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

​INGWORTH, RICHARD of (fl. 1224), Franciscan, was, according to Thomas Eccleston [q. v.], the first Minorite who preached to the peoples north of the Alps. He was among the friars who came to England with Agnellus in 1224, and was then a priest and advanced in years. With three other friars he established the first house of Franciscans in London; he then proceeded to Oxford, hired a house in St. Ebbe's, and thus founded the original convent in the university town; he also founded the friary at Northampton. After ​wards he became custodian of Cambridge, which was specially noted for its poverty under his rule. In 1230, when Agnellus attended the general chapter at Assisi, Richard acted as vicar of the English province. Soon after this he was appointed by the general, John Parens, provincial minister of Ireland. He was released from the office by Albert of Pisa in 1239, and set out as a missionary to the Holy Land, where he died. In the manuscripts of Eccleston his name is usually written ‘Ingewrthe’ or ‘Indewurde.’ Leland and his followers call him ‘Kingesthorp.’ The only authority for this form is a late marginal note in the Phillipps MS. of Eccleston, from which Leland made his extracts (see English Hist. Rev. for October 1890).
A. G. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bryan, Margaret

​BRYAN, MARGARET (fl. 1815), natural philosopher, a beautiful and talented schoolmistress, was the wife of a Mr. Bryan. In 1797 she published in 4to, by subscription, a 'Compendious System of Astronomy,' with a portrait of herself and two daughters as a frontispiece, the whole engraved by Nutter from a miniature by Samuel Shelley. Mrs. Bryan dedicated her book to her pupils. The lectures of which the book consisted had been praised by Charles Hutton, then at Woolwich (Preface, p. xi). An 8vo edition of the work was issued later. In 1806 Mrs. Bryan published, also by subscription, and in 4to, 'Lectures on Natural Philosophy' (thirteen lectures on hydrostatics, optics, pneumatics, acoustics), with a portrait of the authoress, engraved by Heath, after a painting by T. Kearsley; and there is a notice in it that 'Mrs. Bryan educates young ladies at Bryan House, Blackheath.' In 1815 Mrs. Bryan produced an 'Astronomical and Geographical Class Book for Schools,' a thin 8vo.
'Conversations on Chemistry,' published anonymously in 1806, is also ascribed to her by Watt (Bibl. Brit.) and in the 'Biog. Dict. of Living Authors' (1816). Mrs. Bryan's school appears to have been situated at one time at Blackheath, at another at 27 Lower Cadogan Place, near Hyde Park Corner, and lastly at Margate.
J. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bryan, Augustine

​BRYAN, AUGUSTINE (d. 1726), classical scholar,received his education at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A. 1711, M.A. 1716); was instituted to the rectory of Piddlehinton, Dorsetshire, on 16 Jan. 1722; and died on 6 April 1726. He published a sermon on the direction of the lord mayor in 1718, and just before his death he had finished the printing of a splendid edition of Plutarch’s ‘Lives,' which was completed by Moses du Soul, and published under the title of ‘Plutarchi Chæronensis Vitæ Parallelæ, cum singulis aliquot. Græce et Latine. Adduntur variantes Lectiones ex MSS. Codd. Veteres et Novæ, Dootorum Viromm Notæ et Emendationes, et Indices accuratissimi,' 5 vols., London, 1723–9, 4to, This excellent edition is adorned with the heads of the illustrious persons engraved from gems. The Greek text is printed from the Paris edition of 1624, with a few corrections, and the Latin translation is also chiefly adopted from that edition.
[Hutchins’s Dorsetshire, 2nd edit. ii. 352, 353; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iv. 286; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. iv. 375, viii. 629; Political State of Great Britain, xxxi. 344; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), 1890; Graduati Cantabrigienses (1787), 60.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brwynllys, Bedo

​BRWYNLLYS, BEDO (fl. 1450–1480), a Welsh poet, so named from his birthplace, Brwynllys in Herefordshire. Many poems by him, chiefly odes, are preserved in the Welsh School MSS. now in the British Museum, and several short passages are printed in Davies’s ‘Flores Poetarum Britannicorum.’ Brwynllys made the first collection of the poems of Dafydd ab Gwilym, but his collection is said to have been lost in the ruin of Raglan Castle, where it was preserved.
[Williams’s Dict. of Eminent Welshmen; Welsh School MSS., British Museuxm]
A. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bryan, Michael

