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

​BATE, JAMES (1703–1775), scholar, elder brother of Julius Bate [q. v.], was son of the Rev. Richard Bate, vicar of Chilham and rector of Wareham. He was born at Boughton Malherbe in Kent in 1703. His education was received at the King's school, Canterbury, and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he entered 4 July 1720, with Mr. Denne for his tutor. He passed B.A. 1723, and was elected fellow shortly after; ​but he accepted later from the Bishop of Ely a fellowship in St. John's College. He commenced M.A. in 1727. In 1730 he became moderator of the university, and in 1731 one of the taxers. Bate accompanied Horace Walpole as chaplain when the latter went to Paris as ambassador. Upon his return home he was presented to the good living of St. Paul's, Deptford, on 23 June 1731, where he studied hard. His knowledge of Hebrew was very great, but his researches and speculations bore little fruit. His published books are: 1. ‘An Address to his Parishioners on the Rebellion of 1745.’ 2. ‘Infidelity scourged, or Christianity vindicated against Chubb, &c.’ (1746). 3. ‘An Essay towards a Rationale of the literal Doctrine of Original Sin … occasioned by some of Dr. Middleton's Writings’ (1752; 2nd ed. 1766). There are also occasional sermons, with some scholarly notes introduced. He died in 1775. The funeral sermon, preached by the Rev. Colin Milne at St. Paul's, Deptford, was published.
A. B. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bate, John

​BATE, JOHN (d. 1429), theologian and philosopher, was, according to Leland's account, born west of the Severn (inter Transabrinos), but seems to have been brought up in the Carmelite monastery at York, where his progress in learning was so great that he was despatched to complete his studies at Oxford. Philosophy and theology seem to have divided his attention, and on asking his master's degree in both these subjects he proceeded to add to his reputation by authorship. He was acknowledged to be an authority in his own university, and the news of his acquirements soon spread abroad. His name became known to the heads of his order, and at last his fellow-Carmelites of York elected him their prior. It was probably somewhat earlier than this that he was ordained sub-deacon and deacon in March and May 1415 by Clifford, bishop of London. Bate appears to have continued in his new office till February 1429, when he died, ‘weighed down by a violent disease.’ According to Bale (Heliades, f. 82), Walden, the great English provincial of the Carmelites, deputed to represent the English at the council of Constance, speaks of him with great praise. The principal works of this writer, whose titles have come down to our days, are treatises on the ‘Parts of Speech,’ on Porphyry's ‘Universals,’ and on Aristotle's ‘Ethics.’ Other works of Aristotle also seem to have engaged his attention. We are also told that he wrote a book on Gilbert de la Porée's ‘Sex Prædicamenta.’ A long list of his productions may be made out by comparing the various titles given by the biographers cited at the foot of this article. Both Leland and Bale declare that Bate was a good Greek scholar; but the latter assures us, with the zeal of a newly made convert, that Bate devoted his talents to propping up the blasphemies of Antichrist and disseminating evil dogmas. Bate died and was buried at York, where his tomb seems to have been extant in the days of Bale, who quotes one verse from the Latin epitaph inscribed upon it: ‘Bati doctoris hæc condit petra cadaver.’
T. A. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bray, John

1904 Errata appended.
​BRAY, JOHN (fl. 1377), physician and botanist, received a pension of 100s. a year from William, earl of Salisbury, which was confirmed by Richard II. He wrote a list of herbs in Latin, French, and English, 'Synonyma de nominibus herbarum.' This manuscript was formerly part of the collection of F. Bernard; it is now in the Sloane Collection in the British Museum.
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 122; Catal. Sloane MSS. 232, 32.]
W. H.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.35 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bray, Edward Atkyns

