OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Napier, Robert (d.1615)

​NAPIER, Sir ROBERT (d. 1615), judge, was the third son of James Napier of Puncknowle, Dorset, and his wife, whose maiden name is variously given as Hilliard, Hillary, and Illery; he was a distant cousin of the Napiers of Merchiston (Hutchins, Dorset, ii. 784). Robert joined the Middle Temple, and in 1586 was elected member of parliament for Dorchester, Dorset. He was knighted by Elizabeth before 1593, when he was appointed chief baron of the exchequer in Ireland, under a writ of privy seal dated 10 April. He was not satisfied with the appointment, and complained that there was ‘little profit incident to the office, dealing in an honest and upright course;’ he consequently managed to obtain additional grants. He arrived at Dublin in August 1593, and seems to have found his chief occupation in receiving information from spies, and troubling the home government with complaints about the grants he had received. In 1595 he obtained leave to return to England for three months after Easter, and was again at the Middle Temple in June 1597, in which year he was recommended for the chief justiceship of common pleas in Ireland. This recommendation was not adopted, but Napier received further grants of lands from the government in 1599, and in 1600 was complimented on the valuable services he had performed. In 1602, however, his frequent absences in England caused dissatisfaction, and his administration does not appear to have been successful; in consequence he was discharged, and Sir Edmund Pelham [q. v.] appointed in his stead. He sat in the parliament of 1601 for Bridport, Dorset, and in that of 1603–4 for Wareham; he died on 20 Sept. 1615, and was buried in Great Minterne Church, Dorset, where there is an inscription to his memory.
Napier was a considerable benefactor to Dorchester, where he erected a handsome almshouse, called Napier's Mite, which he endowed with a fourth of the manor of Little Puddle, Dorset. Middlemarsh, which he purchased, became the family seat. He married, first, Catherine, daughter of John Wareham by whom he had one daughter, who married Sir John Ryves; secondly Magdalen, daughter of Sir Anthony Denton. She died in 1635, and was buried by her husband's side in Great Minterne Church. By her Napier had one son, Sir Nathaniel, whose sons, Robert (1611–1686) and Sir Gerard, and grandson, Sir Nathaniel (1636–1709), are separately noticed.
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Redesdale, Earl of

​REDESDALE, Earl of. [See Mitford, John Thomas Freeman-, 1805–1886.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rede, William Leman

​REDE, WILLIAM LEMAN (1802–1847), dramatist, brother of Leman Thomas [Tertius] Rede [q. v.], was born at Hamburg in 1802. At an early age he took to writing for the stage. He was very intimately connected with the Strand Theatre, under the management of W. J. Hammond. To introduce Lionel Benjamin Rayner at that theatre in 1832, he wrote a piece called ‘Professionals Puzzled,’ which gained him immediate popularity. On 23 Jan. 1833 his most successful play, ‘The Rake's Progress,’ was produced at the Olympic, and ran for the entire season. In rapid succession appeared ‘His First Champagne’ at the Strand, October 1833; ‘Cupid in London,’ extravaganza, at the Queen's Theatre, in January 1835; ‘The Old and Young Stager,’ farce, at the Olympic, December 1835; ‘Come to Town,’ farce, at the Strand, April 1836; ‘The Gaberlunzie Man,’ extravaganza, at the English Opera House, September 1836; ‘Douglas Travestie’ and ‘the Peregrinations of Pickwick’ at the Adelphi in 1837; ‘Sixteen-String Jack’ and ‘An Affair of Honour’ at the Olympic in 1841. After 1841 he turned his attention to other branches of literature, though still writing occasional pieces for the stage. He frequently contributed to ‘Bentley's,’ the ‘New Monthly,’ and other magazines. In 1842 he started a rival to ‘Punch,’ called ‘Judy,’ of which only two numbers appeared. In 1846 a novel, entitled ‘The Royal Rake,’ founded on the early history of George IV, appeared in the ‘Sunday Times,’ and he was engaged on ‘The Man in Possession’ for the same paper at the time of his death. He died suddenly of apoplexy on 3 April 1847, at his house in Southampton Street.
By his wife Sarah, daughter of John Cooke, a bass singer of Drury Lane Theatre, whom he married in 1832, he left one son.
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Redesdale, Baron

​REDESDALE, Baron. [See Mitford, John Freeman-, 1748–1830.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Redesdale, Robin of

​REDESDALE, ROBIN of (fl. 1470), popular leader. [See Robin.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Redfern, James Frank

