OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Monro, Henry (1791-1814)

​MONRO, HENRY (1791–1814), portrait and subject painter, the son of Dr. Thomas Monro [q. v.], was born 30 Aug. 1791. After two years at Harrow he entered the navy, but quitted it from distaste, after a few days on board the frigate Amelia. His inclinations then wavered between the army and art, but he finally chose the latter, and was admitted a student of the Royal Academy in 1806. Here and at the colour school of the British Institution he studied with great diligence and distinction. In 1811 he exhibited 'A Laughing Boy,' 'Boys at Marbles,' a portrait of his father, and two other portraits, and in the following year a 'Boy Grinding Colours,' a 'Lace-maker,' and four portraits, including one of Thomas Hearne and another of himself. In 1813 he sent a 'Head,' some studies from nature in pen and ink, and 'Othello, Desdemona, and Iago' to the Royal Academy, and 'The Disgrace of Wolsey' to the British Institution; for the latter he was awarded a premium of a hundred guineas. In 1811 he had visited Scotland, and sustained serious injuries by a fall from his horse, and in January 1814 he was seized with a cold, which affected his lungs, and cut short his promising career at the age of twenty-three. A portrait by him of his father (in coloured chalks) is in the College of Physicians. He died on 5 March 1814, and was buried at Bushey, where a monument was erected to his memory.
[Redgrave's Dict.; Bryan's Dict.; Munk's Coll. of Phys. (under 'Dr. Thomas Monro'); Royal Academy Catalogues; Annals of the Fine Arts, 1816, pp. 342-6; Clutterbuck's History of Hertfordshire.]
C. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pudsey, Hugh de

​PUDSEY, HUGH de (1125?–1195), bishop of Durham and earl of Northumberland. [See Puiset.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pugh, Herbert

​PUGH, HERBERT (fl. 1758–1788), landscape-painter, was a native of Ireland, and came to London about 1758. He was a contributor to the first exhibition of the Society of Artists in 1760, sending a ‘Landscape with Cattle.’ In 1765 he gained a premium at the Society of Arts, and in 1766 was a member of the newly incorporated Society of Artists. He continued exhibiting with them up to 1776. He tried his hand at some pictures in the manner of Hogarth, but without success, although some of these pictures were engraved. Pugh lived in the Piazza, Covent Garden. His death, which took place soon after 1788, was hastened by intemperate habits. There is a large landscape by Pugh in the Lock Hospital, and two views of London Bridge by him were contributed to the Century of British Art exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1888, when it was recognised that his work had been unduly neglected.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pugh, Philip

​PUGH, PHILIP (1679–1760), dissenting minister, was born at Hendref, Blaenpenal, Cardiganshire, in 1679, and inherited a good ​estate. He was trained for the independent ministry at the nonconformist college at Brynllŵarch, near Bridgend, Glamorganshire. This college, the earliest institution of the kind in Wales, and the parent of the existing presbyterian college at Carmarthen, was founded by Samuel Jones after he was ejected from the living of Llangynwyd in 1662, and on Jones's death in 1697 was transferred to Abergavenny, whither Pugh accompanied it. He was received as church member at Cilgwyn in 1704, and in October 1709 was ordained co-pastor with David Edwards and Jenkin Jones. His social position as a landed proprietor in the county was improved by his marriage with an heiress of the neighbourhood, while his power as a preacher and his piety gave him widespread influence. He and his colleagues were in charge of six or eight churches, with a united membership of about one thousand. Between 1709 and 1760 he baptised 680 children.
Pugh avoided controversy, but he regarded with abhorrence the Arminian doctrines introduced by Jenkin Jones [q. v.] and the Arian doctrines propagated by David Lloyd (1725–1779). He sympathised, however, with the calvinistic methodist movement under Daniel Rowlands [q. v.] (1713–1790), and induced Rowlands to modify the ferocity of his early manner of preaching. Of the churches with which Pugh was more or less connected, three continue to be congregationalist, three have gone over to the methodists, and three are unitarian.
Pugh died on 12 July 1760, aged 81, and was buried in the parish churchyard of Llanddewi Brevi, where the effigy of one Philip Pugh, probably an ancestor, once figured in the chancel (Meyrick, Cardiganshire, p. 270). His unpublished diary and the Cilgwyn church-book contain much information about the Welsh nonconformity of the period, and have been utilised by Dr. Thomas Rees and other Welsh historians.
R. J. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pugh, Ellis

