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

​WINSTON, THOMAS (1576–1655), physician, son of Thomas Winston, a carpenter, of Painswick, Gloucestershire, and his wife Judith, daughter of Roger Lancaster of Hertfordshire, was born in 1575. He graduated M.A. at Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1602, and continued a fellow of that college till 1617. He then studied medicine at Padua, where he attended the lectures of Fabricius ab Aquapendente, and at Basle, where he became a pupil of the celebrated Caspar Bauhin. He graduated M.D. at Padua, and was incorporated M.D. at Cambridge in 1608. He was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians in London on 9 March 1610, a candidate or member on 10 Sept. 1613, and was elected a fellow on 20 March 1615. He was ten times censor between 1622 and 1637. He was an active member of the Virginia Company, regularly attending its meetings in London until October 1621, and acting as one of the editors of 'A Declaration of the State of the Colonie and Affaires in Virginia,' published in 1620. He was elected professor of physic at Gresham College on 25 Oct. 1615, and held office till 1642. He then went suddenly to France, but returned in 1652. The speaker of the House of Commons, William Lenthall [q. v.], wrote to the Gresham committee on his behalf, and on 20 Aug. 1652 he was restored to his professorship, which he held till his death. He had a large practice as a physician, and always kept an apothecary, who followed him humbly. Meric Casaubon praises his learning (Notes on Marci Antonii Meditationes, 1634, p. 33). He died on 24 Oct. 1655, and alter his death his 'Anatomy Lectures' were published in London in 1659 and 1664. They are well expressed, and show much anatomical reading as well as a practical acquaintance with the anatomy of man and of animals. He made no original discoveries, held the old erroneous opinion that there are openings in the septum between the ventricles, showed no acquaintance with Harvey's demonstration of the circulation, and believed that the arteries transmit vital spirit elaborated in the left ventricle as well as blood. He made no parade of learning, but was obviously well read in Galen and in Latin literature.
[Works; Ward's Gresham Professors; Munk's Coll. of Phys. vol. i.; Brown's Genesis of the United States.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Winstanley, John

​WINSTANLEY, JOHN (1678?–1750), verse-writer, seems to have been an Irishman, and was born about 1678 (he himself states that he was sixty-seven years of age in 1745; Poems, 1751). Nothing is known of his career beyond the fact that he died in 1750, as stated in the preface to the second series of his poems, published under the editorship of his son in Dublin in 1751. He is described on the title-pages of his volumes as a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, but he is not mentioned in Todd's ‘List of Graduates.’ His verse, which is often amusing and clever, seems to have escaped the attention of writers upon the eighteenth-century Irish writers. There is a fine engraved portrait of Winstanley prefixed to his ‘Poems written occasionally,’ Dublin, 1742, 8vo; among the subscribers were Swift, the Earl of Roscommon, Pope, and Colley Cibber.
[O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland, pp. 262–3; O'Donoghue's Humour of Ireland.]
D. J. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sharp, Cuthbert

