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

1904 Errata appended.
​HOWES, EDWARD (fl. 1650), mathematician, was studying law in 1632 at the Inner Temple, and appears afterwards to have entered holy orders. In 1644 he was a master in the 'Ratcliffe Free School,' London, and in 1659 is 'called rector of Goldancher [i.e. Goldanger] in Essex.' Howes was the intimate friend and frequent correspondent of John Winthrop [q. v.], governor of Massachusetts. In 1632, writing from the Inner Temple, he sent Winthrop a tract which he had printed to show that the north-west passage to the Pacific was probably 'not in the 60° or 70° of N. latitude, but rather about 40th.' 'I am verilie perswaded of that, there is either a strait as our narrow seas, or a Mediterranean sea west from you.' The tract is called 'Of the Circumference of the Earth, or a Treatise of the North Weast Passage,' London, 1623.
On 25 Aug. 1635 Howes wrote to Winthrop, 'I think I shall help you to one of the magneticall engines which you and I have discoursed of that will sympathize at a distance,' a possible foreshadowing of the modern telegraph; and in 1640, 'as for the magneticall instrument it is alsoe sympatheticall.' In 1644 Howes speaks of possibly establishing a school in Boston, and in various letters refers to the wish of many religious people to go to the plantations.
In 1659 Howes published `A Short Arithmetick, or the Old and Tedious way of Numbers reduced to a New and Briefe Method, whereby a mean Capacity may easily attain competent Skill and Facility.' It is well arranged for practical instruction. At the end of his address to the reader Howes speaks of 'having also the theoreticall part finished and ready to be published, if desired.' No other part seems to have been issued.
[Massachusetts Hist. Soc. Collections, 3rd ser. vol. ix. 4th ser. vi. 467, &c.; Life and Letters of John Winthrop, p. 20.]
R. E. A.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.162 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Howes, Thomas

​HOWES, THOMAS (1729–1814), divine. [See under Howes, Francis]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Falconer, William (1801-1885)

​FALCONER, WILLIAM (1801–1885), translator of ‘Strabo,’ eldest son of the Rev. Thomas Falconer, M.D. (1772–1839) [q. v.], by Frances, only child of Lieutenant-colonel Robert Raitt, was born at Corston, Somersetshire, on 27 Dec. 1801, and baptised there on 21 July 1802. On 10 Dec. 1819 he matriculated from Oriel College, Oxford, and having taken a third class in classics and a first class in mathematics graduated B.A. in 1823, and proceeded M.A. in 1827. He was elected a Petrean fellow of Exeter College on 30 June in that year, and was mathematical examiner in the university in 1832–3, and again in 1836–8. In 1839 he opened the Petrean fellowships at Exeter College to natives of Cheshire by conveying a small incorporeal hereditament to Lord Petre for that purpose. His college presented him, 26 Jan. 1839, to the rectory of Bushey, Hertfordshire, where the tithes had been commuted at 765l. exclusive of glebe and tithe of glebe. He died at Bushey rectory 9 Feb. 1885. He married in 1840 Isabella, daughter of J. Robinson, and widow of W. S. Douglas; she died at St. Alessi, near Pistoja, 7 Feb. 1869. Falconer is known as one of the translators of ‘The Geography of Strabo,’ literally translated, with notes. The first six books by H. C. Hamilton, and the remainder by W. Falconer, with a complete index, appeared in ‘Bohn's Classical Library,’ 1854–6–7, three volumes. The text of ‘Strabo’ had been edited in 1807 by his father, and Thomas Falconer, M.D. [q. v.], had also prepared a translation the manuscript of which was used by his son.
[Falconer's Bibliography of the Falconer Family, 1866, pp. 17, 31; Boase's Register of Exeter College, p. 126; Times, 19 Feb. 1885, p. 7.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Falconer, Randle Wilbraham

​FALCONER, RANDLE WILBRAHAM (1816–1881), medical writer, fourth son of Thomas Falconer, M.D. (1772–1839) [q. v.], born in 1816, was for many years one of the leading physicians of Bath, where his grandfather, William Falconer, M.D. (1744–1824) [q. v.], had also practised. He began the study of medicine at Edinburgh in 1835, and graduated there in 1839. At first he settled at Tenby, but in 1847 he moved to Bath, where he continued to practise till his death. He was a man of varied knowledge and accomplishments, fond of archæology and botany, and so much esteemed by his fellow-citizens that they elected him mayor in 1857. In addition to his Edinburgh doctorate, he held the honorary title of doctor from the Queen's University, Ireland, 1879, and that of fellow from the King and Queen's College, Dublin, and was a fellow of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of London. In 1878, when the British Medical Association met at Bath, he was elected president. He died 6 May 1881. As physician to the Bath General or Mineral Water Hospital he bestowed much attention on the curative virtues of the baths, and his work on ‘The Baths and Mineral Waters’ reached a fifth edition in 1871. Other publications were the following: ‘Reports of Cures at the Bath General Hospital,’ 1860; ‘The Bath Mineral Waters,’ &c., 1861; and in the same year he contributed cases to the ‘British Medical Journal.’
[Address of the President of the Med.-Chir. Soc.; Medical Directory.]
J. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Falconer, Thomas (1738-1792)

