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

​BANCROFT, GEORGE (fl. 1548), translator, was a divine of the church of England, who, for the edifying of his dear brethren in Christ and for the prevention of their deception by crafty connivance, translated into the English tongue the 'Responsio Prædicatorum Basileensium in defensionem rectæ Administrationis Cœnee Dominicæ.' The preface is dedicated to the right worshipful and his 'singuler good Master Silvester Butler,' and wishes him 'prosperitye and healthe boeth of bodye and soule.' The book is written in the common heated fashion of his time. It speaks of the clergy of the Roman Catholic church as 'devilles apes,' 'beastly bishops of Babylon,' and 'maskinge masse priestes.' The precise title of Bancroft's book is 'The Answere that the Preachers of the Gospel at Basile made for the defence of the true administration and use of the holy Supper of our Lord. Agaynst the abhominatiō of the Popyshe Masse. Translated out of Latin into Englyshe by George Bancrafte, 1548.'
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hibern. p. 72; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Brit. Mus. Catal.]
J. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bancroft, Thomas (1756-1811)

​BANCROFT, THOMAS (1756–1811), vicar of Bolton, the son of Thomas Bancroft, a thread-maker, was born in Deansgate, Manchester, in 1756. At the age of six he was admitted into the Manchester grammar school, where, in course of time, he became a teacher. He held a school exhibition from 1778 to 1781, and graduated B.A. at Brasenose College, Oxford, 10 Oct. 1781. In 1780 he obtained the Craven scholarship; in the same year he assisted in correcting the edition of Homer published by the Clarendon Press, and further helped Dr. Falconer in correcting an edition of Strabo. Being disappointed of a fellowship at Oxford, he returned to Manchester grammar school as assistant master, and remained there until he was appointed head-master of King Henry VIII's school at Chester. ‘Towards the end of last century,’ writes Dr. Ormerod, ‘the school attained a considerable degree of classical celebrity under the direction of the late Rev. Thomas Bancroft, afterwards vicar of Bolton-le-Moors in Lancashire. Plays were occasionally performed by the boys, and a collection of Greek, Latin, and English exercises, partly written by the scholars and partly by Mr. Bancroft, was published at Chester (1788) under the title of “Prolusiones Poeticæ”’ (Hist. of Cheshire, i. 366 note). While at this school he married Miss Bennett, of Willaston Hall, against the wishes of her father, a wine merchant in Chester. Her father prevented an attempted elopement by running his sword through Bancroft's leg, a feat for which he had to pay Bancroft 1,000l. compensation. A marriage soon afterwards took place in defiance of the father, who was never reconciled to his daughter. He bequeathed, however, 1,000l. each to her two daughters. In 1793 Bancroft was presented by Bishop Cleaver to the living of Bolton-le-Moors, then worth about 250l. a year. In 1798 Bancroft was made chaplain to the Bolton volunteers by royal warrant, and four years previously he had been appointed domestic chaplain to Viscount Castle-Stewart. He was made one of the four ‘king's preachers’ allowed to the county of Lancaster by Dr. Majendie, bishop of Chester, in 1807. He continued vicar of Bolton until his death on 5 Feb. 1811. There is a tablet to his memory in the parish church.
He published various sermons, the ‘Prolusiones’ already mentioned, and wrote three dissertations (Oxford, 1835). Two tracts, ‘The Credibility of Christianity vindicated,’ Manchester, 1831, and ‘The Englishman armed against the Infidel Spirit of the Times,’ Stockport, 1833, were privately printed for his son-in-law, J. Bradshaw Isherwood. There remain several of his manuscripts in possession of the family of Major Fell, of Bolton, who married one of Bancroft's granddaughters.
[Smith's Register of Manchester Grammar School (Chetham Soc.), i. 103–6, iii. 340; Ormerod's History of Cheshire, i. 288, note; Bolton Weekly Journal, 16 and 23 April 1881.]
R. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bandinel, Bulkeley

