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

1904 Errata appended.
​BEECHEY, Sir WILLIAM (1753–1839), painter, was born at Burford, in Oxfordshire, 12 Dec. 1753. He is stated by Dayes to have begun life as a house-painter. From other accounts it would appear that he was articled to a solicitor at Stowe, in Gloucestershire, and was afterwards transferred to a lawyer in London. In London he made the acquaintance of some art students, who led him to get his articles cancelled, and he became in 1772 a student of the Royal Academy. In 1775 he exhibited some portraits, and from that time he practised in London with tolerable success. In 1781. however, he removed to Norwich. He stayed there some four or five years, painting subject pieces ('in the manner' of Hogarth) and portraits. Returning to London he settled in Lower Brook Street, and got both work and fame. In 1793 he was elected A.R.A., and painted the same year a portrait of Queen Charlotte, which procured him the appointment of portrait painter to her majesty. A large equestrian group of George III, with the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, reviewing the 10th hussars and 3rd dragoons, gained great celebrity. It was painted in 1793. This work, now hanging at Hampton Court, is considered his best. 'Although a clever and somewhat showy group of portraits, it has little of real nature, and is full of painters' artifices.' In 1793 he was knighted and elected a full member of the Royal Academy.
He was for a long while a fashionable portrait painter; but the great reputation of Lawrence had outshone his own some years before he finally retired. 'His colouring,' according to Redgrave, 'was pleasing. He excelled in his females and children; but his males wanted power. His draperies were poor and ill-cast, and he showed no ability to overcome the graceless stiffness which then prevailed in dress. Yet he possessed much merit, and his portraits have maintained a respectable second rank.' In 1836 he sold his collection of works of art and retired to Hampstead. 'He was twice married, and had a large and highly accomplished family.' His wife, Lady Beechey, was an artist who painted miniatures with ability. His sons, Frederick William, George D., and Henry William, are separately noticed. In the print room of the British Museum are two of Sir William Beechey's drawings landscape studies, sketched freely with a pen. Amongst his most distinguished sitters (besides royal personages) were the Marquis Cornwallis, Earl St. Vincent, John Kemble, David Wilkie, and Joseph Nollekens. Outside the region of portraiture one of Sir William Beechey's most important pictures (as well as his own favourite) was the 'Infant Hercules.' The painter afterwards, with happy versatility, copied the same picture, and made it do duty as 'John the Baptist.' Sir William Beechey died on 28 Jan. 1839 at the age of eighty-six.
E. R.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.21 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 123 | ii | 28-29 | Beechey, Sir William: for Stowe, in Gloucestershire read Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire |
| | | 7 f.e. | for 1793 read 1798 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beeching, James

​BEECHING, JAMES (1788–1858), inventor of 'self-righting lifeboats, was born at Bexhill, near Hastings, in 1788, and there served an apprenticeship to boat-building. Some little time after his apprenticeship had expired he went over to Flushing, and while there, in 1819, built the famous smuggling cutter known as the 'Big Jane.' On leaving Flushing he settled at Great Yarmouth, where he introduced the handsome build of fishing vessel now used at that port. In 1851 attempts were made, under the auspices of the late Prince Consort, to revive the activity of the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, the affairs of which were at a very low ebb. A prize of 100l. for the best model of a lifeboat, and another 100l. towards defraying the cost of building, were offered by the president of the institution, the Duke of Northumberland. Out of 280 models sent in from all parts of the world, many of which were displayed at the exhibition of 1851, that on a 'self-righting' principle, invented and exhibited by James Beeching, was awarded the prize, and with a few slight modifications suggested by Mr. ​ Peake, master shipwright of Woolwich dockyard, one of the judges, has served as the model for the magnificent fleet of lifeboats now possessed by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (Encycl. Brit. 9th ed. xiv. 572). So confident was Beeching of the merits of his invention, that he built a boat on the same model before the prize was awarded, which boat became the property of the trustees of Ramsgate Harbour, and was instrumental in saving several hundreds of lives on the Goodwin Sands (Gilmore). Beeching died on 7 June 1858.
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beesley, Alfred