​BRAY, EDWARD ATKYNS (1778–1857), poet and miscellaneous writer, the only son of Edward Bray, solicitor, and manager of the Devonshire estates of the Duke of Bedford, was born at the Abbey House, Tavistock, 18 Dec. 1778. His mother, Mary, a daughter of Dr. Brandreth of Houghton Regis, and the widow of Arthur Turner, would not allow her son to be sent to a public school, and he was educated by himself, a circumstance which engendered in him habits of isolation and restraint. At an early age he cultivated poetry, two small selections from his effusions circulating among his friends before he was twenty-three. Bray became a student at the Middle Temple in 1801 and was called to the bar in 1806. For some time he went the western circuit, but the profession of the law had from the first ill accorded with his disposition, and after five years of trial he abandoned it for the church. He was ordained by the Bishop of Norwich about 1811, and in the following year, by the favour of the Duke of Bedford, became the vicar of Tavistock and the perpetual curate of Brent Tor. Almost immediately after his ordination he entered himself at Trinity College, Cambridge, and took the degree of B.D. as a ten-year man in 1822. In Tavistock he resided for the rest of his life, and if he differed from his parishioners on politics or preached over their heads, he retained their respect. He married the widow of C. A. Stothard [see Bray, Anna Eliza], and an amusing account of the habits of the worthy vicar and his wife is embodied in the latter's autobiography. Bray died at Tavistock 17 July 1857. During his lifetime he published several selections of sermons:
* 'Sermons from the Works of the most ​eminent Divines of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries,' 1818.
* 'Discourses from Tracts and Treatises of eminent Divines,' 1821.
* 'Select Sermons by Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man,' and a volume of his own, 'Discourses on Protestantism,' 1829.
His poetical productions were for the most part circulated privately. After Bray's death his widow collected and published his 'Poetical Remains' (1859, 2 vols.), and also 'A Selection from the Sermons, General and Occasional, of Rev. E. A. Bray' (1860, 2 vols.) At one time he projected a history of his native town of Tavistock, and made considerable collections for it, but the undertaking was never completed. Many extracts from his journals describing the curiosities of Dartmoor and many of his poems are inserted in Mrs. Bray's 'Tamar and Tavy.' When she published her work on Switzerland she embodied with it many passages in the diary which her husband kept whilst on the tour.
[Memoir prefixed to Poetical Remains; Mrs. Bray's Tamar and Tavy (1879 ed.). ii. 304-373.]
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bray, Thomas (1759-1820)

​BRAY, THOMAS, D.D. (1759–1820), an Irish catholic prelate, was born in the diocese of Cashel on 5 March 1759. He became archbishop of Cashel in 1792, and died in 1820. He was author of the following privately printed work: 'Statuta Synodalia pro unitis Dioecesibus Cassel. et Imelac. lecta, approbata, edita, et promulgata in Synodo Dioecesana; cui interfuit clerus utriusque Dioeceseos, habita prima hebdomada mensis Septembris, anno M.DCCC.X.,' 2 vols., Dublin, 1813, 12mo. This rare book contains a papal bull against freemasonry; a decree of the council of Trent against duellists, with an explanation of it in English to be given by each priest to his flock; and short memoirs of the archbishops of Cashel and the bishops of Emly. The second volume bears the following title: 'Regulations, Instructions, Exhortations, and Prayers, &c., &c., in English and Irish: with the manner of absolving heretics, in Latin and English: for the united dioceses of Cashel and Emly.'
[Martin's Privately Printed Books, 570, 571 Brady's Episcopal Succession, ii. 29; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser., xi. 197.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bray, William (d.1644)

1904 Errata appended.
​BRAY, WILLIAM (d. 1644), chaplain to Archbishop Laud, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1616-17, M.A. in 1620, and B.D. in 1631. At the outset of his clerical career he was a popular lecturer in puritan London, but changing his views he became one of Archbishop Laud's chaplains in ordinary, and obtained considerable church preferment. He was rector of St. Ethelburga in London, 5 May 1632; prebendary of Mapesbury in the church of St. Paul, 12 June following; and vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 2 March 1632-3. The king presented him, on 7 May 1634, to the vicarage of Chaldon-Herring in Dorsetshire, and by letters patent, dated 15 Jan. 1637-8, bestowed on him a canonry in the church of Canterbury. Having licensed two obnoxious books by Dr. John Pocklington, the Long parliament enjoined him to preach a recantation sermon at St. Margaret's, Westminster. On 12 Jan. 1642-3 the house proceeded to sequester him from the vicarage of St. Martin's, and in the latter end of March following his books were seized; he was also imprisoned, plundered, and forced to fly into remote parts, where, it is said, he died in 1644. His recantation sermon was published with the title: 'A Sermon of the Blessed ​Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; proving that there is therein no proper sacrifice now offered; Together with the disaproving of sundry passages in 2 Bookes set forth by Dr. Pocklington; the one called Altare Christianum, the other Sunday no Sabbath: Formerly printed with Licence. Now published by Command, London, 1641, 4to.
[Newcourt's Repertorium Ecclesiasticum, i. 176, 346, 692; Heylyn's Life of Abp. Laud, 441 et passim; Troubles and Tryal of Abp. Laud, 367; MS. Addit. 5863, f. 103 b; Lloyd's Memoires (1677), 512; Hutchins's Dorset, i. 209.]
T. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.35 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Braxfield, Lord