​BRYAN, MICHAEL (1757–1821), connoisseur, was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne on 9 April 1757, and was educated at the grammar school of that town under Dr. Moyce. In 1781 he first visited London, whence he accompanied his elder brother to Flanders, where he became acquainted with, and afterwards married, the sister of the Earl of Shrewsbury. In Flanders he continued to reside, with the exception of occasional visits to England, until 1790, when he finally left the Low Countries and settled in London. In 1793 or 1794 Bryan again went to the continent in search of fine pictures. Among other places he visited Holland, and remained there until an order arrived from the French government to stop all the English then resident there. He was, among many others, detained at Rotterdam. It was here that he met M. L'Abord. In 1798 Bryan was applied to by L'Abord for his advice and assistance in disposing of the Italian part of the Orleans collection of pictures. He communicated the circumstance to the Duke of Bridgewater, and his grace authorised him to treat for their purchase. After a negotiation of three weeks, the duke, with the Marquis of Stafford, then Lord Gower, and the Earl of Carlisle, became the purchasers, at the price of 43,500l. In 1801 Bryan obtained, through the medium of the Duke of Bridgewater, the king's permission to visit Paris for the purpose of selecting from the cabinet of M. Robit such objects of art as he might deem worthy of bringing to England. Among other fine pictures, he brought from Paris two by Murillo, the one representing the infant Christ as the Good Shepherd, and the other the infant St. John with a lamb. In 1804 Bryan left the picture world, and retired to his brother's in Yorkshire, where he remained until 1811. In 1812 Bryan again visited London, and commenced his 'Biographical and Critical Dictionary of Painters and Engravers,' 2 vols. 4to. The first part appeared in May 1813, and concluded in 1816. Another edition appeared in 1849, and Mr. R. E. Graves is bringing out in parts a new and thoroughly revised edition (1886). In 1818 he connected himself in some picture speculations, which proved a failure. On 14 Feb. 1821 he was seized with a severe paralytic stroke, and died on 21 March following.
[Literary Gazette, 1821, p. 187; Magazine of the Fine Arts, i. 37; MS. notes in British Museum.]
L. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bryan, John (d.1545)

​BRYAN, JOHN (d. 1545), logician, was born in London and educated at Eton whence he was elected in 1510 to King's College Cambridge (B.A. 1515, M.A. 1518). He gained the reputation of being one of the most learned men of his time in the Greek and Latin tongues. For two years he was ordinary reader of logic in the public schools, and in his lectures he wholly disregarded the knotty subtleties of the realists and nominalists who then disturbed the university with their frivolous altercations. This displeased ​pleased many but recommended him to the notice of Erasmus who highly extols his learning He was instituted to the rectory of Shellow Bowells Essex in 1523 and died about October 1545 He wrote a history ot France but it does not appear to have been published.
[Add. MS. 53l4. f. 166; Newcoart's Repertorium. ii. 522; Knight's Life of Erasmus, 146; Cooper's Atetnæ Cantab. i. 87.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bryan, Matthew

1904 Errata appended.
​BRYAN, MATTHEW (d. 1699), Jacobite preacher, son of Robert Bryan of Limington, Somerset, sometime minister of St.Mary's, Newington, Surrey, was born at Limington, became a semi-commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1665, and left the university without taking a degree in arts. After holding a benefice in the diocese of Bath and Wells for about ten years, he was appointed to his father's old living, St. Mary's, Newington, and to the afternoon lectureship at St. Michael's, Crooked Lane. His living was sequestered for debt in 1684. A sermon preached by him at Newington and at St. Michael's (26 Oct. and 2 Nov. of the same year) on 2 Cor. v. 11 was said to contain reflections on the king's courts of justice, and an accusation was laid against him before the dean of arches. In order to vindicate himself he printed this sermon, which certainly does not appear to contain any such reflections, with a dedication, dated 10 Dec. 1684, to Dr. Peter Mews, bishop of Winchester, formerly his diocesan in Somerset. The archbishop was satisfied that the charge against him was groundless, and it was quashed accordingly. In July 1685 Bryan accumulated the degrees of civil law at Oxford. Refusing to take the oaths on the accession of William and Mary, he lost his preferment, and became the minister of a Jacobite congregation meeting in St. Dunstan's Court, Fleet Street. This brought him into trouble several times. On 1 Jan. 1693 his meeting was discovered, the names of his congregation, consisting of about a hundred ​persons, were taken, and he was arrested. He died on 10 March 1699, and was buried in St. Dunstan's-in-the-West. His works are: 'The Certainty of the future Judgment' (the sermon referred to above), 1685; 'A Persuasion to the stricter Observance of the Lord's Day,' a sermon, 1686; 'St. Paul's Triumph in his Sufferings,' a sermon, 1692. In the dedication of this discourse he describes himself as M. B. Indignus ἐν τῇ θλίψει ἀδελφὸς κὰι συνγκοινωνός, probably in reference to his sufferings as a Jacobite preacher, the sermon itself being on Eph. iv. 1. He also wrote two copies of verses printed in Ellis Waller's translation of the 'Encheiridion' of Epictetus into English verse, 1702, and republished Sir Humphrey Lynd's 'Account of Bertram the Priest,' 1686.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 602, iv. 779, Life, cxiv; Luttrell's Relation, ii. 398, iii. 1; Cox's Literature of the Sabbath, ii. 81; Bryan's Certainty of the future Judgment and his St. Paul's Triumph.]
W. H.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.41 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 154 | ii | 14 f.e. | Bryan, Matthew: for Mews read Mew |
| 155 | i | 15 | for Waller read Walker |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bryant, Henry

