OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/St. John, John

​ST. JOHN, JOHN (1746–1793), author, born in 1746, was third son of John, second viscount St. John, by Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Furness of Waldershare, Kent. He was nephew of the first viscount Bolingbroke and brother of the second. He matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, on 13 Dec. 1763, but did not graduate. Both John and his brothers Frederic, second viscount Bolingbroke, and Henry (afterwards a general, but in early life known as the ‘baptist’) were known as young men to George Selwyn. Selwyn spoke well of John's abilities in 1766, but described ‘the personal accomplishments of the most refined Macaroni’ as the limits of his ambition. In 1770 he was called to the bar from the Middle Temple. He represented Newport (Isle of Wight) in the House of Commons from 1773 to 1774, and again from 1780 to 1784, and in the intervening parliament sat for Eye. From 1775 to 1784 he held the office of surveyor-general of the land revenues of the crown. In 1787 he published ‘Observations on the Land Revenue of the Crown,’ 4to; octavo editions were issued in 1790 and 1792. In 1791 he assailed Paine's ‘Rights of Man’ in a vigorous pamphlet, addressed to a whig friend (‘Letter from a Magistrate to Mr. Will. Rose of Whitehall’). He was also the author of ‘Mary Queen of Scots,’ a tragedy in five acts, produced at Drury Lane on 20 March 1789, and acted nine times. Mrs. Siddons took the title rôle and Kemble the part of Norfolk. Genest thought some of Norfolk's speeches good, but the rest of the play dull. The published tragedy reached a third edition within the year, and was reprinted in Mrs. Inchbald's ‘Modern Theatre’ (vol. viii.). St. John's other piece, ‘The Island of St. Marguerite,’ an opera in two acts, produced at Drury Lane on 13 Nov. 1789, was successful largely owing to its allusions to current events, especially the taking of the Bastille; some excisions were made by the censor.
St. John died at his house in Park Street, Grosvenor Place, on 8 Oct. 1793. There is a monument to him, with inscription, erected by his brother, General Henry St. John (1738–1818), in the church of Lydiard-Tregoze, Wiltshire.
G. Le G. N.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/St. John, Percy Bolingbroke

​ST. JOHN, PERCY BOLINGBROKE (1821–1889), journalist, the eldest son of James Augustus St. John [q. v.], was born in Camden Town in 1821. He accompanied his ​father on some of his travels, particularly to Madrid, when the latter was searching for materials for his ‘Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,’ and he also travelled in America. He began to write tales when a lad, and translated about thirty of Gustave Aimard's Indian tales into English. His translations appeared between 1876 and 1879. In 1846 he edited the ‘Mirror of Literature,’ and in 1861 the ‘London Herald.’ As correspondent to various newspapers, his miscellaneous contributions to the press were numerous, but of no special note; and he was also a frequent contributor of papers to ‘Chambers's Journal’ and other magazines. He died in London on 15 March 1889.
St. John's original works were: 1. ‘Young Naturalist's Book of Birds,’ London, 1838. 2. ‘Trapper's Bride; and Indian Tales,’ London, 1845; several subsequent editions. 3. ‘Paul Peabody,’ London, 1853 (incomplete); another edit. London, 1865. 4. ‘Our Holiday: a Week in Paris,’ London, 1854. 5. ‘Lobster Salad’ (collaborated with Edward Copping), London, 1855. 6. ‘Quadroona, or the Slave Mother,’ London, 1861. 7. ‘The Red Queen,’ London, 1863. 8. ‘Snow Ship’ (adventures of Canadian emigrants), London, 1867; various editions subsequently. 9. ‘The Young Buccaneer,’ London, 1873. 10. ‘The North Pole’ (a narrative of Arctic explorations), London, 1875. 11. ‘Polar Crusoes,’ London, 1876. 12. ‘The Sailor Crusoe,’ London, 1876.
[Literary World, March 1889; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
J. R. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hutcheson, George

