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

1904 Errata appended.
​BETTESWORTH, GEORGE EDMUND BYRON (1780–1808), naval captain, was the second son of John Bettesworth of Carhayes, Cornwall, who married Frances Elinor, daughter of Francis Tomkyns of Pembrokeshire. At an early age he was sent to sea as midshipman under Captain Robert Barlow, commanding the frigate Phoebe. In this ship he remained for several years, but in January 1804 he was lieutenant of the Centaur, and took part in the action with the Curieux, when the latter vessel was taken from the French. Bettesworth received a slight wound in this engagement, but his commanding officer suffered so severely that he died, and his lieutenant succeeded to the command of the Curieux. Whilst in this position he engaged in an action with the Dame Ernouf about twenty leagues from the Barbadoes. After a sharp fight the French vessel surrendered, but Bettesworth was again wounded. In the same year (1805) he brought home from Antigua the despatches of Nelson, apprising the government of Villeneuve's homeward flight from the West Indies, and at once received from Lord Barham a post-captain's commission. Lord Byron, in October 1807, wrote: 'Next January ... I am going to sea for four or five months with my cousin, Captain Bettesworth, who commands the Tartar, the finest frigate in the navy ... We are going probably to the Mediterranean or to the West Indies, or to the devil; and if there is a possibility of taking me to the latter, Bettesworth will do it, for he has received four-and-twenty wounds in different places, and at this moment possesses a letter from the late Lord Nelson stating that Bettesworth is the only officer in the navy who had more wounds than himself.' The promised voyage never took place. In May 1808, Bettesworth was engaged in watching some vessels off Bergen, when it was deemed possible to cut some of them off from the protecting gunboats. In this attempt the Tartar became becalmed amid the rocks, and was attacked by a schooner and five gunboats, when its brave captain was killed by the first shot, 16 May 1808. The body was buried at Howick, Northumberland, in the vault of the Grey family, on 27 May. Major Trevanion, ‘a brother of Captain Bettesworth,' was a chief mourner. Byron's grandmother was a Miss Trevanion. Bettesworth had married at St. George's, Hanover Square, 24 Sept. 1807, Hannah Althea, second daughter of the first Earl Grey. His widow married, in October 1809, Mr. Edward Ellice, a well-known whig politician. Captain Bettesworth was only twenty-three years old at the time of his death, and was the beau idéal of an English officer.
[Gent. Mag. 1808, pt. i. p. 660 ; Moore's Byron, i. 174-5; Brenton's Naval Hist. ii. 99, 232; James's Naval Hist. ii. 246, v. 34-6.]
W. P. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.25 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Betts, John

​BETTS, JOHN, M.D. (d. 1695), physician, was son of Edward Betts by his wife Dorothy, daughter of John Venables of Rapley in Hampshire. He was born at Winchester, and educated there in grammar learning, was elected a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in February 1642–3, and took the degree of B.A. on 9 Feb. 1646–7. Being ejected by the visitors appointed by the parliament in 1648, he applied himself to the study of medicine, and accumulated the degrees of M.B. and M.D. at Oxford on 11 April 1654. He was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians on 30 Sept. 1654 and a fellow on 20 Oct. 1664. Dr. Betts practised with great success in London, chiefly among the Roman catholics, he himself being a member of their church. Afterwards he was appointed physician in ordinary to King Charles II. His position in the College of Physicians appears to have been influenced by his religious opinions and the varying tendencies of the times in which he lived. For instance, Dr. Middleton Massey in his manuscript notes speaks of ‘Joannes Betts, qui ob suam in Pontificis Romani superstitione contumaciam, Collegio exclusus fuit anno 1679, sed 1684 restitutus.’ Betts was censor of the college in 1671, 1673, 1685, and 1686, and was named an elect on 25 June 1685. On 1 July 1689 he was returned to the House of Lords as ‘a papist,’ and on 25 Oct. 1692 was threatened with the loss of his place as an elect if he did not take the oath of allegiance to the king. Although he did not take the oath, he was allowed to remain undisturbed in his position, probably on account of his age. He was dead on 15 May 1695, when Dr. Hulse was named an elect in his place; and he was buried at St. Pancras.
He published: 1. ‘De ortu et natura Sanguinis,’ London, 1669, 8vo. Dr. George Thompson animadverted on this treatise in his ‘True way of Preserving the Blood in its integrity.’ 2. ‘Medicinæ cum Philosophia naturali consensus,’ London, 1692, 8vo. 3. ‘Anatomia Thomæ Parri annum centesimum quinquagesimum secundum et novem menses agentis, cum clariss. viri Gulielmi Harveii aliorumque adstantium Medicorum Regiorum observationibus.’ Wood says that this account was drawn up by Dr. Harvey. His son, Edward Betts, also became a doctor of medicine, acquired a high reputation as a physician, and died on 27 April 1695.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 611; Wood's Fasti, ii. 90, 183; Biog. Brit. (Kippis), ii. 297; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 270; Munk's College of Physicians (1878), i. 318, 460; Lysons's Environs, iii. 354; Addit. MS. 22136, f. 8.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bever, Thomas