​BRYANT, HENRY (1721–1799), botanist, was born in 1721, educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1749, and proceeded M.A. in 1753. He entered the church, but took up botany about 1764, after the death of his wile. He is said to have been a man of great acuteness and attainments in mathematics. From Norwich he was presented to the vicarage of Langham in 1758, removing afterwards to Heydon, and thence to the rectory of Colby, where he died on 4 June 1799. He was a brother of Charles Bryant, author of 'Flora diætetica,' &c., who died shortly before him. He was the author of 'A particular Enquiry into the Cause of that Disease in Wheat commonly called Brand,' Norwich, 1784, 8vo.
[Sir J. E. Smith in Trans. Linn. Soc. vii. (1804), 297-300; Gent. Mag. lxix. (1799), pt. i. 532.]
B. D. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jefferys, James

​JEFFERYS, JAMES (1757–1784), painter, born in 1757 at Maidstone, Kent, was son of William Jefferys (d. 1805), painter, who found much employment at Maidstone, and exhibited some paintings of fruit at the Society of Arts in London. There is a drawing by William Jefferys at Maidstone of his fellow-townsman, William Woollett [q. v.], the celebrated engraver, with whom young Jefferys was placed as pupil. He made great progress in drawing, and became a student of the Royal Academy, where in 1773 he obtained the gold medal for an historical drawing of ‘Seleucus and Stratonice.’ In 1774 he obtained a gold palette from the Society of Arts for an historical painting, and in 1775 was selected to receive the allowance granted by the Dilettante Society to enable an Academy student to go to Rome. In 1773 and 1774 he exhibited some drawings and pictures at the Society of Artists. Jefferys remained four years in Rome, and on his return to London settled in Meard's Court, Soho. He painted a large picture of ‘The Scene before Gibraltar on the morning of 14 Sept. 1782,’ which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1783, and which was again exhibited at the European Museum in 1804. Woollett commenced an engraving of it, which he did not live to finish, but it was completed in 1789 by John Emes [q. v.] Another picture by Jefferys of ‘Orgar and Elfrida’ was engraved in stipple by R. S. Marcuard. Jefferys died of a decline 31 Jan. 1784, at the early age of twenty-seven.
[Edwards's Anecdotes of Painters; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Sandby's History of the Royal Academy.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jefferys, Thomas