​REDFERN, JAMES FRANK (1838–1876), sculptor, was born at Hartington, Derbyshire, in 1838. As a boy he showed a taste for art by carving and modelling from the woodcuts of illustrated papers. At the suggestion of the vicar of Hartington, he executed in alabaster a group of a warrior and a dead horse. This was brought to the notice of Alexander James Beresford-Hope [q. v.], on whose estate Redfern was born. Hope sent him to Paris to study for six months. His first work exhibited at the Royal Academy, ‘Cain and Abel’ (1859), attracted the notice of John Henry Foley [q. v.] He exhibited a ‘Holy Family’ in 1861, ‘The Good Samaritan’ in 1863, and other subjects almost every year until his death. These were at first ​chiefly of a sacred character, and afterwards portrait statues. His larger works were principally designed for Gothic church decoration. Among them may be mentioned sixty statues on the west front of Salisbury Cathedral; statues of the Apostles at Ely; groups of figures on the reredos at Gloucester; Our Lord in majesty in the chapter-house, Westminster; an elaborate reredos, representing the crucifixion, with the martyrdoms of St. Peter and St. Andrew, in St. Andrew's, Wells Street; the entombment in the Digby mortuary chapel, Sherborne. He also carved the statue of Fortitude on the Albert Memorial, Hyde Park, and the statue of the Duke of Devonshire in front of the laboratory at Cambridge. He died at Hampstead on 13 June 1876, in the midst of a promising career.
C. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rederech

​REDERECH (fl. 580), British king. [See Rhydderch Hael.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rede, Leman Thomas

​REDE, LEMAN THOMAS [TERTIUS] (1799–1832), miscellaneous writer, was born in 1799. The father, Leman Thomas Rede, student of the Inner Temple, friend of George Canning's father and a connection of Sir Astley Cooper, was the son of Thomas Rede of Roos Hall, Beccles, Suffolk, but was obliged, owing to the pressure of creditors, to leave England for Hamburg, and died there in December 1810, whereupon his widow, with five children, returned to England. He was a newspaper hack, but also published: 1. ‘Studies of Nature,’ translated from the French of Bernardin de St. Pierre, 1798. 2. ‘Anecdotes and Biography,’ 1799; two editions. 3. ‘Essay on the Laws of England,’ Hamburg, 1802, 3 vols.
The son, Leman Thomas [Tertius] Rede, was, like his father, bred to the law, but inherited the paternal propensity to improvidence, and took to the stage and teaching elocution. He and his brother William Leman Rede [q. v.] were known in London life as ‘the inseparables.’ They were both of them the possessors of great literary talent and varied conversational powers, and both of them were always in want of money. Leman performed ‘divers melodramatic characters in the provinces’ and in London, his last appearance on the stage taking place at Sadler's Wells Theatre a fortnight before his death. He died on 12 Dec. 1832, and was buried in Clerkenwell cemetery, his brother being buried in the same grave in 1847. In 1824 Rede married the widow of William Oxberry [q. v.], the comedian.
His works were: 1. ‘The Modern Speaker.’ 2. ‘Memoir of George Canning,’ 1827, a volume not without merit but very inadequate in research, as ‘two months only were allotted to him’ for its preparation. 3. ‘The Road to the Stage, or the Performer's Preceptor,’ 1827; a useful little manual on acting and the stage at that date. In conjunction with his brother he edited ‘Oxberry's Dramatic Biography,’ which sold well and ran to five volumes.
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rede

​REDE. [See also Read, Reade, Reed, Reede, and Reid.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Kane, Eachmarcach

​O'KANE, EACHMARCACH (1720–1790), Irish harper, for whose Irish christian name Acland or Echlin is sometimes substituted, was born at Drogheda in 1720. He was of a northern family, and was taught to play the harp by Cornelius Lyons, harper to the Earl of Antrim. He travelled to Rome and played before Prince Charles Edward Stuart there. He then visited France, and went on to Madrid, where he played to the Irish gentlemen living at that court, who praised him to the king; but his uproarious habits did not suit Spanish decorum, and he had to walk to Bilbao with his harp on his back. After returning to Ireland he went to Scotland, and there made many journeys from house to house. Sir Alexander MacDonald in Skye gave him a silver harp-key, long in the family, and originally left by another Irish harper, Ruaidhri Dall O'Cathain or O'Kane. The gift is mentioned by Boswell in the `Tour to the Hebrides.' O'Kane played all the old native airs, as well as the treble and bass parts of Corelli's correnti in concert with other music.
[Bunting's Ancient Music of Ireland; Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Heney, Matthew