​BEVER, THOMAS, LL.D. (1725–1791), scholar and civilian, was born at Mortimer, Berkshire, in 1725. He was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. 21 April 1748. At All Souls College, where he became a fellow, he graduated bachelor of law 3 July 1753, and doctor 5 April 1758. He was admitted to Doctors' Commons 21 Nov. 1758, and afterwards was promoted to be judge of the Cinque Ports, and chancellor of Lincoln and Bangor. In 1762, with the permission of the vice-chancellor and the approbation of the professor of civil law, who was unable from ill-health to discharge his duties, he delivered a course of lectures on civil law at the university. In 1766 he published 'A Discourse on the Study of Jurisprudence, and on the Civil Law, being an Introduction to a Course of Lectures.' His intention was to publish the whole series of lectures, but the project did not meet with sufficient encouragement. In ​1781 he published a volume on 'The History of the Legal Polity of the Roman State; and of the rise, progress, and extent of the Roman Laws,' The work, which displays both learning and acuteness, was not completed, the remainder of his manuscripts being committed to the flames during his last illness. He died at his house in Doctors' Commons on 8 Nov. 1791, and was buried in Mortimer church, Berkshire, where there is a mural monument in the chancel to his memory. He is said to have been 'a better scholar than writer, and a better writer than pleader.' He took a special interest in music and the fine arts. By Sherwin the engraver, in recognition of peculiar obligations, he was presented with a painting of Leonidas taking leave of his wife and infant son, the only original work of this engraver of which there is any record.
[Gent. Mag. liii. 667-70, lxi. 632-4, 1068, lxviii. 517, 753-4; Coote's English Civilians, 125-6; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. v. 194-5.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beuno

​BEUNO or BEINO, St. (d. 660?), was the son of Hywgi or Bugi ab Gwynlliw Filwr, and Beren or Perferen, daughter of Llewyddyn Lwyddog of Dinas Eiddyn, to whom he was born after twelve years of barren wedlock. On his father's side he was related to St. Cadoc the Wise of Llancarfan, and on his mother's side to St. Kentigem, the founder of the see of St. Asaph. Having received a religious education from St. Tangwn ab Talhaiarn, Beuno took orders and became a monk. According to the old Welsh life of Beuno printed in Rees's 'Cambro-British Saints,' he founded several churches on lands granted to him by various persons. In 616 he established a religious society at Clynnog Fawr in Carnarvonshire. A quaint story is related about the foundation of this monastery. Cadvan, king of Gwynedd or North Wales, and probably also supreme king of all Wales, had been converted to Christianity by Beuno and had given him much land and promised more. Cadvan's son and successor, Cadwallon, carrying out his father's intentions, gave Beuno a piece of land called Gwaredog in Carnarvonshire, where he built a church, but the land being claimed by a widow for her infant son as having been his father's property, Beuno relinquished it and demanded compensation from Cadwallon, to whom he had given a golden sceptre in return for the land he had just lost. Cadwallon rejected the claim and was cursed by Beuno, who, however, was appeased by the grant of the township of Clynnog given him by the king's cousin Gweddeint. In his old age Beuno became the instructor of his niece St. Winifred, daughter of his sister Gwenlo, and it was he who performed the miracle of reuniting St. Winifred's head to her body after her decapitation by Caradog ab Alan. St. Beuno is recorded to have died in 600, and three places, Clynnog, Bardsey Island, and Nevin, claimed to be his burial-place. His festival is 21 April.
The following eleven churches are dedicated to St. Beuno: Clynnog Fawr, Carngiwch, Penmorfa, and Pistyll in Carnarvonshire; Aberffraw and Trefdraeth in Anglesey; Gwyddelwern and Llanycil in Merionethshire; Berriew and Bettws in Montgomeryshire; Llanfeuno in Herefordshire.
[W. J. Rees's Lives of Cambro-British Saints; Rice Rees's Essay on the Welsh Saints.]
A. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bettes, John

