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

​SWINTON, ALEXANDER, Lord Mersington (1625?–1700), Scottish judge, second son of Sir Alexander Swinton of Swinton in Berwickshire, was born between 1621 and 1630. John Swinton (1621?–1679) [q. v.] was his elder brother. Alexander is first mentioned as fighting in the battle of Worcester on the side of the king, where he was taken prisoner (Douglas, Baronage; Defence of John S. before Parliament, 1661). He was admitted advocate on 27 July 1671.
Swinton was a zealous presbyterian, and his dissatisfaction with the government continued, and he relinquished his profession in 1681 rather than take the test. He was restored by the king's letter of dispensation on 16 Dec. 1686, and was admitted an ordinary lord on 23 June 1688, in place of John Wauchope of Edmonston, taking the title of Lord Mersington, after a place in the parish of Eccles. At the revolution which followed immediately, Mersington acted a conspicuous part in the attack on Holyrood House, and, according to a letter ‘to the late king in France’ from Lord Balcarres, who designated Mersington the ‘fanatique judge,’ Swinton joined the supporters of William III ‘with a halbert in his hand, and as drunk as ale or brandy could make him’ (Addit. MS. 33742). He was reappointed a judge in November 1689, he, Sir James Dalrymple of Stair, and Sir John Baird of Newblyth being the only judges who had previously sat on the bench, and Swinton having been the only one of James II's judges who was continued in office by William III. In July 1690 he was appointed a visitor in the act for the visitation of universities, colleges, and schools (Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. vii.), and in June 1698 was elected to sit as president until a question as to the nomination of Sir Hew Dalrymple [q. v.] should be confirmed (Brunton and Haig, Senators of the College of Justice). He continued in office until his death, which took place suddenly in August 1700. Sir James Stewart, lord advocate, wrote of him at the time to Carstares, ‘He was a good man, and is much regretted’ (ib.) He married, first, a daughter of Sir Alexander Dalmahoy; and, secondly, Alison Skene, of the family of Hallyards, by whom he had many daughters (Douglas, Baronage). His wife is said to have joined a mob of women in petitioning parliament in 1674 against Lauderdale's scheme for new modelling the privy council. At the time it was deemed unsafe for men to avow opposition to the government. In the result the council banished Swinton's wife and those who acted with her from ‘the town of Edinburgh and the liberties thereof’ (Crookshank, History of the Church of Scotland, i. 357, ed. 1787).
R. B. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Swinden, Henry

​SWINDEN, HENRY (1716–1772), antiquary, born in 1716, was a schoolmaster and afterwards a land-surveyor at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where he became an intimate friend of John Ives [q. v.] His antiquarian tastes led him to spend twenty years in collecting material for a history of Yarmouth, in which he was assisted both with money and material by his friend. It was a laborious compilation replete with documents, but is not exhaustive and has no literary value. He died while the last sheet was in the press, on 11 Jan. 1772, and the work was brought out by Ives for the benefit of Swinden's widow. Ives also erected a mural tablet in St. Nicholas Church, Yarmouth, to Swinden's memory. Besides the ‘History and Antiquities of the Ancient Burgh of Great Yarmouth,’ Norwich, 1772, 4to, Swinden published in 1763 a broadsheet showing all the officers of Yarmouth at the time, and giving other topographical information. This is extremely scarce, a copy of the original edition being the property of the town council. It was reprinted in 1863. A map or plan of the town by him was also published in 1779.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Swiney, George

