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

​HODY, Sir WILLIAM (d. 1522?), chief baron of the exchequer, second son of Sir John Hody [q. v.], chief justice of the king's bench, was born before 1441. Perhaps he is the William Hody who represented Totnes in the parliament of 1472 (Members of Parl. Official Returns, i. 360). His name is first mentioned in the year-books in 1476. He was in parliament in 1483, and procured a reversal of the attainder of his uncle, Sir Alexander Hody of Bowre, Somerset, who had been attainted at Edward IV's accession for adherence to the house of Lancaster. In 1485, shortly after the accession of Henry VII, he became attorney-general, and was made a serjeant-at-law at the end of the year. On 29 Oct. 1486 he was appointed chief baron of the exchequer, was still a judge in 1516 (Cal. State Papers, 1515–18, p. 876), and probably died in 1522, when John Fitzjames became chief baron. He married Eleanor, daughter of Baldwyn Mallett of Corypool, Somersetshire, by whom he had two sons, Reginald and John, and two daughters, Joan, who married Richard Warr, and Jane, who married Lawrence Wadham.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Hutchins's Dorset, i. 317; Prince's Worthies.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Donnell, John Francis

​O'DONNELL, JOHN FRANCIS (1837–1874), poet, born in the city of Limerick in 1837, was the son of a shopkeeper in humble position. He received his education in the primary schools of the Christian brothers, and, having acquired a knowledge of shorthand, joined as a reporter, in his seventeenth year, the staff of the ‘Munster News,’ a bi-weekly paper published in Limerick. At the same time he began to contribute verse to the ‘Nation,’ the organ of the Young Ireland party, and continued to write prose and poetry for it till his death, twenty years later. After spending two years as reporter on the ‘Munster News,’ O'Donnell was appointed sub-editor on the ‘Tipperary Examiner,’ published in Clonmel; and in 1860 he proceeded to London, where he obtained an appointment on the ‘Universal News,’ a weekly organ of Roman catholic and Irish nationalist opinion. He also contributed verse to ‘Chambers's Journal’ and ‘All the Year Round.’ Charles Dickens, who then edited the latter journal, wrote the young poet an encouraging letter, and showed kindly interest in him.
In 1862 O'Donnell joined in Dublin the editorial staff of the ‘Nation,’ then edited by Mr. A. M. Sullivan, and also acted as editor of ‘Duffy's Hibernian Magazine,’ a monthly publication; but, with the restlessness which characterised him through life, he was again in London in 1864 as editor of the ‘Universal News,’ and the next year he became sub-editor of the ‘Tablet,’ the organ of the English Roman catholics. He retained the post till 1868. At this time the fenian movement was convulsing the country. It is uncertain whether or no O'Donnell was a member of the revolutionary organisation, but he was one of its ablest propagandists in the press. The passionate nationalism of the numerous poems which, under the noms de guerre of ‘Caviare’ and ‘Monkton West,’ he contributed to the Dublin national journals swelled the ranks of the Irish republican brotherhood. He also acted as London correspondent of the ‘Irish People,’ the organ of the fenian movement, which, with John O'Leary as its editor, was founded in November 1863, and was suppressed by the government in September 1865.
In September 1873 O'Donnell obtained an appointment in the London office of the agent-general of New Zealand. He died, after a brief illness, on 7 May 1874, aged 37, and was buried at Kensal Green, London. Absorbed in journalism, O'Donnell found little time for purely literary work. ‘The Emerald Wreath,’ a collection of his prose and verse, published in Dublin as a Christmas annual in 1865, and ‘Memories of the Irish Franciscans,’ a volume of verse (1871), were his only substantial contributions to ​literature. Under the auspices of the Southwark Irish Literary Society, O'Donnell's poems were published in 1891, and his grave was marked by a Celtic cross.
[MacDonagh's Irish Graves in England, Dublin, 1888; O'Donnell's Poems, with an Introduction by Richard Dowling, London, 1891.]
M. MacD.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Duinn, Gillananaemh

