OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fane, John (1759-1841)

1904 Errata appended.
​FANE, JOHN, tenth Earl of Westmorland (1759–1841), eldest son of John Fane, ninth earl, was born 1 June 1759, and educated at the Charterhouse and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where Mr. Bennet, afterwards bishop of Cloyne, was his tutor; he proceeded M.A. in 1778. He succeeded to the earldom at the age of fifteen. While at Cambridge he formed a friendship with William Pitt, which continued through life. In October 1789 he accepted the office of joint postmaster-general, and was sworn a member of the privy council. In the following January he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, which office he held till January 1795. He was opposed to the emancipation of the catholics, and was recalled in consequence of the determination of Pitt to grant in some measure the catholic demands; but was at once offered the post of master of the horse, which he retained till 1798, when he became lord privy seal. He remained in this office for nearly thirty years, except for a few months in 1806–7, when a whig ministry was in power, and finally resigned it in 1827, when the Earl of Liverpool's administration came to an end. He was appointed knight of the Garter in 1793. He filled the post of recorder of Lyme Regis and of lord-lieutenant of Northamptonshire from the year 1828. For many years before his death he retired from politics, and during the last year or two of his life was quite blind. He died in his eighty-third year on 15 Dec. 1841 (Raikes, Diary, under 16 Dec. 1841). The earl was twice married. His first wife was Sarah Anne, only daughter and heiress of Robert Child, the London banker. He eloped with Miss Child in May 1782, and succeeded in reaching Scotland, where the marriage took place. The bulk of Mr. Child's property was left to the eldest daughter by this marriage, Lady Sarah Sophia Fane, who married the Earl of Jersey. Lady Westmorland died on 9 Nov. 1793, having borne six children, and in 1800 the earl married his second wife, Jane, daughter and coheiress of Richard Huck Saunders, M.D. By her, who died 26 March 1857, he had three sons and one daughter. His second wife and six of his children survived him. His portrait was painted by Lawrence in 1807.
[Gent. Mag. new ser. xvii. 207; Public Characters of 1803–4, p. 413 (signed T. L. H.); Times, 17 Dec. 1841, p. 5; Stanhope's Life of Pitt, 1862, ii. 42, 276, 292, 383; Doyle's Official Baronage, iii. 644.]
R. B.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.120 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 176 | i | 3 f.e. | Fane, John, 10th Earl of Westmorland: for paymaster-general read postmaster-general |
| | ii | 16-17 | omit and was for a short time . . . . George IV |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fane, Francis (d.1689?)

​FANE, Sir FRANCIS (d. 1689?), dramatist, was the eldest son of Sir Francis Fane, K.B., F.R.S., of Fulbeck, Lincolnshire, and Aston, Yorkshire, third, but second surviving, son of Francis Fane, first earl of Westmorland [see under Fane, Sir Thomas], by Elizabeth, widow of John, lord Darcy, and eldest daughter of William West of Firbeck, Yorkshire. Sir Francis Fane the elder died in 1681, and was buried in the chancel of Aston Church, together with his wife, who had died before him (will registered in P. C. C. 91, North). His son was created a K.B. at the coronation of Charles II (Le Neve, Pedigrees of the Knights, Harl. Soc. p. 7).
During the latter part of his life he resided on his estate at Henbury, Gloucestershire, where he died (Probate Act Book, P. C. C., 1691). He married Hannah, daughter of John Rushworth [q. v.], by whom he left issue. In his will (P. C. C. 137, Vere), dated 14 Nov. 1689, and proved 15 Sept. 1691, he requests his wife, whom he appoints sole executrix, ‘to pay ffourty pounds to the poore of the parish of Olveston, in the county of Gloucester, being in full and more of the ffines at any time leavied by me on the Quakers without a full deduccōn of charges in leavying them, the Informers parte not defraying the Charges.’ He is the author of: 1. ‘Love in the Dark; or the Man of Business. A Comedy’ (in five acts, in prose and verse), acted at the Theatre Royal, 4to, London, 1675 (Genest, Hist. of the Stage, i. 173–4). In dedicating the play to the Earl of Rochester, Fane observes: ‘I never return from your lordship's most charming and instructive conversation, but I am inspir'd with a new genius and improv'd in all those sciences I ever coveted the knowledge of: I find my self not only a better poet, a better philosopher, but, much more than these, a better Christian, so that, I hope, I shall be oblig'd to your lordship, not only for my reputation in this world, but my future happiness in the next.’ 2. A Masque, written at Rochester's request for his alteration of Beaumont and Fletcher's ‘Valentinian,’ and printed in Tate's ‘Poems by several Hands,’ 8vo, London, 1685 ​(p. 17). 3. ‘The Sacrifice. A Tragedy’ (in five acts, and in verse), 4to, London, 1686; 3rd edition, 1687. It was never acted; the author, as he informs the Earl of Dorset in the dedication, ‘having long since devoted himself to a country life, and wanting patience to attend the leisure of the stage.’ Fane's plays are not wholly destitute of merit.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fane, Priscilla Anne