​SWINEY, GEORGE (1786?–1844), founder of the Swiney prize and Swiney lectureship, born about 1786, was the son of William Swiney (1760–1820), admiral of the red, and a descendant of Major Matthew Swiney (1681–1766), who fought at Dettingen. He was educated at Edinburgh University, whence he graduated M.D. in 1816, with a thesis ‘De Insania’ (List of Medical Graduates, 1867, p. 52). Having retired from practice, he settled in London, lived a secluded life, was very rarely seen beyond his door, and acquired a reputation as an eccentric. He spent much of his time latterly in revising his will and framing elaborate directions for his funeral. He died at Grove Street, Camden Town, on 21 Jan. 1844, and was attended to the cemetery of St. Martin's, Pratt Street, by an enormous concourse of people, attracted by the rumours and exaggerations which had been circulated by the newspapers. About a dozen years before his death Swiney had left a parcel with a number of mysterious injunctions at the rooms of the Society of Arts. When opened the parcel was found to contain a draft of a will in the society's favour, but as no trace could be found of the testator the matter was regarded as a hoax. After Swiney's death, however, by a codicil (dated 14 Nov. 1835) modifying his previous arrangements (under a will dated 27 May 1831), it was found that he had bequeathed 5,000l. to the Society of Arts, in order to found a quinquennial prize for the best published essay upon jurisprudence, the prize to be adjudicated jointly by the Society of Arts and the College of Physicians; and 5,000l. to the British Museum to found a lectureship in geology, the lecturer to be an M.D. of Edinburgh. Among the recipients of the Swiney prize have been Sir Henry James Sumner Maine [q. v.] for his ‘Ancient Law’ (1864), Leone Levi [q. v.], and Sir Robert Joseph Phillimore [q. v.] The prize consists of a cup valued at 100l. (the original design was executed by Daniel Maclise in 1849), and 100l. (see Journal of Society of Arts, 30 Nov. 1888; Swiney's will was proved on 6 Feb. 1844).
A first cousin of the preceding, General George Swiney (1786–1868), colonel commandant of the 19th brigade of the royal artillery, entered the Honourable East India Company's service in 1802, was present at the battle of Deig and commanded the artillery in the first three assaults of Bhurtpore, where he was wounded, for which service he received a medal. He also commanded the artillery at the siege and capture of Emaum Ghur in 1810, receiving the thanks of the vice-president in council and the commander-in-chief. He eventually became the senior officer of the royal (Bengal) artillery (Cooper, Reg. and Mag. of Biogr. i. 148). He died at Cheltenham on 10 Dec. 1868. His nephew, Colonel George Clayton Swiney, entered the Bengal cavalry in October 1857, was transferred to the 6th dragoon guards, served in the Indian mutiny, and has written ‘Historical Records of the 32nd (Duke of Cornwall's) Light Infantry,’ 1893.
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Swineshead, Richard

​SWINESHEAD, RICHARD (fl. 1350), mathematician, apparently a native of Glastonbury, was educated at Merton College, Oxford, the home of many famous mathematicians in the fourteenth century. He was a fellow of Merton College, and took a leading part in the riots about the election of a chancellor in 1348 (Wood, Hist. and Antiq. i. 448). Eventually he left Oxford, and became a Cistercian monk at Swineshead in Lincolnshire. Leland gives his christian name as Roger, but this seems to be a mistake. In some verses against monks he is referred to as
Subtilis Swynshed proles Glastoniæ,  Revera monachus bonæ memoriæ,  Cujus non periit fama industriæ.
The following works are attributed to Swineshead, but only four (Nos. 1, 4, 8, and 12) are known to be extant: 1. ‘Questiones super Sententias,’ inc. ‘Utrum aliquis in casu ex præcepto,’ Oriel College MS. xv. f. 235. 2. ‘In Ethica Aristotelis.’ 3. ‘De Cœlo et Mundo.’ 4. ‘Descriptiones Motuum, or De Motu Cœli et Similibus,’ Caius College MS. (Bernard, Cat. MSS. Anglia, ii. No. 994, 2). 5. ‘Super arte Cabalistica.’ 6. ‘De Intentione et Remissione.’ 7. ‘De Divisionibus.’ 8. ‘De Insolubilibus,’ inc. ‘Circa finem seu Terminum ultimum,’ Bodleian MS. 2593; this is said to have been printed. 9. ‘Sophismata Logicalia.’ 10. ‘Ephemerides.’ 11. ‘Mathematicæ Contentiones.’ 12. ‘Calculationes Astronomicæ’; this was several times printed, viz. ‘Subtilissimi Doctoris Anglici Suiset Calculationum liber,’ Padua [1485?], folio; ‘Suiseth Anglici Opus Aureum Calculationum ex recognitione J. Tollentini,’ Pavia, 1498; ‘Calculator subtilis​simi Ricardi Suiseth Anglici,’ Venice, 1520; ‘Tractatus Proportionum introductorius ad Calculationes Suisseth,’ by Bassanus Politus, appeared at Venice in 1505, folio.
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Swinden, Tobias

