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

​BUCKMAN, JAMES (1816–1884), geologist, son of John Buckman, born at Cheltenham in 1816, was educated privately. After serving as pupil to a surgeon-apothecary at Cheltenham, he studied chemistry, botany, and geology in London; afterwards lectured at the Cheltenham Philosophical Institution; in 1846 was appointed curator and resident professor at the Birmingham Philosophical Institution, and from 1848 to 1863 was professor of geology and botany at the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester. In 1863 he retired to a farm at Bradford Abbas, Dorsetshire, which he conducted on scientific principles, and became a recognised authority on all matters connected with agriculture. Buckman died at Bradford Abbas on 23 Nov. 1884. He wrote on the Cheltenham Spa, on the geology, botany, and archæology of the neighbourhood, 1842; on the ‘Flora of the Cotteswolds,’ 1844; and on the ‘Geology of the Cotteswolds,’ 1845; on the ‘Ancient Straits of Malvern;’ on the ‘Remains of Roman Art,’ 1850; a ‘History of British Grasses,’ 1858; and ‘Science and Practice in Farm Cultivation,’ 1863. He also contributed papers to the ‘Proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,’ to the ‘Geological Society's Transactions,’ to the journals of the Royal Agricultural Society and the Bath and West of England Society, and to Martin's ‘Cyclopædia of Agriculture.’ His botanical papers chiefly dealt with the subject from an agricultural point of view. In geology he devoted himself to the palæontology and stratigraphy of the Jurassic series in his own districts. Buckman presented collections of Roman antiquities and fossils to Cirencester, the latter to the college, and the former to the Corinium Museum there.
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Buckley, Cecil William

​BUCKLEY, CECIL WILLIAM (1828–1872), captain in the royal navy, entered the navy in 1845. He served in the Miranda frigate, one of the squadron which, on the outbreak of the war with Russia, was sent to the White Sea. In the following winter the Miranda was sent to the Black Sea, and on 29 May 1855, Buckley, in company with Lieutenant Burgoyne and Mr. Roberts, a gunner, volunteered to land and fire a quantity of stores at Genitchi. ‘I accepted their offer,’ wrote Captain Lyons, of the Miranda, ‘knowing the imminent risk there would be in landing a party in presence of such a superior force, and out of gunshot of the ships. This very dangerous service they most gallantly performed, narrowly escaping the Cossacks, who all but cut them off from their boat.’ A few days later Buckley, accompanied by Mr. Cooper, the boatswain, again landed at Taganrog, and fired the stores and government buildings; ‘a dangerous, not to say desperate service,’ wrote Lord Lyons in a despatch dated 6 June 1855. In acknowledgment of these gallant services, Buckley was promoted to be commander on 27 Feb. 1856, and was decorated with the Victoria cross on the institution of that order. Buckley as commander served on the Cape station, and for some time in the Forte. He was advanced to be captain on 16 April 1862, and during the years 1868–70 commanded the Pylades on the Pacific station. In December 1871 he was appointed to the command of the Valiant, coastguard ship in the Shannon, from which failing health obliged him to retire in the following October. He died in Madeira in 1872. He was married and left issue, a son and a daughter.
[O'Byrne's Victoria Cross, 44; information communicated by the family.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Buckley, Robert

