OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gibson, William (1720-1791)

​GIBSON, WILLIAM (1720–1791), self-taught mathematician, born at Boulton, near Appleby, Westmoreland, in 1720, worked on a farm from childhood, and afterwards obtained a farm of his own at Hollins, near Cartmel Fell, Lancashire. He received no education whatever in youth, but in early manhood taught himself to read a book on arithmetic, and developed an extraordinary power of working out sums of all kinds in his head. He afterwards taught himself writing, and studied geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and astronomy, in all of which he proved himself an expert. He finally acquired a knowledge of the higher mathematics in all their branches, and answered correctly for many years the problems propounded in the ‘Gentleman's Diary,’ the ‘Ladies' Diary,’ the ‘Palladium,’ and similar publications. His fame spread, and he was consulted by mathematicians in various parts of England. About 1750 he opened a school at Cartmel for eight or ten pupils, who boarded at his farmhouse. He also obtained a good practice as a land-surveyor. He died from a fall at his house at Blawith, near Cartmel, on 4 Sept. 1791, leaving a widow and ten children. A son of the same name, employed at the Bank of England, died at Pentonville on 13 Feb. 1817, aged 64.
[Gent. Mag. 1791 pt. ii. 1062–4, 1817 pt. i. 188; Chalmers's Biog. Dict.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gibson, William (1738-1821)

​GIBSON, WILLIAM, D.D. (1738–1821), catholic prelate, fifth son of Jasper Gibson of Stonecrofts, near Hexham, Northumberland, was born on 2 Feb. 1738, and educated in the English College at Douay, where he was ordained priest. He came back on the mission in 1765, and for many years he resided in the family of the Silvertops of Minster-Acres. He was president of Douay College from 1781 till 1790, when he was appointed vicar-apostolic of the northern district of England in succession to his elder brother, Matthew Gibson [q. v.] His consecration as bishop of Acanthos, in partibus, took place at Lulworth Castle, 5 Dec. 1790. He entered actively into the disputes between the bishops and the ‘catholic committee’ on the question of catholic relief [see Butler, Charles, 1750–1832], and was mainly instrumental in establishing a new college for the refugees from Douay, by which the famous English College has been perpetuated at Ushaw [see Allen, William, cardinal, and Eyre, Thomas]. He died at Durham, which had always been his episcopal residence, on 2 June 1821, and was buried at Ushaw College.
He compiled a French grammar for the use of Douay College, and translated from the French of M. de Mahis ‘The Truth of the Catholic Religion proved from the Holy Scriptures,’ Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1799, 8vo. ‘A Conversation between the Right Hon. Edmund Burke and the R.R. Dr. Gibson,’ in reference to the proposed government veto on the appointment of catholic bishops, appeared at London, 1807, 8vo.
His portrait, drawn by W. M. Craig, and roughly lithographed by Vowkes, is inserted ​in the ‘Catholic Miscellany’ for September 1825. There is a fine full-length portrait of him in the refectory at Ushaw.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hayes, Charles

​HAYES, CHARLES (1678–1760), mathematician, born in 1678, was a member of Gray's Inn. In 1704 appeared his ‘Treatise on Fluxions, or an Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy,’ London, fol., the first English work explaining Newton's method of infinitesimals. After an introduction setting forth most of the chief properties of the conic sections with concise proofs, Hayes applies Newton's method clearly and systematically, first to obtain the tangents of curves, then their areas, and lastly to problems of maxima and minima. His preface shows a good acquaintance with the existing literature of the higher mathematics. In 1710 he printed a pamphlet, ‘New and Easy Method to find out the Longitude,’ and in 1723 ‘The Moon, a Philosophical Dialogue,’ proving that she is not opaque, but has some light of her own. Having made a voyage to Africa and spent some time there, he had considerable repute as a geographer, and was chosen annually to be sub-governor or deputy-governor of the Royal African Company. After applying himself for some years to the study of Hebrew, Hayes in 1736 published his ‘Vindication of the History of the Septuagint,’ and in 1738 ‘Critical Examination of the Holy Gospels according to St. Matthew and St. Luke,’ with regard to the history of Christ's birth and infancy. His studies were afterwards mainly directed to chronology, excepting occasional tracts written to defend the policy of the Royal African Company. In 1747 appeared his ‘Series of Kings of Argos and of Emperors of China from Fohi to Jesus Christ,’ to prove that their dates and order of succession agreed with the Septuagint, and in 1751 a ‘Dissertation on the Chronology of the Septuagint,’ a defence of the Chaldean and Egyptian chronology and history.
When the Royal African Company was dissolved in 1752, Hayes settled at Down, Kent, and became absorbed in his great work, ‘Chronographia Asiatica & Ægyptiaca,’ which he did not live to complete. Two parts of it only were published, and that during the last two years of his life, when he had chambers in Gray's Inn: first, ‘Chronographiæ Asiaticæ & Ægyptiacæ Specimen,’ and the second, subdivided into (1) ‘Origo Chronologiæ LXX interpretum investigatur,’ and (2) ‘Conspectus totius Operis exhibetur.’ Part of his argument is that the Seventy and Josephus made use of writings preserved in ​the library of the Temple of Jerusalem which had been omitted in making up the Old Testament canon. Nichols remarks that Hayes spent much time in philosophical experiments. Hayes found favour with his contemporaries from his ‘sedate temper’ and clear method of exposition; and Hutton, who was twenty-three years old at Hayes's death, remarks that he had ‘great erudition concealed by modesty.’ Hayes died at his chambers in Gray's Inn on 18 Dec. 1760.
[Gent. Mag. 1761, pp. 543–6; Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, ii. 322–6.]
R. E. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hayes, Edmund

