OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baylis, Thomas Hutchinson

​BAYLIS, THOMAS HUTCHINSON (1823–1876), promoter of insurance offices, was the son of Edward Baylis [q. v.], and began life as a clerk in the Anchor, one of his father's insurance companies. In 1850 he became manager of the Trafalgar Office, also founded by his father. About 1852 he founded the Unity General Life Insurance Office and the Unity Bank. He exhibited a great deal of tact in the establishment of these companies, but he was speedily in disagreement with his colleagues in the management, and in October 1856 retired from the control. He then emigrated to Australia, and endeavoured to organise some insurance companies there, but, achieving no success, he returned to England in 1857, and founded and became ​managing director of the British, Foreign, and Colonial Insurance Association, which soon was in liquidation, and of the Consols Life Association, which lasted from 1858 to 1862. Into these insurance offices Baylis introduced new features, which ran counter to the ‘Lottery Acts,’ and were declared illegal. His project of ‘Consols Insurance’ engaged much attention, and has been adopted in a modified form by the British Imperial Office. In 1869 Baylis invented the ‘Positive Life Assurance,’ an ingenious form of life policy, which was adopted in 1870 by the ‘Positive Government Security Life Assurance Company, Limited,’ wherein lives exposed to tropical climates were insured at something nearly approaching ordinary rates. Baylis died in 1876, aged 53.
C. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bayly, Benjamin

​BAYLY, BENJAMIN (1671–1720), divine, matriculated at Oxford of St. Edmund's Hall on 20 March 1688, and graduated B.A. of Wadham College on 15 Oct. 1692. He took the degree of M.A. on 30 Oct. 1695. He was rector of St. James's, Bristol, from 1697 to his death, 25 April 1720. He was also for some time vicar of Olveston, Gloucestershire. He died in 1720. He was the author of an ‘Essay on Inspiration,’ first published anonymously at London in 1707. A second edition appeared in 1708. The book is quoted by Watts, ‘Bibliotheca Britann.,’ as ‘Essay on Perspiration.’ Two volumes of collected ‘Sermons on various Subjects,’ many of which were issued repeatedly in the author's lifetime, were published after his death, London, 1721.
A. R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bayly, John

​BAYLY, JOHN (d. 1633), was the second son of Bishop Bayly [see Bayly, Lewis], and at the age of sixteen went to Exeter College, Oxford, of which society he was elected fellow in 1612. In 1617 he obtained holy orders from his father, and quickly received various benefices in Wales. He ultimately became guardian of Christ's Hospital, Ruthin, and chaplain to Charles I. He published two sermons at Oxford in 1630, bearing the titles of the ‘Angell Guardian,’ and the ‘Life Everlasting.’ He died in 1633.
T. F. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bateman, Sidney Frances

​BATEMAN, SIDNEY FRANCES (1823–1881), actress, was born in New York on 29 March 1823. Her father, Joseph Cowell, was an English low comedian, who settled in America, and was popular as an actor there. Her mother, who died in ​Sidney's infancy, was a Frenchwoman by birth. She was brought up at first on a farm purchased by her father in the wilds of Ohio, and went at a later date for a few years to a school in Cincinnati. During her residence on her father's farm, she was an especial favourite of the elder Booth (one of Cowell's most intimate friends). She married Hezekiah Linthicum Bateman [q. v.] on 10 Nov. 1839, at St. Louis in Missouri.
Mrs. Bateman wrote several popular plays. Chief among them were a comedy entitled ‘Self,’ produced at the People's Theatre in St. Louis on 6 April 1857, and a tragedy in blank verse, called ‘Geraldine, or the Master Passion,’ originally performed in 1859 at Philadelphia. Both were played for many years by the leading artists of the day; the dramatist's husband achieved great success as the original impersonator of John Unit in ‘Self,’ and, on 12 June 1865, appeared for the first time before an English audience as David of Ruthin in ‘Geraldine,’ at the Adelphi. Both parents gave themselves up, from an early period, to the dramatic education of their children. Upon her husband's death in 1875, Mrs. Bateman successfully continued the management of the Lyceum for four years, but in August 1878 she gave up (instead of selling) her lease of the theatre to Mr. Irving. Mrs. Bateman then purchased a long lease of old Sadler's Wells theatre, entirely rebuilt it, and opened it, on 9 Oct. 1879, with a revival of the dramatic version of ‘Rob Roy.’ Mrs. Batenman's management continued there until the date of her death, 13 Jan. 1881. During her brief management she brought over to England an entire American company, with an essentially American play, ‘The Danites,’ by the poet Joaquin Miller.
C. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bates, Sarah