​BUCKLEY, ROBERT or SIGEBERT (1517–1610), Benedictine monk, was professed at Westminster in Queen Mary's reign, during the brief revival of that abbey under Abbot Feckenham. He was imprisoned on refusing to take the oath of supremacy, and remained in captivity during the whole of Elizabeth's reign. Weldon informs us that Father Anselm Beach ‘landed at Yarmouth in the year 1603, where he spent that winter, ​and at Mr. Francis Woodhouse, of Cisson, near Wendlam [Wendling?], found the Reverend Dom Sigebert Buckley, the only monk left of the old monks of Westminster, whom King James a few months before had ordered to be freed from his prison at Fromegham [Framlingham]. From which time he and F. Thomas Preston took care of the old man till his happy exit from this world’ (Chronological Notes, 46). Being the sole surviving monk of Westminster, the rights of the abbey and of the old English congregation of St. Benedict were vested in him. Arrangements were made with the general chapter of the Monte Cassino congregation that their fathers in England should become aggregated to the old English congregation. Buckley, who had been arrested after the discovery of the Gunpowder plot, received at the Gatehouse prison in London, on 21 Nov. 1607, the profession of two of the monks lately arrived from the continent—viz. of Robert (Vincent) Sadler and of Edward Maihew; and on 15 Dec. 1609 he surrendered all his powers and authority for perpetuating the succession to Father Thomas Preston. The old monk, who had become quite blind, died shortly after this, on 22 Feb. 1609–10, aged 93, ‘and because the heretics would not let him be buried in the churchyard, F. Anselm of Manchester and Father Thomas Preston buried him in an old chapel or country hermitage near Ponshall, the seat of Mr. Norton, in Surrey or Sussex’ (Weldon, Chronological Notes, 76). It may be added that three separate congregations of the Benedictine order existed in England for a time, namely the Spanish, the Italian, and the renewed English congregation. A union among them was felt to be most desirable, and after many difficulties and obstacles was secured by the brief Ex incumbenti of Pope Paul V in 1619.
[Dodd's Church Hist. i. 527, also Tierney's edit. iv. 89; Snow's Necrology of the English Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict, 30; Reyner's Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Angliâ, 247, Append. i. 4; Weldon's Chronological Notes, 46, 47, 49, 60, 62, 76, Append. 4; J. Stevens's Hist. of the Antient Abbeys, i. 182; Sweeney's Life of Augustine Baker, 20–5; Oliver's Catholic Religion in Cornwall, 473.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Buckmaster, Thomas

​BUCKMASTER, THOMAS (fl. 1566), divine and astronomer, is described in one of his works as a professor of physics, of what university has not been ascertained. He published: 1. ‘An Almanack and Pronostication,’ 1566–7, printed by Wanley. 2. ‘Tho. Buckmaster, minister, his right Christian Calendar; or Spirituall Prognostications made for the yeare 1570,’ by Hacket (Herbert's Ames). 3. ‘A new Almanack and Prognostication for the year 1575, wherein is expressed the Chang of the Moon … by Tho. Buckmaster, professor of physics’ (Tanner). 4. Commendatory Verses in ‘Wharton's Dreame,’ 1578; together with other almanacks, of which notices will be found in Herbert's ‘Ames's Typographical Antiquities.’
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brabazon, William

​BRABAZON, Sir WILLIAM (d. 1552), vice-treasurer and lord justice of Ireland, was descended from the family of Roger le Brabazon [q. v.], and was the son of John Brabazon of Eastwell, Leicestershire, and a daughter of —— Chaworth. After succeeding his father he was knighted on 20 Aug. 1534, and appointed vice-treasurer and general receiver of Ireland. In a letter from Chief-justice Aylmer to Lord Cromwell in August 1535 he is styled 'the man that prevented the total ruin and desolation of the kingdom.' In 1536 he prevented the ravages of O'Connor in Carberry by burning several villages in Offaly and carrying away great spoil. In the same year he made so effective a speech in support of establishing the king's authority in opposition to that of the pope that he persuaded the parliament to pass the bill for that purpose. As a result of this, many religious houses were in 1539 surrendered to the king. For these and other services he was, on 1 Oct. 1543, constituted lord justice of Ireland, and he was again appointed to the same office on 1 April 1546. In the same year he drove Patrick O'More and Brian O'Connor from Kildare. In April 1547 he was elected a member of the privy council of Ireland. In the spring of 1548 he assisted the lord deputy in subduing a sedition raised in Kildare by the sons of Viscount Baltinglass. He was a third time made lord justice on 2 Feb. 1549. In August 1550, with the aid of 8,000l. and 400 men from England, he subdued Charles ​Mac-Art-Cavenagh, who, after making submission and renouncing his name, received pardon. Brabazon died on 9 July 1552 (as is proved by the inquisitions taken in the year of his death), not in 1548 as recorded on his tombstone. His heart was buried with his ancestors at Eastwell, and his body in the chancel of St. Catherine's Church, Dublin. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter and coheir to Nicholas Clifford of Holme, he left two sons and three daughters.
[Lodge's Peerage (Archdall), i. 265-70; Genealogical History of the Family of Brabazon; Cal. State Papers, Irish Series; Cal. State Papers, Dom. Series, Henry VIII; Cal. Carew MSS. vol. i.; Cox's History of Ireland; Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors, vol. i.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brackenbury, Joseph