​HAYES, EDMUND (1804–1867), Irish judge, eldest son of William Hayes of Millmount, near Dublin, was born in 1804. He was educated at the Belfast Academical Institution, and in 1820 entered at Trinity College, Dublin, where he proceeded B.A. in 1825, and LL.B. and LL.D. in 1832 (Todd, Cat. Grad. Dublin, p. 263). In 1827 he was called to the Irish bar, and joined the north-eastern circuit, but subsequently transferred himself to the home circuit. He was appointed by the benchers of the King's Inns lecturer in constitutional and criminal law, wrote a treatise on Irish criminal law (Dublin, 1843, 8vo, 2nd edition), and in 1837 published reports of cases in the Irish exchequer, 1830 to 1832, and in 1843, with Thomas Jones, a continuation from 1832 to 1834. He was appointed a Q.C. in 1852, and was law adviser to the crown under Lord Derby's first administration, and again in 1858, and was subsequently promoted to be Irish solicitor-general. In 1859 he succeeded Mr. Justice Crampton in the court of queen's bench, but was compelled in 1866 to absent himself owing to ill-health, and finally resigned in Michaelmas term of that year, dying at his house at Bray, near Dublin, 29 April 1867. He married, first, Grace Mary Anne, daughter of John Shaw of Donlagh, county Dublin, in 1835, by whom he had nine children; and secondly, Mary Harriett Tranchell, widow of Lieutenant James Shaw, by whom he had one son.
[Law Times, 1 June 1867; Gent. Mag. 1867, i. 826; Times, 1 May 1867.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Haydock, Richard (1552?-1605)

​HAYDOCK or HADDOCK, RICHARD, D.D. (1552?–1605), Roman catholic divine, born about 1552, was the second son of Vivian Haydock, esq., of Cottam Hall, near Preston, Lancashire. His mother, Ellen, daughter of William Westby, esq., of Westby, Yorkshire, and Mowbreck Hall, Lancashire, had a sister married to George Allen, brother of William Allen the cardinal. His father, nearly twenty years after the death of his wife, went in 1573 to the English College, Douay. Richard accompanied him, and in 1577 was ordained priest. In the following year he accompanied the professors and students when the college was transferred to Rheims. He was one of the first selected by Dr. Allen to help in founding the English College at Rome, and took the college oath at its formal opening on 23 April 1579. He was sent to England in 1580 with twenty-eight other priests, six of whom, including his younger brother George, were executed. After labouring on the mission for nearly ten years he was invited to Rome by Cardinal Allen, who made him his maestro di camera. He now resumed his studies, and was created D.D. After the cardinal's death in 1594 he ​remained in Italy some years in close friendship with Father Robert Parsons. In 1602 he left Rome for Douay College, and thence proceeded to Lancashire, and perhaps afterwards to Ireland, as it appears that he held the dignity of dean of Dublin (Knox, Letters and Memorials of Card. Allen, p. 375). He returned to Douay in June 1603. He died at Rome in 1605.
His works are: 1. ‘An Account of the Revolution in the English College at Rome; wherein he was a person chiefly employed by the malcontents,’ dated 9 March 1578–9. Printed in Tierney's edit. of Dodd's ‘Church History,’ vol. ii. pp. cccl–lxxi. In the disputes concerning the administration of the English secular college of Rome Haydock supported the jesuits, and the students demanded his expulsion from the college. 2. ‘An Ample Declaration of the Christian Doctrine,’ translated ‘by R. H., Doctor of Divinitie,’ from the Italian of Cardinal Bellarmin, Douay, 1604, 4to; St. Omer, 1624, 48mo.
[Bridgewater's Concertatio Ecclesiæ Catholicæ, f. 133; Dodd's Church Hist., ii. 69; Douay Diaries; Foley's Records, ii. 141, 225, iii. 42, 44, 515, vi. 28, 42, 68, 130, 221, 518, 739; Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Gillow's Haydock Papers, pp. 21, 25, 32, 35–9; Knox's Letters and Memorials of Card. Allen, p. 467.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Haydock, Thomas