​SWINDEN, TOBIAS (d. 1719), divine, was probably the son of Tobias Swinden, appointed a canon of York in 1660 (Le Neve, Fasti, iii. 226). He was admitted to Jesus College, Cambridge, as a pensioner, on 3 Dec. 1674, graduating B.A. in 1678 and M.A. in 1682. He was appointed rector of Cuxton in Kent on 5 July 1688, and on 13 April 1689 became vicar of Shorne in the same county. He died in 1719. Of his three sons, Tobias (d. 1754), of Queens' College, Cambridge, was vicar of Lamberhurst and rector of Kingsdown in Kent; and Samuel Francis (d. 1764) of University College, Oxford, was rector of Stifford in Essex, and master of the academy of Greenwich, where James Wolfe (afterwards general) [q. v.] and John Jervis (afterwards Earl St. Vincent) [q. v.] were his pupils.
Swinden was the author of ‘An Enquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell,’ London, 1714, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1727, which was translated into French in 1728 by Jean Bion, minister of the English church at Amsterdam; other editions of the translation appeared in 1733 and 1757.
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Swinnerton, Thomas

​SWINNERTON, THOMAS (d. 1554), protestant divine, son of Robert Swinnerton, came of a Staffordshire family, and was born probably at Swinnerton in that county. He is said to have been educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and perhaps graduated at the latter university, B.A. in 1515 and M.A. in 1519, under the name John Roberts, which he adopted to screen himself from persecution on account of his heretical opinions. Under that name he published in 1534 a rare work, ‘A mustre of scismatyke Bysshoppes of Rome | otherwyse naming themselues popes | moche necessarye to be redde of al the Kynges true Subiectes,’ printed by Wynkyn de Worde for John Byddell, 21 March 1534 (Brit. Museum). The first part, consisting of a prologue, ‘describeth and setteth forth the maners, fassyons, and usages of popes … where in also the popes power is brevely declared, and whether the Worde of God be suffycient to our Saluation or not.’ The second part contains a life of Gregory VII, translated from the Latin of Cardinal Beno; and the third a life of the Emperor Henry IV, who ‘was cruelly imprisoned and deposed by the means of the sayde Gregory.’ These parts seem to have previously been issued separately, and Wood mentions an edition of the ‘Life of Gregory,’ published in 1533, 4to. But these editions do not now seem to be extant. Bale also attributes to Swinnerton two other works, ‘De Papicolarum Susurris’ and ‘De Tropis Scripturarum.’
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roberton, James

​ROBERTON, JAMES, of Bedlay (1590?–1664), Scottish judge, born about 1590, was son of Archibald Roberton, and grandson of John Roberton of Earnock. He matriculated at Glasgow University in March 1605, and graduated M.A. in 1609. He was appointed professor of philosophy and humanity in that university in 1618. After leaving the university, Roberton went to France. On his return he passed as advocate, and in November 1626 was appointed a judge of the admiralty court and a justice-depute. In a petition which he presented to parliament in 1641, he stated that he served as justice-depute from 1626 till 1637 without fee; that at the latter date he had been granted an annual fee of 1,200l. Scots, ‘whairof I have gottin nor can gett no payment at all, but am still disapoynted of the samen.’ In November 1641 parliament ordered the payment of arrears for four and a half years, and directed that provision should be made for regular payment thereafter. This arrangement was not carried out, as on 23 July 1644 Roberton again petitioned for payment of ten years' arrears, which was ordered. His name appears frequently in 1641 and 1645 on the special commissions appointed for the trial of delinquents. On 3 April 1646 he was chosen rector of Glasgow University, being described as Judex, to distinguish him from a contemporary James Roberton, who matriculated at Glasgow in 1610, was laureated in 1613, and was apparently made ‘professor of physiologie’ in May 1621.
On 18 March 1647 parliament ordered the payment of 100l. sterling for Roberton's services as commissioner. His name appears on the committee of war for Lanarkshire from 1644 till 1648, and he is described as commissary of Hamilton from 1646 to 1650. During Cromwell's supremacy in Scotland he was urged to retain his judicial position, but he refused to take the oath of abjuration, ​and retired into private life. In 1659 he is described as heritor of the lands of Bedlay and Mollans, showing that his possessions had not been forfeited. After the Restoration in 1660 Roberton was one of the commission of judges appointed in Scotland, and on 5 April 1661 he was made one of the ordinary lords of session, when the college of justice was restored. From the acts of parliament it appears that Roberton took the oath; but Brunton and Haig (Senators of the College of Justice, p. 374), on the authority of the books of sederunt, state that he was absent when the declaration was subscribed by the court, and 19 Jan. 1664 was assigned as the date for his subscription, under penalty of deprivation of office. Roberton addressed a letter to the court, pleading his great age and sickness for his non-attendance at Edinburgh, and asserting that he had no scruple concerning the covenant. The court granted him the privilege of appearing at any time when his health would permit. He died in May 1664, and his son, Archibald Roberton, was ‘retoured’ as his heir on 17 June in that year. Bedlay remained in possession of the Robertons till 1786. The last of the family was James Roberton, advocate, who died at Edinburgh on 14 Nov. 1798.
A. H. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roberts, Barré Charles