​BRAXFIELD, Lord. [See Macqueen, Robert.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bray, William (1736-1832)

​BRAY, WILLIAM (1736–1832), antiquary, the fourth and youngest son of Edward Bray of Shere in Surrey, who married Ann, daughter of Rev. George Duncomb, was born in 1736. When only ten years old he was entered at Rugby, and cultivated literature by means of occasional purchases from an itinerant bookseller from Daventry. On one occasion, having ordered a single number of the 'Rambler,' the bookseller, to his amazement, ordered all the copies which had then appeared, a proceeding which, as Bray was wont to declare, nearly ruined him. On leaving school he was placed with an attorney, Mr. Martyr, at Guildford, but not long afterwards obtained a position in the board of green cloth, which he held for nearly fifty years and was then superannuated. On the death of his elder brother, the Rev. George Bray, on 1 March 1803, he inherited the family estates in Shere and Gomshall. In 1758 he married Mary, daughter of Henry Stephens of Wipley, in Worplesdon, who died 14 Dec. 1796, aged 62, having had numerous children, though only three, one son and two daughters, lived to maturity, and the son predeceased his father. Bray was an incessant worker. His position in the county and his legal training caused him to be associated in many charitable and civil trusts in Surrey. He died at Shere 21 Dec. 1832, aged 96, and a mural monument is erected to his memory in its church. Bray was elected F.S.A. in 1771, became the treasurer of the society in 1803, and contributed frequently to the 'Archæologia.' His first publication was the 'Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire;' originally published anonymously in 1777, the second edition appearing with the author's name in 1783, and though its pages were somewhat overburdened with antiquarian lore, it was frequently reprinted and included in Pinkerton's 'Travels.' His next work, which was printed privately, was 'Collections relating to Henry Smith, sometime Alderman of London.' When the Rev. Owen Manning, who had begun a history of Surrey, died in 1801, Bray undertook to complete the work, and in its prosecution visited every parish and church within the county's borders. The first volume was issued in 1804, the second in 1809, and the third in 1814; it still remains one of the best county histories that England can boast of. In the British Museum there exists a duplicate of this work in thirty folio volumes, with a special title-page dated 1847, and with over 6,000 prints and drawings collected by Mr. R. Percival. Bray's last literary labour was the printing and editing of the 'Memoirs of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, comprising his Diary, &c.,' which was first published in 1818 in two volumes, appeared in 1827 in five volumes, and has been often reissued.
[Manning and Bray's Surrey, i. 495, 523, iii. 687; Gent. Mag. 1833, pp. 87, 88; Rugby School Register, i. 34; Anderson's British Topography, 268.]
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baker, Charles (1803-1874)