​BATES, SARAH (d. 1811), wife of Joah Bates [see Bates, Joah, 1741–1799], was born in an obscure place in Lancashire, of humble parents named Harrop. She was educated in Halifax, the birthplace of her husband, and worked for some time in a factory in that town. On one occasion she sang in public there, and was heard by Dr. Howard, of Leicester, who prophesied that ‘she would one day throw all the English, nay even the Italian, female singers far behind her.’ While she resumed her ordinary occupations, Dr. Howard sounded her praises in London, until at last the Sandwich Catch Club deputed him to bring her to London, where she met with very great success. Here she studied Italian music under Sacchini, and the compositions of Handel and the older masters under her future husband. She was a successful concert singer, both before and after her marriage with Joah Bates, which took place in 1780. Her chief success was made in sacred music, which she delivered with much impressiveness. Among her secular songs the most famous was Purcell's ‘Mad Bess.’ She is said to have brought her husband 6,000l. or 7,000l. as a marriage portion, the tangible results of her popularity as an artist. Her success, it is said, gave a great impetus to the cultivation of music among the factory girls in the north of England. Mrs. Bates died at Foley Place on 11 Dec. 1811.
J. A. F. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bateman, Hezekiah Linthicum

​BATEMAN, HEZEKIAH LINTHICUM (1812–1875), actor and theatrical manager, was born at Baltimore in Maryland, U.S.A., on 6 Dec. 1812. His father, Henry Bateman, died during his boyhood. His mother, whose maiden name was Catherine Evans, was a strict methodist. Having had her son carefully instructed at a private school in Baltimore, she placed him in the employment of a firm of mechanical engineers. In the winter of 1832–3, he threw up this position to become an actor, and played both with Ellen Tree (afterwards Mrs. Charles Kean) and with the elder Booth (Edmund Kean's reputed rival) in what is known as the leading juvenile business. On 10 Nov. 1839, at St. Louis, in Missouri, he married Sidney Frances [q. v.], daughter of a popular English low comedian, known as Joe Cowell. Eight children were born to them, and four daughters survived them both, three of whom were brought up to the stage. When the two eldest, Kate and Ellen, were no more than seven and eight years of age, they began their theatrical career, and, as the ‘Bateman Children,’ delighted immense audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. After the year of the first great international exhibition (1851), both parents devoted themselves almost entirely to the dramatic education of their children, who achieved an extraordinary success all over the United States, in California, and throughout Great Britain and Ireland.
In 1855 Bateman became manager of the St. Louis theatre, and in 1859 removed with his family to New York. There he superintended the reappearance on the stage of his daughter Kate, who had retired to complete her education; and after her marriage to Mr. George Crowe, in 1866, acted as manager in her various engagements.
In 1870, Bateman returned to England, and took the Lyceum, selecting the best actors that he could find, and among them Mr. Henry Irving, whose future success he confidently foretold. Extraordinary pains were taken by Bateman to insure Mr. Irving's first success at the Lyceum—that won by his first appearance, on 25 Nov. 1871, as Mathias in ‘The Bells.’ ‘The Bells’ ran uninterruptedly for 151 nights; but Bateman strove by reviving the Shakespearean drama to improve public taste, and a very few days before his unexpected death he said that the success of Mr. Irving's ‘Hamlet’ realised one of the dearest wishes of his heart. He arranged for the production of Tennyson's play ‘Queen Mary.’ But before the first performance he died suddenly, of heart disease, in the sixty-third year of his age, on 22 March 1875.
C. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bates, Thomas