​HAYDOCK, THOMAS (1772–1859), printer and publisher, second son of George Haydock of the Tagg, Cottam, Lancashire, by his second wife, Anne Cottam, was born on 21 Feb. 1772. He studied for the priesthood in the English Colleges of Douay and Lisbon, and afterwards at Crook Hall, Durham; but his superiors considered that he had no true vocation for the ecclesiastical state. On leaving Crook Hall he opened a school at Manchester, which he eventually gave up in order to start in business as a printer and publisher in the same town. He brought out a large number of catholic works, some of which he himself edited and translated. Many of the productions of his press were excellent specimens of typography. The most important was the handsome edition of the Douay Bible, prepared by his brother, George Leo Haydock [q. v.] He was, however, unfortunate in business, was arrested for debt, and suffered four months' imprisonment. After his release he struggled on in business for many years at Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin, and subsequently kept a school in that city. He removed about 1840 to Liverpool and afterwards to Preston. He died at Preston on 25 Aug. 1859.
[Gillow's Dict. of English Catholics; Cotton's Rhemes and Doway, pp. 83–90.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Haydock, Richard (fl.1605)

​HAYDOCK, RICHARD (fl. 1605), physician, was born at Grewel in Hampshire. He was educated at Winchester College, and on 12 July 1588 matriculated at New College, Oxford, of which he was elected a fellow in 1590; he graduated B.A. 16 Jan. 1592, proceeded M.A. 31 Oct. 1595, and M.B. 14 June 1601 (Oxford Univ. Reg. vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 165, pt. iii. p. 169, Oxford Hist. Soc.) He travelled for some time on the continent, whence he returned to Oxford to study physic. In 1605 he left the university and settled in Salisbury, where he practised as a physician for many years. Arthur Wilson (Hist. of Great Britain, ed. 1653, p. 111) says that Haydock used to see visions in the night; that he would select a text in his sleep, and discourse on it in spite of pinchings, generally denouncing the pope and high church practices. He was summoned to court to exhibit his powers before the king, when he acknowledged himself an impostor, and, after a public recantation, was pardoned by the king, who offered him preferment in the church. Haydock did not, however, take orders, ‘but lived always a physician of good repute at Salisbury, and, retiring for a time to London, died, and was buried there, a little before the grand rebellion broke out’ (Wood).
Haydock's only publication is ‘A Tracte containing the Artes of curious Paintinge, Carvinge, and Buildinge, written first in Italian by Jo. Paul Lomatius, painter of Milan, and Englished by R. H., student in Physik,’ Oxford, 1598, fol. It is dedicated to Thomas Bodley, esq., the founder of Oxford's ‘Pambiblion, or Temple to all the Muses.’
[Wood's Athenæ, i. 678–9; Arthur Wilson's History, as above; Stow's Annals of England, ed. Howes, pp. 863–4.]
T. E. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hayes, Catharine

