OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Higgins, Francis (1669-1728)

​HIGGINS, FRANCIS (1669–1728), archdeacon of Cashel, who has been styled ‘the Irish Sacheverell,’ born in 1669, was son of an apothecary of the city of Limerick. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar, 4 May 1685; obtained a scholarship in 1688, and graduated B.A. 1691, and M.A. 1693. He was ‘reader’ in Christ Church Cathedral in 1690; rector of Gowran in 1694; and became prebendary of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, 14 July 1705. In 1706 Higgins made himself notorious in London by violently asserting in sermons that the church was in danger, and by expounding extreme high-church views. On Ash Wednesday (February 1706–7) he preached at Whitehall Chapel, and denounced the favour shown in high places to champions of heterodoxy like Asgill, Toland, and Emlyn, and to puritans and presbyterians. On 28 Feb. Higgins was arrested on the secretary of state's warrant, and in April the grand jury of Middlesex found a true bill against him for preaching sedition, but in May the attorney-general entered a ‘nolle prosequi’ (Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 164, 177). Archbishop Tenison seems to have ​ summoned Higgins to Lambeth before his arrest and urged him to alter his tone (cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. p. 244). Higgins was obdurate, and published not only his sermon, but a separately issued ‘Postscript’ (for a penny), giving a very partial report of the interview with the archbishop. A rhyming version of the ‘Postscript’ also appeared as ‘a new song.’ On 29 July 1707 the Irish parliament directed the common hangman of Dublin to burn Higgins's ‘Postscript.’ Higgins was again prosecuted in 1712 as ‘a disloyal subject and disturber of the public peace.’ He was collated to the archdeaconry of Cashel in 1725, and dying in August 1728, was interred in his prebendal church. Both as a member of the lower house of convocation in Ireland and as a magistrate for the county of Dublin Higgins showed great activity and stormy temperament. He was of coarse tastes, and is described in a satirical poem as ‘the son of pudding and eternal beef.’ A contemporary pamphlet speaks of him as ‘a plump red-faced man, zealous, talkative, very fond of quoting law (not always accurately), who thinks too little and who talks too much.’
[Matriculation Book, Trin. Coll. Dublin; Cotton's Fasti Eccles. Hib. vol. v.; Webb's Irish Biography; Hearne's Collections, Oxf. Hist. Soc. i. 337, 395, ii. 25, 37, 57, 412.]
W. R-l.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Higbert

​HIGBERT or HYGEBRYHT (fl. 787), archbishop of Lichfield, was made bishop of that see in 779, and was doubtless consecrated by Jaenbert [q.v.], archbishop of Canterbury. At the request of Offa, the Mercian king, Pope Hadrian consented to the establishment of a Mercian archbishopric, and in 787 the legates George and Theophylact held a synod at Chelsea, at which after some dispute Jaenbert was forced to resign his rights over parts of his province, and Higbert was appointed by Offa to the new archbishopric. The new province is said to have been composed of the sees of Lichfield, Leicester, Worcester, Sidnacester, Hereford, Elmham, and Dunwich. Higbert attested the acts of the synod as bishop; but the next year, after having received the pall, attests as archbishop, and it is evident that he regarded himself as of equal dignity with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Though as Jaenbert's junior his name is placed after Jaenbert's in attestations, it is generally placed before that of Jaenbert's successor, Ethelhard [q.v.] In 798 Coenwulf, king of Mercia, and Ethelhard obtained from Leo III a declaration of the primacy of the see of Canterbury. Aleuin wrote to Ethelhard, requesting that Higbert, whom he calls `pater pius,' might not be deprived of the pall; but if, as seems fairly certain, the Higbert who appears as an abbot of Lichfield in the attestation of an act of the council of Clovesho held in 803 is the former archbishop of Lichfield, he must by that date have lost or resigned both his pall and his see. Aldulf was then bishop of Lichfield, but he was not archbishop, as stated by, William of Malmesbury (Gesta Pontificum, pp. 16, 308; see also Anglia Sacra, i. 430), nor was Humbert or Hunberht, who is incorrectly represented as Aldulf's immediate successor in the see (Vitæ ​Offarum), archbishop; indeed, Higbert was the only archbishop of Lichfield.
[Anglo-Saxon Chron. sub an, 785; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 731. Mon. Hist. Brit.; William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontiff. pp. 16, 308 (Rolls Series); Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i, 430; Matt. Paris, Vitæ Offarum, pp. 976, 979. Wats; Kemble's Codex Dipl. i. cxxxvii, cxli-iii, clvi-clvii, clxiv-vil; Haddan and Stubbs's Councils and Eccl. Docs. iii. 444-7, 450, 520, 545; Dict. Obr Biog. art. 'Higbert,' by Bishop Stubbs.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Higgins, Bryan

