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

​COURTENAY, THOMAS PEREGRINE (1782–1841), statesman and author, youngest son of the Right Rev. Henry Reginald Courtenay [q. v.], bishop of Exeter, by Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Thomas, second earl of Effingham, was born 31 May 1782. He was returned to parliament in 1811 as M.P. for Totnes, being re-elected to every succeeding parliament until the dissolution of 1831. He was deputy-paymaster of the forces 1807–11. He was secretary to the commissioners for the affairs of India from 1812 till 1828, when he was promoted to be vice-president of the board of trade, being sworn a privy councillor on May 30 following. He retired from office in 1830 on a pension of 1,000l. a year. Besides efficiently discharging his official duties, he devoted a large portion of his time to the interests of literature, and was a member both of the Camden and Granger Societies. In addition to various political pamphlets, including ‘Observations on the American Treaty, being a continuation of the Letters of Decius,’ 1808, ‘View of the State of the Nation,’ 1811, ‘Treatise upon the Poor Laws,’ 1818, and a ‘Letter to Lord Grenville on the Sinking Fund,’ 1828, he was the author of ‘Memoir of the Life, Works, and Correspondence of Sir William Temple, Bart.,’ 1836, 2 vols., and ‘Commentaries on the Historic Plays of Shakespeare,’ 1840, originally contributed to the ‘New Monthly Magazine.’ After his brother's accession to the earldom of Devon, Courtenay was in November 1835 raised to the rank of an earl's younger son. He was accidentally drowned 8 July 1841. By his marriage, 5 April 1805, to Anne, daughter of Mayow Wynell Mayow of Sydenham, Kent, he left eight sons and five daughters.
[Gent. Mag. (1841) new ser. xvi. 316; Annual Register, lxxxviii. 213.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gawler, William

​GAWLER, WILLIAM (1750–1809), organist, teacher, and composer, son of a schoolmaster, was born in 1750 in Lambeth. His Op. 2, a collection of varied pieces for harpsichord or pianoforte, with instructions, was published by Preston in the Strand in 1780. ‘Harmonia Sacra,’ containing psalm tunes, anthems, hymns, and a voluntary, appeared in 1781. In 1784 Gawler was appointed organist (with a salary of 63l.) to the Asylum for Female Orphans, Lambeth; he composed for their chapel music (Op. 16) to ‘Twelve Divine Songs’ by Dr. Watts, and collected the psalm tunes in use there in 1785; two sets of voluntaries for the organ (Grove); and some patriotic songs. He was parish clerk at Lambeth for many years, and died 15 March 1809. His sister married Dr. Pearce, lecturer at St. Mary's, Lambeth, master of the Academy, Vauxhall, and afterwards sub-dean of the Chapel Royal.
[Allen's Lambeth, pp. 86, 336; Register of Wills, P. C. C., Legard, fol. 134; Gawler's works in Brit. Mus. Library; Gent. Mag. xl. 542; Nichols's Lambeth, p. 153; parish register of Lambeth; information kindly supplied by Mr. George Booth, secretary, Female Orphan Asylum, Beddington.]
L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gavin, Robert

​GAVIN, ROBERT (1827–1883), painter, was the second son of Peter Gavin, a merchant at Leith, where he was born in 1827. He was educated at the Leith High School, and when about twenty-one years of age he entered the School of Design in Edinburgh, and studied under Thomas Duncan. He painted a large number of familiar and rustic subjects, mainly landscape compositions with figures of children, which became very popular. Some of these, such as the ‘Reaping Girl’ and ‘Phœbe Mayflower,’ were reproduced in chromo-lithography. He was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1854. About three years later he appears to have become dissatisfied with his progress as an artist, and entered into partnership with a wine merchant; but after about a year he resumed the practice of his art. He was a regular contributor to the exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy, and between 1855 and 1871 exhibited a few pictures at the Royal Academy in London. In 1868 he made a tour in America, and painted several characteristic phases of negro life. Soon after his return home he went to Morocco, and resided for some years at Tangier, where he painted numerous Moorish pictures. In 1879 he became an academician, and presented as his diploma work ‘The Moorish Maiden's First Love,’ a damsel caressing a beautiful white horse; this picture is now in the National Gallery of Scotland. He returned to Scotland in 1880, and continued to paint subjects of Moorish life and manners until his death, which took place at his residence, Cherry Bank, Newhaven, near Edinburgh, on 5 Oct. 1883. He died unmarried, and was buried in Warriston cemetery.
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gawen, Thomas