​JEFFERYS, THOMAS (d. 1771), map engraver, carried on his business in St. Martin's Lane, Charing Cross, London, and became geographer to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George III. He died on 20 Nov. 1771 (Gent. Mag. xli. 523). By his wife Elizabeth he left two sons and two daughters (will registered in P.C.C. 444, Trevor).
Jefferys published:
* ‘The Conduct of the French with regard to Nova Scotia … In a Letter to a Member of Parliament’ [anon.], 8vo, London, 1754, translated into French in 1755, and answered by ‘Le Sieur D. L. G. D. C.’ in ‘La Conduite des François justifiée,’ 12mo, 1756.
* ‘Explanation for the new Map of Nova Scotia’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1755.
* ‘A Collection of the Dresses of different Nations, antient and modern … after the designs of Holbein, Vandyke, Hollar, and others,’ 4 vols. 4to, London, 1757–72, with descriptions in English and French.
* ‘The Natural and Civil History of the French Dominions in North and South America … illustrated by Maps and Plans … engraved by T. J.,’ 2 pts. fol. London, 1760.
* ‘A Description of the Maritime Parts of France,’ oblong fol. London, 1761, with maps and plans.
* ‘Voyages from Asia to America for completing the Discoveries of the North-West Coast of America … Translated from the High Dutch of G. F. Mueller, with three new Maps … by T. J.,’ 4to, London, 1761; another edit., 1764.
* ‘A Description of the Spanish Islands and Settlements on the Coast of the West Indies, compiled from authentic Memoirs,’ 4to, London, 1762.
* ‘A Geographical Description of Florida,’ in William Roberts's ‘Account of the first Discovery and Natural History’ of that country, 4to, London, 1763.
* ‘The great Probability of a North-West Passage; deduced from Observations on the Letter of Admiral de Fuentes … with three explanatory Maps by T. J.,’ 4to, London, 1768.
* ‘The North American Pilot … being a Collection of … Charts and Plans … chiefly engraved by T. J.,’ fol. London, 1775, a work issued under the auspices of Captain James Cook.
[Brit. Mus. Cat.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jeffrey, Alexander

​JEFFREY, ALEXANDER (1806–1874), Scottish antiquary, born in 1806 near Lilliesleaf, Roxburghshire, was fourth son of a farm steward or bailiff, who belonged to the antiburgher branch of the secession church. He was a studious youth, but left school at an early age, became a solicitor's clerk at first in Melrose and afterwards in Edinburgh, and was later an assistant in the town-clerk's office at Jedburgh. In 1838 he obtained admission as a practitioner in the sheriff court of Roxburghshire, and subsequently became the most popular and successful agent, especially in criminal cases, in the sheriff courts of Roxburgh and Selkirk. He lived at Jedburgh, and died there on 29 Nov. 1874. His wife had died in 1872.
Despite his professional industry Jeffrey was well read in general literature, and as an enthusiastic archæologist was elected a member of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries. In 1836 he published a history of Roxburghshire in an octavo volume. In 1853 he began rewriting it on a larger scale. The first volume of the new venture—his chief work—was issued in 1853, and the fourth and last in 1864. Although the works of the Record Commission published since disclose information with which Jeffrey was not acquainted, his history, despite occasional defects in style and arrangement, is on the whole well written, and remains a recognised authority (cf. review in Edinburgh Review, cxii. 489 seq., and ib. July 1887). To the ‘Transactions’ of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, of which he was a member, he contributed two topographical papers on Jedburgh and Ancrum respectively. He also published a small guide to the scenery and antiquities of Jedburgh (12mo, n.d.)
[Scotsman, 30 Nov. 1874; private information.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jeffrey, John

​JEFFREY or JEFFERAY, JOHN (d. 1578), judge, of an old Sussex family, was son of Richard Jeffrey of Chiddingly Manor, by Eliza, daughter of Robert Whitfield of Wadhurst. He was admitted a member of Gray's Inn in 1544, called to the bar in 1546, and was Lent reader there in 1561. In Easter term 1567 he became a serjeant-at-law, and on 15 Oct. 1572 a queen's serjeant. In the same year he represented the borough of Arundel in parliament. On 15 May 1576 he was appointed a judge of the queen's bench, and was promoted on 12 Oct. 1577 to succeed Sir Robert Bell as chief baron of the exchequer. In the autumn of 1578 he died at Coleman Street Ward, London, and was buried under a magnificent tomb in Chiddingly Church. He appears, according to the character given of him in Lloyd's ‘State Worthies,’ p. 221, to have been a plodding and studious judge. He was twice married, first to Alice, daughter and heiress of John Apsley, by whom he had one daughter, Elizabeth, who married Edward, first lord Montagu of Boughton; and secondly to Mary, daughter of George Goring.
[Foss's Judges of England; Dugdale's Origines, p. 137, and Chron. Ser.; Register of Gray's Inn; Horsfield's Lewes, ii. 66; Collins's Peerage, ii. 14; Popham's Reports, p. 108; Lower's Worthies of Sussex; Lower in Sussex Arch. Coll. vol. xiv.; Dallaway and Cartwright's Sussex, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 207.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jeffery, Dorothy