​FALCONER, THOMAS (1738–1792), classical scholar, son of William Falconer, recorder of Chester, by Elizabeth, daughter of Randle Wilbraham de Townsend, resided for some time at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he matriculated 12 March 1754, but left without taking a degree, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 20 June 1760. Being precluded by chronic ill-health from practising at the bar, he lived a life of studious retirement at Chester. He took much interest in antiquities, and in his way was a patron of literature, so that he was called (by Miss Seward) the Mæcenas of Chester. It was to him that in 1771 Foote Gower addressed his lengthy letter entitled ‘A Sketch of the Materials for a New History of Cheshire.’ He was a friend of John Reinhold Forster, who dedicated to him his translation of Baron Riedesel's ‘Travels through Sicily, and that part of Italy formerly called Magna Græcia,’ London, 1773, 8vo. He died on 4 Sept. 1792, and was buried in St. Michael's Church, Chester. A monument with a laudatory inscription in St. John's Church, Chester, perpetuates his memory. He never married. Falconer published ‘Devotions for the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, by a Layman,’ London, 1786; 2nd ed. 1798, 8vo. He read in 1791 before the Society of Antiquaries a paper in vindication of the accuracy of Pliny's description of the temple of Diana at Ephesus, which was published in 1794 under the title ‘Observations on Pliny's account of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus,’ in ‘Archæologia,’ xi. 1–21. A work by him entitled ‘Chronological Tables, beginning with the Reign of Solomon and ending with the Death of Alexander the Great,’ appeared at Oxford in 1796, 4to. He also left materials for an edition of Strabo, which formed the basis of the edition brought out in 1807 by his nephew, the Rev. Thomas Falconer, M.D. [q. v.] He was also the author of an ‘Ode to Sleep,’ the date of publication of which is uncertain.
[Thomas Falconer's Bibliography of the Writings of the Falconer Family, with biographical notices; Ormerod's Cheshire, i. 321; Letters of Anna Seward, iii. 167.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Falconer, John (fl.1547)

​FALCONER, JOHN (fl. 1547), merchant, appears to have been the first Englishman who possessed a series of dried plants, a method of study first practised by Luca Ghini of Bologna, who also was the earliest public teacher of botany in Europe, and the originator of botanical gardens. From the few scattered records preserved we learn that he travelled on the continent, and from 1540 or 1541 to 1547 he was living at Ferrara, which he left in the last-named year. He was a fellow-pupil of William Turner, the father of English botany, at Bologna, and is mentioned in Turner's ‘Herbal’ several times with great respect on account of his attainments. ‘Maister Falkonner's Boke’ is the earliest mention we have of an herbarium, the indispensable adjunct of the scientific and accurate knowledge of plants.
B. D. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Falconet, Peter