​BAKER, CHARLES (1803–1874), instructor of the deaf and dumb, was the second son of Thomas Baker, of Birmingham, and was born 31 July 1803. While a youth he was for a short time an assistant at the Deaf and Dumb Institution at Edgbaston, near Birmingham. He then tried other employments, but his services were again sought by the committee of the institution, when in a difficulty on the failure of their master, who was a Swiss, to control the pupils. Charles Baker had never contemplated teaching as a profession, but without much thought for the future he entered upon his work. He at once obtained the affections of the children, and, to their delight, he remained at the institution. Three years afterwards he was invited to aid in the establishment at Doncaster of a Deaf and Dumb Institution for the county of York. The plan had originated with the Rev. William Fenton, in company with whom he visited all the large towns of the county, and obtained such support as justified the carrying out of the scheme. The deficiency of class-books was an evil which Baker soon found to be pressing. Although the deaf and dumb had been gathered together in various institutions for forty years, no attempt had been made to provide such a course as they required. This want he set himself to supply. He wrote the 'Circle of Knowledge' in its various gradations, consecutive lessons, picture lessons, teachers' lessons, the 'Book of the Bible' in its several gradations, and many other works which had special relation to the teaching of the deaf and dumb. The 'Circle of Knowledge' obtained great popularity. It was used in the education of the royal children, and of the grandchildren of Louis-Philippe. It has been largely used in the colonies and in Russia, and the first gradation has been translated into Chinese, and is used in the schools of China and Japan. Many years ago the publisher reported that 400,000 copies had been sold. Baker also wrote for the 'Penny Cyclopædia' various topographical articles, and those on the ' Instruction of the Blind,' 'Dactylology,' 'Deaf and Dumb,' 'George Dalgarno,' and the 'Abbé Sicard'. He contributed to the 'Journal of Education,' to the 'Polytechnic Journal,' and the publications of the Central Society of Education, and translated Amman's 'Dissertation on Speech' (1873). He was an active worker in connection with the local institutions of Doncaster, and was a member of the committee for the establishment of a public free library for the town. He was held in high regard by teachers of the deaf and dumb in England and in America, and in June 1870 the Columbian Institution of the Deaf and Dumb conferred on him the degree of doctor of philosophy, an honour which he appreciated, but he never assumed the title. He died at Doncaster 27 May 1874, and his old pupils erected a mural tablet to his memory in the institution where he had laboured so long.
[Information from Sir Thomas Baker; American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb (with portrait), XX. 201.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baker, George (1540-1600)

​BAKER, GEORGE (1540–1600), surgeon, was a member of the Barber Surgeons' Company and was elected master in 1597. In 1574, when he published his first book, Baker was attached to the household of the Earl of Oxford, and the writings of his contemporaries show that he had already attained to considerable practice in London. Banester of Nottingham speaks of his eminence in Latin verse:—
Ergo Bakere tuum superabit sidera nomen,
 Atque aliqua semper parte superstes eris.
And Clowes, another contemporary, prophesies the lasting fame of his works in English verse of the same quality. His first book is called 'The Composition or Making of the most excellent and pretious Oil called Oleum Magistrale and the Third Book of Galen. A Method of Curing Wounds and of the Errors of Surgeons,' 8vo. In 1576 Baker published a translation of the 'Evonymus' of Conrad Gesner under the title of 'The Newe Jewell of Health, wherein is contained the most excellent Secretes of Physicke and Philosophie devided into fower bookes,' 4to. Baker's own preface to the 'Newe Jewell' is a good piece of English prose. He defends, as do many authors of that time, the writing a book on a learned subject in the vulgar tongue. He was in favour of free translation, 'for if it were not permitted to translate but word for word, then I say, away with all translations.' The book treats of the chemical art, a term used by Baker as synonymous with the art of distillation. Distilled medicines, he says, exceed all others in power and value, 'for three drops of oil of sage doth more profit in the palsie, three drops of oil of coral for the falling sickness, three drops of oil of cloves for the cholicke, than one pound of these decoctions not distilled.' Both in this and in his other treatises on pharmacy, the processes are not always fully described, for Baker was, after all, against telling too much. 'As for the names of the simples, I thought it good to write them in the Latin as they were, for by the searching of their English names the reader shall very much profit; and another cause is that I would not have every ignorant asse to be made a chirurgian by my book, for they would do more harm with it than good.' Baker's 'Antidotarie of Select Medicine,' 1579, 4to, is another work of the same kind. He also published two translations of books on general surgery: Guido's 'Questions,' 1579, 4to, and Vigo's 'Chirurgical Works,' 1586. Both had been translated before, and were merely revised by Baker. He wrote an essay on the nature and properties of quicksilver in a book by his friend Clowes in 1584, and an introduction to the 'Herball' of their common friend Gerard in 1597. This completes the list of his works, all of which were published in London. The 'Galen' was reprinted in 1599, as also was the 'Jewell' under the altered title of 'The Practice of the New and Olde Physicke.'
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baker, George (1781-1851)