​SHARP, Sir CUTHBERT (1781–1849), antiquary, son of Cuthbert Sharp, shipowner, and of Susannah, sister of Brass Crosby [q. v.], lord mayor of London, was born at Sunderland in 1781, and received his education at Greenwich under Dr. Burney. There he formed a lasting friendship with Lord Lake and with Sir Edward Blakeney [q. v.] When he was eighteen years of age he served in Ireland during the rebellion as an officer in the fencible cavalry. When his regiment was disbanded, Sharp proceeded to Edinburgh, and in 1803 visited Paris, where he was surprised by the resumption of hostilities (at the conclusion of the peace of Amiens), and detained, with other English visitors, as a prisoner of war. But by the influence of Regnier, the minister of justice, whose friendship he had acquired, he was released on parole, and after a few years was allowed to pass into England.
Sharp settled at Hartlepool and devoted himself to the study of local antiquities. In 1816 he acted as mayor, and was knighted on the occasion of a visit of the prince regent. In the same year appeared his first book, ‘The History of Hartlepool’ (2nd ed. 1851), by which his reputation as an antiquary was established. Sharp came to know Surtees, the historian of Durham, and rendered him valuable assistance in compiling local genealogies. His contributions to Surtees's ‘History of Durham’ were distinguished by the initials C. S. surmounted by a rose.
In 1823 Sharp was appointed collector of customs at Sunderland, but continued his study of local antiquities. In 1840 appeared his ‘Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569,’ based on the Bowes MSS. In 1845 he was promoted to the post of collector of customs at Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he resided until his death on 17 Aug. 1849.
His other works include:
* ‘A Brief Summary of a Manuscript formerly belonging to Lord William Howard,’ 1819, 8vo.
* ‘Excerpta Memorabilia e Registris Parochialibus Com. Pal. Dunelm.’ 8vo, in three parts, 1819, 1825, 1841; published in one volume in 1841.
* ‘A List of the Knights and Burgesses who have represented the County and City of Durham in Parliament,’ Durham 1826, 4to; 2nd ed. Sunderland, 1833.
* ‘Poems,’ Sunderland, 1828, 12mo.
* ‘The Life of Ambrose Barnes, sometime Alderman of Newcastle,’ 1828, 8vo.
* ‘The Worme of Lambton,’ a legend, 1830, 4to.
He also compiled a ‘Catalogue’ of his manuscripts, 1829, 8vo.
[Gent. Mag. 1816 i. 534, 1841 ii. 61, 1849 ii. 428–30; Athenæum, 1849, p. 913.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sharp, John (1572?-1648?)

​SHARP, JOHN (1572?–1648?), Scottish theologian, was born about 1572. He studied at the university of St. Andrews, and received the degree of M.A. in 1592. In 1601 he became minister of Kilmany in Fife, a parish in the gift of St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews. He was appointed clerk to the assembly which met at Aberdeen on 2 July 1605 in opposition to the commands of James VI, who was taking decisive steps to repress the independence of the Scottish church (Scottish P. C. Reg. 1604–7, p. 472). In consequence Sharp and those present at the assembly were ordered to appear before the privy council on 24 Oct. When they presented themselves they declared the authority of the privy council incompetent to judge a purely ecclesiastical question. For this conduct Sharp and five other ministers were confined in Blackness Castle and served with an indictment to stand their trial for high treason before the court of justiciary at Linlithgow. There they were found guilty in January 1606, and on 23 Oct. banished for life (ib. pp. 83–5, 101–5, 112, 123–5, 134, 199; Calderwood, Hist. of the Kirk, vi. 292–332). Sharp went to France, where in 1608 he was appointed professor of theology in the college of Die in Dauphiné. In 1618 Archbishop Spotiswood asserted that Sharp had written to him beseeching him to obtain his recall and promising submission. This statement was vehemently denied by Sharp's friends, and the letter itself was never produced. There is no doubt, however, that he would ​have welcomed a reconciliation on honourable terms, and he dedicated his ‘Cursus Theologicus’ to King James in the same year. In 1630 Cardinal Richelieu ordered him to leave France, where he had acquired considerable renown as a protestant theologian, and he came over to London. In the same year he became professor of divinity in the university of Edinburgh, and died about 1648, when Alexander Colvill succeeded him.
He published:
* ‘Tractatus de Justificatione hominis coram Deo,’ Geneva, 1609 and 1612, 8vo.
* ‘Tractatus de misero hominis statu sub peccato,’ Geneva, 1610, 8vo.
* ‘Cursus Theologicus,’ Geneva, 1618, 4to; Geneva, 1622, 4to.
* ‘Symphonia Prophetarum et Apostolorum,’ Geneva, 1625 and 1639, 4to.
[Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. II. ii. 497; M'Crie's Life of Melville, 1st ed. ii. 253; Young's Life of Welsh, p. 169; Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, ii. 494.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sharp, Michael William

