OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ronayne, Joseph Philip

​RONAYNE, JOSEPH PHILIP (1822–1876), civil engineer, youngest son of Edmond Ronayne, a glass-maker of Cork, was born at Cork in 1822. After an education under Messrs. Porter and Hamblin at a school in Cork, and instruction from Mr. O'Neill in practical surveying, he entered the office of Sir John Benjamin McNeill [q. v.], civil engineer of London and Glasgow. He was first engaged in the design and construction of the main arterial lines of railway in Ireland, and then on one half of the Cork and Bandon railway, a work which he successfully accomplished. In 1853 he proposed furnishing Cork with water by the construction of a lake near Blarney, but this, a gravitation scheme of great simplicity, was not carried out. On 4 March 1856 he became a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. From 1854 to 1859 he was in California, where he superintended hydraulic works, bringing down the waters of the Sierra Nevada to the goldfields by means of canals and aqueducts. Soon after returning to Ireland he became a contractor, and executed the Queenstown branch of the Cork and Youghal railway. On the completion of that work he laid out the Cork and Macroon railway. He took payment in shares, and thus occupied the unusual position of engineer, contractor, and the largest proprietor, a combination which led to the line being designed with economy, efficiency, and careful management. He subsequently suggested to the government the construction of a dock in a bay near Monkstown, a plan looked upon with favour by some engineer officers, but the Haulbowline site was finally adopted. On 10 Dec. 1872 he was elected to represent Cork in parliament, in succession to John Francis Maguire [q. v.], and retained the seat till his death. He was a leading member of the home-rule party. Clear-sighted and of the strictest integrity, he was as much respected by his political adversaries as by his supporters. He died at Rinn Ronain, Queenstown, on 7 May 1876, and was buried in Father Mathew's cemetery, Cork, on 11 May. He married, in 1859, Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Stace Wright, commander R.N.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rooke, Giles

​ROOKE, Sir GILES (1743–1808), judge, third son of Giles Rooke, merchant of London, a director of the East India Company, by Frances, daughter of Leonard Cropp of Southampton, was born on 3 June 1743. He was educated at Harrow and Oxford, where he matriculated from St. John's College on 26 Nov. 1759, graduated B.A. in 1763, and proceeded M.A. in 1766, being elected in the same year to a fellowship at Merton College, which he held until 1785. He was also called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1766, and went the western circuit to such profit that in 1781 he was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law, and in April 1793 was made king's serjeant. At the ensuing Exeter assizes he prosecuted to conviction one William Winterbotham, a dissenting minister at Plymouth, for preaching sermons of a revolutionary tendency; and on 13 Nov. of the same year was appointed to the puisne judgeship of the common pleas vacant by the death of John Wilson [q. v.] At the same time he was knighted. He presided at the trial at the York Lent assizes in 1795 of Henry Redhead Yorke [q. v.] for conspiracy against the government. He died on 7 March 1808. By his wife Harriet Sophia (d. 1839), daughter of Colonel William Burrard of Walhampton, Hampshire, he left a large family. Rooke was not a great judge, but he appears to have been a pious and an amiable man, with a taste for theology and polite literature. He was author of ‘Thoughts on the Propriety of fixing Easter Term,’ 1792 (anon.)
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rooke, John