​BETTES, JOHN (d. 1570?), miniature painter, is commonly stated to have been a pupil of Nicholas Hilliard. This opinion is based upon the statement of Vertue and a quotation from Richard Haydock's translation of 'Lomazzo on Painting,' which, however, will hardly bear the construction which has been put upon it: — 'Limnings, much used in former times in church books, as also in drawing by the life in small models, of late years by some of our countrymen, as Shoote, Betts, &c. But brought to the rare perfection which we now see by the most ingenious, painful, and skilful master, Nicholas Hilliard, and his well-profiting scholar, whose farther commendations I refer to the curiositie of his works.' The pupil here referred to is most probably Isaac Oliver [Oliver and Rowland Lockey are elsewhere mentioned by Haydock as the scholars of Hilliard]. The italicised words 'which we now see' in the quoted extract certainly seem to refer Bettes to an earlier date than Hilliard. In the exhibition of 'Old Masters' at the Academy 1875 was a picture attributed to Bettes with the date 1545. Hilliard was born 1547. Bettes painted a miniature in oils of Queen Elizabeth, which is said to have been highly successful. He is mentioned by Foxe in his 'Ecclesiastical History' as having engraved a pedigree and some vignettes for Hall's 'Chronicle.' He is also said to have painted the portrait of Sir John Godsalve. Foxe speaks of Bettes as already dead in 1576. His brother Thomas was also a miniature painter.
[Anecdotes of Painting; Walpole, 1849; Lomazzo on Painting, Englished by R[ichard] H[aydockl, 1698; Meres's Wit's Commonwealth, 1598; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists, 1878.]
E. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lund, John

​LUND, JOHN (fl. 1785), humorous poet, of Pontefract, is said to have been a barber in that town, whose partial historian declares that his satires ‘would not disgrace the pen of a Churchill’ (Boothroyd, Hist. of Pontefract, p. 495). Lund wrote:
* ‘A Collection of Original Tales in Verse, in the manner of Prior; to which is added a Second Edition of Ducks and Pease, or the Newcastle Rider; together with the above story in a Farce of one act, as it was performed at the Theatre in Pontefract with great applause,’ London, 1777. The story is rudimentary, being that of a rider (i.e. bagman) who, when airing himself as a person of quality, is suddenly confronted by his master; but it proved extremely popular, and passed through numerous editions down to 1838. The poem was reprinted in ‘Richardson's Table Book, 1843; Legendary Division,’ i. 169.
* ‘A Collection of Oddities in Prose and Verse, Serious and Comical, by a very Odd Author,’ Doncaster, 1779. Some of the shorter pieces are amusing. ‘In regard to obscenity,’ says the author, ‘things of that nature in what I published were put in at the desire of some particular friends.’
[Hotten's Handbook of Topography; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. p. 1413; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. v. 282–3; Baker's Biograph. Britt., 1812, i. 464; Lund's works in Brit. Mus. Lib., including as many as seven different editions of ‘Ducks and Pease.’]
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lundgren, Egron Sellif

​LUNDGREN, EGRON SELLIF (1815–1875), water-colour painter, born at Stockholm in Sweden on 18 Dec. 1815, was educated to be an engineer. Having a taste for art, he studied first in the academy at Stockholm, and afterwards in Paris, where he worked for a time under Léon Cogniet. He then travelled in Switzerland and Italy, devoting himself to painting in water-colours. While on the continent he made the acquaintance of John Phillip, R.A. [q. v.], and from 1849 to 1852 resided at Seville. On his return to England the queen gave him commissions for some ceremonial pictures and other subjects. On the outbreak of the Indian mutiny in 1857 Lundgren was sent, at the expense of Mr. Agnew, to accompany Sir Colin Campbell's relief expedition on the campaign in Oudh. He made a series of about five hundred sketches on the spot, including numerous portraits. These sketches were exhibited on his return, and purchased by Samuel Mendel of Manley Hall, Staffordshire, and after the latter's death were sold by auction at Christie's on 16 April 1875. Lundgren was elected an associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-colours in 1864, and a full member in 1865. He subsequently made extensive tours abroad, and finally settled in Sweden. The king of Sweden made him a knight of the order of Gustavus Vasa in 1861, and ten years later he paid a short visit to England. He died at Stockholm on 12 Dec. 1875. There are two pictures by him, of ‘San Vitale, Ravenna,’ and ‘The Library, Siena,’ in the National Museum at Stockholm. A picture of ‘The Relief of Lucknow’ was painted by Thomas Jones Barker [q. v.] (engraved by C. G. Lewis), from Lundgren's sketches, and is now in the Corporation Galleries at Glasgow (Cat. of Victorian Exhibition, 1891–2, No. 147). Lundgren published a series of illustrations to ‘Old Swedish Fairy Tales’ in 1875, and in 1870 some extracts from his travelling diaries, including ‘Letters from Spain and Italy’ and ‘Letters from India.’ His drawings were much esteemed for richness of colour.
[Seubert's Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Times, 14 April 1875; information from George Scharf, esq., C.B., F.S.A.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lumsden, Matthew