​BEESLEY, ALFRED (1800–1847), topographer, was apprenticed to a watchmaker at Deddington, Oxfordshire, but only served a portion of his time, and subsequently devoted himself to literary and scientific pursuits. He died on 10 April 1847, and was buried in Banbury churchyard. He published a collection of poems, and 'The History of Banbury, including copious historical and antiquarian notices,' Lond. 1841, 8vo.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beechey, Henry William

​BEECHEY, HENRY WILLIAM (d. 1870?), painter and explorer, was a son of Sir William Beechey, R. A. [q.v.], and followed his father's profession. He sent a marine subject to the Royal Academy in 1829, and another in 1838 to the British Institution (Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760-1880, p. 18). Some time before 1816 he had become secretary to Mr. Salt, the British consul-general in Egypt, and at the latter's request accompanied Belzoni in that and the following year beyond the second cataract, for the purpose of studying and making designs of the fine monuments existing at Thebes. In the laborious excavation of the temple of Ipsambul, Beechey took his share; he also copied the paintings, in the king's tombs in the valley of Biban-el-Muluk, which had lately been opened by Belzoni. In common with his employer, Mr. Salt, Beechey had much to endure from Belzoni's suspicious and jealous nature (Life and Correspondence of Henry Salt, ed. Halls, vol. ii.) About 1820 he returned to England, and the next year was appointed by Earl Bathurst, on the part of the colonial office, to examine and report on the antiquities of the Cyrenaica, his brother, Captain Beechey, having been detached to survey the coast-line from Tripoli to Derna. The results of this expedition, which occupied the greater part of the years 1821 and 1822, were chronicled in a journal kept by the brothers, to which ​ the pencil of Henry Beechey lent additional interest by numerous charming drawings, illustrative of the art and natural peculiarities of the classic region they were exploring, many of which were unfortunately left out when the narrative came to be published in 1828 (Gent. Mag. 3rd ser. ii. 109). Of the remainder of Beechey's life we have failed to recover any particulars. He had seen much vicissitude, and in 1855 emigrated to New Zealand, where he is believed by his relatives to have died in or about 1870. He left a family. Besides his share in the above-mentioned work Beechey wrote a painstaking memoir of Sir Joshua Reynolds, prefixed to the edition of the latter's 'Literary Works,' published in 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1835, and afterwards reprinted in Bohn's 'Standard Library' edition, 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1852. Beechey became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1825.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Addy, William

​ADDY, WILLIAM (fl. 1685), a writing-master in London, was the author of a system of shorthand published in 1685. The method, a modification of that of Jeremiah Rich, was so much practised that the Bible, the New Testament, and the Singing Psalms were published, according to its system, two years later. The 1695 edition of his work was entitled ‘Stenographia, or the Art of Short-Writing compleated in a far more compendious methode than any yet extant,’ 12mo. It was engraved throughout. The Bible had a portrait of Addy, engraved by Sturt from a painting by Barker; and the same engraver executed the rest of the work. In subsequent editions of the Bible the preliminary leaves were changed, and the book dedicated to King William. All the title-pages are dated 1687.
J. E. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Adeliza (d.1066?)

​ADELIZA (d. 1066?) was the daughter of William I. The continuator of William of Jumièges (lib. viii. cap. 34) states that ‘Adelidis,’ a daughter of William I, was betrothed to (King) Harold, and remained single after his death. Orderic (573 c.) states that she took the veil, but makes her sister Agatha the betrothed of Harold. William of Malmesbury mentions that one of William's daughters was betrothed to Harold, but makes him speak of her to William as dead in 1066 (Gest. Reg. lib. iii. c. 238). Mr. Planché asserts (but gives no authority) that she was born in 1055, was betrothed to Harold in 1062, and was dead by 1066.
[Freeman's Norman Conquest, iii. 112, 659 (1st ed.), 112, 667–70 (2nd ed.); Planché's Conqueror and his Companions (1874), i. 82.]
J. H. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Adolph, Joseph Antony