​ROOKE, JOHN (1780–1856), writer on political economy and geology, eldest son of John Rooke, yeoman and surveyor, of Aikton-head, Cumberland, by his wife Peggy, was born there on 29 Aug. 1780. A farmer until he was thirty years of age, he was entirely self-taught, except for the knowledge he acquired as a boy at the village school and Aikton school. He devoted himself to the study of political economy, and became a zealous advocate of free trade. The project of a railway across Morecambe Bay aroused his interest in geological study and in the practical applications of geology. In an unpublished correspondence with his friend Andrew Crosse [q. v.] he sought to explain ‘the geognostic operations of the universe by the opposite physical and electrical qualities of matter’—a theory which he entitled ‘the theory of explosive forces.’ In 1844 he read a paper before the British ​Association on ‘The relative Age and true Position of the Millstone Grit and Shale’ (Reports, 1844, p. 51). He was also instrumental in promoting the Wigton agricultural show. He died on 26 April 1856, and was buried in Wigton cemetery. His portrait was painted both by Haydon and Cocken. A photograph from the latter's painting is in Lonsdale's ‘Worthies of Cumberland.’
Rooke published:
* ‘Remarks on the Nature and Operation of Money. By Cumbriensis,’ London, 1819, 8vo.
* ‘An Essay on the National Debt, showing the Use and Abuse of the Funding System,’ 1822.
* ‘An Enquiry into the Principles of National Wealth, illustrated by the Political Economy of the British Empire,’ Edinburgh, 1824, 8vo; this work was based upon articles contributed to the ‘Farmer's Journal’ in 1814 and subsequent years.
* ‘Free Trade in Corn the real Interest of the Landlord and the True Policy of the State,’ 1828.
* ‘Free and Safe Government traced from the Origin and Principles of the British Constitution,’ London, 1835, 8vo.
* ‘Geology as a Science applied to the Reclamation of Land from the Sea,’ London, 1838, 12mo; 2nd edit., 1840, with an additional chapter entitled ‘A Dissertation on Geology.’
[Gent. Mag. 1856, i. 639–40; Annual Register, 1856, p. 252; Lonsdale's Worthies of Cumberland, pp. 201–92.]
W. A. S. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Romney, Peter

​ROMNEY, PETER (1743–1777), painter, a younger brother of George Romney [q. v.], was born at Dalton-in-Furness on 1 June 1743. He is said to have shown a precocious talent both with pen and pencil, but such of his verses as have survived are puerile enough. When he was sixteen his more famous brother, who had just started in practice at Kendal on his own account, took Peter as his apprentice. On Romney's departure for London in 1762, Peter remained for a time at Kendal, painting portraits at a guinea a head. In 1765, when Romney visited his family in the north, he took Peter back to London with him, but was finally obliged to send him home, as the young man earned nothing, and seems to have been the cause of a good deal of expense and anxiety to his brother. Having got together a few prints in London, Peter copied them in oils, and raffled them, thus raising money to take him to Manchester, where he started in practice as a portrait-painter. His success in Manchester was slight, and he removed to Ipswich, where his career was cut short by his arrest for debt. He next tried his luck at Cambridge, but there again got into difficulties. George Romney generously discharged his debts, and he started once more at Southport. His money troubles and various unfortunate—and in some cases disreputable—love affairs seem to have so preyed on his mind that he took to drink. Prematurely broken in health, he died in May 1777, in his thirty-fourth year. He chose crayons as his medium, to avoid possible competition with his brother, and is said at one time to have seemed a likely rival to Francis Cotes [q. v.] Lord John Clinton, Lord Pelham, Lord Hyde, and Lord and Lady Montford were among his more notable sitters. A portrait group by George Romney of his two brothers, James and Peter, was sold at Christie's on 25 May 1894.
W. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rooke, William Michael

​ROOKE, WILLIAM MICHAEL (1794–1847), musical composer, the son of John Rourke, a tradesman, was born in Dublin on 29 Sept. 1794. In youth he joined an orchestral society, practised the violin, and mastered a number of wind and stringed instruments; proficiency on the pianoforte he gained with greater difficulty. He also studied harmony. His first composition was a song, ‘Fair one, take this Rose.’ In 1813 Rourke, being freed by the death of his father from an uncongenial trade, adopted music as a profession, and modified his surname to Rooke. He earnestly applied himself to the violin, and studied counterpoint under Dr. Cogan. In 1817 he was appointed chorus-master and deputy leader at the Dublin Theatre Royal, Crow Street. A polacca of his composition, ‘O Glory, in thy brightest hours,’ sung by Braham, was one of his earliest successes. Rooke's pupil, Balfe, on his first appearance in May 1816 as a child-violinist, won a triumph for his preceptor as well as for himself.
Rooke found it difficult to earn a livelihood in Ireland, and sought his fortune in London. In order to fit himself for the struggle, he read much English literature, and studied languages. In 1821 he is said to have obtained employment as director at the English opera, and later at Drury Lane. For many years he was one of the principal second violins at the Philharmonic and other concerts. He also took pupils for singing, among whom were Miss Forde and William Harrison. Meanwhile he devoted his leisure to the composition of an opera, ‘Amilie,’ which was produced at Covent Garden on 2 Dec. 1837. This work gave evidence of powerful and original musical genius. Seldom before had an English composer so conspicuously satisfied at once both scientific and popular demands. Yet Rooke failed to rise above the restrictions of the operatic system in vogue. The libretti were unworthy of musical setting, and scenes of dramatic action, in which foreigners would employ recitative, were left by English composers without musical accompaniment. ‘Amilie’ had a long run, but apparently brought small profit to the manager. Rooke's second venture, ‘Henrique,’ played at Covent Garden on 2 May 1839 and received with favour, was withdrawn after five nights' performance. Some complaint was made of the ill-treatment which all parties received from the management. The opera was not repeated, and other operas by Rooke, ‘Cagliostro’ and ‘The Valkyrie,’ were never performed.
Rooke died, aged 53, after a long illness, at Claremont Cottage, St. John's, Fulham, on 14 Oct. 1847, and was buried at Brompton. He was survived by a wife and a large family.
[Memoir printed for private circulation; Grove's Dict. iii. 157; Musical World, 1837 iv. 203, 1839 ii. 19, 44, 1847 p. 672; Fitzball's Thirty-five Years of a Dramatic Author's Life, ii. 127; Bunn's The Stage, iii. 199.]
L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ronalds, Edmund