​LUMSDEN, MATTHEW (1777–1835), orientalist, born in 1777, was fifth son of John Lumsden of Cushnie, Aberdeenshire. After being educated at King's College, Old Aberdeen, he went to India as assistant professor of Persian and Arabic in the college of Fort William, and in 1808 succeeded to the professorship. In 1812 he was appointed secretary to the Calcutta Madressa, and superintended the various translations of English works into Persian then in progress. From 1814 until 1817 he had charge of the company's press at Calcutta, and in 1818 he became secretary to the stationery committee. Owing to bad health he left India on furlough in March 1820, and travelled with his cousin, Lieutenant (afterwards Colonel) Thomas Lumsden, through Persia, Georgia, and Russia to England. An account of this journey was published by Lieutenant Lumsden in 1822. Lumsden returned to India in 1821. He died at Tooting Common, Surrey, on 31 March 1835. From King's College, Old Aberdeen, to which he presented his own and many other oriental works, he received in 1808 the degree of LL.D. Lumsden published: 1. ‘A Grammar of the Persian Language,’ 2 vols. fol., Calcutta, 1810. 2. ‘A Grammar of the Arabic Language,’ in 2 vols. fol., Calcutta, 1813, of which only the first volume appeared. 3. ‘A Letter to Lieutenant Gavin Young … in Refutation of his Opinions on some Questions of General Grammar,’ 8vo, Calcutta, 1817. He also edited Firdausī's ‘Shah Namu,’ fol., Calcutta, 1811, with a revised text and an English preface.
[Anderson's Scottish Nation; Cat. of the Library of Advocates, s.v.; information from Colonel H. W. Lumsden.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lunardi, Vincenzo

​LUNARDI, VICENZO (1759–1806), ‘first aerial traveller in the English atmosphere,’ said to have been born at Lucca on 11 Jan. 1759 (Tissandier, Hist. des Ballons, i. 105), was secretary to the Neapolitan ambassador in England, Prince Caramanico. In the autumn of 1784 he obtained leave from Sir George Howard, governor of Chelsea Hospital, to make a balloon ascent from the hospital grounds. This leave was subsequently revoked owing to a riot, consequent upon the unsuccessful attempt of another would-be aeronaut named Moret. But after various delays and apprehensions ‘from explosions or tumults,’ Lunardi, having made his will, ascended from the Honourable Artillery Company's ground at Moorfields on 15 Sept. 1784, in the presence of nearly two hundred thousand spectators. The balloon was about thirty-two feet in diameter, and was filled with hydrogen under the direction of the chemist, Dr. George Fordyce [q. v.] He sailed over London at a great height, and ‘in view of the whole town,’ his ‘globe’ appearing about the ‘size of a tennis-ball.’ He descended near Ware, and shortly afterwards waited on the Prince of Wales and other patrons, who had been present at the ascent, with an account of his journey. The balloon was brought back that night, and ‘lodged, amidst the acclamations of a great mob,’ in Essex Street (Bentham, Works, x. 136). The attempt excited great interest among all classes; ‘never did a foreigner leave this land with so many prayers for his safe return.’ Windham, calling at Burke's country house on 13 Sept., had ‘found them all going to London the next day on the same errand as myself, viz. to see Lunardi ascend’ (Diary, p. 22), and Dr. Johnson, writing to John Ryland on the 18th, mentions that he had on the same day received ‘in three letters three histories of the Flying Man.’ The king viewed the balloon through a telescope from the queen's presence chamber at St. James's (Morning Chronicle, 16 and 17 Sept.; Morning Herald; Postscript to London Chronicle). A view of the ascent is given in the ‘European Magazine’ (1784, ii. 241). Several descriptions were printed, the best by Lunardi himself in letters to his guardian, ‘Chevalier Gherardo Campagni,’ printed in London in 1784. The successful aeronaut was made an honorary member of the Honourable Artillery Company, exhibited himself and his machine to enthusiastic crowds at the Pantheon, and subsequently made ascents at Edinburgh and Glasgow. He published ‘An Account of Five Aerial Voyages in Scotland’ in 1786. The ‘philosophic adventurer’ died in the convent of Barbadinas, Lisbon, on 31 July 1806.
There are several portraits of Lunardi, the best being the mezzotint by F. Bartolozzi after Cosway (with the legend, ‘Protinus ætherea tollit in astra via’), in which he appears as a remarkably handsome young man. He takes a high place among the pioneers of ballooning, his ascent having been made less than a year after the first flight in a ‘Montgolfière’ by Pilâtre de Rozier, and only a few days after the ascent by John Tytler [q. v.] from Edinburgh on 27 Aug. 1784.
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Henley, Walter de