​BATES, THOMAS (fl. 1704–1719), surgeon, appears from the preface to his ‘Enchiridion of Fevers common to Seamen in the Mediterranean,’ 12mo, published in London in 1709, to have served for five years as a naval surgeon in that part of the world. Subsequently he practised in London, and distinguished himself by his patriotic and enlightened efforts during the cattle plague of 1714. This epidemic, which is said to have destroyed a million and a half of cattle in western Europe in 1711–14, had made its appearance in England, where it had been unknown for centuries, and had reached the Islington cowyards. The energetic measures adopted by the privy council on Bates's suggestions proved so effectual that, at a sacrifice of six thousand head of cattle, it was stamped out within three months, to the astonishment of continental nations (Fleming, Animal Plagues, vol. i.) The reports are preserved among the Treasury Papers; and a ‘Brief Account of the Contagious Distemper among Cows in 1714,’ by Thomas Bates, appears in ‘Phil. Trans.’ 1718 (abrd. ed. vi. 375). Bates was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in December 1718, and was admitted into the society 8 Jan. 1719. The date of his death is uncertain.
H. M. C.
# Convict Once

I Hyacinth, of whom she wrote, now write:  Not from the hope of fame, or wish for praise;  But that, in waning of her latter days, She willed her warning tale should see the light,
And whispered with her fading breath that I  Should soften nothing that she did reveal,  But charter her confession with a seal Of manual pardon — as I do hereby.
And ere ye scorn her troubles, passion-fed,  Her wilful choosing of the crooked path,  And ere ye make a virtue of your wrath, I pray you all, remember — she is dead.
Forgive the passions that she could not curb,  The heaving trouble of a fevered breast.  She's very quiet now. She hath her rest: And there is none can wake her, none disturb.
I, who have most to pardon, pardon all,  As I myself beseech forgiving grace;  And live in hope that I shall her face, Even as an angel's, at the Judgment call.
This work is in the public domain in Australia because it was created in Australia and the term of copyright has expired. According to Australian Copyright Council - Duration of Copyright, the following works are public domain:
* published non-government works whose author died before January 1, 1955,
* anonymous or pseudonymous works and photographs published before January 1, 1955, and
* government works published more than 50 years ago (before January 1, 1974).
This work is also in the public domain in the United States because it was first published outside the United States (and not published in the U.S. within 30 days), and it was first published before 1989 without complying with U.S. copyright formalities (renewal and/or copyright notice) and it was in the public domain in Australia on the URAA date (January 1, 1996). This is the combined effect of Australia having joined the Berne Convention in 1928, and of 17 USC 104A with its critical date of January 1, 1996.
Because the Australian copyright term in 1996 was 50 years, the critical date for copyright in the United States under the URAA is January 1, 1946.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bowdler, John (1783-1815)

​BOWDLER, JOHN, the younger (1783–1815), author, younger son of John Bowdler the elder [q. v.], was born in London on 2 Feb. 1783. He was educated at Winchester, and in 1798 was placed in a London solicitor's office. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1807, made some progress in his profession, and attracted the notice of Lord-chancellor Eldon. But in 1810 signs of consumption appeared, and he spent the two following years in the south of Europe. In May 1812 he returned to England and lived with an aunt near Portsmouth. But his health was not restored, and he died 1 Feb. 1815. According to the testimonies of his father and brother Charles, John was in every way an exemplary character. He engaged in literary pursuits during his illness, and his father published in 1816 his 'Select Pieces in Prose and Verse' (2 vols.) The book contained a full memoir and the journal kept by Bowdler during his foreign tour of 1810-1812. Wide reading in current English philosophy is exhibited in a long sympathetic exposition of Dugald Stewart's philosophical theories, but the other essays and the poems are religious rhapsodies of no literary merit. The book was reprinted in 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. Selections from the religious portions of it appeared in 1821 and 1823, and in 1857 the author's brother Charles reissued a part of it under the title of 'The Religion of the Heart, as exemplified in the Life and Writings of John Bowdler.' This edition includes a new biographical preface and much hitherto unpublished correspondence.
[The editions of Bowdler's works of 1816 and 1857.]
S. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bowen, James (d.1774)

