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

​EDMONDSTON, ARTHUR, M.D. (1776?–1841), writer on the Shetland Isles, eldest son of Laurence Edmondston of Hascosay, surgeon in Lerwick, and Mary Sanderson of Buness, Shetland, was born about 1776 at Lerwick. The family of Edmondston is one of the oldest in Shetland. Edmondston's father for most of his long life was the only medical practitioner in the islands. Arthur adopted his father's profession, entered the army, and served under Sir Ralph Abercromby in Egypt. Returning to Lerwick he succeeded to his father's practice, and died unmarried in 1841. He was a skilful physician, giving special attention to diseases of the eye; he wrote two treatises on ophthalmia, published respectively in London, 1802, and Edinburgh, 1806. His most considerable work was his ‘View of the Ancient and Present State of the Zetland Islands,’ published in 1809 in two volumes, 8vo. The book discusses the political and natural history of Shetland, its agriculture, fisheries, commerce, antiquities, manners, &c., and though deficient in some things, especially natural history, contains a large amount of useful information. Edmondston was the brother of Dr. Laurence Edmondston [q. v.]
W. G. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cornewall, Folliott Herbert Walker

​CORNEWALL, FOLLIOTT HERBERT WALKER, D.D. (1754–1831), bishop of Worcester, was the second son of Frederick Cornewall of Delbury (1706–1788), captain in the royal navy, by Mary, daughter of Francis Herbert of Ludlow, first cousin of the first Earl of Powis. Charles Cornewall [q. v.] was his granduncle. His brother Frederick (d. 1783) was M.P. for Ludlow in 1780. He was born in 1754 and educated for the church, in which, having graduated B.A. at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1777, he took orders. He proceeded M.A. in 1780, and the same year, through the interest of his second cousin, Charles Wolfran Cornwall [q. v.], speaker of the House of Commons, he obtained the post of chaplain to that assembly. He was preferred to a canonry at Windsor in 1784 and appointed master of Wigston's Hospital, Leicester, in 1790, dean of Canterbury in 1792, bishop of Bristol in 1797. He exchanged this see for that of Exeter in 1803, and in 1808 he was translated to the see of Worcester. He died on 5 Sept. 1831 at Hartlebury, and was buried in the family vault at Delbury, Shropshire. Cornewall married Anne, eldest daughter of the hon. and rev. George Hamilton, canon of Windsor, by whom he had issue two sons and one daughter. He published 'A Sermon preached before the House of Commons on 30 Jan. 1782,' and also 'A Fast Sermon preached before the House of Lords in 1798.'
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cormack, John Rose

​CORMACK, Sir JOHN ROSE, M.D. (1815–1882), was born at Stow, Midlothian, on 1 March 1815, his father, the Rev. John Cormack, D.D., being minister there. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, graduating in 1837, and receiving a gold medal for his thesis on the presence of air in the organs of circulation. In the same year he was senior president of the Edinburgh Royal Medical Society, and presided at its centenary festival. After study in Paris he commenced practice in Edinburgh, and was appointed physician to the Royal Infirmary and the Fever Hospital. His ‘Observations on the Relapsing Fever Epidemic in 1843’ increased his reputation, and he sought permission to give clinical ​lectures at the infirmary. This being refused, he resigned in 1845, and removed to London in 1847, where he practised until ill-health compelled him to settle in Orleans in 1866. In 1869, on the death of Sir Joseph Olliffe, physician to the British embassy, he removed to Paris, graduating M.D. in the university of France in 1870. With his wife, one son (a doctor, who died in 1876), and one daughter, he remained in Paris during the siege and the Commune, and rendered conspicuous services to British residents, and to the wounded of both sides. He was made chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1871, and knighted in 1872. He was afterwards appointed physician to the Hertford British Hospital, established by Sir R. Wallace, and had a considerable practice in Paris. He was a skilful physician, characterised by great sympathy and devotion to duty. He died on 13 May 1882 at his house in the Rue St.-Honoré; his widow survived him three months; he had a son and four daughters.
Cormack was much occupied in medical literature. In 1841 he started the ‘Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science,’ and conducted it ably until 1847. He established the ‘London Journal of Medicine’ in 1849, carrying it on till the end of 1852, when he was appointed editor of the ‘Association Medical Journal’ (now known as the ‘British Medical Journal’). He resigned this post in September 1855. He translated four volumes of Trousseau's ‘Clinical Lectures’ (vols. ii–v.) for the New Sydenham Society. In 1876 he published a collection of his principal writings, including some valuable papers on cholera, diphtheria, and paralysis, under the title of ‘Clinical Studies,’ in two volumes.
[British Medical Journal, 20 May 1882, p. 761; Medical Times, 10 June 1882, p. 624; Lancet, 20 May 1882, p. 847.]
G. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cornelisz, Lucas