​HUTCHESON, GEORGE (1580?–1639), of Lambhill, Lanarkshire, joint-founder with his younger brother Thomas [q.v.], of Hutcheson's Hospital, Glasgow, was the son of John Hutcheson, an old rentaller under the bishops of Glasgow in the lands of Gairdbraid. His mother's name was Janet Anderson. He became a public writer and notary in Glasgow, and by his success in business added considerably to the wealth he had inherited from his father. For a long time he lived in the house where he carried on business, situated on the north side of the Trongate, near the Old Tolbooth. In 1611 he built for his residence the house on the Kelvin near its junction with the Clyde, known as the Bishop's Castle. He acquired a high reputation for honesty, and as an illustration of his moderation in his charges, it is stated that he would never take more than sixteen pennies Scots for writing an ordinary bond, be the sum ever so large. He died, apparently unmarried, 31 Dec. 1639, and was buried on the south side of the cathedral church of Glasgow. By deed bearing date 16 Dec. 1639 he mortified and disposed a tenement of land on the west side of the old West Port of Glasgow with yard and tenements there, for the building of 'one perfyte hospital for entertainment of the poor, aged, decrepit men to be placed therein,' for whose maintenance after the hospital should be built he also mortified certain bonds amounting to the principal sum of twenty thousand merks. The inmates were to be aged and decrepit men above fifty years of age who had been of honest life and conversation. Other mortifications to the hospital were made by his brother Thomas. George also granted legacies to his brother Thomas and to three nephews, but descendants of two of these nephews died poor men in the hospital.
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hutcheson, Thomas

​HUTCHESON, THOMAS (1589–1641), joint-founder with his elder brother George [q.v.] of Hutcheson's Hospital, Glasgow, followed, like his brother, the profession of public writer, and was keeper of the register of sasines of the regality of Glasgow and district. Besides ratifying on 27 June 1640 the deeds of his brother, he by deed dated 9 March 1641, mortified certain bonds amounting to twenty thousand merks for the erection, in connection with George Hutcheson's hospital, of 'a commodious and distinct house of itself for educating and harbouring twelve male children, indigent orphans, or others of the like condition and quality, sons of burgesses.' This was supplemented by the mortification on 3 July 1641 of bonds amounting to a thousand merks, and on the 14th of an additional sum of 10,500 merks to assist in building the hospital. He laid the foundation-stone on 19 March of the same year. He died on 1 Sept. following, in his fifty-second year. He was buried beside his brother George on the south side of the cathedral church of Glasgow, where there is a Latin inscription to his memory. Other mortifications were subsequently added to the institution, and through the rise in the value of heritable property the funds have greatly increased. The scope and purpose of the institution have been extended, and not merely as a charity, but from an educational point of view, it is now one of the most important foundations in the country.
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hutchinson, Christopher Hely

​HUTCHINSON, CHRISTOPHER HELY (1767–1826), lawyer. [See Hely-Hutchinson.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hutchins, Edward

​HUTCHINS, EDWARD (1558?–1629), divine, born about 1558 of poor parents, was, according to Wood, a native of Denbighshire. About 1576 he matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford: he graduated B.A. 1577-8, and proceeded M.A. 1581 and B.D. 1590. In 1580-1 he was admitted perpetual fellow of Brasenose, and afterwards vacated his fellowship by marriage. He held a living near Salisbury, and on 28 Dec. 1589 he became canon of Salisbury. He died in 1629. Hutchins published: 1. 'A Sermon preached in St. Peter's Church at Westchester, 25 Sept. 1586,' Oxf., Joseph Barnes, 1586, 16mo; dedicated to Roger Puleston. 2. 'A Sermon preached in Westchester, 8 Oct. 1586, before the Judges and certain Recusants, Oxford, 1586?, 16mo, dedicated to Thomas Egerton, the solicitor-general. 3. 'A Sermon preached at Oxford, 6 Jan. 1589,'Oxf. (Barnes); also dedicated, to Egerton. Wood also mentions: 4. 'Jawbone against the Spiritual Philistine,' 1601, 12mo. Copies of the first three are in the British Museum.
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hutchins, George