​RONALDS, EDMUND (1819–1889), chemist, son of Edmund Ronalds, a London merchant, and his wife Eliza, daughter of James Anderson, LL.D., and nephew of Sir Francis Ronalds [q. v.], was born in London in 1819. After leaving school, Ronalds studied successively at Giessen, where he graduated Ph.D., at Jena, Berlin, Heidelberg, and Paris. In 1840 he returned to England, and held the lectureships in chemistry successively at St. Mary's Hospital and the Middlesex Hospital. In 1849 he was appointed professor of chemistry in the Queen's College, Galway. He was secretary of the Chemical Society from 1848 to 1850, and edited the first two volumes of its ‘Quarterly Journal’ for 1849 and 1850. He resigned his chair at Galway in 1856, in order to take over the Bonnington chemical works, where the raw products of the Edinburgh gas-works were dealt with. In a letter to Sir Francis Ronalds he wrote in 1858 that he was ‘completely ignored as a tradesman by the savants of Edinburgh.’ In 1878 he retired from business, and set up a private research-laboratory in Edinburgh, to which he welcomed any chemist. After suffering for some years from ill-health, he died at Bonnington House on 9 Sept. 1889, leaving a widow and six children.
The Royal Society's ‘Catalogue’ contains a list of four papers by Ronalds, in the most important of which he showed that the sulphur and phosphorus in the human urine exist partly in a less oxidised state than as sulphate and phosphate (Philosophical Transactions, 1846, p. 461). In collaboration with Thomas Richardson (1816–1867) [q. v.], he translated and edited Knapp's ‘Lehrbuch der chemischen Technologie,’ of which they published the first edition during 1848–51. A second edition was rewritten, so as to form a new work, but Ronalds collaborated only with respect to the first two parts, published in 1855.
[Chem. Soc. Trans. 1890, p. 456; Proceedings Roy. Soc. of Edinburgh, vol. xvii. p. xxviii (by J. Y. Buchanan); Scotsman for 10 Sept. 1889; MS. Letters of Sir Francis Ronalds in the Library of the Society of Telegraph Engineers; The Jubilee of the Chemical Society, pp. 183, 240.]
P. J. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hardman, Frederick

​HARDMAN, FREDERICK (1814–1874), novelist and journalist, was the son of Joseph Hardman, a London merchant of Manchester extraction, who was intimate with Coleridge, and was a frequent contributor to 'Blackwood's Magazine.' On leaving Whitehead's school at Ramsgate, he entered the counting-house of his maternal uncle, Rougemont, a London merchant, but disliking a sedentary life he in 1834 joined the British Legion in Spain as lieutenant in the second lancers. Severely wounded in one of the last engagements with the Carlists, he passed the period of his convalescence at Toulouse, and on returning to England became a regular contributor to 'Blackwood.' His first article (1840) was an account of an expedition with the guerilla chief Zurbano, reprinted with other papers in 'Peninsular Scenes and Sketches.' 'The Student of Salamanca' was also reprinted, and 'Tales from Blackwood' contain nine of his shorter stories. In 1849 he edited Captain Thomas Hamilton's 'Annals of the Peninsular Campaign,' in 1852 he published 'Central America,' and in 1854 he translated Weiss's 'History of the French Protestant Refugees.' A critique of the Paris Salon which he forwarded to the 'Times' led to his engagement by that journal about 1850 as a foreign correspondent. He was first stationed at Madrid, was at Constantinople during the Russo-Turkish war, and was occasionally in the Crimea, where his exposure of the drunkenness which was demoralising the British army after the suspension of hostilities led to vigorous repressive measures. Hardman was next in the Danubian Principalities, was the confidant of Cavour at Turin, witnessed the campaigns in Lombardy, Morocco, and Schleswig, was at Tours and Bordeaux in 1870-1, and was at Rome in 1871-3, till he succeeded Mr. Oliphant as chief correspondent of the 'Times' at Paris, where he died on 6 Nov. 1874. He was well acquainted not only with Spanish character and literature, but with continental literature and languages.
[Information from Lieut. Julian Hardman and from Messrs. Blackwood; Times, 13 Nov. 1874; Blackwood's Mag. February 1879.]
J. G. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harding, Thomas (d.1648)