​BAKER, GEORGE (1781–1851), topographer, was a native of Northampton. While a schoolboy, at the age of thirteen, he wrote a manuscript history of Northampton, and from that time he was always engaged in enlarging his collections. His first printed work was 'A Catalogue of Books, Poems, Tracts, and small detached pieces, printed at the press at Strawberry Hill, belonging to the late Horace Walpole, earl of Orford,' London (twenty copies only, privately printed), 1810, 4to. His proposals for 'The History and Antiquities of the County of Northampton' were issued in 1815. The first part was published in folio in 1822, the second in 1826, and the third, completing the first volume, in 1830. This volume contains the hundreds of Spelho, Newbottle Grove, Fawsley, Wardon, and Sutton. The fourth part, containing the hundreds of Norton and Cleley, appeared in 1836, and about one-third of a fifth part, containing the hundred of Towcester, in 1841. At the latter date, 220 of his original subscribers had failed him, and with health and means exhausted he was compelled to bring the publication to a close. His library and manuscript collections were dispersed by auction in 1842, the latter passing into the possession of Sir Thomas Phillipps. Baker's 'Northamptonshire' is, on the whole, as far as it goes, the most complete and systematic of all our county histories. In the elaboration and accuracy of its pedigrees it is unsurpassed. An index to the places mentioned in the work was published at London in 1868.
Baker, who was a unitarian, took a deep interest in various local institutions, and was a magistrate for the borough of Northampton. He was not married. A sister, Miss {{DNB lkpl|Baker, Anne Elizabeth|Anne Elizabeth Baker]] [q. v.], was his constant companion for more than sixty years. He died at his residence, Mare Fair, Northampton, 12 Oct. 1851.
[Northampton Mercury, 13 Oct. 1851; Northampton Herald, 18 Oct. 1851; Quarterly Review, ci. 1; Gent. Mag. (N.S.) xxxvi. 551, 629; Notes and Queries, 4th series, i. 11, 376, 5th series, iii. 447; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Addit. MS. 24864 ff. 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87; Egerton MS. 2248 ff. 71, 112.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baker, Franklin

​BAKER, FRANKLIN (1800–1867), unitarian minister, was born in Birmingham 27 Aug. 1800. He was the eldest son of Mr. Thomas Baker of that town. After the usual school education; and when unusually young for such a charge, he took the management of Baylis's school at Dudley. One of his early friends and advisers was the Rev. John Kentish, of Birmingham; another was the Rev. James Hews Bransby, of Dudley, who directed his private studies by way of preparing him for the university of Glasgow, with the view of his ultimately becoming a Unitarian minister. By the aid of a grant from Dr. Daniel Williams's trustees he was enabled to go to Glasgow, where he spent three sessions and graduated M.A. On the completion of his college course in 1823 he was invited to become minister of Bank Street chapel, Bolton, a charge which he accepted, though there had been dissensions there which made his work difficult. His connection with the chapel lasted for forty years, during which time the congregation became one of the most prosperous in the county, and the chapel was entirely rebuilt. In his earlier time, when the dissenters were battling for equal rights, he engaged in the political movements of the day, but his after-life was devoted to the work of his calling and the promotion of the charitable and educational institutions of the town. No one in that community was more heartily respected than Baker, and he received gratifying testimony of this in an offer from the lord lieutenant of the county to insert his name in the commission of the peace. He did not, however, consider it consistent with his position to accept it. Besides occasional sermons and pamphlets on matters of passing interest, he was the author of various articles in the 'Penny Cyclopœdia.' He also published in 1854 a 'History of the Rise and Progress of Nonconformity in Bolton.' This work is a valuable and accurate record, covering a period of 200 years. He resigned his ministerial position in 1864, and retired to Caton, on the banks of the Lune, but at the end of three years he removed to Birmingham, where he could have the attention of a brother, who held a high medical position. He died 26 May 1867.
C. W. S.