​ADOLPH, ADOLF, or ADOLPHE, JOSEPH ANTONY (1729–1762), painter, born at Nikolsburg in Moravia, was the son of Joseph Frank Adolph, painter to Prince C. Max von Dietrichstein. He came to England in 1745; he painted an equestrian portrait of George III when Prince of Wales, which was engraved by Baron. The engraving was published in 1755. During his stay in England, which lasted for some years, Adolph is said to have been engaged chiefly as a portrait painter; but on his return to Austria he was employed in the decoration of interiors, adorning walls with frescoes, and painting the ceilings of large saloons. Three altar-pieces by him are in the collegiate church of Nikolsburg. He died at Vienna, 17 Jan. 1762.
C. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Addison, Laura

​ADDISON, LAURA (d. 1852), actress, made her first appearance upon the stage in November 1843, at the Worcester Theatre, as Lady Townley in the ‘Provoked Husband.’ Her family had opposed her desire to become an actress; she had no introduction, teacher, or patron, but was altogether self-instructed. She was very favourably received by the public. She fulfilled an engagement at Glasgow, and, playing Desdemona to the Othello of Macready, secured the good opinion and the friendship of that tragedian. At his instance, after she had played with success at Dublin and Edinburgh, she was engaged by Mr. Phelps, and made her first appearance at Sadler's Wells, then under his management, in August 1846, as Lady Mabel in the ‘Patrician's Daughter’ of Westland Marston. She remained at Sadler's Wells three seasons, representing Juliet, Portia, Isabella in ‘Measure for Measure,’ Imogen, Miranda, and Lady Macbeth; she appeared as Panthea upon the revival of Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy of ‘A King and no King;’ and she was the first representative of Margaret Randolph and Lilian Saville in the poetic tragedies of ‘Feudal Times’ and ‘John Saville of Haysted,’ by the Rev. James White. In 1849 she was playing at the Haymarket with Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean, and in 1850 she accepted an engagement at Drury Lane under Mr. Anderson's management, representing the characters of Mrs. Haller in the ‘Stranger,’ Mrs. Beverley in the ‘Gamester,’ Bianca in ‘Fazio,’ and Leonora in an English version of Schiller's ‘Fiesco,’ &c. &c. In 1851 she left England for America, and died the following year on a voyage from Albany to New York.
D. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Callis, Robert

​CALLIS, ROBERT (fl. 1634), serjeant-at-law, was born in Lincolnshire, and after being called to the bar at Gray's Inn was appointed a commissioner of sewers in his native county. He was made a serjeant-at-law on 12 April 1627. His works are: 1. ‘The Case and Argument against Sir Ignoramus of Cambridg.,’ London, 1648, 4to. The lawyers were greatly annoyed by the Latin comedy of ‘Ignoramus,’ performed before James I at Cambridge, 1615, and in this ‘reading,’ delivered at Staple Inn in Lent, 1616, Callis states a supposititious law case, in order to determine in which of six persons the right exists of presentation to a church, and in the argument he introduces Sir Ignoramus, a clerk, presented to it by the university of Cambridge, who is described as being ‘egregiè illiteratus.’ 2. ‘Reading upon the Statute, 23 H. VIII, cap. 5, of Sewers,’ London, 1647, 4to; 2nd edit. enlarged, 1685, 4to; 4th edit. 1810, 8vo; 5th edit., with additions and corrections by William John Broderip, London, 1824, 8vo.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Callow, John

​CALLOW, JOHN (1822–1878), artist, was born in London on 19 July 1822. He was a pupil of his elder brother William, the well-known painter in water colours, who took him with him to Paris in 1835, where he remained studying art for several years. In 1844 he returned to England to exercise his profession as a landscape painter in water colours, and a few years later was elected a member of the New Water-Colour Society. From this society he afterwards retired to be elected into the older Society of Painters in Water Colours. In July 1855 he was appointed professor of drawing in the Royal Military Academy at Addiscombe. After holding this appointment for six years, he gave it up, and got in its place the post of sub-professor of drawing at Woolwich. Some years later he retired from his professorship, receiving a sum of money as compensation in lieu of a retiring allowance. From the date of his retirement he was constantly occupied in painting for the exhibitions, and in teaching. As a teacher he was in great request, and taught in several schools, besides having many private pupils. He married in 1864, and died of consumption at Lewisham on 25 April 1878, leaving a widow and one son. Callow's style of painting was formed on that of his master and elder brother, William, though he devoted himself to a different range of subjects. He excelled in sea-pieces more than in landscapes. The compulsory devotion of his time chiefly to teaching impeded the development of his own powers, so that his later productions never fulfilled the promise of some of his earlier works. He painted diligently, however, and exhibited at the yearly exhibition of the Old Water-Colour Society. His style of teaching was excellent, at once simple, lucid, and logical, and he always maintained the superiority of transparent over body colour. He left a great number of studies prepared for the use of his pupils, which were sold by auction after his death. Several of these have since been printed in colours as a series of progressive lessons in the art of water-colour painting.
M. M'A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calver, Edward

