OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Potter, Thomas Joseph

​POTTER, THOMAS JOSEPH (1828–1873), catholic story-writer and professor, born on 9 June 1828 at Scarborough, Yorkshire, was son of George Potter, by his wife Amelia Hunt. His parents intended him to take orders in the church of England, but, on 24 Feb. 1847, he was received into the ​catholic church at Stockeld Park, Bewerley, Yorkshire, and joined Stonyhurst College. On 24 Oct. 1854 he entered All Hallows' College, Dublin, and was ordained a priest on 28 June 1857. He was appointed director of All Hallows' College, and professor of sacred eloquence, and died there on 31 Aug. 1873.
His works, chiefly passable religious poems or romances, are: 1. ‘The Two Victories,’ Dublin, 8vo, 1860. 2. ‘The Rector's Daughter,’ London, 1861, 16mo. 3. ‘Legends, Lyrics, and Hymns,’ Dublin, 1862. 4. ‘Light and Shade,’ 8vo, 1864. 5. ‘Panegyric of St. Patrick,’ 8vo, 1864. 6. ‘Sir Humphrey's Trial, or the Lesson of Life,’ a book of tales, legends, and sketches in prose and verse, 8vo, 4th edit. Dublin, 1884. 7. ‘The Pastor and his People, or the Word of God and the Flock of Israel,’ Dublin, 8vo, 1869. 8. ‘The Spoken Word, or the Art of Extempore Preaching,’ 12mo, 1872. 9. ‘Rupert Aubrey of Aubrey Chase,’ an historical tale of 1681, 2nd edit. 12mo, 1879. 10. ‘Percy Grange, or the Dream of Life,’ a tale in three books, 12mo, 1876; new edit. 1883.
D. J. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Potts, Robert

​POTTS, ROBERT (1805–1885), mathematician, the son of Robert Potts, and grandson of the head of a firm of Irish linen-weavers, was born at Lambeth in 1805. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1828 as a sizar, and graduated B.A. as twenty-fifth wrangler in 1832, proceeding M.A. in 1835. He became a successful private tutor in the university, and was a strenuous advocate of most of the university reforms that were carried in his time. He acquired wide reputation as the editor of Euclid's ‘Elements,’ which he brought out in a large edition in 1845, followed in 1847 by an appendix. His school edition appeared in 1846, and was republished in 1850, 1861, 1864, and 1886; a separate edition of book i. appeared in 1884. The book had an immense circulation in the British colonies and in America, and the William and Mary College of Virginia conferred the honorary degree of LL.D. upon Potts ‘in appreciation of the excellence of his mathematical works.’ The merits of his edition of Euclid consisted in the clear arrangement and division of the component parts of the propositions, and in the admirable collection of notes. Potts died at Cambridge in August 1885.
His other publications include: 1. ‘A View of Paley's Evidences and Horæ Paulinæ,’ 1850. 2. ‘Liber Cantabrigiensis,’ 2 pts. 1855–63, 8vo. 3. ‘Aphorisms, Maxims,’ &c., 1875. 4. ‘Open Scholarships in the University of Cambridge,’ 1866; 2nd edit., 1883. 5. ‘Elementary Arithmetic, with Historical Notes,’ 1876. 6. ‘Elementary Algebra, with Historical Notes,’ 1879. He also edited the 1543 edition of William Turner's ‘Huntyng and Fyndyng out of the Romish Fox,’ 1851, and ‘King Edward VI on the Supremacy … with his Discourse on the Reformation of Abuses,’ 1874, and other theological works.
C. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Shaw, Thomas Budge

Thomas Budd Shaw in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​SHAW, THOMAS BUDGE (1813–1862), author, seventh son of John Shaw (1776–1832) [q. v.], was born at Gower Street, London, on 12 Oct. 1813. In 1822 he accompanied his uncle, the Rev. Francis Whitfield, to Berbice in the West Indies, and on his return in 1827 entered the free school, Shrewsbury, where he became a favourite pupil of Dr. Samuel Butler [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Lichfield. In 1833 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1836. After acting as a private tutor, he in 1840 visited Russia and settled at St. Petersburg next year. There he made the acquaintance of M. Warrand, a professor at the university, and by his influence was in 1842 appointed professor of English literature at the Imperial Alexander Lyceum. In the same year he married M. Warrand's daughter Annette. In 1846, at the request of the authorities of the Lyceum, Shaw undertook to write a textbook of English literature. It was published in 1848 as ‘Outlines of English Literature’ (2nd edit. 1849). He visited England in 1851, and proceeded M.A. On his return to Russia he was made lector of English literature at the university of St. Petersburg. His lectures were much appreciated. From 1853 until his death he was tutor and professor of English to the grand dukes of Russia. He died suddenly of an aneurism on 14 Nov. 1862. His funeral was attended by a large concourse of past and present pupils, and a monument was erected to his memory by subscription at the Lyceum.
Although the impossibility of consulting at St. Petersburg the latest English authorities on the subject made some inaccurate statements and conclusions inevitable, Shaw's manual sets before the student the characteristics of the great writers in a way that arrests his attention and guides his taste. Since the author's death the book has been enlarged, many times reprinted, and incorporated in the series known as ‘Murray's Students' Manuals.’ Shaw contributed the article on St. Petersburg to the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ 1859, and published ‘The Heretic,’ translated from the Russian of Lajetchnikoff, 3 vols. 1844, besides excellent translations ​from the Russian, Latin, Italian, and German in ‘Blackwood's,’ ‘Fraser's,’ and other magazines.
E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Powell, Foster