​PUGH, ELLIS (1656–1718), Welsh quaker, was born in the parish of Dolgelly in June 1656. In 1686 he and his family sailed for the quaker settlement in Pennsylvania. They had a stormy passage, and were detained for six months at Barbados. Pugh paid a visit in 1706 to Wales, returning in 1708 to Philadelphia, where he died on 3 Oct. 1718. In 1721 there was published at Philadelphia a tract by him entitled ‘Annerch i'r Cymry’ (‘Address to the Welsh People’), which was probably the first Welsh book printed in America. He speaks in particular to the ‘craftsmen, labourers, and shepherds, men of low degree, of my own quality,’ and bids them be ‘wiser than their teachers.’ The tract was reprinted in this country in 1782 and 1801 (London); an English translation by Rowland Ellis and David Lloyd appeared at Philadelphia in 1727, and was reprinted at London in 1739.
J. E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Swanley, Richard

​SWANLEY, RICHARD (d. 1650), naval commander, is probably to be identified with the Richard Swanley, a commander in the East India Company's service, who in 1623 went out as master of the Great James with Captain John Weddell [q. v.], and was in her in the four days' fight with the Portuguese near Ormuz, on 1–4 Feb. 1625; but there was another captain of the name in the company's service at the same time, and the identification cannot be ascertained beyond doubt. In the summer of 1642 Swanley commanded the Charles in the Narrow Seas, and took a prominent part in the operations against Chichester, and in the reduction of the Isle of Wight for the parliament. He co-operated with Waller against Portsmouth, and after its fall on 7 Sept. 1642 summoned Southampton. In the fleet of 1643 Swanley commanded the Bonaventure of 34 guns as admiral of the Irish seas, and for good service in capturing the Fellowship of 28 guns in Milford Haven both he and William Smith, the vice-admiral, were granted by the parliament a chain of the value of 200l. In February 1644 he came off Milford Haven in the Leopard, and his squadron landed two hundred men to assist Colonel Laugharne against the royalists; and he was next ordered to cruise against an expected attempt from Brittany (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1 and 15 June 1644). He continued serving throughout the summer, co-operating with the army in Pembrokeshire, and taking care that reinforcements from Ireland should not reach the royalists. One vessel laden with troops he captured, offered the covenant to the English on board, ​and flung the Irish into the sea (Gardiner, Civil War, i. 337). In the following summer he was again afloat, but in August was, on some charges which seemingly could not be sustained, superseded by Robert Moulton. On investigation it was determined to reinstate Richard Swanley, and he was accordingly appointed to the Lion, in which he continued, still on the same station and on similar service, till towards the end of 1647. He was afloat in July, but in November had left the sea, and in the following January was petitioning to have his accounts passed. For the next few years he resided at Limehouse, where he died in September 1650. He was buried in the churchyard of Stepney (Lysons, Environs of London, iii. 434, Suppl. 1811, p. 441). In his will (in Somerset House: Pembroke 149), dated 28 May 1649, and proved on 11 Sept. 1650, he mentions his wife Elizabeth, a daughter Mary, and two sons John and Richard, the latter of whom may probably be identified with the Richard Swanley bound apprentice to the East India Company in December 1633, who served afterwards in the navy, and was master of the Revenge in 1669.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Swainson, William (1809-1883)