​CORNELISZ, LUCAS (1495–1552?), historical and portrait painter, was the third son of Cornelis Engelbrechtsen, one of the earliest Dutch painters, who was the master of Lucas van Leyden. He was born at Leyden in 1495, and became a pupil of his father, but finding the pursuit of art in his native city a precarious means of existence, he combined with it the business of a cook, and so obtained the cognomen of ‘de Kok.’ He painted well in oil and in distemper, and his designs are described by Van Mander as having been executed with care and much expression. But the struggle to maintain his wife and family by the practice of his art in Leyden was so severe that he resolved to come to England, where the fine arts had received much encouragement since the accession of Henry VIII. He is said by Sandrart to have arrived here soon after 1509, but the fact of his having brought with him a wife and seven or eight children renders it improbable that his arrival here took place earlier than about 1527. The return of Holbein to England in 1532 would materially affect the position of other artists, and it is probable that after a sojourn of five years Lucas departed, and then went to Italy, as conjectured by M. Eugène Müntz, who has proved that a certain Luca Cornelio, or Luca d'Olanda, was in the service of the court of Ferrara, and assisted in the manufactory of tapestry under Hercules II, between 1535 and 1547, for which he designed cartoons of the cities of the house of Este, of grotesques, and of the favourite horses of the duke. Nothing further is known of Lucas Cornelisz, but he is said to have died in 1552.
Van Mander mentions pictures by him, especially ‘The Adulteress before Christ,’ which existed at Leyden in his time; but many of his works are said to have been brought to England by persons who accompanied the Earl of Leicester when he went as governor to the Low Countries. The most important works of Lucas Cornelisz which remain in this country are the sixteen small portraits of the constables of Queenborough Castle, now at Penshurst, although almost all of them must be copies of earlier pictures, if not apocryphal. Five small heads of ladies—including those of Margaret, archduchess of Austria, and Elizabeth of Austria, queen of Denmark—in the collection at Hampton Court, and a portrait of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, in the possession of the Duke of Beaufort, are also attributed to him.
The two elder brothers of Lucas Cornelisz were likewise artists. The eldest, Pieter Cornelisz Kunst, was a painter upon glass; the second, Cornelis Cornelisz Kunst, a painter of scriptural subjects, was born at Leyden in 1493, and died in 1544.
[Van Mander's Livre des Peintres, ed. Hymans, 1884–5, i. 178; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in England, ed. Wornum, 1849, i. 64; Müntz's Histoire générale de la Tapisserie, Ecole Italienne, 1878, p. 34; Müntz's Tapisserie [1882], p. 227; Law's Historical Catalogue of the Pictures at Hampton Court, 1881.]
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Corner, George Richard