​HUTCHINS, Sir GEORGE (d. 1705), king's serjeant, was the son and heir of Edmund Hutchins of Georgeham in Devonshire. Edmund Hickeringill [q. v.] once amused the court of chancery, and won his cause, by saying of Hutchins, who was counsel against ​him, that they were something akin to each other, not by consanguinity, but by affinity; for he was a clerk, and Hutchins's father was a parish clerk (Luttrell, Relation of State Affairs, 1857, iv. 651). On 19 May 1666 he entered at Gray's Inn, by which society he was called to the bar as early as August the following year. At Easter 1686 he was made serjeant-at-law by James II (ib. i. 529), and in May 1689 was chosen king's serjeant to William III, who knighted him in the following October (ib. i. 598). In May 1690 he succeeded Sir Anthony Keck as third commissioner of the great seal, and acted until the elevation of Sir John Somers (afterwards Lord Somers) [q. v.] to the lord-keepership on 22 March 1693. Hutchins then resumed practice at the bar, and claimed his right to retain his former position of king's serjeant. The judges decided against him, on the ground that the post was merely an office conferred by the crown (3 Levinz, 351); but the king settled the question by reappointing him his serjeant on 6 May (Lutterell, iii. 93). He died at his house in Greville Street, Holborn, on 6 July 1705. His professional gains must have been considerable, for on the marriage in 1697 of his two daughters, afterwards his co-heiresses, he gave each of them a portion of 20,000l. (ib. iv. 289). The husband of Anne, the second daughter, was William Peere Williams, the well-known chancery reporter.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges, vii. 320-1; Luttrell's Relation of State Affairs, vols. i. iii. iv. v. passim.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hutchinson, Baron

​HUTCHINSON, Baron. [See Hely-Hutchinson, John, afterwards second Earl of Donoughmore, 1757–1832.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hutcheson, Francis (fl.1745-1773)

L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Petre, William (1602-1677)

​PETRE, WILLIAM (1602–1677), translator, the third son of William, second lord Petre (1575–1637) of Writtle in Essex, and great-grandson of Sir William Petre [q. v.], was born in his father's house at Ingatestone, ​Essex, 28 July 1602. His mother, who died in 1624, was Catherine, second daughter of Edward Somerset, fourth earl of Worcester. His family, who remained Roman catholic, had been steady benefactors of Exeter College, Oxford, whither he was sent as gentleman commoner, matriculating on 5 Feb. 1612, at the early age of ten. In the following year, however, when Wadham College was completed by his great-aunt, Dame Dorothy Wadham, he migrated thither, and ‘became the first nobleman thereof’ (Wood). In October 1613 his eldest brother John died, and the society of Exeter dedicated a threnody to the family (Madan, Early Oxford Press, p. 92). About the same time he was joined at Wadham by his elder brother Robert, and the two brothers, both of whom left without taking degrees, presented to the college two fine silver tankards, which were sacrificed to the royal cause on 26 Jan. 1643. After leaving Oxford he was entered of the Inner Temple. Subsequently he travelled in the south of Europe, and, according to Wood, ‘became a gent. of many accomplishments.’ In 1669 he issued from St. Omer a translation of the then popular ‘Flos Sanctorum’ of the jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneira, originally published at Barcelona in 1643, fol. The translation, which was entitled ‘Lives of the Saints, with other Feasts of the Year according to the Roman Calendar,’ is continued down to 1669. The first edition soon became scarce, and a second, corrected and amended, was issued at London in 1730, folio. Petre's rendering has been commended by Southey and Isaac Disraeli. Petre died on the estate at Stanford Rivers in Essex which had been given him by his father, and he was buried in the chancel of Stanford Rivers church. His wife Lucy, daughter of Sir Richard Fermor of Somerton, Oxfordshire—by whom he had three sons and two daughters—was buried by his side in March 1679.
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Petre, Benjamin

​PETRE, BENJAMIN (1672–1758), Roman catholic prelate, born 10 Aug. 1672, was son of John Petre (1617–1690) of Fidlers or Fithlers, Essex (who was a younger brother of William Petre [q. v.], the translator), by ​his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of John Pincheon, esq., of Writtle in that county. He was educated at the English College, Douay, and, after being admitted to the priesthood, became tutor to Lord Derwentwater, who was subsequently beheaded for treason. He was consecrated bishop of Prusa, in partibus, on 11 Nov. 1721, and appointed coadjutor, cum jure successionis, to Bonaventure Giffard [q. v.], vicar-apostolic of the London district. On the death of that prelate on 12 March 1733–4, he succeeded to the vicariate. He resided chiefly at Fidlers, died on 22 Dec. 1758, and was buried in old St. Pancras churchyard. He was succeeded by Dr. Richard Challoner [q. v.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lethbridge, Walter Stephens