​FANE, PRISCILLA ANNE, Countess of Westmoreland (1793–1879), fourth child of William Wellesley-Pole, third earl of Mornington, and baron Maryborough, by Katharine Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Admiral the Hon. John Forbes, was born 13 March 1793, and married 26 June 1811 John Fane [q. v.], then lord Burghersh, who afterwards became tenth Earl of Westmorland. She was an accomplished linguist and a distinguished artist. When Lady Burghersh she exhibited six figure pieces is the Suffolk Street Exhibition between 1833 and 1841, and afterwards in 1843 and 1857 sent two scriptural subjects to the British Institution. Her picture of Anne, countess of Mornington, surrounded by her three distinguished sons, Richard, marquis of Wellesley, Arthur, duke of Wellington, and Henry, baron Cowley, has been engraved, and is well known. She died at 29 Portman Square, London, 18 Feb. 1879, was buried at Apthorpe, Northamptonshire, 25 Feb.
[Times. 20 Feb. 1879. p. 5, and 2S Feb. p. 9; Annual Register, 1879, Chronicle, p. 179; Graves's Dict. of Artists, pp. 36, 252; Morning Post, 20 Feb. 1879, p. 5.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Falmouth, Viscount

​FALMOUTH, Viscount. [See Boscawen, Hugh, first Viscount, d. 1734.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blackburne, Anna

​BLACKBURNE, ANNA (d. 1794), botanist, daughter of John Blackburne [q.v.] of Orford, was accomplished in natural history, and formed a large and varied collection. She was a friend and constant correspondent of Linnæus. She died at Fairfield, near Warrington, in 1794.
[Gent. Mag. lxiv. 180.]
G. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blacker, Valentine

1904 Errata appended.
​BLACKER, VALENTINE (1780?–1826), lieutenant-colonel, historian of the Mahratta war of 1817-18-19, obtained his commission in the Madras cavalry in 1798, and served as a comet in the Mysore campaign of 1799, with a troop of cavalry of the Nizam’s contingent. A year later he was employed in Wainád as aidede-camp to Colonel Stevenson, and subsequently served with his regiment in the southern provinces of the Madras presidency under Colonel Agnew, by whom he was thanked in despatches for having surprised a party of the enemy, and for a successful charge with the troop of cavalry under his command. The remainder of his military service was in the ​quartermaster-general's department, to the head of which he was raised in 1810. In 1815 he served with the army of reserve under Lieutenant-general Sir Thomas Hislop, and in 1817 under the same commander with the army of the Deccan at the battle of Mahidpur, and the other operations in the Deccan. His services at Mahidpur and the reconnaissances made by him before the battle were specially brought to the notice of the governor-general.
Lieutenant-colonel Blacker was subsequently appointed surveyor-general of India, and on returning to Europe in 1821 was thanked in general orders by the commander-in-chief of the Madras army for his ‘eminent and scientific services as quartermaster-general of the army of Fort St. George during a period of ten years.' He died at Calcutta in 1826. He was appointed a companion of the Bath in 1818.
[Blacker's Memoir of the Operations of the British Army in India during the Mahratta war of 1817-18-19, London, 1821; India Office Records]
A. J. A.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.28 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 125 | ii | 16-15 f.e. | Blacker, Valentine: for 1780?-1826 read 1778-1823 |
| | | 14 f.e. | before obtained insert born on 19 Oct. 1778 |
| 126 | i | 19 | for 1826 read 1823 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blackburne, William