​CORNER, GEORGE RICHARD (1801–1863), antiquary, born in 1801 in the parish of Christ Church, Blackfriars Road, London, was the eldest of the six children of Richard Corner, a solicitor in Southwark, by Maria, daughter of Mr. James Brierley. He was educated at Gordon House, Kentish Town, and followed his father's profession with success. About 1835 he was appointed vestry clerk of the parish of St. Olave, Southwark; during the prevalence of the cholera in that parish he displayed great activity. On 28 Nov. 1833 Corner was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and from this time forward he published numerous archæological papers, many of them connected with the history of Southwark. His first communication to the Society of Antiquaries was made on 9 Jan. 1834, when he pointed out the distinction, not previously recognised, between the three manors of Southwark (see the memoir in the Archæologia, xxv. 620). He contributed other papers to the ‘Archæologia’ from 1835 to 1860.
Corner was one of the original members of the Numismatic Society of London, founded 1836 (see list of members in Numismatic Journal), but apparently did not make a special study of coins. He was also a member of the British Archæological Association from the time of its establishment in 1843; he exhibited numerous antiquities before this society, and contributed accounts of them to its journal (a list is given in Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xx. 184–6). He took much interest in the Archæological Society of Surrey, and contributed to its ‘Proceedings,’ as also to the ‘Sussex Archæological Collections,’ vol. vi., the ‘South London Journal’ (1857), and the ‘Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica,’ vols. v. and vii. He was also an occasional contributor to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine.’ Corner published separately:
* ‘A Concise Account of the Local Government of the Borough of Southwark,’ Southwark, 1836, 8vo.
* ‘The Rental of St. Olave and St. John, Southwark,’ 1838, 4to; a second edit. in 1851.
Corner is described as a man of social habits and of kind and agreeable manners. Towards the close of his life ‘he fell into difficulties occasioned … by family misfortunes.’ He died suddenly on 31 Oct. 1863, at Queen's Row, Camberwell, and was buried in Nunhead cemetery, Peckham. Corner married in 1828 Sarah, youngest daughter of Timothy Leach of Clapham, by whom he had two sons and two daughters who survived him. His brother, Arthur Bloxham Corner (d. 17 Jan. 1861), was her majesty's coroner and attorney in the court of Queen's Bench. Another brother, Richard James Corner, was appointed chief justice of her majesty's settlement on the Gold Coast, and was joint author (with A. B. Corner) of Corner's ‘Crown Practice,’ 1844.
[Gent. Mag. xv. 3rd ser. (1863), 808, xvi. 3rd ser. (1864), 528–30; Journal of British Archæological Association, xx. 181–6; Proceedings Soc. Antiquaries, ii. 2nd ser. (1864), 392.]
W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Corner, John

​CORNER, JOHN (fl. 1788–1825), engraver, is best known by a publication entitled ‘Portraits of Celebrated Painters.’ This work was intended to be a serial, and the first part was published in 1816. The plates combined a portrait of each painter with his most celebrated work, accompanied by a memoir; but as it did not command any sale it only reached twenty-five portraits. Corner was largely employed as an engraver, especially for ​portraits, among which were: Charles Macklin, actor, from a model by Lochée; Mr. Merry as Calista, after De Wilde, for Bell's ‘British Theatre;’ W. T. Lewis, actor, after M. Brown; John O'Keefe, poet, after W. Lawranson, in the ‘European Magazine,’ 1788; Sir Godfrey Kneller; Simon Vouet, painter, after Vandyck and others. He also engraved ‘Apparent Difficulties,’ from a print by E. Penny. The date of his death is unknown.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Leblanc's Manuel de l'Amateur d'Estampes; Bromley's Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits; Catalogue of Works on Art (South Kensington).]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Grierson, John

​GRIERSON or GRISSON, JOHN (d. 1564?), Dominican, perhaps a member of the family of Grierson of Lag in Dumfriesshire, was a student of the university of Aberdeen (Boetius, Murthlacensium et Aberdonensium Episcoporum vitæ, p. 63, Bannatyne Club), and in 1500 was principal of the King's College at that university. Previously to 1517 he became prior of the Dominican house at St. Andrews (Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1513-46, p. 228), and rose to be provincial of his order ​in Scotland before 1528 (ib. p. 587). In 1542 he is described as doctor of divinity, provincial, and prior of St. Andrews (ib. 2695); he resigned the priory before 1552 (ib. 1546-1580, p. 693). He was certainly alive in 1559 (ib. 1373), and is said to have survived till 1564. Echard says that he remained a firm catholic, and defended his faith by word and by deed.
According to Dempster Grierson wrote: 1. ‘De Miseria profitentium fidem et Religionem Catholicam in Scotia.’ 2. ‘De casu Ordinis sui, et paupertate.’ 3. Some letters which are preserved in R. F. Plaudius's history of the order. But Echard says that he had searched in vain for these letters, and it is possible that Grierson left no writings.
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Grierson, Constantia

​GRIERSON, Mrs. CONSTANTIA (1706?–1733), classical scholar, whose maiden name has been doubtfully stated to have been Phillipps (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. i. 341), was born apparently at Kilkenny. Her parents seem to have been in narrow circumstances, but her father is said to have first encouraged her love of study. In her eighteenth year she began to study obstetrics under Dr. Van Lewen, a Dublin physician of repute, father of Mrs. Letitia Pilkington. She soon afterwards married George Grierson, an eminent Dublin printer, who obtained from Lord Carteret, when lord-lieutenant, a patent as king's printer in Ireland, chiefly, it is conjectured, owing to Carteret's admiration of Mrs. Grierson's attainments. Mrs. Pilkington, who knew Mrs. Grierson personally, writes that she was mistress of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French, understood mathematics well, and wrote elegantly in verse and prose. Mrs. Grierson was on intimate terms with Dean Swift, Thomas Sheridan, and Patrick Delany, D.D. A poem by her was included by Mrs. Barber [q. v.] in her volume of ‘Poems on Several Occasions,’ London, 1734. Mrs. Grierson edited Latin classics published by her husband. Of these the principal were ‘Terence,’ 1727, and ‘Tacitus,’ 1730. The first was inscribed to Robert, son of Lord Carteret, viceroy of Ireland, and her edition of ‘Tacitus’ was dedicated in elegant Latin to Carteret himself. Dr. Harwood, the classical bibliographer, pronounced Mrs. Grierson's ‘Tacitus’ to be ‘one of the best edited books ever delivered to the world.’ Mrs. Grierson is also stated to have written several English poems, of which copies have not been preserved. Her learning and virtue were referred to in a poem by Henry Brooke (1703?-1783) [q. v.], author of ‘Gustavus Vasa.’ She was engaged on an edition of ‘Sallust’ at the time of her death in 1733. A copy of it with her annotations came into the possession of Lord George Germain [q. v.], and at the sale of his books was purchased by John Wilkes, who valued it highly. Her son, George Abraham Grierson, described as ‘a gentleman of uncommon learning, great wit and vivacity,’ was a friend of Dr. Johnson. He died at Düsseldorf in 1755, aged 27. Several volumes of his manuscript collections, in various languages, relating to European history are in the possession of representatives of his family.
J. T. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Grey, William (d.1674)

​GREY, WILLIAM, Lord Grey of Werke (d. 1674), a descendant of Sir Thomas Gray of Heton (d. 1369) [q. v.], was the son of Ralph Grey of Chillingham, Northumberland, by Isabel, daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Grey, knt., of Horton in the same county. He was created a baronet on 15 June 1619, and was raised to the peerage on 11 Feb. 1624 as Baron Grey of Werke, Northumberland. When Charles I announced his intention of proceeding against the Scots in 1639, Grey was commanded to attend upon him at York with horses and equipage by 1 April 1639; but he was subsequently ordered to repair to his estate in Northumberland by 1 March at the latest, so as to be in readiness to defend the county (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1638-1639, pp. 366-7, 372). During the civil war he timidly supported the parliament. In December 1642 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces raised in the eastern ​counties, and in the early summer of 1643 he received orders to march to the lord general's assistance (Commons' Journals, iii. 36, 51). His attendance was, however, dispensed with upon his being nominated in July one of the parliamentary commissioners to Scotland. For refusing to serve he was imprisoned in the Tower, and his military commission cancelled (ib. iii. 172, 176, 177). He was soon released, and on Lord-keeper Littleton's flight was chosen to succeed him as speaker of the House of Lords. In 1648, when the parliament were appointing commissioners of the great seal, Grey was at the lords' request added to them by an ordinance dated 15 March, and he performed the duties for nearly eleven months. He is not charged with concurring in the king's execution. In satisfaction of his losses during the war parliament granted him 5,120l. He was constituted a member of the council of state on 13 Feb. 1649, but refused to subscribe the engagement (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1649-50, pp. 6, 9). At the Restoration he availed himself of the king's general pardon (ib. 1660-1, p. 37). He died in July 1674. By his wife Anne, daughter and coheiress of Sir John Wentworth of Gosfield, Essex, he had issue Ralph (d. 1675), his successor, and father of Forde Grey, earl of Tankerville [q. v.], Elizabeth (d. 1668), and Katherine.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Grey, William (fl.1649)