​POWELL, FOSTER (1734–1793), pedestrian, born at Horseforth, near Leeds, in 1734, came to London in 1762 as a clerk to an attorney in the Temple, whence he subsequently migrated to New Inn. Two years later he commenced his career as a pedestrian, by walking fifty miles in seven hours on the Bath road. In November 1773 he walked from London to York and back, a distance of four hundred miles, in 138 hours. His best achievements, however, were performed in three successive years, 1786–8. In the first of these he walked 100 miles in 231/4 hours, in 1787 he covered 112 miles in the 24 hours, while in 1788 he reduced his time for 100 miles to 21 hours 35 minutes. In 1792 he walked again from Shoreditch to York Minster and back in 5 days 151/4 hours (1351/4 hours), 23/4 hours better than his previous time. The 10l. he obtained for this feat is said to have been the largest sum he ever received. He was careless of money, and his great walks were undertaken for trifling wagers. He was very popular, and was often welcomed back to London by huge crowds. Powell died in straitened circumstances at his room in Clement's Inn on 15 April 1793, and was buried on 22 April in the church of St. Faith in St. Paul's Churchyard. The pedestrian was 5 ft. 9 in. in height, and of sallow complexion. Abstemious at other times, he took brandy to sustain him on his long expeditions. Powell was one of the earliest athletes of whom we possess any authentic records; and he was probably rightly regarded as the greatest pedestrian of his time, or indeed of the century. But most of his feats were eclipsed by Captain Barclay [see Allardice, Robert Barclay] during the early years of the nineteenth century; and all his records have now long since been broken. Four hundred miles were travelled by G. Littlewood at Sheffield in 1882 in under ninety-seven hours; one hundred miles were walked in 18 hours 8¼ minutes by seconds by W. Howes in 1880.
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Powell, Humphrey

​POWELL, HUMPHREY (fl. 1548–1556), printer, was in 1548 engaged in printing in Holborn Conduit, London. In that year he published two works, ‘An Holsome Antidotus,’ 8vo, and ‘Certayne Litel Treatises,’ 8vo; and two other books, ‘Œcolampadius's Sermon’ and ‘Barclay's Eclogues,’ without date, were issued by him about the same time. In 1551 Powell removed to Dublin, where he became printer to the king, and established the first printing press in Ireland; he resided first ‘in the great toure by the Crane’ (probably in Crane Lane), but subsequently removed to St. Nicholas Street. The only book known to have issued from his press in Dublin was a verbal reprint of the English common prayer of 1549; it appeared in 1551, and a perfect copy is extant in Trinity College Library, ​Dublin. Powell is said to have continued printing in Dublin for fifteen years, but the only subsequent reference to him is the appearance of his name as a member of the Stationers' Company in the charter of 1556. Other Powells—Thomas, William, and Edward—were printers in London during Elizabeth's reign.
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Powell, John (1645-1713)