​HAYES, Mrs. CATHARINE (1690–1726), murderess, whose maiden name was Hall, was born near Birmingham in 1690. At the age of sixteen she gave up a disreputable life to marry John Hayes, a carpenter. The husband's trade not prospering they went to London, set up a small shop in Tyburn, afterwards Oxford Road, and let lodgings. Towards the close of 1725 there came as lodgers two men named Wood and Billings. Although the mother of twelve children she was criminally intimate with these persons, and the three determined to remove Hayes. On 1 March 1726 they killed him, after making him insensible with drink. The body was cut up and flung in a box into a pond at Marylebone. The head was cast into the Thames; when found on the following day it was publicly exposed in the churchyard of St. Margaret's, Westminster, for several days, and the murdered man was thus identified. On 24 March the trunk and limbs were discovered. Catharine Hayes and Billings had meanwhile been arrested on a warrant; Wood was captured shortly afterwards, and confessed the whole affair. Billings then admitted his complicity, but Hayes denied all knowledge of the murder. At the trial Hayes pleaded 'not guilty,' but was convicted of petty treason, and sentenced to be burnt alive. Wood and Billings were sentenced to be hanged. The case excited much popular attention, and the trial was attended by many noblemen and gentlemen (London Journal, 30 April 1726). Before 9 May, the day fixed for the execution, Wood died in Newgate, but an attempt by Hayes to poison herself failed. On 9 May she was tied to the stake at Tyburn with a halter round her neck. The executioner was foiled in an endeavour to strangle her by the burning of the rope, and the woman was finally killed by a piece of wood which was thrown at her head and dashed out her brains. Billings was hanged in chains in Marylebone Fields. At the time Hayes's crime was enshrined in ballads, and a correspondent of the 'London Journal' drew a voluminous parallel between the murders of John Hayes and Arden of Feveroham. Thackeray based his story of 'Catherine,' which first appeared in 'Fraser's Magazine,' 1839-40, on the career of Catharine Hayes.
A. V.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Haydock, William

​HAYDOCK, WILLIAM (d. 1537), a monk of the Cistercian abbey of Whalley in Lancashire, was a younger son of William Haydock of Cottam Hall, near Preston, Lancashire, by Joan, daughter of William Heton of Heton. He was concerned, together with his abbot, John Pasleu, and a fellow-monk, John Eastgate, in the insurrection in the north of England of 1536, commonly known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. They were tried for this offence at the assizes at Lancaster in the following spring, and were, after conviction, sent back to Whalley for execution. The abbot and Eastgate were hanged on 10 March 1537. Haydock underwent the same penalty two days later, in a field called, according to a nearly contemporary manuscript concerning Whalley, ‘Little Imps’ or ‘The Impe yard,’ that is, a plot of ground for rearing young trees, or a nursery garden. Stow says the execution took place on 13 March ‘at Whalley in the field called Pedeamguies,’ a place doubtfully identified by Dr. Whitaker with either Padiham Green or Padiham Eases, both of which are some five miles from Whalley (not at Whalley, as Stow says). Haydock's body was not quartered and set up in divers places, as those of the abbot and Eastgate were; but, after hanging some time, it was clandestinely removed by his nephew, also William Haydock, and secreted at Cottam Hall, the seat of the family, where it was discovered when the house was pulled down in the early part of this century.
C. T. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davidson, Thomas (1817-1885)

​DAVIDSON, THOMAS (1817–1885), palæontologist, was born in Edinburgh on 17 May 1817, his family being extensive land proprietors in Midlothian. From the age of six he was educated in France, Italy, and Switzerland, and soon showed marked talents for natural history and painting. He passed several years in Paris attending the best scientific lectures, and in 1832 the reading of Lyell's ‘Principles of Geology,’ together with the teaching and companionship of Constant Prevost, led him to give much attention to geology and palæontology. After a short period of study at Edinburgh University in 1835–6, Davidson returned in 1836 to the continent, and made geological tours in several countries. In 1837 Von Buch, the distinguished Prussian geologist, induced him to devote himself to the study of the brachiopods, an important class of recent and fossil molluscs, then much needing elucidation. For some years, however, he continued much attached to painting, and was a successful pupil of Paul Delaroche and Horace Vernet; and his artistic talent subsequently was of great value in producing an unrivalled series of plates illustrating his chosen study. Davidson continued to travel, study, and collect specimens, and at last undertook to write a monograph of the British fossil brachiopods for the Palæontographical Society. Its publication commenced in 1850 and ended in 1870, forming three large quarto volumes; but supplements afterwards appeared, the whole work making six volumes, containing over 3,000 pages of text and 250 plates, all the figures being executed by himself and presented to the society. Davidson also wrote the article ‘Brachiopoda’ in the ninth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ and described the brachiopods collected by the Challenger expedition (Challenger Reports, vol. i. 1880). All his work is sound and accurate.
In 1857 Davidson was elected F.R.S., in 1865 he received from the Geological Society of London the Wollaston medal, in 1870 he was awarded one of the royal medals of the Royal Society, and in 1882 he was created LL.D. of St. Andrew's University.
Throughout his life Davidson showed marked generosity and unselfishness, being ever ready to aid students. He interested ​himself greatly in the foundation of the free library and museum at Brighton, where he long resided, and he was permanent chairman of the museum committee at his death (16 Dec. 1885). He bequeathed to the nation his valuable collection of recent and fossil brachiopods, together with his books and original drawings. They are preserved in the British Museum of Natural History at South Kensington.
Davidson left for posthumous publication a monograph of the recent brachiopoda, in three parts, since published by the Linnean Society. He also made many contributions to British and foreign scientific journals and transactions, a list of which will be found in the Royal Society's ‘Catalogue of Scientific Papers.’ Revised French and German editions of his general introduction to, and classification of, the brachiopoda were published in 1856.
G. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davidson, Thomas (1747-1827)