1904 Errata appended.
​BOWEN, JAMES (d. 1774), painter and topographer, was a native of Shrewsbury, where he died in 1774 (Leighton, Guide through Shrewsbury, p. 182). He made a copious collection for a history of Shropshire, having taken church notes, sketches of monuments, transcripts of records, &c., when he was accompanying Mr. Mytton through the county (Gough's Topography, ii. 176). One of Bowen's works is a view of the church of Mary in the Battlefield, Shrewsbury (ib. p. 184), and he produced also some useful maps (ib. p. 185). Gough bought all the genealogical and topographical materials which Bowen had amassed, and they form part of the manuscripts and similar relics which Gough bequeathed to the Bodleian Library.
[Leighton's Guide through Shrewsbury, p. 182; Gent. Mag. vol. cii. pt. ii. p. 185; Gough's Topography, ii. 176.]
J. H.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.33 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 46 | ii | 2 | Bowen, James (d. 1774): for a native of read son of John Bowen of |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bowdler, Jane

​BOWDLER, JANE (1743–1784), author, born 14 Feb. 1743 at Ashley, near Bath, was the eldest daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Stuart Bowdler, and thus sister of John the elder [q. v.], and of Thomas the elder, the editor of Shakespeare [q. v.] Throughout her life she suffered from ill-health. In 1759 she had a severe attack of small-pox, and from 1771 till her death was a confirmed invalid. She died in the spring of 1784. In her later years she wrote many poems and essays, and a selection was published at Bath for the benefit of the local hospital in 1786 under the title of 'Poems and Essays by a Lady, lately deceased.' This volume became extraordinarily popular. The verse is very poor, and the prose treats, without any striking originality, such subjects as sensibility, politeness, candour, and the pleasures of religion. Nevertheless, sixteen editions (with the author's name on the title-page) were published at Bath in rapid succession between 1787 and 1830. Other editions appeared at Dublin, in London, and in New York, where the first American edition (from the tenth Bath edition) appeared in 1811. A few of Miss Bowdler's pieces, not previously printed, appear in Thomas Bowdler's 'Memoir of John Bowdler,' 1824.
[T. Bowdler's Memoir of John Bowdler the elder, 1824, 93-104.]
S. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bowdler, Henrietta Maria

​BOWDLER, HENRIETTA MARIA (1754–1830), commonly called Mrs. Harriet Bowdler, author, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Stuart Bowdler, and sister of John Bowdler the elder [q. v.] and Thomas Bowdler the elder [q. v.], was the author of a series of religious 'Poems and Essays,' 2 vols. (Bath, 1786), which passed through a large number of editions. Her 'Sermons on the Doctrines and Duties of Christianity ' (n. d.) appeared anonymously, and passed through nearly fifty editions. Beilby Porteus, bishop of London, believed them to be from the pen of a clergyman, and is said to have offered their author, through the publishers, a living in his diocese. In 1810 Miss Bowdler edited 'Fragments in Prose and Verse by the late Miss Elizabeth Smith,' which was very popular in religious circles. A novel by Miss Bowdler entitled 'Pen Tamar, or the History of an Old Maid,' was issued shortly after her death. Miss Bowdler died at Bath on 25 Feb. 1830.
[Gent. Mag. 1830, pt. i. 567, pt. ii. 649; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
S. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bowdler, John (1746-1823)

​BOWDLER, JOHN, the elder (1746–1823), author, born at Bath on 18 March 1746, was descended from a Shropshire family originally settled at Hope Bowdler. His great-grandfather, John Bowdler (1627-1661), held high office in the Irish civil service during the Commonwealth, and was ​intimate with Archbishop Ussher. This John Bowdler's son, Thomas, was a fellow-officer at the admiralty with Samuel Pepys, became a conscientious Jacobite, was the intimate friend of Dr. Hickes, and died in Queen Square in July 1738, at the age of 77. His elder son, Thomas, married in 1742 Elizabeth Stuart, second daughter and coheiress of Sir John Cotton, a direct descendant from the famous Sir Robert Cotton, and died in May 1785. John Bowdler the elder was the eldest son of this marriage. His mother, the authoress of 'Practical Observations on the Revelations of St. John' (Bath, 1800), written in the year 1775, was noted for her piety and general culture, and gave all her children a strict religious training. After attending several private schools, Bowdler was placed, in November 1765, in the office of Mr. Barsham, a special pleader, and practised as a chamber conveyancer between 1770 and 1780. In January 1778 he married Harrietta, eldest daughter of John Hanbury, vice-consul of the English factory at Hamburg. In November 1779 he attended Robert Gordon, the last of the nonjuring bishops, through a fatal illness. His father's death in 1785 put Bowdler in possession of a small fortune; he then finally retired from his profession. In 1795 he wrote a long letter to Lord Auckland about the high prices of the time, in which he fiercely attacked the clergy and the legislators for neglecting morality and religion. In 1796 he addressed letters on similar subjects to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishops Porteus and Horsley. He published in 1797 a strongly worded pamphlet entitled 'Reform or Ruin,' in which he sought again to expose the immorality and irreligion of the nation. The pamphlet had a very wide sale, and reached an eighth edition within a year of its first publication. He disapproved of Sir Richard Hill's 'Apology for Brotherly Love,' a partial justification of the prevailing dissent, and issued pamphlets in support of the opposite views expounded in Daubeney's 'Guide to the Church.' In 1815 he formed a committee to memorialise the government to erect additional churches in the populous parts of England out of the public funds. In 1816 he petitioned Lord Sidmouth to abolish lotteries. He died at Eltham on 29 June 1823. Bowdler was one of the founders of the Church Building Society. He had ten children, six of whom survived infancy. His sons John and Thomas are separately noticed. His daughter Elizabeth died on 4 Dec. 1810.
[Memoir of Life of John Bowdler, Esq., written for private circulation by his son Thomas in 1824 and published for sale in 1825.]
S. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bowdler, Thomas (1782-1856)