Dates c.1741 to 1818 in the ODNB.
​HIGGINS, BRYAN, M.D. (1737?–1820), physician and chemist, was born in co. Sligo about 1737. On 5 Oct. 1765 he entered Leyden University and proceeded M.D. (Leyden Students, Index Society, p. 49). He then commenced practice in London. In July 1774 he opened a school of practical chemistry in Greek Street, Soho, and published a syllabus of his first course of lectures in 1775. During that year he had a dispute with Priestley, whom he accused of having plagiarised some of his experiments on air. Priestley replied in a lengthy pamphlet entitled ‘Philosophical Empiricism,’ 8vo, 1775. In 1776 Higgins published a part of his ​course of lectures under the title of ‘A Philosophical Essay concerning Light. Vol. I.,’ 8vo, London. On 8 Jan. 1779 he obtained letters patent for a cheap and durable cement, which he advertised in a treatise called ‘Experiments and Observations made with the view of improving the art of composing and applying calcareous Cements and of preparing Quick-lime; and Specification of the Author's … Cement,’ 8vo, London, 1780. An Italian version appeared in C. Amoretti and F. Soave's ‘Opuscoli scelti sulle scienze,’ 4to, 1778, &c. In 1786 he published his best-known work, which appears also to have formed the subject of some of his lectures, with the title of ‘Experiments and Observations relating to Acetous Acid, Fixable Air, … Oils, and Fuel,’ &c., 8vo, London. Some time between 1780 and 1790 Higgins visited Russia, apparently by invitation of the Empress Catherine. He resumed his lectures in Greek Street in January 1794, and in 1795 issued an extended syllabus of his course, describing the experiments made as ‘Minutes of the Society for Philosophical Experiments and Conversations,’ 8vo, London. When, on 14 Dec. 1796, committees were appointed by the House of Assembly, Jamaica, for the improvement of the manufacture of Muscovado sugar and rum, Higgins was engaged to assist them, and he resided at Spanish Town during 1797, 1798, and 1799. Part of the result of his labours was published as ‘Observations and Advices,’ 2 pts., 8vo, St. Jago de la Vega, 1797–1800. A third part was announced for immediate publication, and a fragment of the fourth part appeared at Jamaica in 1803. Higgins died in 1820. He married Jane, daughter and heiress of J. Welland. His other writings are: 1. ‘Observations on the Floating Ice … in high Northern and Southern latitudes. To which are added Experiments on the Freezing of Sea Water,’ appended to the Hon. Daines Barrington's ‘The Probability of reaching the North Pole,’ 4to, London, 1775–6. 2. ‘Synopsis of the Medicinal Contents of the most noted Mineral Waters, analysed by Dr. Higgins at the instance of I. Ellison’ [edited by the latter], 8vo [London], 1788. Higgins was more successful as a speculator than an experimentalist, and many of his views are, for their time, ‘remarkable for their acuteness and generalising character.’
[W. K. Sullivan in Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science, new ser. viii. 483–7; Higgins's Works.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Higden, Henry

​HIGDEN, HENRY (fl. 1693), poet and dramatist, a Yorkshireman, was a member of the Middle Temple. He is represented as a man of wit and the companion of all the choice spirits of the town. In 1686 he published `A Modern Essay on the Thirteenth Satyr of Jevenal,' and in 1687 `A Modern Essay on the Tenth Satyr of Jevenal.' To the latter are prefixed complimentary verses of Dryden, Mrs. Behn, and E. Settle. He also wrote a comedy entitled `The Wary Widdow, or Sir Noisy Parrat,' to which Sir Charles Sedley contributed a prologue. It was brought out in 1693 at Drury Lane, and was condemned the first night. Higden had introduced so much punch-drinking into it that the actors got intoxicated before the end of the third act, and the house separated in confusion. In his preface to the printed edition of the play (1693) he makes a splenetic attack on Congreve's `Old Bachelor,' which had appeared during the same year.
[Baker's Biog. Dramatica, ed, 1812, i. 332-4, iii. 391; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Higford, William