​LETHBRIDGE, WALTER STEPHENS (1772–1831?), miniature-painter, son of William Lethbridge, a farmer, was born at Charleton, Devonshire, and baptised there on 13 Oct. 1772. He was apprenticed to a house-painter; for a short time he acted as assistant to a travelling artist, and then came to London, where he studied in the schools of the Royal Academy. From 1801 to 1829 Lethbridge was an annual exhibitor of miniatures at the Academy; these included portraits of Mrs. Glover, Miss Booth, Miss Kelly, Miss Lacy, and other theatrical celebrities. His likenesses of the Earl and Countess of Huntingdon and Henry Nugent Bell were engraved for the latter's ‘Huntingdon Peerage,’ 1821, and those of Captain George Nicholas Hardinge, R.N., George P. Bidder (‘The Calculating Boy’) and Sarah Lysons, the Ipswich centenarian, have also been engraved. In 1830 Lethbridge retired to Stonehouse, Plymouth, where he is said to have died in 1831, but this is not confirmed by the parish register. His miniatures of Samuel Horsley, bishop of St. Asaph, and Dr. John Wolcot (‘Peter Pindar’) are in the National Portrait Gallery.
[Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers (Armstrong); Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1880; Royal Academy Catalogues; information from the Rev. Vincent Young, vicar of Charleton.]
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Letchworth, Thomas

​LETCHWORTH, THOMAS (1739–1784), quaker, third son of Robert and Elizabeth Letchworth, was a descendant of Robert Letchworth, one of the first quakers imprisoned at Cambridge in 1660 (Crisp MSS., Devonshire House). He was born at Woodbridge, Suffolk, in 1739, but his parents soon removed to Norwich, and afterwards to Waltham Abbey. At seven years old he delivered harangues on life and immortality from a tombstone in Norwich. After having been taught by Joseph Dancer, a schoolmaster at Hertford, Letchworth was apprenticed to a shopkeeper at Epping. His master's efforts to induce him to join the established church were unsuccessful, his appreciation of silent worship being so sincere that he sometimes kept the meeting at Epping alone. He soon moved to London and took a shop in Spitalfields, where he began preaching at the age of nineteen. He afterwards married and settled in Tooley Street, Southwark. In 1765 he published some small volumes of verse. In 1773 he commenced publishing ‘The Monthly Ledger, or Literary Repository,’ to which he contributed many articles himself. It was entirely unsectarian. It was discontinued after the third year.
In 1775 Letchworth published the ‘Life and Writings of John Woolman’ [q. v.], whom he calls ‘The Christian Socrates.’ He died, after a prolonged illness, at the house of Joseph Rand, Newbury, Berkshire, 7 Nov. 1784, and was buried in the Friends' burial-ground at Reading.
His sermons, preached at the Park, Southwark, were taken down in shorthand, and published in London in 1787. An American edition was published at Salem in 1794. According to a note at the end of the preface, the first sermon had been incorrectly printed in Ireland under the name of Samuel Fothergill [q. v.] Letchworth's ‘Brief Account of Fothergill,’ published in the ‘Monthly Ledger,’ was also printed separately, London, 1774.
Letchworth married, 21 March 1759, at the Savoy Meeting-house, Sarah Burge. His only son died in youth.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lethbridge, Joseph Watts

​LETHBRIDGE, JOSEPH WATTS (1817–1885), dissenting divine, born at Plymouth 20 Jan. 1817, entered Cheshunt College in 1842, and in 1846 Lady Huntingdon's connexion, in which he laboured at Kidderminster, and afterwards at Melbourne, Derbyshire (1850–5). Migrating to the independents, he was placed in charge of their church at Byfield, Northamptonshire, whence he removed in 1862 to Leicester, and thence in 1868 to Wellingborough. He retired in 1883, and died 27 July 1885.
Lethbridge published: 1. ‘The Shakspere Almanack for 1849,’ London, 12mo. 2. ‘Woman the Glory of Man,’ London, 1856, 12mo. 3. ‘Loving Thoughts for Human Hearts,’ London, 1860, 12mo. 4. ‘The Idyls of Solomon: the Hebrew Marriage Week arranged in Dialogue,’ London, 1878, 8vo.
[Congregational Year-Book; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lesse, Nicholas