​BRACKENBURY, JOSEPH (1788–1864), poet, was born in 1788 at Langton, probably Lincolnshire, where he spent his early years. On 28 Oct. 1808 he was a student at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In 1810 he published his 'Natale Solum and other Poetical Pieces' by subscription. In 1811 he proceeded B.A. (Romilly, Grad. Cant. p. 45); in 1812 he became chaplain to the Madras establishment, and returning after some years' service proceeded M.A. in 1819. From 1828 to 1856 he was chaplain and secretary to the Magdalen Hospital, Blackfriars Road, London. In 1862 he became rector of Quendon, Essex, and died there, of heart-disease, on 31 March 1864, aged 76.
[Brackenbury's Natale Solum, &c. pp. 2, 10, 28, 58, 120; Gent. Mag. 1864, p. 668; Brayley's Surrey, v. 321; private information.]
J. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brackley, Thomas Egerton

​BRACKLEY, THOMAS EGERTON, Viscount [See Egerton].
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bracegirdle, John

​BRACEGIRDLE, JOHN (d. 1613–14), poet, is supposed to have been a son of John Bracegirdle, who was vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon from 1560 to 1569. He was matriculated as a sizar of Queens' College, Cambridge, in December 1588, proceeded B.A. in 1591-1592, commenced M.A. in 1595, and proceeded B.D. in 1602. He was inducted to the vicarage of Rye in Sussex, on the presentation of Thomas Sackville, lord Buckhurst, 12 July 1602, and was buried there on 8 Feb. 1613-14.
He is author of 'Psychopharmacon, the Mindes Medicine; or the Phisicke of Philosophie, contained, in five bookes, called the Consolation of Philosophie, compiled by Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Boethius,' translated into English blank verse, except the metres, which are in many different kinds of rhyme, Addit. MS. 11401. It is dedicated to Thomas Sackville, earl of Dorset.
[Wheler's Stratford-upon-Avon, 31; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. ii. 430; Sussex Archæological Collections, xiii. 274.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brackenbury, Edward

​BRACKENBURY, Sir EDWARD (1785–1864), lieutenant-colonel, a direct descendant from Sir Robert Brackenbury, lieutenant of the Tower of London in the time of Richard III, was second son of Richard Brackenbury of Aswardby, Lincolnshire, by his wife Janetta, daughter of George Gunn of Edinburgh, and was born in 1785. Having entered the army as an ensign in the 61st regiment in 1803, and become a lieutenant on 8 Dec. in the same year, he served in Sicily, in Calabria, at Scylla Castle and at Gibraltar, 1807-8, and in the Peninsula from 1809 to the end of the war in 1814. At the battle of Salamanca he took a piece of artillery from the enemy, guarded by four soldiers, close to their retiring column, without any near or immediate support, and in many other important engagements conducted himself with distinguished valour. As a reward for his numerous services he received the war medal with nine clasps.
On 22 July 1812 he was promoted to a captaincy, and after the conclusion of the war was attached to the Portuguese and Spanish army from 25 Oct. 1814 to 25 Dec. 1816, when he was placed on half-pay. He served as a major in the 28th foot from 1 Nov. 1827 to 31 Jan. 1828, when he was again placed on half-pay. His foreign services were further recognised by his being made a knight of the Portuguese order of the Tower and Sword in 1824, a knight of the Spanish order of St. Ferdinand, and a commander of the Portuguese order of St. Bento d'Avis.
Brackenbury, who was knighted by the king at Windsor Castle on 26 Aug. 1836, was a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant for the county of Lincoln. He attained to the rank of lieutenant-colonel on 10 Jan. 1837, and ten years afterwards sold out of the army. He died at Skendleby Hall, Lincolnshire, on 1 June 1864.
He was twice married: first, on 9 June 1827, to Maria, daughter of the Rev. Edward Bromhead of Reepham near Lincoln, and, secondly, in March 1847, to Eleanor, daughter of Addison Fenwick of Bishopwearmouth, Durham, and widow of W. Brown Clark of Belford Hall, Northumberland. She died in 1862.
[Gent. Mag. 1864, part ii. 123; Cannon's The Sixty-first Regiment (1837), pp. 24, 31, 67.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davenant, William