​FALCONET, PETER [PIERRE ETIENNE] (1741–1791), portrait-painter, born in Paris in 1741, was son of Etienne Maurice Falconet, the eminent sculptor of the famous statue of Peter the Great at St. Petersburg. His first studies were probably in the French Academy, but his father, who was on terms of personal friendship with Sir Joshua Reynolds, sent his son to England to work under that painter's direction. He came to London about 1766, in which year he obtained a premium of twenty guineas for a painting in chiaroscuro; in 1768 he gained another of twenty-six guineas for an historical composition. He was a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, and contributed to their exhibitions from 1767 to 1773, and occasionally to the Royal Academy, mostly portraits. Falconet is best known in England by a set of portraits of eminent artists, drawn in profile in blacklead, with a slight tint of colour on the cheeks; these were engraved in the dotted manner by D. P. Pariset, and also by B. Reading. They comprise portraits of Sir William Chambers, Francis Cotes, Joshua Kirby, Francis Hayman, Jeremiah Meyer, Ozias Humphry, George Stubbs, Benjamin West, James Paine, the architect, W. W. Ryland, Paul Sandby, Sir Joshua Reynolds (the likeness is attested by Northcote), and others. Many of his other portraits were engraved, among them being Horace Walpole, the Rev. James Granger (frontispiece to his ‘Biographical History’), Viscount Nuneham, the Earl and Countess of Marchmont and their son, Lord Polwarth, Hugh, duke of Northumberland, Christian VII of Denmark, all engraved by D. P. Pariset; Elizabeth, countess of Harcourt, Elizabeth, countess of Ancrum, Mrs. Green and her son, and others engraved in mezzotint by Valentine Green; others were engraved by Hibbert, J. Watson, Dixon, Gabriel Smith, and J. F. Bause. There is a small engraving, from a design by Falconet, representing the interior of his father's studio. He also ​engraved himself some designs of F. Boucher. Some time after 1773 Falconet returned to France, and married Marie Anne Collot, his father's assistant, and herself a sculptor of some eminence. He continued to practise painting, and died in 1791. His daughter, Madame Jankowitz, bequeathed a collection of his works to the Museum at Nancy, comprising portraits of himself and family, pictures, drawings, &c., besides some plaster busts by his wife, including one of Falconet himself. Two of the portraits mentioned above, viz. those of Sir W. Chambers and Paul Sandby, are among the drawings in the print room at the British Museum. He decorated a Chinese temple for Lady de Grey at Wrest in Bedfordshire.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hawkins, John (fl.1635)

​HAWKINS, JOHN, M.D. (fl. 1635), translator and grammarian, was younger brother of Sir Thomas Hawkins (d. 1640) [q. v.], and of Henry Hawkins the jesuit [q. v.] He probably took his degree of M.D. at Padua. He was a staunch catholic, and appears in Gee's list of ‘Popish ​Physicians in and about the City of London’ in 1624 as residing in Charterhouse Court. He married Frances, daughter of Francis Power, esq., of Bletchington, Oxfordshire. Besides his son Francis [q. v.], the jesuit, he had probably another son, from whom descend the family of Hawkins of Tredunnock, Monmouthshire.
He published: 1. ‘A brief Introduction to Syntax, collected out of Nebrissa. … With the Concordance supplyed by J. H.,’ London, 1631, 8vo. 2. ‘Discursus de Melancholia Hypochondriaca,’ Heidelberg, 1633, 4to. 3. ‘The Ransome of Time being captive. Wherein is declared how precious a thing is Time,’ London, 1634, 8vo, written in Spanish by Andreas de Soto, and translated by J. H. 4. ‘Particulæ Latinæ Orationis, collectæ, dispositæ, et confabulationibus digestæ,’ London, 1635, 8vo. 5. ‘Paraphrase upon the seaven Penitential Psalms,’ London, 1635, 8vo, translated from the Italian by J. H.
[Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 523; Foley's Records, iv. 700.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hawkins, George

​HAWKINS, GEORGE (1809–1852), lithographic artist, born in 1809, was the son of George Hawkins. He began as an architectural draughtsman, but subsequently turned his attention to lithography, in which he was very successful. His pencil was peculiarly correct and delicate, and his knowledge of effect enabled him to produce pictures out of the most unpromising materials. For a long period he worked chiefly for Messrs. Day, the lithographic printers. One of his most important undertakings was a series of the ‘Monastic Ruins of Yorkshire,’ from sketches made by W. Richardson, and with historical descriptions by E. Churton, 2 vols. fol. York, 1844–56. He was frequently employed by architects in colouring their designs for various edifices, many of which were exhibited in the architectural room of the Royal Academy. Hawkins died at Camden Road Villas, Camden Town, on 6 Nov. 1852.
[Gent. Mag. 1852, pt. ii. p. 655; Art Journal, 1852, p. 375.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hawkins, James