​HIGFORD, WILLIAM (1581?–1657), puritan, was born of a good family in the neighbourhood of Alderton in Gloucestershire about 1581. On 14 Jan. 1596–7 he matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford (Reg. Univ. Oxf. ii. ii. 218, Oxf. Hist. Soc.) Wood says that he entered in 1595 as a fellow-commoner. He subsequently migrated to Corpus Christi College, where he says he had for his tutor Sebastian Benefield [q. v.] He graduated B.A. 16 Feb. 1598–9 (ib. ii. iii. 215, where he is called Hichford). Wood states that ‘by the benefit of good discipline and natural parts he became a well qualified gentleman,’ and that after taking his degree in arts he retired to his father's seat at Dixton, near Alderton, was appointed a justice of the peace, and was highly respected by the neighbouring nobility and gentry, particularly Grey Brydges, lord Chandos [q. v.]
He married Mary, daughter of John Meulx of the Isle of Wight, by whom he had a son John, born in 1607. Higford, who is stated to have been ‘a zealous puritan,’ died at his residence at Dixton on 6 April 1657, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, leaving behind him, ‘beside other matter fit for the press,’ a large manuscript, entitled ‘Institutions, or Advice to his Grandson, in three Parts,’ which was revised by Clement Barksdale [q. v.], and published in London in 1658, 16mo. A second edition appeared in 1660, 8vo, under the title of ‘The Institution of a Gentleman, in Three Parts,’ dedicated to Lord Scudamore, and containing ‘An Address to the Generous Reader’ by Barksdale, together with an ‘Epitaphium Gulielmi Higford,’ and his praise in English verse, headed ‘Fama loquitur.’ It was also printed in the ‘Harleian Miscellany,’ vol. ix.
[Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iii. 429; Rudder's Hist. of Gloucestershire, p. 220.]
W. C. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Higgins, Charles Longuet

​HIGGINS, CHARLES LONGUET (1806–1885), benefactor of Turvey, eldest son of John Higgins of the Abbey-house, Turvey, Bedfordshire, and Theresa, eldest daughter of Benjamin Longuet of Louth and Bath, a gentleman of Huguenot descent, was born in his father's house on 30 Nov. 1806. He received his early education at home, and matriculated at Cambridge as a pensioner of Trinity College on 14 Nov. 1825. At Cambridge he was under the influence of the Rev. Charles Simeon. He was not a scholar, but had a taste for natural history and music. He graduated B.A. in 1830, and M.A. in 1834. Although he desired to take orders, he relinquished the idea in deference to his father's wish, and was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 16 Nov. 1830, but was not called to the bar, and from 1836 to 1838 studied medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Having qualified he carried on a general medical practice at Turvey. On the death of his father in 1846 he succeeded to the family property; restored the church; built schools, a village museum, and comfortable cottages; and delivered lectures on natural history and other subjects. On 26 June 1853 he married Helen Eliza, daughter of Thomas Burgon of the British Museum. He projected the compilation of a hymn-book which should be used universally in the church of England, and read a paper on hymnology before the Church Congress at Nottingham in 1871, which was published. He was a J.P. and D.L. of Bedfordshire. He died without issue on 23 Jan. 1885.
[Burgon's Lives of Twelve Good Men, ii. 343–422; Luard's Graduati Cantabr.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Daniel, William Barker

​DANIEL, WILLIAM BARKER (1753?–1833), author of ‘Rural Sports,’ was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, taking the degree of B.A. in 1787 and that of M.A. in 1790. It does not appear that he was ever beneficed, although he took holy orders in the English church, and his name has no place in Gilbert's ‘List of Beneficed Clergy’ (1829). He seems to have indulged in sporting tastes to a degree which shocked even his tolerant age. A correspondent in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1802, lxxii. 621) writes contemptuously of him as though he had no benefice, and adds, ‘I cannot help thinking he is fitter to act the character of Nimrod than that of a dignitary in the church of England,’ but is rebuked by the editor in a note. At the end of 1833 he died, at the reputed age of eighty, in Garden Row, within the rules of the King's Bench, where he had resided for twenty years. No particulars of his character or habits have been preserved.
Daniel's ‘Rural Sports’ were the delight of sportsmen at the beginning of the century. The book appeared in 2 vols. 4to 1801, dedicated to J. H. Strutt, M.P., confessedly a compilation in great part, but with much new matter. Hunting, coursing, shooting, &c., are fully described, and the plates in both volumes are excellent. A new edition in 3 vols. 8vo was issued in 1812, and a supplementary 4to vol. in 1813, dedicated to the Marquis of Blandford. This volume contains a miscellaneous collection of anecdotes and receipts, with a bibliography of angling (transferred from Sir H. Ellis's list), ‘to entertain the sportsman and give a hint to the naturalist.’ It is written altogether in a more careless style than the rest of the book. ‘This admirable work, now almost forgotten,’ says a writer in the ‘Quarterly Review’ (No. 235, vol. cxviii.), ‘has nevertheless been the basis of many a later book on field sports.’ Herein it has only shared the fate of many other old fishing and hunting treatises. The book will always be valued as a general record of sport before the introduction of modern guns and methods to kill game more speedily and surely. Sir R. P. Gallwey remarks (Moor and Marsh Shooting, 1886, p. 314) that it ‘contains one of the earliest, if not the earliest, authentic accounts of wild​fowl shooting with punt and gun, besides many incidents connected with fowling, that are of great interest as records of the sport of catching and shooting ducks in past days.’
Besides this, Daniel published in 1822 ‘Plain Thoughts of Former Years upon the Lord's Prayer,’ in eight jejune and superficial discourses.
[List of Cambridge Graduates; Annual Register, 1833; Gent. Mag. 1833; Daniel's own works.]
M. G. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Daniell, Samuel