* related authors: William Blackburne.
* sister projects: Wikidata item.
​BLACKBURNE, Sir WILLIAM (1764–1839), major-general, an Indian officer, entered the Madras army as a cadet of infantry in 1782, and in 1784 served with the force employed under Colonel Fullarton in the reduction of the Poligars in Madura and Tinnevelly. He subsequently served in the campaign which ended in the defeat of Tippoo Sultan in 1792. His proficiency as a linguist led to his being employed in 1787 as Mahratta interpreter at Tanjore, on the occasion of an inquiry into the right of succession to the Tanjore Raj, and he afterwards held for some years the post of Mahratta interpreter under the British resident at Tanjore. In 1801, having then attained to the military rank of captain, he was appointed resident at the Tanjore count, and held that ofiice until he left India in 1823.
Very shortly after his appointment as resident, Blackburne was called upon to take the field at the head of his escort and of the raja’s troops, to repel two invasions of the province by insurgents from the adjoining districts. This duty was successfully performed, and the neighbouring province of Ramnad was recovered. In 1804 Blackburne, having brought to light extensive frauds and oppression on the art of the native officials in Tanjore, the civil administration of which was under others independent of the resident, was employed by the Madras government to remodel the administration both in Tanjore and in the native state of Pudukota. He was twice sent on special missions to Travanoore. His political services elicited the high approval of Lord Wellesley, and also of successive governors of Madras. On his retirement from the residency of Tunjore, Sir Thomas Munro recorded a minute testifying to the value of Blackburne’s services and influence in Tanjore. Blackburne, being then a major-general, received the honour of knighthood in 1838, and died 16 Oct. in the following year.
[Records of the Madras Government; East India Military Calendar, containing the services of the general and field officers of the Indian army, 1824; Gent. Mag. 1840, p. 92.]
A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blackburne, John

​BLACKBURNE, JOHN (1690–1786), botanist, of Orford, near Warrington, maintained an extensive garden, including very many exotic species. A catalogue was published by his gardener, Adam Neal, at Warrington, in 1779.
G. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blackburne, Richard

​BLACKBURNE, RICHARD, M.D. (b. 1652), physician, was born in London in 1652, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degree of B.A. in 1669. ‘He was entered on the physic line at Leyden, 23 May 1676, being then twenty-four years of age, and he graduated doctor of medicine in that university (Munk's Roll, i. 451), where his thesis was published as ‘Disputatio medica inauguralis de Sanguificatione,' &c., 8vo, Lugduni Batavorum, 1676. About the year 1681 Dr. Blackburne co-operated with John Aubrey, who says that he was ‘one of the College of Physicians, and practiseth yearly at Tunbridge Wells,’ to bring into public repute for their curative properties the chalybeate springs discovered by Aubrey in 1666 at Seend near Devizes, and which Dr. Blackburne declared ‘to be of the nature and virtue of those at Tunbridge, and altogether as good;’ but ‘it was about 1688 before they became to be frequented’ (Britton, Memoir of Aubrey, p. 17). Blackburne was admitted an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 25 June 1685, and, being created a fellow of the college by the charter of King James II, was admitted as such at the extraordinary comitia of 12 April 1687, and was censor in 1688. The time of his death is unknown. Dr. Blackburne had a great regard and admiration for Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, and it is probable that he wrote the short Latin memoir sometimes ​referred to Hobbes himself, entitled ‘Thomæ Hobbes Angli Malmesburiensis Philosophi Vita.’ This short ‘Life’ of the philosopher has also been attributed to Ralph Bathurst, dean of Bath. Dr. Blackburne certainly wrote a Latin supplement to the short ‘Life,' entitled ‘ Vitae Hobbianie Auctarium,’ the first sentence of which supplies the chief evidence of his authorship of the ‘Life.’ Both these works would seem to have been derived from a larger and fuller ‘Life’ in manuscript written in English by John Aubrey, and used with the knowledge and consent of the latter, and possibly with the assistance of Hobbes himself. The ‘Vita,' the ‘Auctarium,’ and the autobiographic Latin verses, ‘Thomæ Hobbes Malmesburiensis Vita Carmine expressa, Authore Seipso,’ were issued together in a volume inscribed to William, earl of Devonshire, and bearing on its title-page the mystifying imprint ‘Carolopoli: Apud Eleutherium Anglicum sub signo Veritatis, MDCLXXXI.' The penultimate page gives the place of production, ‘Londini: Apud Guil. Cooke, ad Insigne Viridis Draconis juxta portam vulgò dictam Temple Bar.' These productions form the basis of the ‘Life’ prefixed to the first collection of ‘The Moral and Political Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury,' &c., fol. London, 1750.
[Graduati Cantab. 1787; Britton’s Memoir of John Aubrey, 1845; Munk's Roll of the College of Physicians]
A. H. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blacker, George

