much good nature. He died, unmarried, at his house in Craven Street, Strand, on 24 Dec. 1839, and was buried in the vaults of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. His ‘Comic Miscellanies’ were edited in 1840, with a memoir, by his brother (London, 2 vols. 12mo).
A portrait by Lonsdale was bequeathed by him to the Torrholme family. Smith also figures in the ‘Maclise Portrait Gallery’ (ed. Bates, p. 277).
R. G.