​GAWEN, THOMAS (1612–1684), catholic writer, son of Thomas Gawen, a minister of Bristol, was born at Marshfield, Gloucestershire, in 1612. He was admitted a scholar of Winchester School in 1625, and in 1632 was made perpetual fellow of New College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. and M.A. After taking orders he travelled abroad, and at Rome made the acquaintance of Milton. On his return he became chaplain to Curle, bishop of Winchester, who in 1642 appointed him tutor to his son, then a commoner of Magdalen College, Oxford. That prelate also collated him to a benefice—probably Exton, Hampshire—and in 1645 to a prebend in the church of Winchester. Afterwards Gawen visited Italy a second time with the heir of the Pierpoints of Dorsetshire. At the Restoration he was presented to the rectories of Bishopstoke and Fawley, Hampshire, though he was never inducted into Fawley. He resigned all his preferments on being reconciled to the Roman catholic church, and to avoid persecution he withdrew to France, and through the interest of Dr. Stephen Goffe and Abbot Walter Montagu was admitted into the household of Queen Henrietta Maria. Subsequently he paid a third visit to Rome, married an Italian lady, and had a child by her. Wood says that because his wife had no fortune he deserted her and the child, and returned to England, ‘his wealth being kept for the children of his brother.’ Although living in retirement, he was in some trouble in 1679 over the popish plot. He died in Pall Mall on 8 March 1683–4, and was buried in the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
Wood, who describes him as a learned and religious person, states that he was the author of: 1. ‘A brief Explanation of the several Mysteries of the Holy Mass, …’ London, 1686, 8vo. 2. ‘Certain Reflections upon the Apostles' Creed touching the Sacrament,’ London, 1686, 8vo. 3. ‘Divers Meditations and Prayers, both before and after the Communion,’ London, 1686, 8vo. These three treatises were issued and bound together. He was author of other works, apparently unprinted, including a Latin version of John Cleveland's poem, ‘The Rebel Scot,’ and a translation from the Spanish of the life of Vincent of Caraffa, general of the jesuits.
Church Hist. iii. 275; Le Neve's Fasti; Kirby's Winchester Scholars, p. 171.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gavin, Antonio

​GAVIN, ANTONIO (fl. 1726), author of ‘A Master-Key to Popery,’ a native of Saragossa, was educated at the university of that city and graduated M.A. Before he was twenty-three years of age he received ordination as a secular priest in the church of Rome. He subsequently embraced protestantism, escaped from Spain disguised as an officer in the army, reached London, where he was hospitably entertained by Earl Stanhope, whom he had met in Saragossa, and on 3 Jan. 1715–16 was licensed by Robinson, bishop of London, to officiate in a Spanish congregation. For two years and eight months he preached first in the chapel in Queen's Square, Westminster, and afterwards in Oxenden's chapel, near the Haymarket. His first sermon, which is dedicated to Lord Stanhope, was published as ‘Conversion de las tres Potencias del alma, explicada en el Primer Sermon’ [on Deut. xxx. 9, 10], 8vo, London, 1716. Stanhope, wishing to obtain for him some settled preferment in the church of England, advised Gavin to accept in June 1720 the chaplaincy of the Preston man-of-war, in which capacity he would have ample leisure to master English. On the ship being put out of commission he went to Ireland ‘on the importunity of a friend,’ and while there heard of the death of Stanhope at London on 5 Feb. 1721. Soon afterwards, by favour of Palliser, archbishop of Cashel, and Dean Percival, he obtained the curacy of Gowran, near Kilkenny, which he served nearly eleven months. He then removed to Cork, where he continued almost a year as curate of an adjacent parish, occasionally ​preaching at Cork, Shandon, and Gortroe. Gavin acquired considerable notoriety by compiling a farrago of lies and libels, interspersed with indecent tales, to which he gave the title of ‘A Master-Key to Popery; containing … a Discovery of the most secret Practices of the secular and regular Romish Priests in their Auricular Confession,’ &c., 8vo, Dublin, 1724, dedicated, curiously enough, to a child, the Hon. Grace Boyle. The British public swallowed Gavin's inventions with avidity. Thus encouraged, he published a second edition, ‘carefully corrected from the errors of the first, with large additions,’ 3 vols. 12mo, London, 1725–6, of which a French translation by François Michel Janiçon appeared, 3 vols. 12mo, London [Amsterdam], 1726–7. In the preface to the third volume Gavin writes: ‘In less than two years 5,000 of my first and second volume are dispersed among the Protestants of Great Britain and Ireland; I shall assiduously apply myself to finish the fourth volume, which shall be a Master-Key both to Popery and to Hell,’ undeterred, as he wishes his readers to infer by the violent threats of the pope's emissaries. The concluding volume, which never appeared, was to have been entitled, according to the advertisement on the last page of vol. iii., ‘Dr. Gavin's Dreams, or the Masterpiece of his Master-Key.’
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gawler, George