​HAWKINS, JAMES (1662–1729), organist and composer, was a chorister of St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated Mus.Bac. in 1719. In the same year he dedicated his anthem, ‘Behold, O God, our Defender’ (a manuscript in the library of the Royal College of Music), ‘to the Very Rev. Mr. Tomkinson, and the rest of the great, good, and just nonjurors of St. John's.’ Hawkins succeeded John Ferrabosco [see under Ferrabosco, Alfonso, d. 1661] as organist of Ely Cathedral in 1682. He remained at Ely forty-six years. During that period he carefully arranged in volumes what fragments remained of the old manuscript choir books of the cathedral, many of which had been destroyed and many mutilated in the great rebellion. With these he bound up in manuscript seventeen services and seventy-five anthems of his own composition. Some doggerel lines by Hawkins in praise of Handel, inscribed on one of two copies of that master's ‘Jubilate’ (and quoted by Dickson), illustrate the ‘cheerfulness’ recorded in Hawkins's epitaph. He died on 18 Oct. 1729, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, and was buried ‘among many of his relations’ in the cathedral. Under the same black marble was laid (1732) Mary, his wife, ‘the tender mother of ten children.’
Vol. vii. of the music manuscripts in the Ely Cathedral library is lettered ‘Mr. Hawkins' Church Musick.’ It contains 532 pages of his compositions. These pieces, with others bound up in various volumes in the same library, comprise: ‘Services in A’ (two: one in Tudway's Collection); A minor (full score); B minor; B minor (chanting); B flat; C; C minor (chanting, founded on a chant ascribed to Croft, and generally sung in B minor); D (chanting); E minor (two); E flat (two); G (part of it in Tudway's Collection); F minor; ‘Burial Service;’ ‘Gloria in excelsis.’ Of Hawkins's seventy-five anthems, sketches, and fragments, nine are in the collection of Tudway, who was in correspondence with Hawkins (Harl. MSS. 7341–2).
His son, James Hawkins the younger, was organist of Peterborough Cathedral from 1714 to 1750. Manuscript copies of an anthem by him, ‘O praise the Lord,’ are preserved both in Tudway's Collection and at Ely.
[ickson's Cat. of Ancient Music in Ely Cathedral; Bentham's Hist. of Ely Cathedral, App. p. 50; Husk's Cat. of Music of the Sacred Harmonic Society; Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 699; Grad. Cant. p. 223.]
L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hawkins, John (1758?-1841)

​HAWKINS, JOHN (1758?–1841), miscellaneous writer, born about 1758, was the youngest son of Thomas Hawkins of Trewinnard, S. Erth, Cornwall, and M.P. for Grampound, by Anne, daughter of James Heywood of London. Hawkins was a man of considerable means, and devoted his long life to the study of literature, science, and art. He travelled in Greece and the East, and wrote dissertations ‘On the Syrinx of Strabo and the Passage of the Euripus,’ ‘On the site of Dodona,’ &c., which are printed in Walpole's ‘Memoirs of European and Asiatic Turkey’ (1818), and Walpole's ‘Travels in various Countries of the East.’
In 1806 Hawkins purchased Bignor Park, Sussex, the residence of the poetess Charlotte Smith. He rebuilt the house (1826–30), and collected a great number of valuable paintings, drawings, and antiquities.
Hawkins, who was a fellow of the Royal Society, wrote a number of papers on scientific subjects, most of them connected with the geology of Cornwall (a full list is given in Boase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis, i. 222, 223, iii. 1224). In 1826 he served the office of sheriff of Sussex. He died on 4 July 1841 at his seat, Trewithan, Cornwall. He married Hester, daughter of Humphrey Sibthorpe, M.P. for Lincoln, and had four sons and two daughters. The eldest, John Heywood, was M.P. for Newport, Isle of Wight, from 1833 to 1841.
F. W-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hawkins, John Sidney

​HAWKINS, JOHN SIDNEY (1758–1842), antiquary, born in 1758, was the eldest son of Sir John Hawkins [q. v.], author of the ‘History of Music.’ While living in Westminster he often accompanied his father ​to the abbey to hear the music and study the architecture. One of his earliest literary efforts were some essays on plates from subjects in Westminster Abbey, published in 1782–3 in Carter's ‘Antient Sculpture and Painting.’ The extent and value of his assistance was afterwards a matter of dispute between him and Carter (Gent. Mag. 1814, i. 133, 144, ii. 114). On the discovery of the paintings on the walls of the House of Commons in 1800, Hawkins undertook to write an account of them to accompany the drawings made by J. T. Smith. A misunderstanding arose, and Smith completed and published the work himself in 1807 as ‘Antiquities of Westminster.’ Hawkins published ‘A Correct Statement’ of his share of the work, London, 1807, 8vo, and Smith issued ‘A Reply,’ London, 1808, 8vo. During 1814 he engaged in a dispute with Isaac D'Israeli in vindication of his father, but seems to have got the worst of it (Gent. Mag. 1814, i. 551, ii. 12). Hawkins died on 12 Aug. 1842, in his eighty-fifth year, at Lower Grove, Brompton, where he had long resided. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. His library was sold in 1843. He is described (Gent. Mag.) as a learned antiquary, whose ‘talents were overshadowed by a sour and jealous temper.’
Hawkins also published: 1. An edition of Ruggle's ‘Ignoramus,’ with notes, &c., London, 1787, 8vo, on which he had worked for nearly ten years (Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, ix. 35). 2. ‘Walton's Complete Angler,’ 1797, 12mo, 1808, 8vo (a reproduction of Sir J. Hawkins's edition). 3. ‘L. Da Vinci's Treatise on Painting’ (Rigaud's translation), with a life, 1802, 8vo. 4. ‘A History of the Origin and Establishment of Gothic Architecture,’ London, 1813, 8vo, which was severely handled by John Carter (1748–1817) [q. v.] in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (for Carter's letters see Gent. Mag. 1813 ii. 321, 1814 i. 9, 114, 133, 329, ii. 313, 1815 ii. 305. Hawkins, who does not seem to have studied architecture thoroughly, replied in the same periodical (1814, i. 5, 242, 348, 456). 5. ‘An Inquiry into … Greek and Latin Poetry’ (especially dramatic), London, 1817, 8vo. 6. ‘An Inquiry into the nature … of Thorough Bass on a new plan,’ London [1817], 8vo.
[Gent. Mag. new ser. 1842, xviii. 662–4.]
W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bearcroft, Philip