​SWAINSON, WILLIAM (1809–1883), first attorney-general of New Zealand, born in Lancaster on 25 April 1809, was the eldest son of William Swainson, merchant. He was educated at Lancaster grammar school, and, entering at the Inner Temple in 1835, was called to the bar in June 1838. He practised as a conveyancer, and rarely attended the Lancaster sessions.
In 1841 Swainson was appointed attorney-general of New Zealand, partly on the recommendation of his friend (Sir) William Martin (1807–1880) [q. v.], who had just become chief justice. During the voyage out he assisted Martin to draft the measures required to set the new legal machinery in motion. He brought out with him the framework of the house in which he took up his residence at Taurarua, Judge's Bay. The legislation which he carried through the council between December 1841 and April 1842 was comprehensive, lucid, and compact. In 1842 he advised the governor, Willoughby Shortland [q. v.], that in his opinion the jurisdiction of the British crown did not ipso facto extend to the Maoris. This opinion drew a severe rebuke from Earl Grey.
In 1854, on the introduction of an elective ​constitution, Swainson became the first speaker of the legislative council, encountering rather a stormy political period. In 1855 he paid a visit to England, and took several opportunities of lecturing on the attractions of New Zealand in London, Bristol, Lancaster, and elsewhere. In May 1856, when responsible government was demanded, he relinquished the office of attorney-general; and, though he became a member of the new legislative council, he was no longer active in politics. He devoted much of his energy to the furtherance of Bishop Selwyn's work in the foundation of the church in New Zealand [see Selwyn, George Augustus]; he was a member of the conference of June 1857 and of the first general synod, taking a large share in framing the organic measures introduced to the synod. He was also chancellor of the diocese of Auckland. He had been from the first a great friend to the Maoris, learning to know them by long expeditions on foot through the bush. He opposed the war of 1862 as impolitic.
After 1866 Swainson lived in comparative retirement, though his keen interest in the colony's welfare gave him much public influence; he was a member without portfolio of Sir George Grey's ministry from April to July 1879. Swainson died unmarried at Taurarua on 1 Dec. 1883, and was buried in the cemetery at that place. Estimates of Swainson's character and influence in New Zealand vary greatly; Rusden praises him highly, while Gisborne as strongly condemns him, more particularly as a politician.
Swainson wrote the following works on New Zealand: 1. ‘Observations on the Climate of New Zealand,’ London, 1840. 2. ‘Auckland, the Capital of New Zealand and the Country adjacent,’ London, 1854. 3. ‘Lectures on New Zealand,’ London, 1856. 4. ‘New Zealand and its Colonisation,’ London, 1859. 5. ‘New Zealand and the War,’ London, 1862.
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sweetman, John

​SWEETMAN, JOHN (1752–1826), United Irishman, was born of Roman catholic parents in Dublin in 1752. The family had for more than a century conducted in that city an extensive brewery, to which Sweetman succeeded on the death of his father. He became identified with the movement for the removal of the civil and religious disabilities of the catholics, and was one of the chief supporters of the vigorous policy initiated by John Keogh (1740–1817) [q. v.] in 1791, which led to the secession of most of the catholic gentry. He was also a delegate at the catholic convention which assembled in Dublin on 3 Dec. 1792. In the same year a secret committee of the House of Lords accused certain ‘ill-disposed members’ of the Roman catholic church of contributing money in support of the ‘defenders,’ a secret agrarian society. They founded this assertion upon the discovery of a letter by Sweetman, enclosing money to defend a peasant accused of ‘defenderism.’ Sweetman immediately published ‘A Refutation,’ in which he denied the accusation, and stated that he had offered assistance because he believed the man to be innocent. He described himself ​as ‘Secretary to the sub-committee of the Catholics of Ireland.’
Sweetman was an active United Irishman. He was a member of the Leinster directory of the revolutionary organisation, and some of the most important meetings of its executive committee took place at his brewery in Francis Street, Dublin. He was arrested with other leaders of the movement on 12 March 1798. Seeing that all hope of a successful insurrection was over, they entered into a compact with the government, by which, in consideration of a promise of the suspension of the executions of United Irishmen, they made a full disclosure of their objects and plans, without implicating individuals, before committees of the lords and commons. Sweetman was one of the group sent to Fort George in Scotland early in 1799. In June 1802 they were deported to Holland and set at liberty. After eighteen years of exile Sweetman was permitted to return to Ireland in 1820. He died in May 1826, and was buried at Swords, outside Dublin. He married, in 1784, Mary Atkinson, the daughter of a Dublin brewer.
Sweetman was one of the few catholics of position who belonged to the organisation of United Irishmen as a revolutionary conspiracy. Of the twenty leaders consigned to Fort George, ten were episcopalians, six were presbyterians, and only four (including Sweetman) were catholics. Wolfe Tone, writing in his journal in France under date 1 March 1798, on hearing a rumour of Sweetman's death, said: ‘If ever an exertion was to be made for our emancipation, he would have been in the very foremost rank. I had counted upon his military talents.’
M. MacD.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Swan, William