1904 Errata appended.
​GAWLER, GEORGE (1796–1869), governor of South Australia, son of Samuel Gawler, captain of the 73rd regiment, was born in 1796, educated at the military college, Great Marlow, and entered the army 4 Oct. 1810. He served with the 52nd light infantry through the Peninsular campaign from Nov. 1811 to the end, being wounded at Badajoz and San Munos. At Waterloo, he led the right company of his regiment, and attained the rank of colonel. In 1833 he contributed to ‘The United Service Journal,’ part ii., a paper ‘The Crisis and Close of the Action at Waterloo, by an Eye-Witness,’ which was re-issued as a pamphlet (Dublin, 1833), and caused great controversy. Gawler contended that his own regiment (the 52nd), supported by the rest of Adams's brigade, and not the guards, defeated Napoleon's final attack. Gawler defended his contention against Sir Hussey Vivian in ‘The United Service Journal’ for 1833, and was corroborated by W. Leeke in his ‘Lord Seaton's Regiment at Waterloo,’ 1866. On 12 Oct. 1838 he became governor of the newly founded colony of South Australia, then in considerable difficulties owing to dissensions between the late governor, Captain Hindmarsh, and the resident commissioner of the South Australian Colonisation Society. Gawler was himself made resident commissioner by the Colonisation Society. Embarrassments followed. The Wakefield system, upon which the colony was supposed to be founded, aimed at an equality between the labourers emigrating and the demand for their services. Gawler, by undertaking large public works, concentrated the labourers in Adelaide, and prevented the settlers from obtaining their aid. A consequent diminution in the sources of revenue accompanied an increase in expenditure. By the end of 1840 the financial position of the colony looked critical, and the home government dishonoured Gawler's drafts. He was recalled, and by a mishap his recall was first announced to him by his successor, George (afterwards Sir George) Grey (13 May 1841).
Gawler returned to England and devoted himself to religious and philanthropic pursuits. He died at Southsea 8 May 1869.
[South Australian Register, 1840–1; Rusden's Australia; Heaton's Australian Dict. of Dates; Stow's South Australia; South Australian, 1838–1841; Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 15 May 1869.]
E. C. K. G.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.133 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 83 | i | 15 | Gawler, George: after rank of colonel, insert In 1833 he contributed to 'The United Service Journal,' part ii., a paper called 'The Crisis and Close of the Action at Waterloo, by an Eye-witness,' which was reissued as a pamphlet (Dublin, 1833) and caused great controversy. Gawler contended that his own regiment (the 52nd), supported by the rest of Adams's brigade, and not the guards, defeated Napoleon's final attack. Gawler defended his contention against Sir Hussey Vivian in 'The United Service Journal' for 1833, and was corroborated by W. Leeke in his 'Lord Seaton's Regiment at Waterloo,' 1866. |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gawdy, Framlingham

​GAWDY, FRAMLINGHAM (1589–1654), parliamentary reporter, born on 8 Aug. 1589, was the eldest son of Sir Bassingbourne Gawdy, knight (d. 1606) of West Harling, Norfolk, by his first wife, Anne, daughter and heiress of Sir Charles Framlingham, knight, of Crow's Hall in Debenham, Suffolk. In 1627 he served the office of sheriff for Norfolk, and was afterwards appointed one of the deputy-lieutenants of the county. He sat for Thetford, Norfolk, in the parliaments of 1620–1, 1623–4, 1625–6, and 1640, and throughout the Long parliament. He has left ‘Notes of what passed in Parliament 1641, 1642,’ preserved in Addit. MSS. 14827, 14828. He was buried at West Harling on 25 Feb. 1654, leaving six sons and two daughters by his wife Lettice, daughter and coheiress of Sir Robert Knowles, knight, who had been buried at the same place on 3 Dec. 1630. Several of his and his wife's letters are in the British Museum (index to Cat. of Additions to the MSS. 1854–75, pp. 605–6). The manuscripts of the Gawdy family are calendered in part ii. of the appendix to the 10th Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gawdy, John