​BANDINEL, BULKELEY, D.D. (1781–1861), librarian of the Bodleian Library, was born at Oxford 21 Feb. 1781, and was descended from an Italian family long settled in Jersey. Having been educated at Reading, Winchester, and New College, and having served as chaplain to Sir James Saumarez in the Baltic, he was in 1810 appointed under-librarian of the Bodleian, the librarian, Mr. Price, being his godfather, and he succeeded the latter in 1813. He appears to have entered upon his duties with energy, it being recorded in Macray's ‘Annals of the Bodleian’ that the sum expended in purchases immediately rose from 261l. to 725l., and the catalogue of annual additions from two pages to seventeen. At the visit of the allied sovereigns to Oxford in 1814 Bandinel was proctor for the university, and in this capacity gained great credit. The most important administrative occurrences during his long tenure of office as Bodley's librarian were the publication of the catalogue in 1843 and succeeding years, and the adoption of the means by which it has ever since been kept in alphabetical order. The acquisitions during the period were exceedingly numerous and important, including the Canonici MSS., the Oppenheim Hebrew library, the Sutherland collection of prints, and the stores of various kinds accumulated by Bruce, Horace Wilson, Count Mortara, Malone, and Douce, the latter acquisition being said to be due to the personal courtesy shown to the irritable antiquary by Bandinel. In 1860 Bandinel, worn out by age and infirmity, resigned his post. He retired on his full salary, and was appointed an honorary curator, but only survived his resignation a few months, dying on 6 Feb. 1861. He is highly eulogised for ‘zeal, energy, courtesy, and discretion,’ as well as for his surprisingly accurate acquaintance with the collections committed to his charge.
​In addition to his official publications in connection with the Bodleian Library, Bandinel edited Dugdale's ‘Monasticon’ (1817, and again in 1846), and Clarendon's ‘History of the Rebellion’ (1826).
R. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davys, Mary

​DAVYS, MARY (fl. 1756), dramatist and novelist, a native of Ireland, became the wife of the Rev. Peter Davys or Davis, master of the free school of St. Patrick's, Dublin, after whose death in 1698 she resided for some time at York. Dean Swift, in his ‘Journal to Stella’ (21 Feb. 1712–13), says he has ‘been writing a letter to Mrs. Davis at York. She took care to have a letter delivered for me at lord treasurer's; for I would not own one she sent by post. She reproaches me for not writing to her these four years; and I have honestly told her it is my way never to write to those whom I am never likely to see, unless I can serve them, which I cannot her, &c., Davis, the schoolmaster's widow.’ Mrs. Davys afterwards kept a coffee-house at Cambridge, where she died. Writing in 1725 she remarks that she had been ‘left to her own endeavours for twenty-seven years together.’
She was the author of: 1. ‘The Northern Heiress, or the Humors of York, a comedy, as it was acted at the New Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields,’ London, 1716, 12mo. 2. ‘The Reform'd Coquet, or the Memoirs of Amoranda,’ a novel, London, 1724, 12mo. 3. A collection of her ‘Works,’ 2 vols. London, 1725, 8vo, which contains, in addition to those already mentioned, ‘The Self-Rival, a comedy. As it should have been acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane;’ ‘The Merry Wanderer;’ ‘The Modern Poet’ [in verse]; ‘The Lady's Tale’ (written in 1700); ‘The Cousins,’ a novel; and ‘Familiar Letters betwixt a Gentleman and a Lady.’ 4. ‘The Accomplish'd Rake, or the Modern Fine Gentleman. Being the genuine Memoirs of a certain Person of Distinction,’ London, 1756, 12mo.
Thirty-six letters from Dean Swift to her and her husband were formerly in the possession of Dr. Ewen of Cambridge.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dawes, Manasseh

​DAWES, MANASSEH (d. 1829), miscellaneous writer, was a barrister of the Inner Temple. He left the bar and lived 'in a very retired manner' at Clifford's Inn for the last thirty-six years of his life. He died 2 April 1829. His chief works are:
* 'Letter to Lord Chatham on American Affairs,' 1777 (in the title-page he describes himself as author of 'several anonymous pieces').
* 'Essay on Intellectual Liberty,' 1780 (criticises Bentham's 'Fragment').
* 'Philosophical Considerations ' (upon the controversy between Priestley and Price), 1780.
* 'Nature and Extent of Supreme Power' (upon Locke's 'Social Compact'), 1783.
* 'England's Alarm, or the prevailing Doctrine of Libels,' 1785.
* 'Deformity of the Doctrine of Libels,' 1785 (these two refer to the Shipley case).
* 'Introduction to a Knowledge of the Law on Real Estates,' 1814.
* 'Epitome of the Law of Landed Property,' 1818.
He also edited (1784) a posthumous poem by John Stuckey on 'The Vanity of all Human Knowledge,' with a dedication to Priestley. Dawes took the whig side in regard to the American war and the law of libels; but defended Blackstone against Bentham, had doubts as to abolishing tests, and held that philosophical truth was beyond the reach of all men, as it was clearly beyond his own.
[Gent. Mag. 1829, i. 77, 8.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dawe, Philip