​DAVENANT, WILLIAM (d. 1681), translator, was the fourth son of Sir William D'Avenant [q. v.], and younger brother of Charles Davenant [q. v.] He was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he proceeded B.A. 19 July 1677, and M.A. 5 July 1680. He took holy orders on leaving the university, and held a living in Surrey, to which Robert Wymondsold of Putney presented him. He accompanied his patron in the capacity of tutor on a tour in France, and was drowned in the summer of 1681 while swimming in the Seine near Paris. He translated into English from the French of François La Mothe le Vayer ‘Notitia Historicorum Selectorum; or Animadversions upon the famous Greek and Latin Histories,’ Oxford, 1678. Davenant is stated to have added something to his original. He dedicated the book to James, earl of Doncaster, the eldest son of James, duke of Monmouth.
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davenport, Richard Alfred

​DAVENPORT, RICHARD ALFRED (1777?–1852), miscellaneous writer, was born about 1777. We find him engaged in literary work in London at an early age, and here he seems to have spent the whole of a long and exceptionally laborious literary life (Britton, Autobiography, 1849–50, p. 93. Some scattered notices of Davenport will be found in this work). He wrote: ‘New Elegant Extracts,’ 2nd series, Chiswick, 12 vols. 1823–7; ‘The Commonplace Book of Epigrams,’ a collection of which many pieces are original, Edinburgh, 1825; ‘A Dictionary of Biography,’ 1831. To the ‘Family Library’ he contributed a ‘Memoir of the Life of Peter the Great,’ anon., 1832; ‘The Life of Ali Pasha of Tepeleni, Vizier of Epirus, surnamed Aslan or the Lion,’ 1837; ‘The History of the Bastile and of its principal Captives,’ 1838, several times republished; ‘Narratives of Peril and Suffering,’ 2 vols. 1840, new edition, New York, 1846; ‘Lives of Individuals who raised themselves from Poverty to Eminence and Fortune,’ 1841. He edited, with lives, a number of the British poets, the works of Robertson the historian, with life, 1824; Mitford's ‘History of Greece,’ with continuation to the death of Alexander, 1835; Pilkington's ‘General Dictionary of Painters,’ 1852; and some works like Guthrie's ‘Geographical, Historical, and Commercial Grammar,’ and Enfield's ‘Speaker.’ Davenport also wrote large portions of the history, biography, geography, and criticism in Rivington's ‘Annual Register’ for several years, translated many works, and contributed to current literature ‘innumerable articles on biography, poetry, criticism, and other subjects.’ He also composed verses of some merit.
Davenport resided for the last eleven years of his life at Brunswick Cottage, Park Street, Camberwell, a freehold house of which he was the owner. Here he lived in seclusion, working hard and drinking large quantities of laudanum. No one was ever seen to visit him. The house was never cleaned, and all its windows were broken. On Sunday, 25 Jan. 1852, a passing policeman was attracted by some one moaning. He broke into the house and discovered Davenport insensible with a laudanum bottle in his hand. He died before anything could be done for him. The coroner's jury found the rooms ‘literally crammed with books, manuscripts, pictures, ancient coins, and antiques of various descriptions.’ These with the furniture were thickly covered with dust, and all that was perishable had fallen into decay. The verdict was that ‘deceased had died from inadvertently taking an overdose of opium.’
[Gent. Mag. May 1852, p. 525; Morning Post, 29 Jan. 1852, p. 4, col. 4; Globe, 29 Jan. 1852, p. 1, col. 4.]
F. W-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davenport, Samuel

​DAVENPORT, SAMUEL (1783–1867), line engraver, was born at Bedford, 10 Dec. 1783. While he was still an infant, his father, who was an architect and surveyor, removed to London. Here he was in due course articled to Charles Warren, one of the ablest line engravers of the period, under whose tuition he made good progress. His earlier works were book illustrations after the designs of Shenton, Corbould, and others; but subsequently he engraved in outline a large number of portraits for biographical works, and is said by Redgrave to have executed no less than seven hundred for one publication alone. The best examples of his work are the plates which he engraved for the ‘Forget-me-not’ between 1828 and 1842, and which include: ‘The Sister's Dream,’ ‘Fathime and Euphrosyne,’ and ‘The Disappointment,’ after Henry Corbould; ‘The Orphan Family,’ after A. Chisholm; ‘The Frosty Reception’ and ‘Uncle Anthony's Blunder,’ after R. W. Buss; ‘Chains of the Heart,’ after J. Cawse; ‘Cupid caught tripping,’ after J. P. Davis; ‘The Dance of the Peasants,’ in the ‘Winter's Tale,’ after R. T. Bone; ‘Louis XI at Plessis-les-Tours,’ after Baron Wappers; and ‘Count Egmont's Jewels,’ after a drawing by James Holmes, from a sketch by C. R. Leslie. All these were engraved on steel, the use of which he was one of the earliest to adopt, and are very carefully finished. He also engraved a small plate of ‘The Infant St. John the Baptist,’ after Murillo. He died 15 July 1867.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School, 1878; Forget-me-not, 1828–42.]
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/David, Edward