Muirgheas Ó hÉanna in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​O'HENEY, MATTHEW (d. 1206), Cistercian biographer and archbishop of Cashel, called in Irish Ua Heinni, was a monk of the Cistercian house of Holy Cross in what is now Tipperary. He afterwards became archbishop of Cashel, and was made papal legate for Ireland in 1192 (Ann. Inisfalense, ap. O'Conor, Rer. Hibern. Script. ii. 120). In the same year he held a great synod in Dublin, at which the Irish magnates attended (ib.) His name rarely appears except in official documents, usually undated, relating to the affairs of various Irish churches (Chartularies of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin, i. 143, 145, ii. 28, 29. 198, Rolls Ser.; Register of St. Thomas, Dublin, pp. 308, 317, Rolls Ser.) In 1195 he is mentioned as one of the prelates who brought the body of Hugh de Lacy, first lord of Meath [q. v.], one of the conquerors of Ireland, to the abbey of Bective on the Boyne in Meath, for re-interment (Annals of Ireland in Chartularies of St. Mary's, Dublin, ii. 307). He is said to have founded many churches, and to have been an able man, a worker of miracles, and religious beyond his fellow-countrymen. Retiring to his old monastery of Holy Cross, he died there, as a humble Cistercian monk, in 1206 (ib. ii. 278; Annals of Loch Cé, i. 235, Rolls Ser.)
O'Heney wrote a life of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, letters to Popes Celestine III and Innocent III, and other tracts, none of which are known to be extant.
[In addition to the authorities cited in the text, see Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue of Brit. MSS. iii. 23; Cotton's Fasti Eccles. Hibern. i. 5, 2nd ed.; C. de Visch's Biblioth. Cisterc. p. 104; Tanner's Bibliothcai, p. 392; Ware's Works, ed. Harris, i. 469, ii. 72; Brady's Episcopal Succession.]
A. M. C.-e.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Hussey, Eochaidh

Eochaidh Ó hEodhasa in the ODNB.
​O'HUSSEY, EOCHAIDH (fl. 1630), Irish poet, in Irish Ua hEodhasa, belonged to a northern family of hereditary poets and historians, of which the earliest famous member was Aenghus, who died in 1360. Another Aenghus died in 1480, and in 1518 Ciothruadh, son of Athairne O'Hussey, whose poem, 'Buime na bhfileadh fuil Ruarcach' ('Nurse of the poets, the blood of the O'Rourkes'), is still extant. Soon after his time the family became chief poets to Maguire of Fermanagh. Eochaidh began to write when very young (in 1593), and his earliest poem is on the escape of Aedh ruadh O'Donnell from Dublin Castle in 1592. It contains 228 verses. He wrote four poems, of 228 verses in all, on Cuchonacht Maguire, lord of Fermanagh, and seven poems on his son, Hugh Maguire [q. v.] He travelled and, like all the poets, wrote panegyrics on his hosts. Of this kind are his poems, of two hundred verses, on Tadhg O'Rourke of Breifne; on Eoghan óg MacSweeny of Donegal; on Feidhlimidh O'Beirne, and on Richard de Burgo Mac William of Connaught. He wrote a poetic address of 152 verses to Hugh O'Neill, the great earl of Tyrone [q. v.], and ​one of forty-four verses to Rory O'Donnell, earl of Tyrconnel [q. v.] He also wrote numerous poems on general subjects, such as `A dhuine na heasláinte' (`O man of ill-health !'), in praise of temperance, and an address to the Deity. There are copies of his poems in the library of the Royal Irish Academy.
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Hearn, Francis