​BLACKER, GEORGE (1791–1871), antiquary, elder son of James Blacker, a Dublin magistrate, was born in 1791, was elected a scholar of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1809, and proceeded B.A. in 1811 and M.A. in 1858. He was for several years curate of St. Andrew’s, Dublin, chaplain of the city corporation, and rector of Taghadoe. In 1840 he became vicar of Maynooth and a prebendary in St. Patrick's Cathedral. He died at Maynooth on 23 May 1871, and was buried in the Leinster mausoleum, by the parish church. Blacker Wrote (for private circulation):
* ‘Castle of Maynooth,' 1853; 2nd edition 1860.
* ‘Castle of Kilkea,' 1860.
* ‘A Record of Maynooth Church,’ 1867.
[Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette (June 1871), xiii. 731; Cotton’s Fasti Eccles. Hibern. ii, 163; information from Rev. B. H. Blacker]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hawker, Thomas

​HAWKER, THOMAS (d. 1723?), portrait-painter, according to Vertue, came to live in Sir Peter Lely's house after Lely's death, in the hope of benefiting by the famous associations of the house. This hope was not realised. He is known by a full-length portrait of the Duke of Grafton, engraved in mezzotint by Beckett, a portrait of Titus Oates, engraved in mezzotint and published by R. Tompson, and a head of Sir Dudley North. One Hawker (called by Vertue, perhaps in error, Edward Hawker) is stated to have been admitted a poor knight of Windsor, and to have been living in 1721, over eighty years of age.
[Vertue's manuscripts (Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 23068–70); Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting; Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hawford, Edward

​HAWFORD, EDWARD, D.D. (d. 1582), master of Christ's College, Cambridge, perhaps born at Clipstone in Northamptonshire, was son of Thomas Hawford and his wife Margaret Wade. He was a student of Jesus College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1543, was elected fellow of Christ's College, and commenced M.A. in 1545. He was proctor in 1552. On 12 June 1554 he was instituted rector of two-thirds of the rectory of Clipston, and subscribed the Roman catholic articles in 1555. He was elected master of Christ's College in 1559, and on 14 Feb. 1561 was collated to a prebend in Chester Cathedral, being also, it is believed, rector of Glemsford in Suffolk (Cooper). In 1563 he was made vice-chancellor of the university, and, having taken the degree of D.D. in 1564, was still in office when Queen Elizabeth visited Cambridge on 5 Aug. Hawford did his share in receiving her, and took part in the divinity act held in her presence. The dean and chapter of Norwich sent him 100l. in 1569 as an acknowledgment of the help which he had given them in the matter of their charter, and he bestowed the money on his college. He also made an addition to the college garden. He was one of the heads chiefly responsible for the new university statutes drawn up in 1570. The statutes were displeasing to the puritan party at Cambridge, and Hawford and his colleagues were described as ‘either enemies to the gospel or faint professors,’ Hawford being specially accused of having shown great unwillingness to cast out popish books and vestments from his college, and of having finally conveyed all the best and richest away secretly (Life of Archbishop Parker, iii. 221–2). On 11 Dec. he was one of the assessors of the vice-chancellor in the proceedings against Thomas Cartwright (1535–1603) [q. v.] He was appointed one of the visitors of St. John's College, and helped to revise the statutes in 1575–6. The majority of the fellows of Christ's College were discontented at his ejection of the puritan Hugh Broughton [q. v.] from his ​fellowship in 1579, and wrote to the chancellor and to Sir Walter Mildmay against his action. Hawford refused to give way, but his decision was reversed in 1581. He died on 14 Feb. 1582, as is stated on the brass placed to his memory in the college chapel. He left money to the college by his will (Cooper).
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 448, contains a full account of Hawford; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, ii. 154, and passim; Strype's Annals I. ii. 107, 310, 665, Life of Parker ii. 38, iii. 221, 222, Life of Whitgift iii. 18, Life of Grindal p. 297, 8vo edit.; Grindal's Remains, p. 359 (Parker Soc.); Whitgift's Works, iii. 599; Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 269, 604, 618, 690, ed. Hardy; Nichols's Progresses of Eliz. iii. 106–8, 152; Bridges's Hist. of Northamptonshire, ii. 20; Blomefield's Hist. of Norfolk, iv. 569; Willis and Clark's Architect. Hist. of Cambridge, ii. 191.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hawker, James