​DAWE, PHILIP (fl. 1780), mezzotint engraver, son of a city merchant, was articled to Henry Robert Morland. Thus he became the companion and friend of George Morland, the more famous son of that artist, but he did not, as Redgrave states, ‘write his life.’ Morland's life was written by Philip's son, George Dawe [q. v.], and published in 1807. About 1760 he worked, it is said, under Hogarth, and at that same time unsuccessfully competed at the Society of Arts for the best historical painting. In 1761 he exhibited some humorous subjects at the Society of Artists, and contributed to the first exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1763. He painted ‘The Cavern Scene in Macbeth,’ ‘Captain Bobadil Cudgelled,’ and ‘The Drunkard reproving his Disorderly Family.’ Redgrave states that he engraved plates after Reynolds. There are also mezzotints by him after his master, Henry Morland, and after Gainsborough and Romney. He is commonly stated to have died about 1780. There are, however, letters to him from George Morland dated as late as October 1785.
E. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davys, George

​DAVYS, GEORGE (1780–1864), bishop of Peterborough, son of John Davys of Rempstone, Nottinghamshire, by Sophia, daughter of the Rev. B. Wigley of Sawley, Derbyshire, was born at Loughborough, Leicestershire, 1 Oct. 1780. In 1799 he entered as a sizar at Christ's College, Cambridge, and came out tenth wrangler in 1803. He was elected a fellow of his college 14 Jan. 1806, and in the same year proceeded M.A., and became curate, first of Littlebury, Essex, then of Chesterford to 1817, and afterwards of Swaffham Priory. In 1811 he was presented on his own petition to the small vicarage of Willoughby-on-the-Wolds, Lincolnshire, which he held until 1829. The education of the Princess Victoria having been entrusted to his care by the Duchess of Kent, he took up his residence at Kensington Palace in 1827, and very satisfactorily filled the position of principal master to the princess until the death of William IV. In April 1829 he was presented by the crown to the rectory of Allhallows-on-the-Wall, London, which he continued to hold until his elevation to the episcopal bench. He was appointed dean of Chester 10 Jan. 1831, and at the following commencement at Cambridge was created D.D. On 7 May 1839 he was advanced to the bishopric of Peterborough, and was consecrated on 16 June. Belonging himself to the evangelical section of the church, Davys was fair and liberal towards all religious creeds ​throughout his diocese. He took no active part either in religious controversy or in politics. He compiled various educational works, which appeared from time to time anonymously in the ‘Cottagers' Monthly Visitor,’ the ‘National Church Magazine,’ and in other works. He died of bronchitis at the Palace, Peterborough, 18 April 1864, and was buried in the graveyard of the cathedral on 23 April. He married in 1814 Marianne, daughter of the Rev. Edmund Mapletoft, rector of Anstye, Hertfordshire. She died at the Palace, Peterborough, 14 Dec. 1858, aged 69. He was the writer of:
* ‘Village Conversations on the Liturgy of the Church of England,’ 1820; 8th ed. 1829.
* ‘Village Conversations on the principal Offices of the Church,’ 1824; another ed. 1849.
* ‘A Village Conversation on the Catechism of the Church of England,’ printed in Religious Tracts of Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, vol. iii. 1836.
* ‘Letters between a Father and his Son on the Roman History and other subjects,’ 1848.
* ‘A Plain and Short History of England in Letters from a Father to his Son,’ 1870, besides several charges and single sermons.
[Gent. Mag. June 1864, p. 796; Guardian, 20 and 27 April 1864.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dawe, Henry Edward