​HARDING, THOMAS (d. 1648), historian, was second master of Westminster School in 1610 and rector of Souldern, Oxfordshire, from 1622 to his death, 10 Oct. 1648. Whether he was the Thomas Harding of Cainbrridge, incorporated M.A. at Oxford 9 July 1611 (Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc.,ii. 358), is uncertain; but after his death he is called B.D., late of Oxford University. He married the widow of William Neile, chapter clerk of the Abbey, and she dying in 1650 was buried ​ at St. Mary's Church, Oxford. Harding was eminent for his scholarship; his epitaph in Souldern Church says he was 'commonly called the Grecian for his eminence in that tongue,' and was remarkable 'for his holy and pious conversation, his hospitality, and charity to the poor.' He died 'in the time of the great revolution and change of church and state ... a true son of the church.' He built a new parsonage at Souldern, but left his family in poverty, for they were unable to publish his life's work, a history of church and state affairs, relating especially to England, for eight hundred years ending in 1626. A committee of the House of Commons licensed and recommended it for publication in 1641, and an effort was made in 1651 to publish it by subscription in a notice signed by Bishops Ussher and Gataker, Dugard of the Merchant Taylors' School offering to print it if the necessary 2,000l. was subscribed. These attempts failed, and in September 1695 the manuscript was advertised for sale in Whitechapel; its ultimate fate is undiscoverable (see Wood MSS. v. 658, p. 799, for Dugard's offer, and printed notice of sale of manuscripts, ib. v. 276, p. 88, in Bodleian Library).
[Welch's Alumni Westmonast. p. 17; Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, b. xii'. No. xvi. 502-6; Chester's Eegisters of Westminster Abbey, p. 123 w.; Hist, of Souldern, Oxford (Archæological Soc.), 1887.]
E. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harding, William

​HARDING, WILLIAM (1792–1886), historian of Tiverton, was of an old Westcountry family mentioned in Prince's 'Worthies of Devon,' the third son of Robert Harding of Upcott, Devonshire, who died in 1804, by his wife, Dionisia, daughter of Sir Bourchier Wrey, bart., of Tawstock. He was born on 16 Aug. 1792, was educated at Blundell's school, Tiverton, and became an ensign in the North Devon militia, from which he obtained an ensigncy in the 5th foot in 1812, and became lieutenant of the 95th rifles in 1813. He served in the Peninsula from August 1812 to the end of the war, including the siege of Burgos, capture of Madrid, battles of Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthez, and Toulouse, for which he subsequently received the Peninsular medal and clasps. He became captain of the 58th foot in 1823, major unattached in 1826, and retired as lieutenant-colonel by the sale of his commissions, having first exchanged to full pay in the 2nd foot for that purpose on 22 Nov. 1841. Harding, after his retirement from the service, was many years resident at Tiverton. He wrote an excellent 'History of Tiverton' (2 vols. 8vo, 1847), which appears to have been his only published work. He was a magistrate, a fellow of the Geological Society, and a member of some local societies. He died at Barnstaple 15 Jan. 1886, in his ninety-fourth year.
[Burke's Landed Gentry, eds. 1868, 1886; Army Lists; Ann. Reg. 1886.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hardman, Edward Townley