​GREY, WILLIAM (fl. 1649), topographer, a burgess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is supposed to have been an ancestor of the Greys of Backworth (Brand, Hist. of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, i., Preface). He was the first to publish an account of his native town in a meagre outline, entitled 'Chorographia, or a Svrvey of Nevvcastle upon Tine … as also a relation of the county of Northumberland,' &c. [dedication and preface signed W. G.], 4to, London, 1649, but printed at Newcastle by S[tephen] B[ulkeley]. A survey of the river Tyne by Hollar is prefixed to some copies of the tract. It has been reprinted in vol. iii. of both quarto editions of the 'Harleian Miscellany;' by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1813, folio; and in 1818 in octavo by the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Typographical Society, under the editorship of William Garret.
There is extant among the town records an agreement made on 26 July 1647 between the corporation of Newcastle and William Grey, probably the topographer, concerning the water to be conveyed from the latter's conduit in Pandon Bank to Sandgate (M. A. Richardson, The Local Historian's Table Book, i. 278).
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Grey, William de

1904 Errata appended.
​GREY, WILLIAM de, Lord Walsingham (1719–1781), judge, born at Merton, Norfolk, on 7 July 1719, was the third son of Thomas de Grey, M.P., of Merton, by Elizabeth, daughter of William Windham of Felbrigge in the same county. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, entered the Middle Temple in January 1738, and was called to the bar on 26 Nov. 1742. In 1758 he became king's counsel, and in September 1761 was appointed solicitor-general to Queen Charlotte. He was elected M.P. for Newport, Cornwall, in 1761, and in December 1763 was made solicitor-general to the king. In August 1766 he succeeded as attorney-general, and was knighted. He was also comptroller of the first-fruits and tenths. At the election of 1768 he was chosen for both Newport and Tamworth, Staffordshire, when he selected the former, and in February 1770 he was returned for the university of Cambridge. In parliament he argued against the legality of Wilkes's return for Middlesex, and on all other occasions proved himself a powerful supporter of Lord North's party. On a motion to curtail the power of the attorney-general in filing ex-officio informations, he showed that the power was not only constitutional, but necessary. As solicitor-general he spoke with much ingenuity in favour of the king's messengers acting under the general warrant issued by Lord Halifax, and as attorney-general he conducted the proceedings against Wilkes in 1768. On 25 Jan. 1771 he succeeded Wilmot as lord chief justice of the common pleas. On the question whether Brass Crosby [q. v.], the lord mayor of London, should be discharged from the custody of the lieutenant of the Tower, where he had been imprisoned by warrant from the speaker of the House of Commons, he refused to interfere with the privileges of parliament. Infirm health obliged him to resign in June 1780. In the following October he was created a peer by the title of Lord Walsingham. He died on 9 May 1781, and was buried at Merton. By his marriage in 1743 with Mary (d. 1800), daughter of William Cowper, M.P., he left a son and daughter. He was an accomplished lawyer, and possessed a wonderfully retentive memory. Lord Eldon declared that he would come into court with both hands crippled by gout, try a cause which lasted nine or ten hours, and then correctly sum up all the evidence without the aid of a single note (Twiss, Life of Eldon, i. 113).
G. G.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.142 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 216 | i | 18 f.e. | Grey, William de, Lord Walsingham: for Wyndham read Windham |
| | | 16 f.e. | for Christ's College read Trinity Hall |