​BEARCROFT, PHILIP, D.D. (1697–1761), antiquary, descended from an ancient Worcestershire family, was born at Worcester on 1 May 1697 (Susannah Bearcroft's preface to Relics of Philip Bearcroft). He was educated at the Charterhouse, of which he was elected a scholar on the nomination of Lord Somers in July 1710. On 17 Dec. 1712 he matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. In 1716 he took his B.A. degree, in 1717 he became probationary, and in 1719 actual, fellow of Merton College, taking his M.A. degree in the same year. He was ordained deacon in 1718 at Bristol, and priest in 1719 at Gloucester. He accumulated the degrees of B.D. and D.D. in 1730. He was appointed preacher to the Charterhouse in ​1724, chaplain to the king in 1738, secretary to the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts in 1739, rector of Stormonth, Kent, in 1743, and master of the Charterhouse on 18 Dec. 1753. In 1755 he was collated to a prebendal stall in Wells Cathedral.
Bearcroft published 'An Historical Account of Thomas Sutton, Esquire, and of his foundation of the Charterhouse' (London, 1737). He also intended to publish a collection of the rules and orders of the Charterhouse, but was prevented by the governors, some extracts only being printed in a quarto pamphlet and distributed among the officers of the house (Gough, British Topography, i. 691). From his account of Sutton, Smythe's historical account of the Charterhouse was largely derived. In Nichols's 'Bowyer' Bearcroft is spoken of as 'a worthy man, but with no great talents for writing.' Some of his sermons were published both before and after his death. He died on 17 Oct. 1761.
[Gent. Mag. xxxi. 538; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 650; Le Neve's Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, ii. 202. In the Rawlinson MSS. fol. 16152 (Bodleian Libr.), where a brief account appears, the date of birth is given as 21 Feb. 1695.]
A. G-n.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bean

​BEAN or BEYN, Saint (fl. 1011), was, according to Fordun (Scotichron. iv. 44), appointed first bishop of Murthlach by Malclom II, at the instance of Pope Benedict VIII. This statement is confirmed by what professes to be a fragment of the charter of Malcolm II (1003-1029?), preserved in the register of the diocese of Aberdeen (Registrum Aberdonense, i. 3), but the genuineness of the document is called in question by ProfessorInnes in his preface to the publication (p.xvi) as contradicting an older record, printed in the preface (p. xvii), which gives the date of the foundation of the see as 1063. In any case there is no doubt that Bean, or Beyn, was the first bishop of the see. Dr. Reeves (Martyrology of Donegal, p. 337) identifies St. Bean with the Irish Mophiog, the day of both (16 Dec.) being the same. In Molanus's additions to Usuardus, St. Bean is distinctly referred to as a native of Ireland: 'In Hybernia natalis Beani primi episcopi Aberdonensis et confessoris' (Martyrologium, sub die). According to Camerarius he administered the affairs of his diocese for two-and-thirty years. He is not to be confounded with the St. Bean whose day is 16 Oct., and who was venerated at Fowlis in Strathearn.
[Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis (Maitland Club, 1845); Collections for Aberdeen (Spalding Club, 1843), i. 123, 141, 142, 649, ii. 253, 254, 258; Brittania Sancta, p. 319; Usuardus's Martyrologium; Reeves and Todd's Martyrology of Donegal, 337-9; Camerarius's De Scot. Port. p. 202; Forbes's Kalendars of Scottish Saints, 377.]