​SHARP, MICHAEL WILLIAM (d. 1840), painter, appears to have been born in London, and was a pupil of Sir William Beechey, R.A. He also studied in the schools of the Royal Academy. In 1813 he was settled at Norwich, where he appears to have been a pupil of John Crome [q. v.], with whom he lodged, and of whom he painted a small portrait, besides being godfather to one of his sons. Afterwards he became one of the prominent painters of the Norwich school, with whom he exhibited for some years. Sharp appears as a portrait-painter at the Royal Academy in 1801, but he attained his greatest success as a painter of small domestic scenes, usually of a humorous character. One of these, ‘The Music Master,’ exhibited at the British Institution in 1809, gained a premium of fifty guineas and was purchased by Mr. Thomas Hope. He obtained many commissions, and his pictures were usually quickly sold at the exhibitions. Many of them also were engraved, such as ‘Sunday Morning’ (R.A. 1820), ‘The Sailor's Wedding’ (R.A. 1828), ‘The Black Draught,’ and ‘The Spoilt Child.’ Sharp also executed for theatrical patrons several groups, containing portraits of the principal performers on the stage at that date, such as ‘Queen Constance before the Tents of the English and Foreign Sovereigns,’ painted in 1819; ‘An Author reading his Drama to an Assemblage of the Performers in the Green Room of Drury Lane Theatre;’ ‘The Shakespeare Jubilee, with Portraits of the principal Covent Garden Performers,’ &c. Sharp's works, despite a tendency to vulgarity, were very popular in his day. Sharp appears to have returned to London in 1820, and died at Boulogne in 1840. A lecture by him, delivered in 1820 to the Philosophical Society at Norwich, is printed in Elmes's ‘Annals of the Fine Arts,’ vols. iv. and v., as ‘An Essay on Gesture.’
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1893; Annals of the Fine Arts, vols. iv. and v. passim.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sharp, Jack

​SHARP, JACK (d. 1431), lollard rebel, was a weaver of Abingdon. His real name is given in the official documents as William Perkins (Ordinances of Privy Council, iv. 100, 107), but some of the chronicles call him Mandeville (Leland, Collectanea, i. 491; Fabyan, p. 602; ‘ganeo trino nomine nominatus’—Amundesham, i. 63). In the spring of 1431, when he was bailiff of Abingdon, Perkins placed himself at the head of a movement among the lollards of the southern midlands against the stern repression to which they had for many years been subjected. Under the assumed name of ‘Jack Sharp of Wigmoresland’ he began to circulate handbills reviving the scheme of 1410 for the diversion of church endowments to useful purposes (ib. i. 453). The proposal took the form of a petition to the sitting parliament, but the reference to Wigmore, the centre of the Duke of York's influence in the Welsh march, contained a veiled menace to the Lancastrian government. Rumour perhaps exaggerated their designs. Sharp was afterwards reported to have confessed ‘that he would have made priests' heads as cheap as sheeps' heads, so that he would have sold three for a penny’ (Fabyan).
The council empowered the Duke of Gloucester, who was acting as regent during the king's absence in France, to suppress the movement, and a reward of twenty pounds was offered to any who should bring to justice Sharp and the ‘bill casters and keepers’ (Ordinances, iv. 88, 99, 107). On Thursday, 17 May, William Warberton (or Warbleton), who claimed to have denounced Perkins before the proclamation, was informed that he had taken refuge in Oxford, and secured his arrest (ib.; Issues, p. 415). The mayor of Salisbury also obtained a reward for assisting in establishing the identity of Sharp by arresting bill-distributors from Abingdon (Ordinances, iv. 99). Sharp was tried and condemned at Oxford before the Duke of Gloucester, and five days after his capture executed at Oxford or Abingdon (Chron. ed. Davies; Fabyan, p. 602; Leland, i. 491). His head was set up on London Bridge, and his quarters distributed between Oxford, Abingdon, and other towns (Gregory, p. 172).
J. T-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Horrocks, John