​SWAN, WILLIAM (1818–1894), professor of natural philosophy at St. Andrews, son of David Swan, engineer, and his wife, Janet Smith, was born in Edinburgh on 13 March 1818. His father having died in 1821, Swan became his mother's chief care. Carlyle, in quest of lodgings, found them in Mrs. Swan's house ‘at the north-east angle’ of Edinburgh, and admired her ‘fortitude and humble patience’ (Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, ii. 7, ed. Norton). After school and college education in Edinburgh, Swan became a science tutor, and during 1850–2 was mathematical master in the free church normal school, Edinburgh. In 1855–9 he taught mathematics, natural philosophy, and navigation in the Scottish Naval and Military Academy, Edinburgh. In 1859 he was appointed professor of natural philosophy at St. Andrews, retiring in 1880 owing to failing health. Besides being a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Swan received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Edinburgh University in 1869, and from St. Andrews in 1886. He died at Shandon, Dumbartonshire, on 1 March 1894. On 1 June 1859 Swan married Georgina (d. 1882), daughter of John Cullen, a Glasgow manufacturer. There was no family.
Between 1843 and 1871 Swan contributed a score of papers on various subjects in physics—those on optics being specially important—to periodicals and the ‘Transactions’ of learned societies. Of these, two on the ‘Phenomena of Vision’ appeared in the Edinburgh Royal Society's ‘Transactions’ in 1849 and 1861; one in the ‘Transactions’ of the same society for 1856 described the ‘Prismatic Spectra of the Flames of Compounds of Carbon and Hydrogen;’ and one ‘On New Forms of Lighthouse Apparatus’ was contributed to the Edinburgh ‘Transactions’ of the Scottish Society of Arts. For the eighth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ Swan wrote the article ‘Mensuration.’ In ‘Nature’ (vol. iv.) he wrote on ‘Pendulum Autographs,’ and in vol. vii. he described the great meteoric shower of 27 Nov. 1872.
[Private information; J. L. Galbraith's Emeritus Professor; personal knowledge.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sweet, Robert

​SWEET, ROBERT (1783–1835), horticulturist, the son of William Sweet and his wife Mary, was born in 1783 at Cockington, near Torquay, Devonshire. When sixteen years old he was placed under his half-brother, James Sweet, at that time gardener to Richard Bright of Ham Green, near Bristol, with whom he remained nine years. He subsequently had charge of the collection of plants at Woodlands, the residence of John Julius Angerstein [q. v.]
In 1810 Sweet entered as a partner in the Stockwell nursery, and when that was dissolved in 1815, became foreman to Messrs. Whitley, Brames, & Milne, nurserymen, of Fulham, till 1819, when he entered the service of Messrs. Colvill. While in their employ he was charged with having received a box of plants knowing them to have been stolen from the royal gardens, Kew, but was acquitted after trial at the Old Bailey on 24 Feb. 1824. In 1826 he left the Colvills, and till 1831 occupied himself almost wholly in the production of botanical works, while still cultivating a limited number of plants in his garden at Parson's Green, Fulham. In 1830 he moved to Chelsea, where he had a larger garden and cultivated for sale to his friends.
In June 1831 his brain gave way. He died on 20 Jan. 1835, leaving a widow but no family. He had been elected a fellow of the Linnean Society on 14 Feb. 1812. The botanical genus Sweetia was named in his honour by De Candolle in 1825.
Sweet was author of: 1. ‘Hortus Suburbanus Londinensis,’ 8vo, London, 1818. 2. ‘Geraniaceæ,’ 5 vols. 8vo, London, 1820–1830. 3. ‘The Botanical Cultivator,’ 8vo, London, 1821; 2nd edit. entitled ‘The Hothouse and Greenhouse Manual,’ 12mo, 1825; 5th edit., 8vo, 1831. 4. ‘The British Warblers,’ 8vo, London, 1823. 5. ‘The British Flower Garden,’ 8vo, London, 1823–9; 2nd series, 1831–8. 6. ‘Cistineæ,’ 8vo, London, 1825–30. 7. ‘Sweet's Hortus Britannicus,’ 4to, London (1826)–7; 2nd edit. 1830; 3rd edit. 1839. 8. ‘Flora Australasica,’ 8vo, London, 1827–8; the original drawings for which, by E. D. Smith, are in the botanical department of the Natural History Museum. 9. ‘The Florist's Guide and Cultivator's Directory,’ 2 vols. 4to, London, 1827–32. 10. In conjunction with H. Weddell, ‘British Botany,’ No. 1, 4to, London, 1831.
B. B. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Narbonne, Peter Remi