Gilla na Náemh Ua Duinn in the ODNB
​O'DUINN, GILLANANAEMH (1102–1160), Irish historian, was born in 1102, and belonged to a tribe which possessed, from the eleventh century to the reign of James I, the district now called Dooregan, from their tribe-name of Ui Riaccain,and the Irish word duthaidh, inheritance. They were one of the septs of the old Irish kingdom of Ui Failghe, now Offaly; the present barony of Tinahinch, Queen's County, includes their territory, where many of them still remain under the anglicised names of Dunn, O'Dunn, and Doyne. Gillananaemh became chief poet of the king of Leinster, and composed historical poems of the same character as those of Flann [q. v.] and of Gillacoemhin. Five poems undoubtedly his are extant: (1) Of 328 verses, beginning 'Aibhinn sin Eire ard: a chrich mac Miledh morgarg' ('Oh! pleasant noble Ireland: land of the sons of valiant Milesius'). This celebrates the Milesian conquest; and a copy made in 1712 by the welt-known scribe John MacSolaidh is extant, as well as one in the Cambridge University Library of earlier date. (2) Of 280 verses on the kings of Leinster, beginning 'Coigeadh Laighean na leacht an riogh' ('Fifth of Ireland, Leinster of the tombs of the kings'). There is a copy in the 'Book of Ballymote,' a manuscript of the fifteenth century (fol. 55, col. 4, line 8). (3) Of 128 verses on the tribes descended from Colla Meann, Colla Uais, and Colla Dachrioch, the three sons of Cairbre Liffeachair, king of Ireland. It begins 'Airghialla a hEamhain Macha' ('Oh ! men of Oriel, from the Navan fort'). A copy made in 1708 by James Maguire was in the collection of Edward O'Reilly [q. v.] (4) Of 296 verses on the kings of Connaught, beginning 'Findaidh seanchaidhe fir Fan' ('Witness the historians of the men of Ireland'), There is a copy in the Cambridge University Library. (5) Of 296 verses on the kings of Connaught, beginning, 'Cruacha Conacht rath co raith' ('Rathcroghan, prosperous earthwork'), There is a copy in the 'Book of Ballymote' (fol. 56, col. 1, line 18). The libraries of the Royal Irish Academy and of Trinity College, Dublin, contain in their Irish manuscript collections further copies of these poems, and of others written by him. He died on the island of Lough Kee, co. Longford, called Inisclothran, on 17 Dec. 1160.
[Book of Billymote. Facs. Dublin, 1887, MS. Reeves, 388, in Cambridge Univ. Library; E. O'Reilly in Transactions of the Iberno-Celtic Soc. vol. i. Dublin, 1820; local information from Michael Dunn of Mountrath, Queen's County, in 1860; O'Donovan's Note in Annals of the Four Masters. iv. 957.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fahey, James

​FAHEY, JAMES (1804–1885), water-colour painter, was born at Paddington, then a village near London, 16 April 1804, and at first studied engraving under his uncle, John Swaine. Afterwards he became a pupil of George Scharf, and then went to Paris, where he studied from the life, and made full-size drawings of dissections, which he reproduced on stone for the use of anatomical students. His earliest exhibited work, a ‘Portrait of a young Gentleman,’ appeared at the Royal Academy in 1825, and was followed in 1827 by drawings of the church of St. Jacques at Dieppe and the cathedral of Notre-Dame at Paris. Between this time and 1836 he contributed several portraits and landscapes in water-colours to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the ​Society of British Artists. Meanwhile the beauties of English scenery led him by degrees to devote himself exclusively to landscape painting, and in 1834 he joined the Associated Painters in Water-Colours, out of which was formed in 1835 the New Society of Painters in Water-Colours (now the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours), which held its first three exhibitions in Exeter Hall, and in 1838 removed to Pall Mall, when Fahey became its secretary. This office he held until 1874, and discharged its duties with much tact and devotion. His works, mostly landscape compositions, in which he introduced figures and groups, were seldom absent from its exhibitions, and his official services were long given without any remuneration. In 1853, 1855, and 1857 he again sent landscape drawings to the Royal Academy, and in 1856 he was appointed drawing-master at the Merchant Taylors' School, from which post he retired with a pension after twenty-seven years' service. He also painted occasionally in oil, and exhibited two pictures at the British Institution in 1861 and 1862. Fahey died at The Grange, Shepherd's Bush Green, London, 11 Dec. 1885. His son, Mr. Edward Henry Fahey, was well known as a painter in water-colours.
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Plunket, Nicholas

Dates c.1629 to 1718 in the ODNB.
​PLUNKET, NICHOLAS (fl. 1641), compiler, is known only as author of a contemporary account of affairs in Ireland in 1641, which Carte frequently cites in his 'Life of Ormonde.' 'It,' wrote Carte, 'would make a very large volume in folio, and is a collection of a vast number of relations of passages that happened in the Irish wars, made by a society of gentlemen who lived in that time, and were eye-witnesses of many of those passages.' In 1741, the compiler's grandson, Henry Plunket, co. Meath, issued proposals for printing by subscription 'A faithful History of the Rebellion and Civil War in Ireland from its beginning, in the year 1641, to its conclusion, written by Nicholas Plunket, esq., and communicated to Mr. Dryden, who revised, corrected, and approved it.' The subscription was one guinea per copy. The book, it was stated, would 'contain about 130 sheets, printed in a neat letter.' In Harris's work on the 'Writers of Ireland,' issued in 1746, Plunket's book was mentioned as still unpublished. No more was long heard of it, and portions of the manuscript appear to have been subsequently lost or destroyed. About 1830 a fragment of the manuscript came, with some of the Plunket estates, into the possession of General Francis Plunket Dunne, M.P. for the King's County. An account of this fragment by the present writer was printed in the description of the Plunket manuscript in the second report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts. Carte seems to have somewhat over-estimated the value and impartiality of the manuscript.
J. T. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Plunket, Patrick

​PLUNKET, PATRICK (d. 1668), ninth Baron of Dunsany, co. Meath, was only son of Christopher, eighth lord Dunsany, by his wife Mary or Maud, daughter of Henry Babington of Dethick, Derbyshire. Both father and mother were Roman catholics. An ancestor, Sir Christopher Plunket (d. 1445), was active in the Irish wars during the early part of the fifteenth century, and is said to have been deputy to Sir Thomas Stanley, lord lieutenant of Ireland. His son, Sir Christopher (d. 1461), is generally reckoned first Baron Dunsany. Another Christopher Plunket was taken prisoner by the Irish in 1466, and died in 1467 (Lodge, vi. 166–74; Book of Howth, pp. 156, 172, 359; Annals of Four Masters, iv. 1043, 1049). Patrick Plunket, seventh lord Dunsany (fl. 1530), was reputed to be the author of some literary works, which have not come to light.
Patrick, the ninth lord, succeeded to the title and estates on the death of his father in 1603. He sat in the House of Lords at Dublin, and married Jane, daughter of Sir Thomas Heneage of Lincolnshire. At the commencement of the movements of 1641 in Ireland, Lord Dunsany, with other Roman catholic peers, addressed letters to the lords justices at Dublin in relation to rumoured designs against themselves and their co-religionists. In March 1641–2 Dunsany, in a letter to the Earl of Ormonde, still extant, avowed himself a loyal subject, a ‘lover of the prosperity of England,’ and added, ‘I am an Englishman born, my mother an Englishwoman, and my wife an English​woman.’ Later in the same month he applied to the lords justices for assistance to enable him to defend his castle and lands. His request was not acceded to, and he was soon after committed to prison on a charge of treason. After an incarceration of eighteen months he was liberated, but bound to appear for trial in the court of king's bench. Under the government of the parliament of England Dunsany and his wife were ejected from their castle and possessions, which had been decreed to ‘adventurers’ who had advanced money in London for estates in Ireland. In the acts of settlement and explanation of 1662 a clause was inserted for restoring to Dunsany his castle, with portions of the estates which he possessed in 1641. He died in 1668.
[Carte's Life of Ormonde, 1736; Carte Papers, Bodleian Library; Peerage of Ireland, 1789; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. 1813; Prendergast's Cromwellian Settlement, 1875; Gilbert's Contemporary Hist. of Affairs in Ireland, 1879, and Hist. of Confederation and War in Ireland, 1882.]
J. T. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Plunkett, John Hubert

​PLUNKETT, JOHN HUBERT (1802–1869), Australian statesman, was the younger of the twin sons of George Plunkett of Roscommon and Miss O'Kelly of Tycooly, co. Galway. Born at Roscommon in June 1802, he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. with some distinction in 1824. He was called to the Irish bar in 1826, and joined the Connaught circuit. He soon threw himself vigorously into politics; and, as a catholic whose family properties had been confiscated under penal laws, he earnestly advocated the catholic emancipation. To him was largely due the return to parliament of O'Connell's supporters, French and the O'Conor Don, for Roscommon in 1830—an admitted blow to the Orange party. ​In October 1831, though his prospects at the bar were encouraging, he accepted from Earl Grey the post of solicitor-general of New South Wales. In 1836 he combined the office with that of attorney-general. He had a seat ex officio in the old legislative council. In 1848 he became, in addition, chairman of the newly established National School Board.
In 1856, when responsible government was conceded to New South Wales, Plunkett resigned office and retired on a pension, but immediately stood for election to the new assembly, and was elected for two out of three constituencies where he was nominated. Sydney alone rejected him. He elected to sit for Argyle; but next year he resigned, and was appointed to the upper chamber, where he was elected president. In 1858, owing to a collision with the prime minister, Charles Cowper, his name was removed from the committee of education, and he temporarily retired from public life; but in 1863 he joined the Martin ministry as leader in the upper chamber. In 1865, owing to the mediation of friends, he joined the Cowper ministry as attorney-general, and remained in office till the ministry fell.
During his later life Plunkett lived chiefly in Melbourne, staying in Sydney during the session of parliament. He died on 9 May 1869 at Burlington Terrace, East Melbourne. A public funeral at Sydney was accorded him on 15 May.
Plunkett was a zealous Roman catholic, and in his last years was secretary to the provincial council of the Roman catholic church at Melbourne. He was a vice-president of Sydney University.
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pockrich, Richard

​POCKRICH, POKERIDGE, or PUCKERIDGE, RICHARD (1690?–1759), inventor of the musical glasses, was born in co. Monaghan, and was descended from an English family which had left Surrey and settled in Ireland in the seventeenth century. His father was a soldier who had raised a company of his own, and was dangerously wounded at the siege of Athlone. Richard was left at the age of twenty-five an unencumbered fortune of 4,000l. a year (Pilkington, Memoirs), but all his resources he dissipated in the pursuit of visionary projects. He proposed to plant vineyards in reclaimed Irish bogs, to supply men-of-war with tin boats which would not sink, to secure immortality by the transfusion of blood, and to provide human beings with wings. He also bought some thousands of acres of poor land in Wicklow, and started the breeding of geese on a large scale, and was for a time proprietor of a brewery. After all his schemes had come to grief he endeavoured, without success, to obtain the post of chapel-master at Armagh. On 23 April 1745 he married Mrs. Margaret Winter, widow of a Francis Winter, with an income of 200l. a year, and in the same year made an unsuccessful endeavour to enter parliament as M.P. for co. Monaghan. In 1749 he failed again as a candidate for Dublin (Newburgh, Essays, &c., p. 237).
Pockrich, who was 'a perfect master of music,' was the inventor of the musical glasses, by which music was produced by striking harmonically arranged goblets of glass. The invention was developed in the harmonica. Pockrich also invented a new form of dulcimer. In later life he gave concerts in various parts of England, at which practical exhibitions of his musical glasses were given. He engaged John Carteret Pilkington, son of Mrs. Lætitia Pilkington [q. v.], to sing for him, and composed many pieces of music himself. In 1756 he published a volume of 'Miscellaneous Works,' comprising poems and songs. Brockhill Newburgh of co. Cavan described his eccentricities and schemes in a poem entitled 'The Projector.' 'A tall, middle-aged gentleman,' usually wearing a bag-wig and sword, he was suffocated to death in 1759 in a fire which broke out in his room at Hamlin's Coffee-house, Sweeting's Alley, near the Royal Exchange, London. Pockrich's wife seems to have formed a liaison with Theophilus Cibber [q. v.], and was drowned with that author in a shipwreck off the Scotch coast in 1758.
[Memoirs of John Carteret Pilkington; Brockhill Newburgh's Essays, Poetical, Moral, &c. 1769; Campbell's Philosophical Survey; Conran's National Music of Ireland; Gent. Mag. 1759; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland, p. 206.]
D. J. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Plunket, Thomas

​PLUNKET, THOMAS, Baron Plunket of the Holy Roman Empire (1716–1779), general in the service of Austria, a kinsman of Lord Dunsany, was born in Ireland in 1716. Entering the Austrian army, he fought in Turkey and in the war of the Spanish succession. In 1746, as a colonel and adjutant-general of the army in Italy, he much distinguished himself, and in the following year he was sent to Genoa as bearer of the imperial pardon to that republic. He went through the seven years' war. In 1757, under Daun, by capturing the obstinately defended village of Krzeszow, he greatly contributed to the victory of Kollin. The cross of the order of Maria Theresa, which conferred the title of baron, was consequently awarded him on 4 Dec. 1758. In the following year he was in command of eight Austrian regiments in Saxony (Carlyle, Frederick the Great, viii. 177). In 1763 he was nominated general. On St. Patrick's day 1766 he attended the dinner given at Vienna to men of Irish extraction by Count Demetrius O'Mahony, the Spanish ambassador [see under O'Mahony, Daniel]. In 1770 he was appointed governor of Antwerp, which post he held till his death, 20 Jan. 1779.
By his marriage with Mary D'Alton, probably a sister of Richard and Edward D'Alton, Austrian generals, he had a son, an Austrian officer, killed at the siege of Belgrade in 1789. A daughter, Mary Bridget Charlotte Josephine, born at Louvain in 1759, was educated at the English Austin nunnery, Paris, and married in 1787 the Marquis de Chastellux, who died on 26 Oct. 1788; she was subsequently lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Orleans, and died at Paris on 18 Dec. 1815. Her son Alfred (born posthumously in February 1789) became an equerry to Princess Adelaide, the sister of Louis-Philippe, was a deputy, 1832–42, and was created a peer of France in 1845.
[Hirtenfeld's Militär Maria Theresen Orden, Vienna, 1857; Annual Register, 1766, p. 60; Diary of Gouverneur Morris; Alger's Englishmen in French Revolution.]
J. G. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oldham, John (1779-1840)

​OLDHAM, JOHN (1779–1840), engineer, born in 1779 in Dublin, was apprenticed to an engraver there, but subsequently became a miniature-painter. Having a strong inclination for mechanics, he invented a numbering machine, which in 1809 he unsuccessfully offered to the bank of Newry for numbering their bank-notes. In 1812 the machine was adopted by the Bank of Ireland, and he received the appointment of engineer and chief engraver. In 1837 he entered the service of the Bank of England, where he introduced many improvements in the machinery for printing and numbering banknotes. This machinery continued in use until 1852–3, when the system of surface-printing was adopted. He paid much attention to marine propulsion, and in 1817 he obtained a patent (No. 4169) for propelling ships by means of paddles worked by a steam-engine, an endeavour being made to imitate the motion of a paddle when used in the ordinary way. In 1820 he patented a further improvement (No. 4249), the paddles being placed on a shaft across the ship, and caused to revolve, being feathered by an adaptation of the gearing used in the former patent. Though a very imperfect contrivance, it has an interest from the fact that it was used in the Aaron Manby, the first seagoing iron ship ever constructed [see Manby, Aaron]. A further development of the idea resulted in the construction of a feathering paddle-wheel, which was patented in 1827 (No. 5455). His system of warming buildings, introduced into the Bank of Ireland, and subsequently into the Bank of England, is described in the ‘Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal,’ 1839, p. 96. He died at his house in Montagu Street, Russell Square, on 14 Feb. 1840, leaving, it is said, a family of seventeen children.
​His eldest son, Thomas Oldham (1801–1851), succeeded to his father's place at the bank. He was elected an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 2 March 1841, and in 1842 he read a paper ‘On the Introduction of Letterpress Printing for numbering and dating the Notes of the Bank of England’ (Proceedings, 1842, p. 166), and in the following year he contributed ‘A Description of the Automatic Balance at the Bank of England invented by W. Cotton’ (ib. 1843, p. 121). For the latter he received a Telford medal. He died at Brussels on 7 Nov. 1851.
[Mechanics' Magazine, xxxii. 400; Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1841, p. 14; Francis's History of the Bank of England, ii. 232.]
R. B. P.