​CALVER, EDWARD (fl. 1649), poet, was a puritan; the inscription under his portrait describes him as a ‘Gent. of Wilbie, in the county of Suffolk.’ It is said that he was a relation of Bernard Calver, or Calvert, of Andover, who went from Southwark to Calais on 17 July 1620, and back again the same day. His works are: 1. ‘Passion and Discretion, in Youth and Age,’ London, 1641, 4to. The work is divided into two books, the second of which is preceded by a prose epistle to his friend and kinsman, Master John Strut. The work is written in a plain and serious style, and abounds in pious and moral reflections on the passions, expressed in tame and prosaic language. The copy in the Grenville library has four appropriate plates, by Stent, which are rarely met with. 2. ‘Divine Passions, piously and pathetically expressed, in three books,’ London, 1643, 4to. 3. ‘Englands Sad Posture; or, A true Description of the present Estate of poore distressed England, and of the lamentable Condition of these distracted times, since the beginning of this Civill and unnaturall Warr. Presented to the Right Honourable, Pious, and Valiant Edward Earle of Manchester,’ London, 1644, 8vo. With portraits of the Earl of Manchester, engraved by Cross, and of the author, engraved by Hollar. 4. ‘Calvers Royal Vision; with his most humble addresses to his majesties royall person,’ in verse, London, 1648, 4to. 5. ‘Englands Fortresse, exemplified in the most renowned and victorious, his Excellency the Lord Fairfax. Humbly presented unto his Excellency by E. C., a lover of peace,’ a eulogium in verse, London, 1648, 8vo. 6. ‘Zion's thankfull Echoes from the Clifts of Ireland. Of ​the little Church of Christ in Ireland, warbling out the humble and gratefull addresses to her elder sister in England. And in particular to the Parliament, to his Excellency, and to his Army, or that part assigned to her assistance, now in her low, yet hopeful condition,’ London, 1649, 4to.
[Addit. MSS. 19122 f. 107, 19165 f. 199, 24492 f. 26; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England (1824), iii. 106; Bromley's Cat. of Engr. Portraits, 77; Corser's Collect. Anglo-Poetica, iii. 237–42; Bibl. Anglo-Poetica, 433; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Bibl. Grenvilliana, ii. 82.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calthorpe, Henry