​HARDMAN, EDWARD TOWNLEY (1845–1887), geologist, was born 6 April 1845 at Drogheda of an old family of the neighbourhood. He was educated mainly in his native town, but in 1867 won an exhibition at the Royal College of Science, Dublin. There he took his diploma in mining, and in 1870 joined the staff of the geological survey of Ireland. In 1874 he became a fellow of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland and of the Chemical Society of London. His earlier papers were mainly devoted to the chemical analysis of minerals, to coal mining in co. Tyrone, and to bone-caves. In 1883 he was selected by the colonial office to report on the mineral resources of the Kimberley district in the north-east of West Australia, and, with camera and sketch-book, accompanied the expedition under the Hon. J. Forrest, crown surveyor-general. He discovered an extensive goldfield near the Napier Range, and after his return in October 1885, and the publication of his reports, it was understood that he would be appointed the first colonial geologist to the West Australian government. He returned to his duties on the Irish survey, but assisted in 1886 in the arrangement of the minerals from West Australia at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London. In March 1887 he was surveying in bad weather among the Wicklow mountains, and ​when weakened by exposure was attacked by typhoid fever, to which he succumbed, after a few days' illness, on 30 April 1887, leaving a widow and two children. His papers appear in the 'Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Ireland,' the 'Geological Magazine,' the 'Journal of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland,' and the 'Transactions' of the Royal Irish Academy and of the Royal Dublin Society. Hardman was an able chemist and geologist, a clever draughtsman, and a genial companion. A range of mountains in the north-east of West Australia bears his name.
[Geol. Mag. 1887, p. 334, by A. B. Wynne, with full list of papers.]
G. S. B.
# United States v. Winchester

* related portals: Supreme Court of the United States.
* sister projects: Wikidata item.
United States Supreme Court
99 U.S. 372
United States v. Winchester
APPEAL from the Court of Claims.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
The Attorney-General for the appellants.
Mr. Joseph S. Fowler and Mr. John Pool, contra.
MR. JUSTICE FIELD delivered the opinion of the court.

## Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# United States v. Wilson (66 U.S. 267)

* related portals: Supreme Court of the United States.
* sister projects: Wikidata item.
United States Supreme Court
66 U.S. 267
United States v. Wilson
Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the northern district of California.
This was a claim for a tract of land lying near to the mission of San Luis Obispo, containing 300,000 square varas, or about fifty acres of land, and called La Huerta de Romualdo. The claim was based on a grant to one Romualdo, an Indian, by Pio Pico, dated on the 10th of July, 1846. But there was evidence to show that the grantee and those claiming under him had been in possession from a period long anterior to the date of the grant, and that he was put in possession by the legal authorities of the country agreeably to the customs and usages which prevailed concerning the distribution of lots at the missions among the Indians, or 'children of the missions,' as they are called by the Church. The special circumstances connected with the grant of this tract to the Indian Romualdo were detailed in the testimony of Bonilla, the Alcalde of the district, who declared that he acted under the express order of the Governor (Alvarado,) that he placed the grantee in possession, and that he kept a record of his acts, which was lost.
Mr. Black, of Pennsylvania, for the United States. No confirmation can be had under the grant by Pico, because its execution and delivery before the conquest is not shown. Camberton, (21 How., 59;) Fuentes, (22 How., 443;) Pico, (22 How., 406;) Teschmaker, (22 How., 392;) Vallejo, (22 How., 416;) Bolton, (23 How., 341;) Osio, (23 How., 273;) Luco, (23 How., 515;) Pico, (23 How., 321;) Palmer, (24 How., 125;) Castro, (24 How., 346.) The claim must rest upon the testimony of Bonilla and the fact of possession, and it is submitted to the court to say whether that be sufficient. The title is good if it was made according to the laws, customs, and usages of Mexico. There certainly was a custom to distribute lands near the missions among the neophytes. If the history of the country as ascertained from the numerous records which this court has seen shows that the custom existed long enough and was sufficiently uniform to give it the force of law, and if this record proves that it was strictly observed in the present case, then, perhaps, there is no sound objection to the affirmance of the decree of confirmation. The honesty of the claim is not denied, and it has been, as this court knows, the constant policy of the United States not to interpose far-fetched or capricious objections against claims which seemed to be made in good faith for small quantities of land, especially where the claimant was in actual possession himself at the time of the revolution in the government.
No counsel appeared for the claimant.
Mr. Justice NELSON.

## Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse