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

​SEDDING, EDMUND (1836–1868), architect and musician, son of Richard and Peninnah Sedding of Summerstown, near Okehampton, Devonshire, was born on 20 June 1836. John Dando Sedding [q. v.] was his younger brother. He early displayed antiquarian tastes, which led to his visiting cathedrals, abbeys, and churches in England and France. In 1853 he entered the office of George Edmund Street [q. v.], where he devoted himself to the study of Gothic architecture. For some time he resided as an architect in Bristol, and, after again spending a period in London, removed about 1862 to Penzance, where he obtained a large practice. In Cornwall he built or restored the churches of Gwithian, Wendron, Altarnun, North-hill, Ruan, St. Peter's, Newlyn, and St. Stephen's, Launceston, while he had in progress at the time of his death a new church at Stockport, a rectory, and two churches in Wales, the restoration of Bigbury church, and a mansion at Hayle for Mr. W. J. Rawlings.
Sedding was a performer on the harmonium and organ, and an admirer of ancient church music. He was for a time precentor of the church of St. Raphael the Archangel, Bristol, and organist of St. Mary the Virgin, Soho. He greatly exerted himself in the revival of carol singing, and his books of Christmas carols were very popular. In 1865 his health failed, and he died at Penzance on 11 June 1868, being buried at Madron on 16 June. He married, on 18 Aug. 1862, Jessie, daughter of John Proctor, chemist, Penzance, by whom he left four children.
His chief musical compositions were:
* ‘A Collection of Nine Antient Christmas Carols for four voices,’ 1860; 6th edit. 1864.
* ‘Jerusalem the Golden: a hymn,’ 1861.
* ‘Seven Ancient Carols for four voices,’ 1863; 2nd edit. 1864.
* ‘Five Hymns of ye Holy Eastern Church,’ 1864.
* ‘Sun of my Soul: a hymn set to music in four parts,’ 1864.
* ‘Litany of the Passion,’ 1865.
* ‘The Harvest is the end of the World,’ 1865.
* ‘Be we merry in this Feast: a carol,’ 1866.
To F. G. Lee's ‘Directorium Anglicanum,’ 2nd edit. 1865, he supplied fifteen quarto pages of illustrations.
[Julian's Hymnology, 1892, pp. 211, 212; Western Morning News, 17 June 1868, p. 2; Church Times, 1868, vi. 230, 241; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. 1878–82, pp. 641, 1334; Street's Memoir of G. E. Street, p. 20.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sedding, John Dando

​SEDDING, JOHN DANDO (1838–1891), architect, second son of Richard and Peninnah Sedding, and younger brother of Edmund Sedding [q. v.], was born at Eton on 13 April 1838, and in 1858, like his brother, entered the office of George Edmund Street [q. v.] He made a close study of ecclesiastical architecture and decorative work connected with churches. After his architectural training was completed he mainly confined himself to designing embroidery, wall-papers, chalices, patens, and other goldsmith's work; but in 1872 he achieved a success in planning the church and vicarage of St. Clement's, Bournemouth. Thenceforward his architectural practice steadily grew. In 1876 he made the acquaintance of and submitted sketches to Mr. Ruskin, who told him that ‘he must always have pencil or chisel in hand if he were to be more than an employer of men on commission.’ Sedding took this adjuration to heart. He endeavoured to form a school of masons and of carvers and modellers from nature, and succeeded in exerting a remarkable influence over his workmen by his vigilant interest in the details of their craft. He himself was tireless in drawing and studying flowers and leaves, and from such studies he derived nearly all his ornamental designs. Elected F.R.I.B.A. in 1874, by 1880 he had an office in Oxford Street, London, and between that date and his death he built, among other works, the church of the Holy Redeemer at Clerkenwell; St. Augustine's, Highgate; St. Edward's, Netley; All Saints, Falmouth; St. Dyfrig's, Cardiff; Salcombe Church, Devonshire; the Children's Hospital, Finsbury; and Holy Trinity Church, Chelsea (unfinished). He became diocesan architect for Bath and Wells, designed the pastoral cross for the cathedral, and did much valuable work upon the churches of the diocese. He probably excelled in the additions and restorations which he executed in many of the small parish churches of the west of England, notably at Holbeton, Ermington, and Meavy in Devonshire; and in designing chancel screens, reredoses, altar crosses, and decorations he showed a happy originality. He moved his residence in June 1888 from Charlotte Street to West Wickham in Kent, and became an enthusiastic gardener, with a strong prepossession for cut-yew hedges and arcades, and other topiarian devices, writing in 1891 his very suggestive ‘Garden Craft, Old and New.’ Before it was published he died at Winsford Vicarage, Somerset (where he was engaged on some restoration) on 7 April 1891. A few days afterwards died his wife, Rose, daughter of Canon Tinling of Gloucester. Posthumously appeared his ‘Art and Handicraft’ (1893), embodying his views on the claims of architecture, some of which had already been expounded in an original paper ​read before the Edinburgh art congress in 1889. Younger men in his profession derived much inspiration both from his work and from his utterances. Two black-and-white portraits are prefixed to ‘A Memorial of John Sedding,’ privately printed, 1892.
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Seddon, John (1644-1700)

​SEDDON, JOHN (1644–1700), caligrapher, born in 1644, became master of Sir John Johnson's free writing school in Priest's Court, Foster Lane, Cheapside. Massey describes him as a ‘celebrated artist,’ and says he exceeded ‘all our English penmen in a fruitful fancy, and surprising invention, in the ornamental parts of his writing.’ He died on 12 April 1700.
The following performances of his passed through the rolling press: 1. ‘The Ingenious Youth's Companion. Furnished with variety of Copies of the Hand in Fashion. Adorned with curious Figures and Flourishes invented and perform'd à la Volée,’ London [1690], oblong 8vo. It contains fifteen plates engraved by John Sturt. 2. ‘The Pen-man's Paradise, both Pleasant and Profitable, or Examples of all ye usuall Hands of this Kingdome. Adorn'd with variety of Figures and Flourishes done by command of Hand. Each Figure being one continued & entire Tract of the Pen’ [London, 1695], oblong 4to. It was engraved by John Sturt, and contains thirty-four plates, besides the portrait of the author from a drawing by William Faithorne. 3. ‘The Penman's Magazine: or, a new Copy Book of the English, French, and Italian Hands, after the best Made; Adorn'd with about an Hundred New and Open Figures and Fancies,’ London, 1705, fol. The writing copies were ‘performed’ by George Shelley [q. v.] of the Hand and Pen in Warwick Lane, the figures and fancies being by Seddon. The whole work was supervised by Thomas Read, clerk of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, formerly one of Seddon's scholars. Prefixed to it is a laudatory poem by Nahum Tate, poet laureate.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Seddon, Thomas (1821-1856)

​SEDDON, THOMAS (1821–1856), landscape-painter, son of Thomas Seddon, a well-known cabinet-maker, was born in Aldersgate Street, London, on 28 Aug. 1821. He was educated at a school conducted on the Pestalozzian system by the Rev. Joseph Barron at Stanmore, and afterwards entered his father's business, but he found its duties so irksome that in 1841 he was sent to Paris to study ornamental art. He attained great efficiency as a draughtsman, and on his return he made designs for furniture and superintended their execution. In 1848 he gained the prize of a silver medal and twenty pounds offered by the Society of Arts for a design for an ornamental sideboard. He also practised drawing from the life, and in 1849 visited North Wales and stayed some weeks at Bettws-y-Coed; there he began his first real studies of landscape, which he continued in the following year at Barbizon in the forest of Fontainebleau. In 1850 he took an active part in establishing the North London school of drawing and modelling in Camden ​Town for the instruction of workmen. His first exhibited work, ‘Penelope,’ appeared at the Royal Academy in 1852, but next year he went to Dinan, and, turning his attention to landscape-painting, sent to the Royal Academy a picture of ‘A Valley in Brittany,’ which was followed in 1854 by a large picture of the ruined monastery of ‘Léhon, from Mont Parnasse, Brittany.’ He then, without returning to England, set out to join Mr. William Holman Hunt in Egypt, and reached Alexandria on 6 Dec. 1853. He spent some months in Egypt and in the Holy Land. During his stay at Cairo he painted a portrait of Sir Richard Burton in Arab costume, and made some careful and highly finished studies and sketches of eastern life. His ‘Sunset behind the Pyramids’ was rejected at the Royal Academy in 1855, but three of his oriental pictures, ‘An Arab Sheikh and Tents in the Egyptian Desert,’ ‘Dromedary and Arabs at the City of the Dead, Cairo,’ and an ‘Interior of a Deewan, formerly belonging to the Copt Patriarch, near the Esbekeeyah, Cairo,’ were in the exhibition of 1856. Many commissions followed, and Seddon, after returning to England in 1855, revisited Egypt in quest of fresh materials for his pictures; but within a month of his arrival at Cairo he died of dysentery in the church mission-house there on 23 Nov. 1856. He was buried in the protestant cemetery at Cairo.
Seddon left unfinished a large picture of ‘Arabs at Prayer.’ An exhibition of his works was held at the Society of Arts in 1857, when an appreciative address was delivered by Mr. John Ruskin. His picture of ‘Jerusalem and the Valley of Jehoshaphat from the Hill of Evil Counsel,’ painted on the spot in 1854, was purchased by subscription and presented to the National Gallery. His brother, John Pollard Seddon, the architect, published his ‘Memoir and Letters’ in 1858.
[Memoir and Letters of Thomas Seddon, by his brother, 1858; Athenæum, 1857, i. 19; Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists of the English School, 1878; Journal of the Society of Arts, 1857, pp. 360–2, 419; Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1852–1856.]
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sedgwick, Daniel

​SEDGWICK, DANIEL (1814–1879), hymnologist, was born of poor parents in Leadenhall Street, London, on 26 Nov. 1814. After serving an apprenticeship, he became a shoemaker. In 1839 he married and joined the strict baptist congregation at Providence Chapel, Grosvenor Street, Commercial Road. Already in 1837 he had given up shoemaking to commence dealing in secondhand books. He gradually worked up a connection among collectors, mainly of theological literature. His customers included George Offor [q. v.], William Bonar, the collector of hymn-books, and Alexander Gardyne, whose collection of Scottish poetry is now in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. His shop was at 81 (afterwards renumbered 93) Sun Street, Bishopsgate. In 1840 he taught himself writing, and acquired a neat and clear hand, but never gained any facility in literary composition. In 1859 he commenced publishing reprints of the rarer hymn-writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, under the general title of ‘Library of Spiritual Song.’ The first of the thirteen issues consisted of the hymns of William Williams (1717–1791) [q. v.] Pursuing his studies in hymnology, he produced in 1860 ‘A Comprehensive Index of many of the Original Authors and Translators of Psalms and Hymns,’ with the dates of their various works, chiefly collected from the original publications (2nd edit. enlarged 1863). Thenceforth he was recognised as the foremost living hymnologist. He was consulted by men of all opinions—by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, when compiling ‘Our own Hymn-book,’ 1866, and Josiah Miller, when writing ‘Singers and Songs of the Church.’ ‘Hymns Ancient and Modern’ owed from its earliest days something to his assistance; and when Sir Roundell Palmer (Lord Selborne) was compiling his ‘Book of Praise’ in 1862 the sheets were submitted to Sedgwick's inspection, when he identified the majority of the compositions. In fact, hardly a hymn-book appeared in his later days in which his aid was not acknowledged. His manuscripts, which are now preserved in the Church House, Westminster, were used in Julian's ‘Dictionary of Hymnology.’ He died at 93 Sun Street on 10 March 1879, and was buried in Abney Park cemetery. His wife survived him; he had no issue.
Sedgwick prepared indexes of authors for the English editions (on the title-pages of which he figures as editor) of the American works: ‘Pure Gold for the Sunday School,’ 1877, and ‘The Royal Diadem Songs for the Sunday School,’ 1877, both by R. Lowry and W. H. Doane. His six catalogues of scarce religious poetry are of bibliographical value.
[Information kindly supplied by W. T. Brooke, esq.; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. 1892, ii. 409, 451; Julian's Dict. of Hymnology, 1892, pp. 1036–7; Bookseller, May 1879, p. 424; The Earthen Vessel, July 1879, p. 199; Roundell Palmer's Book of Praise, 1863, preface, p. v; C. H. Spurgeon's Our Own Hymn-book, 1866, preface, p. ix; Hymns Ancient and Modern, Biggs's edition, 1867, preface, p. x.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Seddon, Thomas (1753-1796)

​SEDDON, THOMAS (1753–1796), author, son of John Seddon, farmer, of Pendleton, near Manchester, was born in 1753, and received part of his education at the Manchester grammar school. He was intended by his father for the medical profession, but himself chose the church, though he was ill-suited for it. He matriculated from Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 2 March 1776, but wasted his time, ran into debt, and took no degree, although he afterwards styled himself M.A. In January 1777 he was curate of the chapelry of Stretford, near Manchester, which he held until his death. For a time he was also curate at St. George's, Wigan, and from 1789 incumbent of Lydgate, Saddleworth, in the parish of Rochdale. His living at Stretford was sequestered for debt after he had been there two or three years. At Wigan he was unpopular, and generally he appears to have been negligent of his duties, and ‘a clever but erratic parson of the Doctor Dodd species,’ as James Crossley styled him (Manchester School Reg. i. 116). He married for means a young lady of good family near Manchester, and died in 1796, on his passage to the West Indies, as chaplain of the 104th or royal regiment of Manchester volunteers.
He was author of, apart from sermons: 1. ‘Characteristic Strictures, or Remarks on upwards of One Hundred Portraits of the most Eminent Persons in the Counties of Lancaster and Chester,’ London, 1779, 4to [anon.]; a series of libellous and satiric sketches which gave great offence. 2. ‘Letters written to an Officer in the Army on various subjects, Religious, Moral, and Political, with a view to the Manners, Accomplishments, and proper Conduct of Young Gentlemen,’ Warrington, 1786, 2 vols. 8vo. 3. ‘Impartial and Free Thoughts on a Free Trade to the Kingdom of Ireland’ [1780], 8vo.
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Perryn, Richard

​PERRYN, Sir RICHARD (1723–1803), baron of the exchequer, son of Benjamin Perryn of Flint, merchant, by his wife, Jane, eldest daughter of Richard Adams, town clerk of Chester, was baptised in the parish church of Flint on 16 Aug. 1723. He was educated at Ruthin grammar school and Queen's College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 13 March 1741, but did not take any degree. He was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 6 Nov. 1740, and on 27 April 1746 migrated to the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar on 3 July 1747. Perryn commenced practice in the court of chancery, and gradually acquired such a reputation there as to be employed during the latter years of his practice in almost every cause. On 20 July 1770 he became vice-chamberlain of Chester (Ormerod, History of Cheshire, 1882, i. 61), and in the same year was made a king's counsel and a bencher of the Inner Temple. On 6 April 1776 he kissed hands on his appointment as baron of the exchequer in the place of Sir John Burland, and was knighted on the same day (London Gazette, 1776, No. 11654). He was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law and sworn into office on the 26th of the same month (Blackstone, Reports, 1781, ii. ​1060). Perryn retired from the bench in the long vacation of 1799 (Durnford and East, Term Reports, 1817, viii. 421), and died at his house at Twickenham on 2 Jan. 1803, aged 79. He was buried on the 10th of the same month in ‘the new burial-ground’ at Twickenham, and a tablet was erected to his memory in the south chancel wall of the old parish church.
Perryn married Mary, eldest daughter of Henry Browne of Skelbrooke in the West Riding of Yorkshire, by whom he had several children. His wife died on 19 April 1795, aged 73. An engraved portrait of Perryn by Dupont, after Gainsborough, was published in 1779. Some remarks on Perryn's charge to the grand jury of Sussex at the Lent assizes in 1785 are appended to ‘Thoughts on Executive Justice with respect to our Criminal Laws, particularly on the Circuits,’ London, 1785, 8vo.
G. F. R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Peryam, William

​PERYAM, Sir WILLIAM (1534–1604), judge, was the eldest son of John Peryam of Exeter, by his wife Elizabeth, a daughter of Robert Hone of Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire (Pole, Collections for Devon, p. 149). He was born at Exeter in 1534, and was a cousin of Sir Thomas Bodley [q. v.] His father, a man of means, was twice mayor of Exeter, and his brother, Sir John, was also an alderman of that town and a benefactor of Exeter College, Oxford. William Peryam was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he was elected fellow on 25 April, but resigned on 7 Oct. 1551, and sat for Plymouth from 1562 to 1567. He joined the Middle Temple, where his arms are placed in the hall, was called to the bar in 1565, became a serjeant-at-law in Michaelmas term 1579, and on 13 Feb. 1581 was appointed a judge of the common pleas. Upon Sir Christopher Hatton's death in 1591, he was named one of the commissioners to hear causes in chancery, and he was frequently in commissions for trials of political crimes, particularly those of Mary Queen of Scots, the Earls of Arundel and Essex, and Sir John Perrot. Accordingly in January 1593 he was promoted to be chief baron of the exchequer, and was knighted, and presided in that court for nearly twelve years. On 9 Oct. 1604 he died at his house at Little Fulford, near Crediton, Devonshire, and was buried at Little Fulford church, in which neighbourhood he had bought large estates. He had also built a ‘fayre dwelling house’ (Pole, Collections for Devon, p. 221) at Credy Peitevin or Wiger, which he left to his daughters, and they sold it to his brother John. A picture, supposed to be his portrait, and ascribed to Holbein, is in the National Portrait Gallery, London (Notes and Queries, 5th ser. vi. 88, 135). He was thrice married: first, to Margery, daughter of John Holcot of Berkshire; secondly, to Anne, daughter of John Parker of North Molton, Devonshire; thirdly, to Elizabeth, a daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon [q. v.], lord-keeper; and he left four daughters, of whom the eldest, Mary, was married to Sir William Pole [q. v.] of Colcombe, Devonshire, and Elizabeth to Sir ​Robert Basset of Heanton-Punchardon, Devonshire; Jane married Thomas Poyntz of Hertfordshire; and Anne, William Williams of Herringstone, Dorset. His widow, in 1620, endowed a fellowship and two scholarships at Balliol College, Oxford, out of lands at Hambledon and Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire.
[Boase's Registrum Coll. Exon. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), pp. 66, 370; Foss's Judges of England; Prince's Worthies; Pole's Collections for Devon; Dugdale's Origines, pp. 48, 225; State Trials, i. 1167, 1251, 1315, 1333; App. 4th Rep. Public Records, 272–96; Walter Yonge's Diary, p. 8; Green's Domestic State Papers, 1591–1603; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Strype's Works, Index; Official Returns of Members of Parliament.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Peryn, William

​PERYN, WILLIAM (d. 1558), Dominican, was probably connected with the Perins of Shropshire, though his name does not occur in the visitation of that county of 1623. He early became a Dominican, and was educated at the house of that order in Oxford. He thence went to London, where he was a vigorous opponent of protestant opinions. For some time he was chaplain of Sir John Port [q. v.] On the declaration of royal supremacy in 1534 he went abroad, but took advantage of the catholic reaction to return in 1543, when he supplicated for the degree of B.D. at Oxford. On the accession of Edward VI he is said to have recanted on 19 June 1547 in the church of St. Mary Undershaft, but soon left England (Gasquet and Bishop, Edward VI and the Book of Common Prayer, p. 50). He returned in 1553, when he was made prior of the Dominican house of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, the first of Mary's religious establishments. On 8 Feb. 1558 he preached at St. Paul's Cross, and died in the same year, being buried in St. Bartholomew's on 22 Aug. (Strype, Eccl. Mem. iii. ii. 116).
Peryn was author of:
* ‘Thre Godlye … Sermons of the Sacrament of the Aulter,’ London [1545?], 8vo (Brit. Mus.). Dibdin describes an edition dated 1546, a copy of which belonged to Herbert. Tanner mentions another edition of 1548. It is dedicated to Edmund [Bonner], bishop of London.
* ‘Spiritual Exercyses and Goostly Meditacions, and a neare waye to come to perfection and lyfe contemplatyve,’ London, 1557, 8vo (Brit. Mus.); another edit., Caen, sm. 8vo, 1598 (Hazlitt).
* ‘De frequenter celebranda Missa,’ which does not seem to be extant (Tanner).
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. i. 248, Fasti, i. 119; Foster's Alumni, 1500–1714; Strype's Eccl. Mem. III. i. 471, 501, ii. 2, 116; Dodd's Church Hist. i. 528; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 593; Quétif's Scriptt. Ord. Prædicat. ed. Echard, ii. 157 b; Simler's Bibl. Gesneriana; Pits, p. 571; Ames's Typogr. Antiq., ed. Dibdin, iv. 230; Hazlitt's Collections, 3rd ser. Suppl. p. 80; Stow's Annals, p. 594; Foxe's Acts and Mon. vii. 598; Dixon's Hist. of the Church of England, iii. 39; Bigsby's Repton, p. 157; works in Brit. Mus. Libr.]
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Peshall, John

​PESHALL or PECHELL, Sir JOHN (1718–1778), bart., historical writer, born at Hawn, Worcestershire, on 27 Jan. 1718, was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Peshall (1694–1759) of Eccleshall, Staffordshire, by his wife Anne, daughter of Samuel Sanders of Ombersley, Worcestershire. The family of Peshall was of very ancient origin. One of the early forms of the name was Passelewe, and three members of the family who flourished in the thirteenth century are separately noticed. Sir John took holy orders, and in 1771 was preferred to the rectory of Stoke Bliss in Herefordshire. He resided a great deal in Oxford, where he died on 9 Nov. 1778. He was buried at Hawn. Peshall married, on 12 July 1753, Mary, daughter and coheir of James Allen, vicar of Thaxted in Essex, by whom he left issue.
Peshall wrote ‘The History of the University of Oxford to the Death of William the Conqueror,’ Oxford, 1772, 8vo. This is a slight performance, though it attempts to trace the origin of the university to druidical times, and describes Alfred as merely ‘refreshing the life of the institution’ (p. 20). The authorities on which the book is founded are treated in the chapter on ‘The Mythical Origin of Oxford’ in Mr. Parker's ‘Early History of Oxford’ (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), 1885. He also edited from the manuscript in the Bodleian, with additions of his own, Anthony a Wood's ‘Antient and Present state of the City of Oxford,’ 1773, 4to.
[Wotton's Baronetage, i. 122; Gent. Mag. 1778, ii. 164; pedigree of family among Ashmole MSS. in Bodleian Library; Duncumb's Herefordshire, ii. 164; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
T. S.