​DAWE, HENRY EDWARD (1790–1848), painter and mezzotint engraver, who was a younger son of Philip Dawe, also a mezzotint engraver, was born in Kentish Town, near London, 24 Sept. 1790. He was taught engraving by his father, and like his brother, George Dawe, he also studied in the schools of the Royal Academy. In 1824 he sent to the exhibition of the Society of British Artists, then just founded, two engraved portraits, and in 1830 he was elected a member. Between 1824 and 1845 he contributed seventy-two works, many of them engravings, to the annual exhibitions in Suffolk Street, and exhibited also a few pictures at the Royal Academy and British Institution. Among ​his exhibited paintings were: ‘The Coronation of George IV’ (British Institution, 1828), portrait of Miss Phillips as Juliet (Royal Academy, 1829), portrait of William IV (British Artists, 1832), ‘Lear and Cordelia’ (1834), ‘Christmas Fare’ (1835), ‘Wreck of the George the Fourth, Convict Ship’ (1836), ‘The Miser alarmed’ (1838), ‘Fisher-boys on the Sussex Coast’ (1839), ‘Burns and Highland Mary’ and a portrait of Prince Albert (1840), ‘Blind Man's Buff’ and ‘The Orphan's Friend’ (1842), ‘John Anderson my Jo,’ ‘The Philanthropist,’ and ‘The Detected’ (1844), ‘The Holiday, or Granny in a Rage’ (1845), and several other portraits and subject pictures. Some of his works were engraved and became popular. His own plates in mezzotint were successful, and included ‘Christ's Agony in the Garden,’ after Giovanni Bolognese; ‘The Fortune-Tellers,’ after Sir Joshua Reynolds; ‘St. Genoveva,’ after Cattermole; ‘The Gipsy,’ after Sir David Wilkie; ‘The Bee's Wing,’ after M. W. Sharp; ‘The Disbanded Soldier,’ after H. J. Richter; ‘The Escape of Mary Queen of Scots, from Loch Leven Castle,’ after H. J. Fradelle; ‘Sir Arthur, his Daughter, and the Beggar,’ after Camille Roqueplan; and portraits of Mrs. Siddons as the ‘Tragic Muse,’ after Sir Joshua Reynolds; John Kemble as ‘Hamlet,’ after Sir Thomas Lawrence; Lord Eldon, after C. Penny; Horatio, seventh earl of Orford, and Dr. George Birkbeck, after R. J. Lane; William IV, both as Duke of Clarence and as king, after his own paintings, and a large number of Russian officers, after the works of his brother. Dawe was one of the engravers employed by Turner upon the ‘Liber Studiorum,’ after his rupture with Charles Turner; the four plates which he engraved for this work being ‘Rivaulx Abbey,’ ‘Mill near the Grande Chartreuse,’ ‘Twickenham—Pope's Villa,’ and ‘Bonneville, Savoy.’ He resided for many years in Bartholomew Place, Kentish Town, but about 1842 he removed to Windsor, where he died 28 Dec. 1848.
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dawes, Lancelot

​DAWES, LANCELOT, D.D. (1580–1653), divine, was born at Barton Kirk in Westmoreland of poor parents. When seventeen he became a student of Queen's College, Oxford, and a few months later became a servitor. He took the degree of B.A. in 1602, and was then made tabarder, and in 1605 proceeded to his M.A. degree, became a fellow, and subsequently took orders. He continued to reside in the college, of which his studious retired life and simple habits had caused him to be considered an ornament, till, in 1608, he was preferred to the living of Barton Kirk, his birthplace, by John Featherston, whose right, however, being challenged, another clergyman was presented, and a long dispute took place, which ended in favour of Dawes, who held the living till his death. In the year 1619 he was preferred to a prebendal stall in Carlisle Cathedral, ‘to the general liking of all the knowing and pious divines in his diocese, with whom, for a comprehensive and orthodox judgment, adorned with all variety of learning, he was ever held in just estimation.’ In 1618 he had obtained the living of Ashby in Westmoreland, and was instituted on the king's presentation. A charge of simony was brought against him, which not being held proven, a mandate was issued to the archdeacon to induct him. About this time the university of St. Andrews conferred the degree of D.D. upon him. During the civil war Dawes submitted to the party in authority, but took no active part on either side. He is said to have built the greater part of the parsonage at Ashby. He died in February 1653–4, and was buried under the communion table in Barton church. His ‘Sermons preached on several occasions,’ in ​two parts, the first called 'God's Mercies and Jerusalem's Miseries,' and containing two sermons preached at Carlisle in 1614, and the second, 'The Healing of the Plague of the Heart,' was published after his death in 1653. A printed copy of Dawes's sermon entitled 'God's Mercies is dated 1609. It was preached at Paul's Cross 26 June 1609, and was dedicated to Henry Robinson, bishop of Carlisle. A copy is in the British Museum.
[Kennet's Register and Chronicle; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 349; Nicolson and Burn's Westmoreland, i. 404, 606; Bullen's Cat. of Books.]
A. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Berewyk, John de