​JEFFERY, DOROTHY (1685–1777), known as Dolly Pentreath, Pentreath being her maiden name, was born at Mousehole in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, in 1685, but no entry of her baptism can be found in the parish register. It is said that until the age of twenty she could speak no English. From an early age she was a fish-seller or back jowster, i.e. an itinerant fish-dealer, who carried the fish in a cowall, or basket, on her back. She married a man called Jeffery. When, in 1768, Daines Barrington went to Cornwall to make inquiries concerning the Cornish language, which had almost died out, he was ultimately taken to Mousehole and introduced to Dolly Pentreath, who addressed him in the Cornish language. Some other women told him that they understood it, although they spoke it indifferently. Barrington made no public statement about this fact until 1772, when he wrote into Cornwall, inquiring if Dolly Pentreath were still living, and Dr. Walter Borlase sent for her to come to Castle Horneck. She there reported herself to be eighty-seven, talked Cornish readily, was very poor, and was maintained partly by her parish and partly by fortune-telling and gabbling Cornish. In 1776, and again in 1779, Barrington sent papers ‘On the Expiration of the Cornish Language’ to the Society of Antiquaries, and in them gave an account of Dolly Pentreath. She died at Mousehole, and was buried at Paul on 27 Dec. 1777, but the church register does not give her age. In 1860 Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte erected a monument to her memory on the wall of Paul churchyard. This monument was removed in 1882 and placed over her grave. Some time after her death a report was circulated that she had been a centenarian, and Mr. Thomson, an engineer at Truro, to encourage this belief, wrote the following epitaph in the Cornish tongue:—
Coth Doll Pentreath cans ha deau Marow ha kledyz ed Paul pleu Na ed an Eglos gan pobel brás Bes ed Eglos-hay, coth Dolly es,
which has thus been translated:—
Old Doll Pentreath, one hundred aged and two, Deceased and buried in Paul parish too:— Not in the church, with people great and high, But in the churchyard doth old Dolly lie.
The statement that Dolly Pentreath was the last person who could speak Cornish is an error.
[Archæologia, iii. 278–84, v. 81–6; Peter Pindar's Lyric Odes to the Academicians, 1785, Ode xxi.; Polwhele's Cornwall, 1806, v. 16–20; Universal Mag. January 1781, pp. 21–4, with portrait; [Cyrus Redding's] Illustrated Itinerary of Cornwall, 1842, pp. 125–7, with portrait; Boase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis, i. 271; Jago's Ancient Language and Dialect of Cornwall, 1882, pp. 8–12, with portrait.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jeffery, Thomas

​JEFFERY, THOMAS (1700?–1728), nonconformist divine, born at Exeter about 1700, was a student at the nonconformist academy conducted by Joseph Hallett II (1656–1722) [q. v.], where James Foster [q. v.] and Peter King, first lord King [q. v.], afterwards lord chancellor, were fellow-students. Jeffery assisted the Halletts in their ministry for some years, and in 1726 he succeeded James Peirce [q. v.] as colleague to the younger Hallett at the Mint Meeting, but he was shortly afterwards called to Little Baddow, Essex, where he remained until his return to Exeter, immediately before his premature death in 1728.
Jeffery is best remembered by the learned support which he gave to Chandler, Whiston, Sherlock, and other opponents of Anthony Collins [q. v.], the deist, in a ‘Review of the Controversy between the Author of a Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion and his Adversaries,’ 1725, 8vo. Jeffery's ‘True Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion, in opposition to the false ones set forth in a late book’ (i.e. Collins's ‘Grounds,’ &c.), which was written as early as 1725, is described by Leland (View of Deistical Writers, i. 119) as an ‘ingenious treatise,’ and by Collins himself as the work of an ‘ingenious author.’ Jeffery also wrote ‘Christianity the Perfection of all Religion, Natural and Revealed,’ 1728, 8vo. His works were praised by Dr. Kennicott, and Jeffery is described in Doddridge's ‘Family Expositor’ as having ‘handled the subject of prophecy and the application of it in the New Testament more studiously perhaps than any one since the time Eusebius wrote his “Demonstratio Evangelica.”’
[Biog. Brit. (Kippis), iv. art. ‘Collins;’ Watkins's Biog. Dict. (1807 edit.); Monthly Mag. xv. 146; Murch's Hist. of Presb. and Gen. Baptist Churches in West of England.]
T. S.