Pierre-Rémi Narbonne in the ODNB.
​NARBONNE, PETER REMI (1806–1839), Canadian insurgent, was born in 1806 at St. Remi in Lower Canada, of an old French Canadian family. He took an active part in the events preceding the Lower Canadian rebellion of 1837, and was among the insurgents defeated at St. Charles on 23 Nov. 1837, but managed to escape to American soil. He now entered a band of insurgents collected together by Louis Gagnon, with whom he recrossed the frontier, but was defeated and driven back by the loyalists at Moore's Corner on 28 Feb. 1838. He then joined another body of insurgents, and with them made a fresh attack on Canada in March 1838. He was taken prisoner at St. Eustache, nineteen miles from Montreal, and brought a captive to St. Jean.
Narbonne was released from prison in July, but immediately joined the fresh rebel army organised across the frontier by Robert Nelson in the autumn of 1838. He took part in a number of raids on the Canadian territory, the chief of which was checked by the loyalists at Odeltown Church on 9 Nov. 1838. Narbonne was captured after the latter defeat, and taken to Montreal. He was tried there for high treason, convicted, and hanged on 15 Feb. 1839.
G. P. M-y.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Napier, Thomas Erskine

​NAPIER, Sir THOMAS ERSKINE (1790–1863), general, second son by his second wife of Captain Charles Napier of Merchiston, Stirlingshire, and brother of Admiral Sir Charles Napier [q. v.], was born on 10 May 1790. On 3 July 1805 he was appointed ensign in the 52nd light infantry, and on 1 May 1806 he became lieutenant. He served with the 52nd at Copenhagen in 1807; was aide-de-camp to Sir John Hope [see Hope, John, fourth Earl of Hopetoun] in the expedition to Sweden in 1808, and afterwards served at Coruña and in Portugal. On 27 Oct. 1809 he was promoted to be captain in the Chasseurs Britanniques, a corps of foreigners in British pay, with which he served in Sicily, at Fuentes d'Onoro, at the defence of Cadiz, and in Spain in 1812–13. When Sir John Hope joined the Peninsular army in 1813, Napier resumed his position of aide-de-camp; in the great battles on the Nive he was slightly wounded on 10 Dec. 1813, ​and he lost his left arm on the following day. The Chasseurs Britanniques were disbanded at the peace of 1814, and Napier was placed on half-pay. He received a brevet majority 26 Dec. 1813, and became brevet lieutenant-colonel 21 June 1817, and colonel 16 Jan. 1837. He was for some years assistant adjutant-general at Belfast. He became a major-general in 1846, and was general officer commanding the troops in Scotland and governor of Edinburgh Castle from May 1852 until his promotion to lieutenant-general 20 June 1854. He became a full general 20 Sept. 1861. He was appointed colonel 16th foot in 1854, and transferred to the 71st highland light infantry on the death of Sir James Macdonell [q. v.] in 1857. He was made a C.B. in 1838, K.C.B. in 1860, and had the Peninsular silver medal, with clasps for Corunna, Fuentes d'Onoro, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrénées, Nivelle, and Nive.
Napier married Margaret, daughter and coheiress of Mr. Falconer of Woodcot, Oxfordshire, and by her had one daughter, who, with her mother, predeceased him. He died at Polton House, Lasswade, near Edinburgh, 5 July 1863, aged 73.
[Burke's and Foster's Peerages, under ‘Napier of Merchistoun;’ Hart's Army Lists; Gent. Mag. 1863, pt. ii. p. 240. Incidental notices of Napier will be found in the Life and Correspondence of Admiral Sir Charles Napier, London, 1862, and in the published letters of his cousins, Charles James, George Thomas, and William F. P. Napier.]
H. M. C.