​HORROCKS, JOHN (1768–1804), manufacturer, the second son of a quaker, was born at The Birches, a small family property in the village of Edgeworth, near Bolton, Lancashire, in 1768. In 1786 he went to Preston, and erected a mill for cotton-spinning by machinery, successfully dealing with the prejudices of the workpeople, and employing the Horrocks power-loom, the invention of a relative. Shortly afterwards, being successful in a competition ordered by the East India Company for the sole manufacture of cotton goods to be exported to India, he altered his machinery, and became a manufacturer of muslin. He succeeded so well that he constructed other factories, and his elder brother Samuel and a workman named Miller entered into partnership with him. In 1802 he was returned to parliament in the conservative interest, with Lord Stanley, for the borough of Preston, and was consulted by William Pitt on commercial matters. He built for his residence a large stone house, Penwortham Lodge, near Preston. Dying of brain fever when in London, on 1 March 1804, he was buried in Penwortham churchyard. His fortune amounted to 750,000l. He married a Miss Lomax in 1787, and left two sons, Peter and John, who carried on his business. A pillar was afterwards erected to his memory at Preston.
Horrocks, John Ainsworth (1818–1846), grandson of the above, landed near Adelaide, South Australia, in 1839, and founded Penwortham village, seventy-five miles north of Adelaide. He was killed by the explosion of his gun in 1846, while exploring the head of Spencer's Gulf. Mount Horrocks and Horrocks' Pass were named after him.
[Private information; Heaton's Australian Dictionary of Dates.]
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Horner, William George

​HORNER, WILLIAM GEORGE (1786–1837), mathematician, son of the Rev. William Horner, a Wesleyan minister, was born in 1786. He was educated at Kingswood School, near Bristol, and at the age of sixteen became an assistant master. In four years he rose to be head master (1806), and in 1809 left to establish a school at Grosvenor Place, Bath, which he kept until he died there 22 Sept. 1837. He left a widow and several children, one of whom, William Horner, carried on the school. Horner was the discoverer of a mode of solving numerical equations of any degree, which is of the highest importance and is still known by his name. He first made it known in a paper read before the Royal Society, 1 July 1819, by Davies Gilbert [q. v.], headed ‘A New Method of Solving Numerical Equations of all Orders by Continuous Approximation,’ and published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for the same year. It was republished in the ‘Ladies' Diary’ for 1838, and a simpler and more extended version appeared in vol. i. of the ‘Mathematician,’ 1843. Horner also published: 1. ‘A Tribute of Friendship,’ a poem addressed to his friend Thomas Fussell, appended to a ‘Funeral Sermon on Mrs. Fussell,’ Bristol, 1820, 8vo. 2. ‘Natural Magic,’ a pamphlet, London, 1832, 8vo. 3. ‘Questions for the Examination of Pupils on … General History,’ Bath, 1843, 12mo. A complete edition of Horner's works was promised by Professor T. S. Davies [q. v.], but never appeared.
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Horsburgh, John

​HORSBURGH, JOHN (1791–1869), historical engraver, born in 1791 at Prestonpans, near Edinburgh, was left an orphan early, and ​studied drawing at the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to Robert Scott [q. v.] the engraver, and worked under him for some years. Horsburgh was a good engraver in line, and engraved several plates after J. M. W. Turner, R.A., for ‘England and Wales,’ Cooke's ‘Southern Coast of England,’ Scott's ‘Poetical’ and ‘Prose’ works, and other publications. He engraved several single plates, including ‘Prince Charlie reading a Despatch,’ after W. Simson, ‘Sir Walter Scott,’ after Sir Thomas Lawrence, and another portrait of Scott after Sir J. Watson Gordon. At the age of about sixty Horsburgh retired from active work, and undertook gratuitously the duties of pastor in the Scottish baptist church. He died at 16 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, on 24 Sept. 1869. His pastoral addresses were published with a short memoir prefixed immediately after his death.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Scotsman, 28 Sept. 1869.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Saunders, Edward