​O'HEARN, FRANCIS (1753–1801), Irish catholic divine, was born at Lismore, co. Waterford, in 1753, and educated at the Irish College in Louvain, where he was ordained, and afterwards became a professor, and finally rector. Daniel O'Connell [q. v.] was for a short time a pupil of his in this college. While a student there, O'Hearn attended the university of Louvain, and became a member of the Flemish 'nation,' one of the groups into which, in accordance with old custom, the university was divided. He became a diligent student of the Flemish language; and, moreover, did much to foster the language, then much in neglect, among the Flemings themselves. He wrote several poems in Flemish, of one of which the Bollandist Father de Buck has remarked that few Flemings of that day could produce so good a poem. O'Hearn was an accomplished scholar, and spoke several European languages fluently. He was also an enthusiastic traveller, and had made journeys through most of the continental countries on foot. On one occasion, while travelling in Turkey, he was suspected of instigating a rebellion against the sultan, and his arrest was ordered; but he escaped to Russia, and, it is stated, wandered through a portion of Siberia, and returned to Belgium by Norway, a remarkable feat of travelling in those days.
​On the outbreak of the revolution in Flanders in 1790, O'Hearn took sides with the popular leader, Van Vonck, but, finding the latter's views too advanced, he gave his support to another leader of the popular party, Van der Noot, whose intimate friend and counsellor he became. Van der Noot sought to enlist the sympathies of the English, German, and Dutch courts, and published a manifesto, which he despatched to those courts, O'Hearn being sent as envoy to the Hague. When the French occupied Belgium in 1792, the members of the Irish College of Louvain became dispersed, and the building was used as a powder-magazine. O'Hearn took refuge in Germany, thence returned to Ireland, and was appointed parish priest of St. Thomas's in Waterford, where he died in 1801.
[Van Even's De Ierlander, Francis O'Hearn, Louvain, 1890.]
P. L. N.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Hempsy, Denis

Denis Hempson in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​O'HEMPSY, DENIS (1695?–1807), Irish harper, whose name is sometimes written Hempson, was son of Brian O'Hempsy, and was born on his father's farm at Craigmore, near Garvagh, co. Derry. Local tradition assigns his birth to 1695. At three years of age he had small-pox and lost his sight, and at twelve began to learn to play the harp from Bridget O'Cahan, a female harper. He afterwards received instruction from John Garragher, Lochlann O'Fanning. and Patrick O'Connor, all Connaughtmen. When eighteen he lived for a half-year in the house of the Canning family at Garvagh. Mr. Canning, Squire Gage, and Dr. Bacon subscribed and bought him a harp. He then travelled in Ireland and Scotland for ten years. Sir J. Campbell of Aghanhrach and many other Scottish gentlemen entertained him. He paid a second visit to Scotland in 1745, and played before Prince Charles Edward at Holyrood.
Subsequently he travelled all over Ireland, and at last Frederick Augustus Hervey, fourth earl of Bristol and bishop of Derry [q. v.], gave him a house at Magilligan, co. Derry, where he ended hia days. Lord and Lady Bristol came to the house-warming, and their children danced to his harp. In 1791, at the reputed age of eighty-six, he married a woman from the opposite coast of Inishowen, and had one daughter. He attended the Belfast meeting of harpers in 1792. He used to play the harp with his long crooked nails, catching the string between the flesh and the nail. Edward Bunting, who heard him, says that the intricacy and peculiarity of his playing amazed him, and that his staccato and legato passages, double slurs, shakes, turns, graces, &c., comprised as a great a range of execution as has ever been devised by modern improvers. His harp, which was long preserved at Downhill, co. Derry, was made by Cormac Kelly in 1702 of white willow, with a back of fir dug out of the bog. The day before he died O'Hempsy sat up in bed and played a few notes on his harp to the Rev. Sir Harvey Bruce. He was temperate throughout life, drank milk and water, and ate potatoes. He died in 1807, having, according to the current belief in the north of Ireland, attained the age of 112. His portrait was published by Bunting. He ​is mentioned in Lady Morgan's 'Wild Irish Girl.'
[Bunting's Ancient Music of Ireland, Dublin, 1840.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Hely, Patrick