Edward Dafydd (not inverted) in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​DAVID or DAFYDD, EDWARD (d. 1690), of Margam in Glamorganshire, was a Welsh poet of the seventeenth century. According to his own testimony he was a wooer of the muses while yet a lad, and a devoted lover of the poets of his native land. He was an eye-witness of the devastation caused by Cromwell's men in Glamorganshire, and in one of his poems he wields his lash on that subject with great severity. His most important work, however, is in connection with 'Cyfrinach y Beirdd,' an elaborate and learned treatise on the rules of Welsh poetry. This treatise is a compilation embodying the ​work of many hands; the principal contributors were Lewis Morganwg (1540), Meyrig Dafydd (fl. 1560), and Llewelyn Sion of Llangewydd (fl. 1580). It received its final form at the hands of Dafydd, who was commissioned by the bards to prepare a fresh copy for the Bewpyr Eisteddfod, 1681; this he did with large additions and improvements. There were two copies extant in the time of Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg), and both in the handwriting of Dafydd. The work was first sent to press in 1821 by Iolo, but owing to want of type the printer was not able to proceed rapidly, and the book was not published till 1829. Iolo is supposed to have corrected the whole of the proofs, though he died in 1826, and his son Taliesin's preface is dated 9 July 1828. Dafydd's preface has no date, but that of Llewellyn Sion is 1601. A second edition was edited by the Rev. Robert Ellis (Cynddelw), Carnarvon, 1877. Dafydd ‘is said’ to have been admitted a graduate of Gorsedd Morganwg in 1620; he was its president in 1660, and died in 1690.
R. M. J. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davenport, Humphrey

​DAVENPORT, Sir HUMPHREY (1566–1645), judge, third son of William Davenport of Bromhall, Cheshire, by Margaret, daughter of Richard Asheton of Middleton, Lancashire, entered Balliol College, Oxford, in 1581, but left without taking any degree, studied law at Gray's Inn, being called to the bar there on 21 Nov. 1590, and elected reader in Lent 1613. He took the degree of serjeant-at-law on 26 June 1623, and was knighted at Greenwich on 17 June 1624. On the accession of Charles I he became king's serjeant (9 May 1625). In March 1628–9 his advice was sought by the king as to the limits of parliamentary privilege on the eve of the proceedings against Elliot, and ​in the following year he appeared for the crown, with Sir Robert Berkeley [q. v.], to argue the sufficiency of the return to the writ of habeas corpus sued out by Elliot, Selden, and other members of parliament who had been committed to prison at the close of the last parliament without any specific cause assigned in the warrant. His argument is reported at some length in the ‘State Trials.’ In 1630 he was appointed to a puisne judgeship in the common pleas, which in the following year he exchanged for the presidency of the court of exchequer. His tenure in both cases was durante beneplacito, not, as his predecessors' had been, during good behaviour. In 1633 he was placed on the high commission. In the ship-money case (1637) he gave judgment for Hampden upon a technical point, at the same time arguing elaborately in favour of the legality of the impost. For this, and for various illegal acts done on the bench, particularly the committal of one Vassal, M.P., for refusing to pay tonnage and poundage in 1627, and the sequestration of the property of one Maleverer in 1632 for refusing knighthood, he was impeached by the Long parliament in 1641, Hyde (afterwards Lord Clarendon) opening the case against him. He was ordered to give security for his attendance to stand his trial in the sum of 10,000l. The proceedings were, however, allowed to drop. Having joined the king at Oxford he resigned his office, Sir Richard Lane being appointed his successor on 25 Jan. 1644. His patent, however, was not revoked until the following year, in the course of which he died. In 1651 appeared ‘An Abridgement of Lord Coke's Commentary on Littleton, collected by an Unknown Author, yet by a late edition pretended to be Sir Humphrey Davenport's, knight,’ 8vo. Another edition of the same work was issued in the following year with the title ‘Synopsis, or an Exact Abridgement of the Lord Coke's Commentaries upon Littleton, being a Brief Explanation of the grounds of the Common Law, composed by that famous and learned lawyer, Sir Humphrey Davenport, knight,’ 8vo.
J. M. R.