​GAWDY, Sir JOHN (1639–1699), painter, born on 4 Oct. 1639, was the second son of Sir William Gawdy, bart. (d. 1666), of West Harling, Norfolk, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of John Duffield of East Wretham in the same county, and grandson of Framlingham Gawdy [q. v.] He was a deaf-mute, and became a pupil of Lely, intending to follow portraiture as a profession; but on the death of his elder brother, Bassingbourne, in 1660, he became heir to the family estates, and thenceforth painted only for amusement. Evelyn, who met him in September 1677, speaks of him as ‘a very handsome person … and a very fine painter; he was so civil and well bred, as it was not possible to discern any imperfection by him’ (Diary, 1850–2, ii. 111). He died, according to Blomefield, in 1699. By his wife Anne, daughter of Sir Robert de Grey, knight, of Martin, Lincolnshire, he left one son, Bassingbourne, and one daughter, Anne, married to Oliver Le Neve of Great Witchingham, Norfolk. His son dying unmarried on 10 Oct. 1723, the baronetcy became extinct. Three of Gawdy's letters are preserved in the British Museum (index to Cat. of Additions to the MSS. 1854–75, p. 606).
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cattermole, Richard

​CATTERMOLE, RICHARD (1795?–1858), miscellaneous writer, was born about 1795, took orders, and was appointed secretary to the Royal Society of Literature at its first general meeting on 17 June 1823. This office he held till 1852. In 1825 he became connected with the church of St. Matthew, Brixton, Surrey. Here he laboured till 1832. Cattermole studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and proceeded B.D. in 1831. He was finally appointed vicar of Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire. He died on 6 Dec. 1858 at Boulogne. He was married and had several children, who survived him. Cattermole assisted J. S. Spons in compiling his ‘Doctrine of the Church of Geneva’ (1st and 2nd ser. 1825–32). He was one of the editors of the ‘Sacred Classics, or Select Library of Divinity’ (30 vols. 1834–6), and probably edited ‘Gems of Sacred Poetry’ (1841). Besides a number of sermons, he also wrote the following works: 1. ‘Becket and other Poems,’ 1832. 2. ‘The Book of the Cartoons of Raphael,’ 1837. 3. ‘The Literature of the Church of England, indicated in Selections from the Writings of Eminent Divines,’ 2 vols. 1844. 4. ‘The Great Civil War,’ 1846 (previously published in two parts, issued in 1841 and 1855 respectively, with illustrations by the artist's brother, George Cattermole [q. v.]).
[Gent. Mag. January 1859, p. 99; Reports, &c. of Royal Society of Literature; Graduati Cantab. (Cambridge, 1884); Brit. Mus. Cat. Add. MSS. (1854–75); List in Index, p. 287.]
F. W-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Catton, Charles (1728-1798)

1904 Errata appended.
​CATTON, CHARLES, R.A., the elder (1728–1798), painter, born in 1728 at Norwich, one of a family of thirty-five children, was apprenticed to a London coach-painter, and found time also for some study in the St. Martin's Lane academy. He is chiefly known as a landscape and animal painter, but he had a good knowledge of the figure, and a talent for humorous design. In 1786 he published the ‘Margate Packet,’ a clever etching in which these qualities appear. Somewhat early in life he became a member of the Society of Artists, and exhibited various pictures in its galleries from 1760 to 1764. He shone in his own profession, painting ornamental panels for carriages, floral embellishments, and heraldic devices in a highly superior manner. He received the appointment of coach-painter to George III, and was one of the foundation members of the Royal Academy. In 1784 he was master of the Company of Painter-Stainers. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from its foundation to the year of his death, sending altogether a large number of works. These were usually landscapes, but occasionally subject-pieces and animal paintings. A ‘Jupiter and Leda’ and ‘Child at Play’ were his last works. For the church of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, he painted an altar-piece, ‘The Angel delivering St. Peter.’ Some years before his death he gave up the practice of his art. He died at his house in Judd Place in the New Road, 28 Sept. 1798, and was buried in Bloomsbury cemetery.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.58 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 325 | i | 34 | Catton, Charles, R.A., the elder: for 28 Aug. read 28 Sept. |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Catlin, Robert