​HENLEY, WALTER de (fl. 1250), writer on agriculture, is stated to have been a ‘Chivaler,’ and afterwards to have become a Dominican friar (MS. Dd. vii. 6, in the Cambridge University Library). He wrote about the middle of the thirteenth century a work in French entitled ‘Hosebondrie,’ which remained the best treatise on the subject till Fitzherbert's ‘Boke of Husbandrie’ appeared in 1523 [see under Fitzherbert, Sir Anthony]. The manuscripts are very numerous. Dr. Cunningham gives a list of twenty. Henley's original text has clearly been much garbled and interpolated in the extant manuscripts; the early text is said ​to be best represented in two manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library (Dd. vii. 6, f. 526, and Dd. vii. 14, f. 228). They appear to date from the time of Edward I or Edward II, and Dr. Cunningham is mistaken in putting them later. A French work, very similar to Henley's, is preserved in manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, under the title of ‘Enseignements Agricoles’ (Paulin Paris, Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du Roi, iii. 359), and has been printed in the ‘Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes’ (4eme série, tome ii. pp. 123–41, 367–81). Henley's French text appears to have been translated into Latin more than once (Digby 147, f. 1), and more than one English translation survives (Brit. Mus. Sloane, 686, f. 1, and Bodleian, Rawlinson, B. 471, f. 16). There was also a translation into Welsh (Brit. Mus. Addit. 15056). One of the English versions was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and there is a unique copy in the Cambridge University Library. It is called ‘Boke of Husbandry, whiche Mayster Groshede sõtyme Bysshop of Lyncoln made and translated it out of Frensshe into Englysshe.’ It concludes: ‘Here endeth the Boke of Husbondry and of plantynge and graffynge of Trees and Vynes.’ The ascription of this translation to Bishop Grosseteste is incorrect. Henley's work has been much confused with several other thirteenth-century treatises, such as the anonymous work on husbandry in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 6159 and the Senescalcia, and it was largely drawn upon by the compiler of ‘Fleta.’ An edition of Henley's work, together with the anonymous work on husbandry, the Senescalcia, and Grosseteste's ‘Reules Seynt Robert,’ is published by the Royal Historical Society; the transcript, translation, and glossary are by Miss E. Lamond, and the introduction is by the Rev. W. Cunningham, D.D.
[J. E. Thorold Rogers's Six Cents. of Work and Wages, p. 70, and Hist. of Ag. and Prices, vol. i.; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 353; Nouvelle Biographie Générale (Didot); Catalogues of Bodleian MSS.; Catalogue of Manuscripts in Cambridge University Library; Coxe's Catal. Cod. MSS. in Collegiis Aulisque Oxoniensibus, pt. i., 1852, p. 127; J. Orchard Halliwell's Manuscript Rarities of the Univ. of Cambr. 1841, p. 56; Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce, ed. 1890, pp. 223–4; Academy, 30 Oct. 1886.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Henley, Phocion

​HENLEY, PHOCION (1728–1764), musical composer, nephew of Sir Robert Henley, earl of Northington, lord chancellor [q. v.], was born at Wootton Abbots in Dorsetshire in 1728. He matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, 7 May 1746, and graduated B.A. on 14 Feb. 1749. As an undergraduate he spent much time in the ​study of music. From 1759 until his death, 29 Aug. 1764, he was rector of St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe and St. Anne's, Blackfriars.
He was the composer of several chants—one of which is still occasionally heard—and anthems. He also published a set of six hymns, under the title of ‘The Cure of Saul,’ and, in collaboration with Thomas Sharp, ‘Divine Harmony, being a Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes in Score, &c.,’ London, 1798.
[Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 727; Gent. Mag. xxxiv. 399; Cat. of Oxford Graduates, p. 314.]
R. F. S.