​LESSE, NICHOLAS (fl. 1550), religious writer, is described by Tanner as a citizen and merchant of London. There is no evidence in support of this statement, except that Lesse's books were published in London. He was a friend of Bishop Bale, who encouraged him in his literary enterprises. His only original work is the ‘Apologie of the Worde of God, declarynge how necessarye it is to be in all men's hands, the want whereof is the cause of al vngodliness’ [London, 1547, 8vo]. This work is appended to his translation of Melanchthon's ‘Justification of Man by Faith only,’ likewise published in 1547. He also translated the following works: 1. ‘The Minde and Judgement of Maister F. Lambert of Auenna, of the wyll of Man,’ London [1548], 8vo. 2. ‘The Censure and Judgement of the famous Clark Erasmus, of Roterodam, whether Dyuorsemente … standeth with the Lawe of God,’ London [1550], 8vo. 3. St. Augustine's ‘Twelfe Steppes of Abuses,’ London, 1550, 8vo. 4. St. Augustine's ‘Predestination of Saints, and Vertue of Perseveraunce to thend,’ London, 1550, 8vo. According to Tanner's unsupported statement, he also translated Luther's ‘Commentaries on the two Epistles of St. Peter,’ Polydore Vergil's ‘De Inventoribus Rerum,’ and Æpinus on certain ‘Psalms.’
[Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica, 1748, p. 478; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica.]
C. W-h.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lesly, George

​LESLY, GEORGE (d. 1701), divine and poet, a native of Scotland, was instituted to the rectory of Wittering in Northamptonshire in 1681, was presented to the vicarage of Olney, 1 Nov. 1687, and was buried in Olney Church on 17 March 1701 (manuscript note in Israel's Troubles; Lipscomb, Bucks, iv. 307).
Lesly wrote: 1. ‘Fire and Brimstone, or the Destruction of Sodom’ [1675], 8vo. 2. ‘Abraham's Faith,’ n.d. A morality, or, as the writer calls it, a ‘Tragi-Comedy,’ which ‘pleased myself and friends.
But if it please not others, let them cast It out of doors, perhaps 't may be the last.’—Ep.
The characters include the Devil, a Midwife, Faith, Flesh and Despair. The two reprinted with additions in 3. ‘Divine Dialogues, viz. Dives's Doom, Sodom's Flames and Abraham's Faith … to which is added Joseph Reviv'd … the second edition,’ London, 1684. A dedication to Charles, Earl of Westmoreland, dated 14 June 1676, describes the work as ‘the frozen conception of one born in a cold climate.’ Hunter says he saw a first edition dated 1678. Together with this work is bound up in the British Museum copy ‘The Universal Medicine, a Sermon, together with four more,’ 2nd edit. 1684. 4. ‘Israel's Troubles and Triumph, or the History of the Dangers in and Deliverance out of ​Egypt … turned into English verse,’ 1699 (Jolley, Cat. iii. 1001). With the exception of No. 4, all these rare volumes are in the British Museum.
[Add. MS. 24492, f. 182 (Hunter's Chorus Vatum); Notes and Queries, 5th ser. xii. 308; Baker's Biog. Dram. i. 451; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 1343.]
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leslie, William (1657-1727)

​LESLIE, WILLIAM (1657–1727), bishop of Laybach in Styria, born in 1657, was the second son of William Leslie, fifth laird of Warthill, Aberdeenshire, by his wife Anne, daughter of James Elphinstone of Glack, and grand-niece of William Elphinstone [q. v.], bishop of Aberdeen. He went at the age of eleven with his elder brother to King's College, Aberdeen, and on leaving the university he was for a time parish schoolmaster of Chapel of Garioch, near his father's property. In 1684 he removed to Padua for purposes of study. There he became a Roman catholic and took holy orders. Cardinal Barbarigo appointed him professor of theology at Padua. He had relatives in Austria, the Counts Leslie, and he went to help them in the management of their affairs. Through their influence he became in 1716 bishop of Waitzen in Hungary. He soon won high favour with the emperor, who in 1718 procured his translation to the more important see of Laybach, an appointment which carried with it the dignities of metropolitan of Carniola and prince of the Holy Roman Empire. He was also a privy councillor to the emperor. In 1725 he sent home to Scotland, to his brother, his portrait and his diploma from the university of Padua, relics still preserved at Warthill, along with some interesting letters describing his prosperity. In one of these (July 1725) he speaks of Scotland as ‘the Land of Cakes.’ He died in 1727.
[Leslie's Hist. Records of the Family of Leslie (1869); Fasti Aberdonenses.]
J. C.