​CATLIN, Sir ROBERT (d. 1574), judge, was born at Beby in Leicestershire, though his ancestry is said to have belonged to Northamptonshire. He was a member of the Middle Temple, and was appointed reader to that society in 1547. In 1553, the lordship of his native place having reverted to the crown through the attainder of the Duke of Suffolk, Catlin obtained a grant of it. In the following year he was called to the rank of serjeant-at-law, and two years later to that of king's and queen's serjeant. He was appointed a justice of the common pleas in October 1558, was reappointed on the accession of Elizabeth in November of the next year, and in the ensuing January was created chief justice of the queen's bench in the room of Sir Edward Saunders, removed on account of his religious opinions, and was knighted. During his tenure of office he would seem to have had next to no judicial business to perform. He ​ presided over the judges at the trial of the Duke of Norfolk for high treason in conspiring with Mary Stuart to dethrone the queen in January 1571, and the following month sentenced one of the duke's retainers, Robert Hickford, to death as an accomplice. His judgment on this occasion is reported at some length. It is a homily on the sacredness of majesty and the heinousness of treason, and, so regarded, not altogether a discreditable performance. The closing sentences evince an acquaintance with Chaucer's ‘House of Fame.’ But he does not appear to have been particularly subservient as a judge, as we find that this same year, 1571, he incurred the serious displeasure of the queen by refusing to ‘alter the ancient forms of the court’ in the interests of the Earl of Leicester. He was accused of denying justice and making the queen's bench ‘a court of conscience’ by one Thomas Welch in 1566. He married Ann, daughter of John Boles of Wallington, Hertfordshire, and relict of John Burgoyne, by whom he had one daughter, whose first husband was Sir John Spencer. He died at his seat at Newenham, Bedfordshire, in 1574.
[Fuller's Worthies (Leicestershire); Dugdale's Orig. 217, Chron. Ser. 89, 90, 91; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, pp. 107, 416; Cobbett's State Trials, i. 957, 1042, ii. 1046; Foss's Lives of the Judges.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Catnach, James

​CATNACH, JAMES (of the Seven Dials), (1792–1841), publisher, born at Alnwick in Northumberland, 18 Aug. 1792, was the son of John Catnach, a printer of that town. The elder Catnach printed and published books which, for the time, were well illustrated; such as ‘The Beauties of Natural History, selected from Buffon's History of Quadrupeds, &c., with sixty-seven cuts by Bewick,’ ‘Poems by Percival Stockdale, with cuts by Thos. Bewick,’ ‘The Hermit of Warkworth,’ and the ‘Poetical Works of Robert Burns,’ the illustrations being engraved by Bewick. About 1808 he left Alnwick for Newcastle, and five years afterwards removed to London. He had a shop in Wardour Street, Soho, and died 4 Dec. 1813, from the effects of an accident.
His son James, who was then working as a printer at Newcastle-on-Tyne, immediately came to London, and soon afterwards, 1813–1814, commenced business at 2 Monmouth Court, Seven Dials, where he set up his father's old wooden press, and got together some scraps of type and old woodcuts. With these he printed little duodecimo volumes known as ‘chap-books’ and broadsides.
He was young and energetic, and struck out a new line for himself, in the shape of children's books, which he published at a farthing each. He bought ballads on every passing event, at the price of half-a-crown per ballad. In cases of popular excitement he did well, and he is reported to have made over 500l. by the trial of Thurtell for the murder of Mr. Weare.
His publications were printed on the flimsiest possible paper, with bad ink and worse type, and, as a rule, headed by a woodcut totally irrelevant to the text. Among these woodcuts, especially in the Christmas carol broadsheets, are many of the sixteenth century, which he had bought at various sales of printing material. The British Museum has a large collection of his ballads and those of his competitors, notably two thick volumes, which contain over four thousand purchased in 1868 for 7l. 7s.
He made a competence, possibly some 5,000l., and retired from business in 1838, living at Dancer's Hill, South Mimms, near Barnet, but he died at his old shop on 1 Feb. 1841, aged 49, and was buried in Highgate cemetery.
[Hindley's Life and Times of James Catnach, 1878; A Collection of the Books and Woodcuts of James Catnach, 1869.]
J. A.