​HAWKER, JAMES (d. 1787), captain in the navy, entered the service in 1744 on board the Shrewsbury with Captain Gideon. He was afterwards with Captain Rodney in the Sheerness, with Lucius O'Bryen in the Colchester, and Molyneux Shuldham. His passing certificate is dated 4 June 1755. On 31 Dec. 1755 he was appointed lieutenant of the Colchester, which in 1759 was attached to the fleet off Brest under Hawke. On 6 Aug. 1761 he was promoted to the command of the Barbadoes, and in April 1763 was appointed to the Sardoine. He was posted on 26 May 1768, and in March 1770 commissioned the Aldborough. In July 1779 he commanded the Iris, a 32-gun frigate, on the coast of North America, and in her, on 6 June 1780, fought a well-conducted and equal action with the French 36-gun frigate Hermione, commanded by M. La Touche Tréville, who died in 1804, vice-admiral in command of the Toulon fleet. After a severe combat the two ships separated, both disabled; the Iris returned to New York, and the Hermione made the best of her way to Boston. La Touche was greatly mortified, as his frigate was by far the more powerful, and he had previously boasted that he would clear the coast of British cruisers. Some angry correspondence ensued, with the object apparently of determining which of the two ran away from the other. This was published in the ‘New York Gazette’ (Beatson, v. 47), and created a very unfavourable impression of La Touche's conduct, to which Nelson angrily referred during the time of his Toulon command (Nelson Despatches, vi. 165). It is said that during the action a chain-shot did a good deal of damage to the Hermione, on which La Touche remarked, ‘Voilà une liaison bien dangereuse!’—it is, however, very doubtful if the Iris fired any chain-shot. On 1 Aug. Hawker was moved into the Renown, which he took to England, and on 10 Nov. was appointed to the Hero, one of the squadron with Commodore George Johnstone [q. v.] in Porto Praya on 16 April 1781. He quitted the Hero shortly afterwards, and had no further service, dying in 1787. He left a family of three sons and five daughters, three of whom married naval officers, Admiral Charles Boyles, Admiral E. Oliver Osborne, and Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, bart.; another daughter married Sir William Knighton, private secretary and keeper of the privy purse to George IV. Of the sons two entered the army; the third, Edward [q. v.], died, an admiral, in 1860.
[Beatson's Nav. and Mil. Memoirs; commission and warrant books, and other documents in the Public Record Office; Memoirs of Sir Michael Seymour, Bart. (privately printed 1878), p. 28.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hawker, Peter

​HAWKER, PETER (1786–1853), soldier and sporting writer, born 24 Dec. 1786, was son of Colonel Peter Ryves Hawker (d. 1790) of Longparish, Hampshire, by Mary Wilson Yonge, who was of an Irish family. Like his father and many of his ancestors Hawker entered the army, his commission as cornet in the 1st royal dragoons dating from 1801. In 1803 he joined the 14th light dragoons, in which regiment he became captain the year following, and served with it in the Peninsular war. Being badly wounded at Talavera, he retired from active service in 1813, but by the recommendation of the Duke of Clarence he was made major (1815), and then lieutenant-colonel (1821) of the North Hampshire Militia. Hawker, a man of very varied ability, was a good musician as well as a keen sportsman. He composed much music, and in 1820 patented an improvement in the construction of the pianoforte. At the Exhibition of 1851 some alterations in firearms which Hawker devised attracted attention, and he hoped in vain that they would be adopted by the war office. He died on 7 Aug. 1853. An engraving of a bust of Hawker is in his ‘Instructions to Young Sportsmen’ (11th ed.)
He was twice married, and by his first wife, Julia, daughter of Hooker Bartellot, whom he married in 1811, he had a son, Peter William Lanoe Hawker, sometime a ​lieutenant in the 74th regiment, and two daughters.
Hawker's works comprise: 1. ‘Journal of a Regimental Officer during the recent Campaign in Portugal and Spain,’ London, 1810, 8vo. 2. ‘Instructions to Young Sportsmen in all that relates to Guns and Shooting,’ London, 1814, 8vo. This work, by which Hawker became widely known, passed through many editions, and was amended and added to from time to time; the eleventh edition is dated 1859. 3. ‘Abridgment of the New Game Laws, with Observations and Suggestions for their Improvement. Being an Appendix to the sixth edition of “Instructions to Young Sportsmen,”’ London, 1851, 8vo. 4. ‘Instructions for best position on Pianoforte,’ London, 4to.
[Gent. Mag. 1853, pt. ii. p. 313; Army Lists, 1802–14; Burke's Hist. of the Commoners, iii. 50; Woodcroft's Alphabetical List of Patentees; Brit. Mus. Cat.; London Cat.]
W. A. J. A.