​DANIELL, SAMUEL (1775–1811), artist and traveller, a younger brother of William Daniell, R.A. [q. v.], and nephew of Thomas Daniell, R.A., F.R.S. [q. v.], was born in 1775. Like his elder brother, he appears to have had a taste for natural history, which led to his visiting the Cape of Good Hope during the first British ​occupation of that colony. He was appointed secretary and draughtsman to a mission under Mr. Truter and Dr. Somerville, despatched in 1801 by the acting governor, Lieutenant-general Francis Dundas, to visit ‘the country of the Booshuanas’ (Bechuanaland). The expedition reached Lataku, then believed to be the remotest point of South Africa ever visited by Europeans, and met with a friendly reception. A narrative of the journey by Mr. Truter, the senior commissioner, is given as an appendix to Sir John Barrow's ‘Voyage to Cochin China’ (London, 1806, 4to). A number of sketches made by Daniell during the journey were subsequently engraved and published by his brother. Daniell proceeded in 1806 to Ceylon, and spent several years there in travelling and sketching. He died there in December 1811, aged 36. The ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1812, thus refers to his death: ‘Mr. Daniell was ever ready with his own eye to explore every object worthy of research, and with his own hand to convey to the world a faithful representation of what he saw. Unhappily, whilst traversing and occasionally taking up his abode in swamps and forests, the strength of his constitution, which he too much confided in, did not enable him to resist the approaches of disease’ (vol. lxxxii. pt. ii. p. 296). Daniell exhibited in landscape at the Society of Artists and at the Royal Academy at various times between 1791 and 1812 (Graves, Dict. of Artists). His published works are:
* ‘African Scenery and Animals,’ 2 parts, London, 1804–5, fol.
* ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Scenery, Animals, &c. … of Ceylon,’ London, 1808, fol.
* ‘Sketches of Native Tribes, &c. in South Africa,’ with illustrative notices by Dr. Somerville and Sir John Barrow, London, 1820, 4to.
* ‘Sketches of South Africa,’ London, 1821, 4to.
* ‘Twenty varied Subjects of the Tribe of Antelopes,’ London, 1832, oblong 4to.
[Authorities cited above; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Daniel, Robert Mackenzie

​DANIEL, ROBERT MACKENZIE (1814–1847), novelist, born in Inverness-shire in 1814, was educated at Inverness, at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and at the university of Edinburgh, where he studied law for four years with the intention of becoming an advocate. Having abandoned this idea, and resolved to adopt literature as a profession, he came to London in 1836, contributed largely to the magazines, and was appointed editor of the ‘Court Journal.’ His first work of fiction, ‘The Scottish Heiress,’ appeared in 1843, and was followed in the same year by ‘The Gravedigger.’ In 1844 he removed to Jersey, where he produced ‘The Young Widow,’ which was most favourably received; and ‘The Young Baronet’ (1845) sustained the reputation of the author, who was styled the ‘Scottish Boz.’ In January 1845 he accepted the editorship of the ‘Jersey Herald,’ and he conducted that journal till September 1846, when he was overtaken by a mental malady and removed by his friends to Bethlehem Hospital, London, where he died on 21 March 1847, leaving a widow who was also distinguished as a novelist. A posthumous romance by him, entitled ‘The Cardinal's Daughter,’ appeared in 3 vols. London, 1847.
[Gent. Mag. new ser. xxvii. 671; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Anderson's Scottish Nation, ii. 19.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Daniel (d.584?)