​DAVIDSON, THOMAS, D.D. (1747–1827), theologian, was born in 1747 at Inchture, Perthshire, where his father, Thomas Randall, was minister. He took the name of Davidson on succeeding to the estate of Muirhouse, near Edinburgh, which had belonged to an uncle. He was educated at Glasgow and at Leyden, where his attention was more particularly directed to biblical criticism. In 1771 he succeeded his father at Inchture; in 1773 he was translated to the outer high church of Glasgow, and from that to Lady Yester's church, and in 1785 to the Tolbooth church, both in Edinburgh.
Davidson did not make any important contribution to theology, but exercised a powerful influence on the community of Edinburgh and the church of Scotland, through the singular elevation of his character, his great diligence in pastoral work, his lively interest in charitable and religious objects, and liberal contributions towards them, and his very special interest in students, especially those of slender means. The writer of his life in Kay's ‘Portraits’ says of him: ‘He was a sound, practical, and zealous preacher; and much as he was esteemed in the pulpit, was no less respected by his congregation and all who knew him for those domestic and private excellences which so much endear their possessor to society. To all the public charities he contributed largely, and was generally among the first to stimulate by his example. … In religious matters, and in the courts connected with the church, he took a sincere interest, but was by no means inclined to push himself before the public. … Only three of his sermons were published, and these were delivered on public occasions.’
Some idea of the impression made by Davidson on his contemporaries may be formed from the singular reverence with which he was spoken of in after years by many who had known him, or heard much of him, in their youth. The late Dr. Guthrie, by way of enforcing the importance of good social manners, as well as higher qualifications, for the ministerial office, used to tell how this holy man would sometimes give an awkward student a guinea to attend a dancing school ‘to teach the lads, as he expressed it, to enter a room properly.’ Dr. Chalmers, in one of his greatest speeches in the general assembly of 1840, had occasion to speak of ‘that venerable christian patriarch, Dr. Davidson of Edinburgh, whose heavenward aspirations, whose very looks of love and grace celestial, apart from language altogether, bespoke the presence of a man who felt himself at the gates of his blissful and everlasting home.’ In Lockhart's ‘Life of Sir Walter Scott’ (i. 108) it is mentioned (in Mr. Mitchell's ‘Recollections’) that the poet's mother, in the absence of Dr. Er​skine, used to attend and enjoy the ministry of Davidson. Davidson was twice married, his second wife being a sister of Lord Cockburn. He died in 1827.
W. G. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davies, Benjamin

​DAVIES, BENJAMIN, LL.D. (1814–1875), Hebraist, was born at Werne, near St. Clears, Carmarthenshire, in 1814. He studied for the baptist ministry in Wales at the Bristol Baptist College, at Glasgow, and at Leipzig, where he received in 1838 the degree of Ph.D. He proceeded to Montreal, where for six years he trained missionaries under the auspices of the Canada Missionary Society. In 1844 he returned to England as president of Stepney Baptist College, but he remained only two and a half years, accepting a professorship of McGill College, Montreal, and returning to Canada in 1847. He ​came back to London in 1857, and accepted the professorship of oriental and classical languages in his old college, then newly removed to Regent's Park. His favourite study was Hebrew, and he published translations of Gesenius's Hebrew Grammar and Lexicon, which had a wide circulation. He was a member of the company for revising the translation of the Old Testament. The Paragraph Bible issued by the Religious Tract Society was largely his work, and he edited various publications. Davies was a man of great simplicity of character, and successful as a teacher. He died at Frome of hæmorrhage of the lungs, 19 July 1875.
W. R. N.