1904 Errata appended.
​BEREWYK, JOHN de (d. 1312), judge, was entrusted with the charge of the vacant abbey of St. Edmund, 1278–9, and of the see of Lincoln during the interval which elapsed between the death of Benedict, otherwise Richard, de Gravesend, 1279, and the appointment of his successor in the episcopate, Oliver Sutton, 1280–1. He acted as one of the asessors of the thirtieth for the counties south of the Trent in 1263, and in Michaelmas 1284 is mentioned as treasurer to Queen Eleanor. In 1294 he was one of her executors. A memorandum entered on the roll of parliament in 1290 records the delivery by him of a 'roll of peace and concord' made between the chancellor and scholars of the university and the mayor and burgesses of the city of Oxford to the clerk of the king's wardrobe for safe custody. He was summoned to parliament as a justice between 1295 and 1309, having been appointed a justice itinerant in 1292. In 1305 he was nominated receiver of petitions to the king in parliament emanating from Guernsey, with power to answer all such as did not require the personal attention of the king. He died in 1312 possessed of estates in Surrey, Essex, Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Norfolk, and leaving an infant heir.
[Rot. Parl. i. 33; Parl. Writs, i. 13, 186, 488, ii. Div. iii. 536; Rot. Orig. Abbrev. i. 33, 35, J94, 195; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 81; Madox's Exch. i. 351; Godwin, De Præsul. 292. 263.]
J. M. R.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.23 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 335 | i | 9 f.e. | Berewyk, John de: after king insert He was prebendary both of St. Paul's and Lichfield |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beresford, James

​BERESFORD, JAMES (1764–1840), miscellaneous writer, second son of Richard Beresford, was born at Upham, Hants, 28 May 1764. He was educated at the Charterhouse and Merton College, Oxford, where he obtained A fellowship. He was B.A. 1786, and M.A. 1798. He became rector of Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire, in 1812, and died there 29 Sept. 1840. His chief work was 'The Miseries of Human Life; or the Last Groans of Timothy Testy and Samuel Sensitive, with a few supplementary sighs from Mrs. Testy,' London, 1806-7. It was praised by Scott, and went through several editions. He also wrote some poetical translations and religious books.
[Gent. Mag. May 1841; Biog. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bergne, John Brodribb

​BERGNE, JOHN BRODRIBB (1800–1873), numismatist and antiquary, was descended from a family originally of Auvergne, France, but settled in England since the French revolution. He was born at Kensington in 1800, and having entered the Foreign Office in January 1817 was for some time attached as clerk to the treaty department, of which he became superintendent in 1854. This part of the office was then, to some extent, remodelled, in order that the secretary of state might avail himself of Bergne's special knowledge and ability. No one, probably, could have occupied this post more efficiently than Bergne, who for many years was a trusted adviser of successive secretaries of state, and whose reputation as an authority on all matters connected with treaties extended far beyond English official circles. In 1865 he was a member of the commission appointed to revise the slave trade instructions. He remained the head of the treaty department till his death, early in 1878. Although Bergne's name did not come prominently before the general public, the sterling services which his remarkable memory, accuracy, and judgment enabled him to render during the long years of his life in the Foreign Office were universally and cordially recognised by his colleagues, Bergne will be remembered not less as antiquary and numismatist than as an important public sentint. He was one of the founders of the Numismatic Society, of which he was treasurer from 1848 to 1857, and was several times afterwards elected a vice-president, He was also a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. As a numismatist Bergne devoted his attention chiefly to Roman and English coins, his collection of which was dispersed at his death, when many of the most valuable examples were purchased for the British Museum. The following are his contributions to the 'Numismatic Chronicle' from its first publication in 1838: 'Pennies of William the Conqueror;' 'Additions to Mr. Walpole's Account of the Family of Roetiers;' 'Irish Penny of Edward I;' 'Remarks on the Pennies of Henry with the Short and Long Cross;' 'Half-crowns of Charles II of Uncertain Mints;' 'Unpublished Exeter Half-crowns of Charles I;' 'Numismatic Sermon preached in 1694;' 'Unpublished Coins of Guthred, Baldred, and William the Conqueror;' 'Coin of Cerausius of a New and Unpublished Type;' 'Another coin of Baldred;' 'Denarius of Pescenninus Niger;' 'Coin Pedigrees;' 'Unpublished Coins;' 'Foreign or Counterfeit Sterlings.'
[Private information; Proceedings of the Numisimatic Society.]
A. A. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Duncan, Edward

​DUNCAN, EDWARD (1804–1882), landscape-painter, etcher, and lithographer, born in London in 1804, first studied aquatint engraving under Robert Havell. In 1831 he became a member of the New Society of Painters in Water-Colours, and in 1848 was elected a member of the Old Water-Colour Society, where he exhibited ‘Shipwreck’ and the ‘Lifeboat’ in 1859 and 1860. Several of his aquatints were published by T. Gosden in the ‘Sportsman's Repository,’ among them ‘Pheasant-shooting’ and ‘Partridge-shooting.’ He died on 11 April 1882, and his remaining works were sold at Christie's on 11 March 1885; among the most finished drawings were ‘Loch Scavaig,’ ‘The Fisherman's Return,’ and scenery in England, Scotland, and Wales.
L. F.