Deiniol in the ODNB.
​DANIEL, Saint, more correctly Deiniol (d. 584?), bishop of Bangor, is a Welsh saint. No contemporary account of him has descended to us, and the chronological difficulties attending the traditional mediæval account of him are exceptionally great. The tenth-century ‘Annales Cambriæ’ place his death in 584 and testify to his connection with Bangor, of which monastery he is traditionally reputed the founder, and whose church has always been dedicated to him. Other churches named after him are to be found, widely scattered throughout Wales, at Llanddeiniol in northern Cardiganshire; Llanddeiniol, or Itton, Monmouthshire; Hawarden, Flintshire; Llanuwchllyn, Merionethshire, and the chapels of Worthenbury, formerly subject to Bangor Iscoed, Flintshire, and St. Daniel's, Monktown, Pembrokeshire. The hagiographers, whose story is very doubtful, make him the son of Dunawd Vawr, the son of Pabo Post Prydain, by Deuer, daughter of Lleinawg (‘Achau y Saint’ in Cambro-British Saints, p. 266). Like very many Welsh saints he is said to have come from Ceredigion, but the great scene of his operations was in Gwynedd. He first joined his father in founding the abbey of Bangor Iscoed, and afterwards founded the Bangor Vawr on the shores of Menai, of which he was bishop and abbot. Maelgwn Gwynedd, the famous king, founded the see; Dubricius, or, as some say, David, consecrated him a bishop. He was closely associated with Dubricius and David, and along with the former persuaded the latter to quit his monastic seclusion at Tyddewi for the more arduous task of confuting the Pelagians at the famous synod of Llanddewi Brefi. He was a bard. He died in 544 and was buried at Bardsey. His festival was on 10 Dec. Many of his kinsfolk also were saints. He was one of the ‘seven happy cousins,’ who included Beino, Cawrdav, Seiriol, Danwyn, Cybi, and David himself. He was one of the ‘three holy bachelors of the isle of Britain.’ Some of his kinsfolk lived near Llanddewi Brefi under David's patronage. Cynwyl, his brother, is the reputed patron saint and founder of Cynwyl Caio, between Lampeter and Llandovery, and Cynwyl in Elvet, between Lampeter and Carmarthen, and also of Aberporth on the Cardiganshire coast. His uncle Sawyl's name is preserved in Llansawel, the parish adjoining Cynwyl Caio on the south.
Of this history it is enough to say that Dunawd, Daniel's reputed father, was flourishing after 603, the approximate date of the ​conference of Augustine with the British bishops (Bede, Hist. Eccles. ii. 2). Daniel cannot therefore have died in 544, and the story of the foundation of Bangor Iscoed thirty years earlier is impossible. The date of the ‘Annales Cambriæ’ (584) lessens but does not remove the difficulty. If Daniel ‘episcopus Cinngarad,’ who is said to have died in 660 (Annals of Ulster in Skene, Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 349), be the same person, the date of the Ulster chronicler would be almost as much too late as that of the Welsh writer too early.
T. F. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Daniell, Thomas

​DANIELL, THOMAS (1749–1840), landscape-painter, born at Kingston-on-Thames in 1749, was the son of an innkeeper at Chertsey. He served his time to a herald painter and was afterwards (1773) a student of the Royal Academy. In 1784 he went to India, taking with him his nephew, William Daniell [q. v.] There he pursued his profession for ten years, and published in Calcutta a series of views of the city. Uncle and nephew returned together to England, and set to work on a great publication, ‘Oriental Scenery,’ which was completed in 1808. In 1796 Thomas was elected associate, and in 1799 a full member of the Royal Academy. He was fellow of the Royal Society, of the Asiatic Society, and of the Society of Antiquaries. Between 1772 and 1830 he exhibited 125 landscapes at the Royal Academy, and 10 at the gallery of the British Institute. He made money by his oriental paintings and publications, and retired comparatively early from active life. He died, unmarried, at Earl's Terrace, Kensington, on 19 March 1840, at the age of ninety-one. ‘His works are characterised by great oriental truth and beauty; the customs and manners of India are well rendered. His painting was firm but sometimes thin; his colouring agreeable.’ He published:
* ‘Oriental Scenery,’ 144 views, 1808.
* ‘Views in Egypt.’
* ‘Hindoo Excavations at Ellora,’ twenty-four plates.
* ‘Picturesque Voyage to China by way of India.’
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists.]
E. R.