1904 Errata appended.
​CALTHORPE, Sir HENRY (1586–1637), lawyer, third son of Sir James Calthorpe of Cockthorpe, Norfolk, knight, by Barbara, daughter of Mr. John Bacon of Hesset, Suffolk, was one of a family of eight sons and six daughters, and was born at Cockthorpe in 1586. He entered at the Middle Temple, and seems early to have enjoyed a large and lucrative practice. By the death of his father in 1615 he inherited considerable estates in his native county, but he continued sedulously to devote himself to his profession, and shortly after the ​marriage of Charles I he was appointed solicitor-general to Queen Henrietta Maria, after whom one of his daughters was named. When in November 1627 the five gentlemen who had been thrown into prison for refusing to contribute to the forced loan applied to the court of king's bench for a writ of habeas corpus, Calthorpe was counsel for Sir Thomas Darnell, being associated in the case with Noy, Serjeant Bramston, and Selden; and we are told that ‘the gentlemen's counsel pleaded at Westminster with wonderful applause, even of shouting and clapping of hands, which is unusual in that place.’ In the proceedings against the seven members in the spring of 1630, Calthorpe was counsel for Benjamin Valentine, one of the three who held down the speaker in the chair. In the conduct of this case he seems to have shown some lack of zeal, though when his turn came to speak he defended his client with conspicuous ability, notwithstanding that his sympathies were with the court party. In December 1635 he succeeded Mason as recorder of London, the corporation having been specially requested to elect him in a letter which Charles addressed to them on his behalf.
He held the recordership only a few weeks, for in January 1636 he was made attorney of the court of wards and liveries, and resigned the other appointment. Shortly after this he was knighted, and was chosen to be reader of his inn, but he never discharged the duties of his office, ‘causa mortalitatis,’ as Dugdale notes. He was now in his fifty-first year, and his path seemed clear to the highest legal preferments, but death came upon him in the full vigour of his powers in August 1637. Calthorpe married Dorothy, daughter and heiress of Edward Humphrey, and by her had a family of ten children, only one of whom, Sir James Calthorpe of Ampton (said to have been knighted by Oliver Cromwell), attained maturity. From him the present Lord Calthorpe is lineally descended.
A. J.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.49 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 261 | i | 12 f.e. | Calthorpe, Sir Henry: for Foster's read Forster's |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, Caroline Louisa Waring

Louisa Waring Atkinson on the ODNB. 1904 Errata appended.
​CALVERT, CAROLINE LOUISA WARING (1834–1872), generally known as Louisa Atkinson, an Australian author, was born at Oldbury, Argyle County, New South Wales, on 25 Feb. 1834. Her father, James Atkinson, formerly principal clerk in the colonial secretary's office, Sydney, wrote ‘An Account of the State of Agriculture and Grazing in New South Wales,’ with coloured plates, London, 1826, 8vo, and was an early settler on the Hawkesbury. Her mother had some reputation as a writer of educational works for the young. Their daughter being of delicate health, the family removed early to Kurrajong. She described ​the impression produced on her by the grand scenery and beauty of the flora of the district in ‘A Voice from the Country,’ a series of papers in the ‘Sydney Morning Herald,’ which secured her many literary friendships, and in several popular tales: ‘Gertrude the Emigrant,’ &c., with numerous engravings, Sydney, 1857, 8vo; ‘Cowanda, the Veteran's Grant,’ Sydney, 1859, 8vo, a story of a runaway Manchester clerk; and ‘Tom Hillicker,’ all illustrated by herself. She afterwards published ‘Narratives and Sketches’ in the ‘Sydney Mail’ and ‘Town and Country Journal.’
During her residence at the Kurrajong she collected and prepared valuable botanical specimens for Baron Ferdinand von Müller, the government botanist, who was then producing, in conjunction with George Bentham, ‘Flora Australiensis,’ 7 vols. London, 1863, 8vo, and ‘Fragmenta Phytographiæ Australiæ,’ 4 vols. Melbourne, 1858–64, 8vo. One genus, Atkinsonia, was named after her, as was the species Epacris Calvertiana at a later period. Müller speaks very kindly of her botanical contributions from the Blue Mountains. On leaving the Kurrajong with her mother, she resided in her native district with her brother, James Atkinson, J.P., and there married, 1870, James Snowden Calvert [q. v.] She died suddenly on 28 April 1872. A tablet in Sutton Fields Church, and another (by subscription) in St. Peter's Church, Richmond, tell the story of her pious labours and scientific researches. Her funeral sermon, by the Rev. Dr. Woold, has been printed. Her husband, an Englishman of ‘the Borders,’ settled early in Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, and emigrated in 1840. Meeting on the voyage to Australia with Dr. Leichardt, he formed a lasting friendship with him, and four years afterwards joined him, with his own outfit and horses, on the first and successful expedition to Queensland. His name is well known in connection with various European exhibitions.
[Barton's Lit. of New South Wales, pp. 111–12; Heaton's Australian Dictionary, p. 32; Baron von Müller's Botanical Works; Atkinson's Agriculture, &c., 1826.]
J. W.-G.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.49 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 266 | i | 36 | Calvert, Caroline Louisa W.: for Dr. Woold read Dr. Woolls |