​SAUNDERS, Sir EDWARD (d. 1576), judge, was third son of Thomas Saunders of Sibertoft or of Harrington, Northamptonshire, by Margaret, daughter of Richard Cave. His younger brother was Laurence Saunders [q. v.], the martyr. He was educated at Cambridge, and became a member of the Middle ​Temple. He was successively member of parliament for Coventry (1541), Lostwithiel (1547), and Saltash (1553). He was Lent reader of his inn 1524–5, double Lent reader 1532–3, and autumn reader 1539. He was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law in Trinity term 1540, and became one of the king's serjeants on 11 Feb. 1546–7, and was in the commission for the sale of church lands in the town of Northampton. As recorder of Coventry Saunders instigated the mayor's refusal to obey the orders of the Duke of Northumberland to proclaim Lady Jane Grey, and advised him to proclaim Mary instead. He was made justice of the common pleas on 4 Oct. 1553, and appears in several special commissions issued in 1553 and 1554 for the trial of Cranmer, Lady Jane Grey, Lords Guilford and Ambrose Dudley, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, Sir Peter Carew, and others. On 13 Feb. 1553–4 he was granted the office of one of the justices of common pleas in the county palatine of Lancaster. He was knighted by Philip on 27 Jan. 1554–5, two days before his brother Laurence was arraigned for heresy. On 8 May 1555 he was made chief justice of the queen's bench. In the same month he was appointed head of the special commission for the trial of Thomas Stafford (d. 1557) [q. v.] and others on the charge of seizing Scarborough Castle. In 1557 the manors of Weston-under-Weatherley (Warwickshire) and Newbold (Northamptonshire) were granted to him and Francis Morgan, serjeant-at-law. Queen Elizabeth, on her accession, renewed Saunders's patent for the chief-justiceship (18 Nov. 1558); but on 22 Jan. following he was removed to the lower position of chief baron of the exchequer, possibly on account of a quarrel with Dr. Lewis, the judge of the admiralty court, on a question of jurisdiction (Acts of the Privy Council, 1558, vii. 12). Saunders subsequently acted as a commissioner at the trial of Arthur Pole [q. v.] and Edmund Pole and others (February 1562–3), and of John Hall and Francis Rolston (May 1572) for treason. He died on 12 Nov. 1576 (Esc. 20 Eliz. p. 2, m. 32), and was buried in the church at Weston-under-Weatherley, where there is a monument in the east end of the north aisle. Saunders's house in Whitefriars, London, abutting on the garden of Serjeants' Inn, was in 1611 sold by his representatives to that society. He married, first, Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Englefield, judge of the court of common pleas, and widow of George Carew; she died on 11 Oct. 1563. Secondly, Agnes Hussey, who survived him. His only daughter (by his first wife) married Thomas, son of Francis Morgan, the co-grantee of the manors of Weston and Newbold.
W. A. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Saunders, Erasmus

​SAUNDERS, ERASMUS (1670–1724), divine, born in 1670 in the parish of Clydey, North Pembrokeshire, matriculated at Jesus College, Oxford, 20 March 1689–90, being described as ‘pauper puer,’ though he belonged to the ancient family of Saunders (now Saunders-Davies) of Pentre, near Clydey (Rees, Beauties of South Wales, pp. 515, 871; cf. Clark, Genealogies of Glamorgan, p. 502); he graduated B.A. in 1693, M.A. in 1696, B.D. in 1705, and D.D. in 1712. He was probably for several years curate to William Lloyd (afterwards bishop of Worcester), then vicar of Blockley. He was soon appointed rector of Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Gloucestershire (Rees), and became vicar of Blockley on 13 Aug. 1705, in succession to Lloyd. He also held the rectory of Helmdon, north Hampshire, 1706–18, and was prebendary of Brecknock in the diocese of St. David's from 1709 till his death, from apoplexy, on 1 June 1724. He was survived by his wife Dorothy, daughter of Humphrey Lloyd of Aberbechan, near Newtown, Montgomeryshire. Saunders died at Aberbechan, and was buried at St. Mary's, Shrewsbury, an inscription being placed to his memory in the chancel. Another memorial was erected at Blockley in 1771 by his son Erasmus, who matriculated in 1734 and graduated D.D. from Merton College, Oxford, in 1753, was canon of Windsor (1751), vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and prebendary of Rochester (1756), and died at Bristol in 1775.
Saunders, who was a man of distinguished piety and an active church reformer, is best known as the author of a work, written at the suggestion of Bishop Bull, entitled ‘A View of the State of Religion in the Diocese of St. David's about the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, with some Account of the Causes of its Decay’ (London, 1721, 8vo). This work throws light on the origin of nonconformity in Wales, and is the basis of much that has since been written on the ​subject. Saunders is also credited (Rees, loc. cit.) with having written ‘Short Illustrations of the Bible;’ but this should probably be identified with another work of his entitled ‘A Domestick Charge, on the Duty of Houshold-Governours’ (Oxford, 1701, 8vo); a translation into Welsh was executed, but it does not appear to have been published (Rowlands, Cambr. Bibliogr. p. 320).
D. Ll. T.