​BOWDLER, THOMAS, the younger (1782–1856), divine, the eldest son of John Bowdler the elder [q. v.], born 13 March 1782, was educated at a private school, and at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B. A. in 1803, and M.A. in 1806. He was appointed curate of Leyton, Essex, in 1803, and after holding the livings of Ash and Ridley, and of Addington, Kent, became incumbent of the church at Sydenham in 1834. He took an active part in opposing the tractarian movement of 1840. In 1846 he became secretary of the Church Building Society, which his father had been instrumental in founding. On 7 Dec. 1849 he received a prebend in St. Paul's Cathedral. He died on 12 Nov. 1856. He married about 1804 Phœbe, the daughter of Joseph Cotton, who died in December 1854. Of nine children, four died in infancy, and three in succession between 1833 and 1839. Bowdler was the author of a large number of published sermons. Collected editions were issued in 1820, 1834, and 1846 respectively. He wrote a memoir of his father in 1824, and edited with Launcelot Sharpe the Greek version of Bishop Andrewes's 'Devotions.' He was the editor of the edition of Gibbon prepared by his uncle, Thomas Bowdler the elder [q. v.]
[Gent. Mag. 1857, pt. i. 241-2; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
S. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bowen, John (1756-1832)

​BOWEN, JOHN (1756–1832), painter and genealogist, was the eldest son of James Bowen, painter and topographer, of Shrewsbury [q. v.], and was born in that city in 1756. Bowen studied the local antiquities under his father; traced out the pedigrees of Shropshire families, and became especially skilful in deciphering and copying ancient manuscripts. In 1795 he sent a drawing of the Droitwich town seal to the 'Gentleman's Magazine' (vol. lxv. pt. i. p. 13), signing himself 'Antiquarius;' and in 1802 (vol. lxxii. pt. i. p. 210) he followed this up with another communication, to which he put his initials. He drew four views of Shrewsbury, which were engraved by Vandergucht (Gough, Topography, ii. 177), and in the 'Philosophical Transactions' (xlix. 196) is a plate of some Roman inscriptions from his hand. He died on 19 June 1832, aged 76.
[Gent. Mag. vol. cii. pt. ii. p. 185; Gough's Topography, ii. 177; Leighton's Guide through Shrewsbury, p. 182.]
J. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blizard, Thomas

​BLIZARD, THOMAS (1772–1838), surgeon, became a pupil of his uncle, Sir William Blizard [q. v.], and attained great skill as an operating surgeon. Haying early become surgeon to the London Hospital, and gained a large and profitable city practice, he was able to retire on his fortune at the age of forty-six. He was notable both for his knowledge of anatomy and for his invention of a special knife for lithotomy. He died 7 May 1838. He was the author of a 'Description of an ​Extra-Uterine Fœtus' (Trans. Royal Soc. vol, v.), and of a 'Case of Intussusception of the Bowels' (Trans. Medico-Chir. Soc. vol. i.)
[Gent. Mag. 1838.]
G. T. B.