​ROBERTS, BARRÉ CHARLES (1789–1810), antiquary, was second son of Edward Roberts, clerk of the pells in the exchequer, who died on 14 May 1835, aged 87. He was born in St. Stephen's Court, Westminster, the official residence of his father, on 13 March 1789, and received his first baptismal name from Colonel Barré, his father's early friend. From May 1797 to June 1799 he was educated under Dr. Horne at Chiswick, and from the latter date to the summer of 1805 under the Rev. William Goodenough at Ealing. He was entered as a commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, on 11 Oct. 1805, and at Christmas 1805 he was nominated as a student by the presentation of Dr. Hay, at the request of Lord Sidmouth. He graduated B.A. on 19 Nov. 1808.
Roberts was well versed in antiquities, especially topography and numismatics. His taste for collecting coins began in early youth; he confined himself to the coins of his own country, and his collection was based on that of Samuel Tyssen, which was dispersed in April and May 1802. It was acquired for the British Museum at the cost of 4,000l. His energy during his short life seemed inexhaustible. In 1805 and 1806 he learnt Spanish, and early in 1807 printed at Oxford fifty copies of a compendium of Spanish verbs. In February 1809, when he was not yet twenty, he contributed to the first number of the ‘Quarterly Review’ (pp. 112–31) a review of Pinkerton's ‘Essay on Medals.’ He wrote a second article for it on ‘The Travelling Sketches in Russia’ of Sir Robert Ker Porter [q. v.], but this was withdrawn at his own request. Mostly under the signature of ‘E. S. S.,’ the concluding letters of his name, he contributed several articles to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ on numismatics.
A lingering decline seized Roberts in the autumn of 1807, and he died at his father's house at Ealing on 1 Jan. 1810. On 8 Jan. he was buried in the parish church, where a tablet, with an inscription by his old tutor William Goodenough, his preceptor in youth, was placed to his memory. There appeared in 1814 a volume called ‘Letters and Miscellaneous Papers of Barré Charles Roberts, with a Memoir of his Life,’ by a friend, which was noticed by Southey in the ‘Quarterly Review’ for January 1815 (pp. 509–519). All his published papers, with several additional articles on ‘Abbeys,’ ‘Mitred Abbots,’ ‘Antony Wood,’ ‘Tom Hearne,’ ‘Gibbon's “Dissertation on the Iron Mask,”’ and other antiquarian topics, were included in the volume.
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roberts, David (1757-1819)

​ROBERTS, DAVID (1757–1819), lieutenant-colonel, after serving for a few months in an independent company and in the 22nd dragoons, became lieutenant in the 1st lifeguards on 12 Aug. 1794, and captain on 25 Sept. 1799. He exchanged to half pay in 1801, and was brought back to full pay in the 51st foot on 25 Feb. 1804. He went with that regiment to Portugal in 1808, served as brigade-major to General Leith during the retreat to Coruña, and lost his right hand in the affair at Lugo. It was shot through in two places as he was in the act of killing a French officer.
He received a brevet majority on 4 June 1811, and on 12 Dec. of that year became major in the 51st. He was in temporary command of that regiment at Vittoria, for which he received a gold medal and was made brevet lieutenant-colonel (21 June 1813). The 51st belonged to Lord Dalhousie's division, and, after Soult's unsuccessful attempt to relieve Pampeluna, it took part (still under Roberts's command) in the attack upon the retiring French at Ostiz on 30 July, which Wellington described as admirably conducted and executed. ​A month later the regiment was severely engaged on the Bidassoa in the combat of Vera, and Roberts received a bullet in the back, which could not be extracted, and which incapacitated him for further service in the field. He retired from the army on 22 June 1815, and died at Havre in April 1819.
He is said to have been the author of ‘The Military Adventures of Johnny Newcome, with an Account of his Campaigns in the Peninsula and in Pall Mall,’ which was illustrated with fifteen coloured sketches by Rowlandson, and published in 1815. It is a poem of nearly three thousand lines, of little merit, but popular enough at the time to reach a second edition in the following year, and to encourage imitations, chief of which was ‘The Adventures of Johnny Newcome in the Navy,’ 1818, a poem by John Mitford (1782–1831) [q. v.]
E. M. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Robert the Englishman (fl.1326)