​O'HELY, PATRICK (d. 1578), Roman catholic bishop of Mayo, called in Irish Ua Heilighe, was a native of Connaught, and early became a Franciscan. Proceeding to Spain in the fifth year after making his profession, he entered the university of Alcala. After making much progress in the study of theology there, he was summoned to Rome by the provincial of his order, and resided in the 'convent of Ara Cœli.' His learning came to the notice of Gregory XIII, who, on 4 July 1576, appointed him to the See of Mayo. O'Hely set out for his diocese almost immediately, with a companion, Conagh O'Rourke; passing through Paris, he landed at Dingle, co. Kerry. He was at once arrested and brought before the Countess of Desmond, in the absence of her husband. She sent him to Limerick to be examined, and after imprisonment there he was conveyed to Kilmallock. There O'Hely and his companion, O'Rourke, were tried by Sir William Drury [q. v.], condemned, and hanged, according to Renehan, on 22 Aug. 1578. Other authorities state that at the trial O'Hely summoned Drury to appear before the judgment sent of heaven; and, by deferring the date of the trial till late in 1579, they suggest a close connection between O'Hely's exhortation and Drury's death in October of that year. There is no mention, however, of the trial or execution in the 'State Papers,' Carew MSS., or 'Annals of the Four Masters.' O'Hely was buried in the Franciscan convent at Askeaton, co. Limerick.
[Wadding's Annales Trium Ordinum. xxi. 155–6; Bruodinus's Propugnasculum Catholicæ Fidei, pp. 433–7; Roth's Analects. ed. Moran, pp. 368, 382; O'Sullevan's Historiæ Cath. Hiberniæ Compendium, pp. 77, 104-6; De Burgo's Hibernia Dominicana; Brady's Episcopal Succession. ii. 155–6; Gams's Series Episcoporum; Moran's Spicilegium Ossoriense, iii. 36–7; O'Reilly's Irish Martyrs and Confessors. pp. 51–53, and Memorials, pp. 28-30; Renehan's Collections, pp. 275, 389, &c.; Webb's Irish Biography; Cal. State Papers, Ireland, 1574–85, p. 133.]
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, John (1776-1864)

​THOMPSON, JOHN (1776–1864), admiral, born in 1776, entered the navy in December 1787, and, having been borne on the books of various ships on the home station, joined the Lion in June 1792 with Captain Erasmus Gower [q. v.], and in her made the voyage to China. On his return he was promoted, on 18 Dec. 1794, to be a lieutenant of the Bombay Castle in the Mediterranean, one of the fleet with Hotham in the action off Toulon on 13 July 1795 [see Hotham, William, Lord], with Jervis during the blockade of Toulon in 1796, and wrecked in the Tagus in December 1796. For his exertions at that time in saving life he was commended and thanked by Vice-admiral Charles Thompson [q. v.], the president of the court-martial to inquire into the loss of the ship. He was afterwards in the Acasta in the West Indies, and, having distinguished himself in several boat expeditions, was appointed to his flagship, the Sans Pareil, by Lord Hugh Seymour [q. v.] After Seymour's death he was promoted by his successor, Rear-admiral Robert Montagu, on 28 April 1802, to the command of the Tisiphone sloop. He returned to England in January 1803, commanded a division of Sea Fencibles for a year, and in January 1806 was appointed to the Fly sloop, in which he was for some time in the West Indies, afterwards at the Cape of Good Hope and in the Plate River, where he had command of the flotilla intended to co-operate in the attack on Buenos Ayres, assisted in landing the army, and afterwards in re-embarking it. He was then appointed acting captain of the Fuerte, and went home in charge of convoy; but the admiralty refused to confirm the promotion, and Thompson was sent back to the Fly, which he commanded on the French coast during 1808. In 1809 he commanded a division of the flotilla in the Scheldt, and was advanced to post rank on 21 Oct. 1810. He had no further service, but on 1 Oct. 1846 accepted the rank of rear-admiral on the retired list, on which he rose in course of seniority to be vice-admiral on 27 May 1854, and admiral on 9 June 1860. He died on 30 Jan. 1864, aged 88. He married in 1805 a sister of Dr. Pickering of the Military College at Sandhurst, and had a large family. One ​son, Thomas Pickering Thompson, died an admiral, at the age of eighty-one, in 1892.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Pishey

​THOMPSON, PISHEY (1784–1862), historian of Boston, was born at Peachey Hall, Freiston, near Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1784. While engaged as a bank clerk at Boston he began to collect materials for a history of that town and the neighbouring villages. His intention to publish such a work was announced in 1807, and he continued his labours until 1819, when he removed to the United States. His materials were then arranged and published under the title of ‘Collections for a Topographical and Historical Account of Boston and the Hundred of Skirbeck in the County of Lincoln,’ 1820. While in America he followed the occupation of a bookseller and publisher at Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, where he formed the acquaintance of Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, and other leading men. When he returned to England in 1846 he resumed work on his book, which he eventually published in 1856 as ‘The History and Antiquities of Boston and the Villages of Skirbeck, Fishtoft, Freiston, Butterwick, Bennington, Leverton, Leake, and Wrangle, comprising the Hundred of Skirbeck in the County of Lincoln’ (royal 8vo, pp. xxii, 824). This work is admirably arranged and executed, and well illustrated and indexed. He died at Stoke Newington on 25 Sept. 1862, and was buried at Abney Park cemetery. He was married, but had no children. His ​wife, whose maiden name was Jane Tonge, was the author of a small volume of poems.
C. W. S.