Contains subarticle Robertus Anglicus (fl. 1272)
​ROBERT the Englishman (fl. 1326), also called Robertus Perescrutator, was a native of Yorkshire. He was a doctor of divinity and a Dominican friar, and is said to have been called ‘Perscrutator’ from his zealous study of medicine. He wrote: 1. ‘De Impressionibus Æris,’ inc. ‘De æris impressionibus anno Christi 1325 in civitate Eboraci Angliæ’ (Cambr. Univ. Libr. MS. Ii. ​i. 1, ff. 13–24). 2. ‘De Magia Cæremoniali.’ 3. ‘Correctorium Alchymiæ.’ 4. ‘De Mysteriis Secretorum.’ 5. ‘De Moralibus Elementorum.’ 6. ‘Roberti Anglici viri astrologici præstantissimi de Astrolabio Canones’ [Perugia, 1480?], 4to. But this may belong to the other Robertus Anglicus noticed below. In Digby MS. 208 in the Bodleian Library, a manuscript of the late fifteenth century, there is ‘Tabula Capitulorum Etymologiarum Isidori,’ by Robertus Anglicus, S.T.P., ordinis S. Dominici.’ According to Pits (App. p. 901), there were some scriptural commentaries by Robert, an English friar, in the Dominican Library at Bologna.
Robertus Perscrutator of York can hardly be identical with the Robertus Anglicus (fl. 1272) who wrote: ‘Commentarius in tractatum Johannis de Sacrobosco [Holywood] de Sphæra.’ There is a copy in Digby MS. 48, ff. 48–88, where the ‘Commentarius’ is said to have been written for students at Montpelier, and to be compiled by Master Robert the Englishman, who completed it in 1272. He is also credited with ‘Alkindus de Judiciis ex Arabico Latinus factus per Robertum Anglicum anno Domini 1272,’ which was probably by Robert de Retines [see Robert the Englishman, fl. 1143], the date being probably a mistake for 1172, from which it has been altered to 1272 in one manuscript. There are copies in Ashmolean MSS. 179, iv., 209 f. 211, 369 f. 85, 433 vi.
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roberts, Abraham

​ROBERTS, Sir ABRAHAM (1784–1873), general in the Indian army, and colonel of the royal Munster fusiliers, born at Waterford, 11 April 1784, was son of the Rev. John Roberts, whose family had long been connected with that town, by his wife, whose maiden name was Sandys. His uncle, Thomas Roberts [q. v.], is noticed separately. His grandfather, John Roberts, who married Mary Susannah Sautelle, of French extraction, was architect of the cathedral catholic chapel, the leper hospital, and the town-hall in Waterford.
Abraham Roberts was appointed to the Waterford regiment of militia in 1801; in 1803 he became ensign in the 48th regiment; and in 1804 he joined the East India Company's service. In India he served with distinction under Lord Lake (1805), Sir William Richards (1814–15), and others. In 1828 Lord Amherst, governor-general, presented him with a piece of plate for departmental services. He was lieutenant-colonel in 1832, and in the first Afghan war (1838–42) was appointed brigadier-general. Roberts commanded Shah Shuja's force in 1840, but resigned and returned to India because the precautions he wisely advised were not adopted. He foresaw the danger at Kabul, and had his advice been accepted the disasters of 1841–2 might have been averted. From 1852 to 1854 he commanded the Pesháwar division, where his judgment and calm observation obtained the acknowledgment of the government of India. His service extended over fifty years, during which he received numerous medals and orders; he was made K.C.B. in 1865, G.C.B. in 1873, and died at Clifton in December of that year, aged 89. Roberts married in 1830, as a second wife, Isabella, widow of Major Maxwell, and daughter of Abraham Bunbury, by whom he became father of Frederick Sleigh, first Earl Roberts of Kandahar, Pretoria, and Waterford.
W. B-t.