​POWELL, Sir JOHN (1645–1713), judge, was born in 1645 at Gloucester, of which city his father, though a member of a Herefordshire family, was a citizen, eventually becoming mayor in 1663. He was not related to either of the contemporary judges of the same name. Whether he went to a university or not is uncertain; he may well have been either of the John Powells who graduated at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1663 and 1672. In 1664 he became a member of the Inner Temple, and was called to the bar there in 1671. Three years later he was elected town clerk of Gloucester, and sat for that city in the parliament of 1685. In September 1685 he was expelled from his office, but regained it on application to the king's bench in 1687. He was included in the first creation of serjeants after the Revolution, and in May 1691 the king gave orders for his appointment to the bench of the common pleas, but, through the interposition of Sir William Pulteney's friends, the appointment was not completed till the end of October or beginning of November, and then he received a judgeship in the exchequer with knighthood (Luttrell, ii. 303). On 29 Oct. 1695 he was transferred to the common pleas, and on 24 June 1702 was again transferred to the queen's bench. Here he was one of the majority of judges who, on the trial of the celebrated leading case of Ashby v. White (Lord Raymond's Reports, p. 938), arising out of the Aylesbury election, decided against the plaintiff (Luttrell, Diary, v. 358, 380, 519). On 14 June 1713 he died at his house at Gloucester on returning from Bath. There is a monument to him in Gloucester Cathedral, which is figured in Bigland and Fosbrooke's ‘Gloucestershire,’ ii. 134, and the inscription is also given in Archdeacon Rudge's ‘Gloucester,’ p. 89. His judicial character, both for learning and fairness, stood high. He was humane, as is shown by his remark on a charge of witchcraft in ​the case of Jane Wenham, who was alleged to be able to fly: ‘You may—there is no law against flying;’ and Swift, who met him at Lord Oxford's, writes of him to Stella, 5 July 1711, as ‘an old fellow with grey hairs, who was the merriest old gentleman I ever saw, spoke pleasing things, and chuckled till he cried again.’ He was unmarried. A portrait of him in mezzotint was engraved by William Sherwin in 1711 (Notes and Queries, 4th ser. i. 128, 196).
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Powell, Griffith

​POWELL or POWEL, GRIFFITH (1561–1620), principal of Jesus College, Oxford, was the third son of John ap Hywel ap John of Prysg Melyn in the parish of Llan Sawel, Carmarthenshire, and his wife Annes, daughter of Gruffydd ap Henry. He was born in 1561, matriculated at Oxford from Jesus College, 24 Nov. 1581, and graduated B.A. 28 Feb. 1583–4, M.A. 21 June 1589, B.C.L. 12 July 1593, and D.C.L. 23 July 1599. In 1613 he was elected principal of Jesus College, a position he held until his death on 28 June 1620. He was buried in St. Michael's Church, Oxford, and his will was proved on 15 June 1621. He took a warm interest in the progress of his college, and the present hall and chapel were both built during his principalship by benefactors whose sympathy he enlisted. He bequeathed his property to the college.
Powel was the author of ‘Analysis Analyticorum Posteriorum sive librorum Aristotelis de Demonstratione,’ Oxford, 1594, 8vo (Bodleian); and of ‘Analysis lib. Aristotelis de Sophisticis Elenchis,’ Oxford, 1598, 8vo (Brit. Mus. and Bodl.). The latter, which was dedicated to the Earl of Essex, contains, besides the translation, an address to the academic reader, and prolegomena. Another edition appeared in 1664 (Bodl.). Wood quotes the stanza
Griffith Powell, for the honour of his nation, Wrote a book of Demonstration; But having little else to do He wrote a book of Elenchs too.
He is credited with other philosophical works which were not published.
J. E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Powell, John (1633-1696)

​POWELL, Sir JOHN (1633–1696), judge, a member of an old Welsh family, son of John Powell of Kenward, Carmarthenshire, was born in 1633. He was taught as a boy by Jeremy Taylor (see Heber, The Whole Works of Taylor, ed. 1822, i. xxvi), and afterwards proceeded to Oxford. Possibly he may be the John Powell of Jesus College who matriculated in 1650, graduated B.A. in 1653, and M.A. in 1664 (Foster, Alumni Oxon.) In 1650 he was admitted a member of Gray's Inn; he was called to the bar in 1657, and became an antient in 1676. The extent and nature of his practice at the bar are not recorded, but on 26 April 1686 he was knighted and appointed a judge of the common pleas. In the following Trinity term he was, with the rest of the judges, called upon for his opinion as to the king's dispensing power, and prudently reserved his judgment; but as he escaped dismissal, he cannot have indicated any decided opinion against it. In 1687 he was, on 16 April, removed to the king's bench, and during James's reign always accompanied Sir Robert Wright, the chief justice of the king's bench, on circuit. Accordingly he participated in the responsibility for the sentence passed upon the Earl of Devonshire for his assault on Colepeper, for which, after the Revolution, he was summoned before the House of Lords, but received no punishment. On 29 June 1688, upon the trial of the seven bishops, he expressed, both during its progress and in his judgment, his opinion that the Declaration of Indulgence was a nullity, and his inability to see anything seditious or criminal in the conduct of the bishops. In consequence he, with Mr. Justice Holloway, who expressed the same views, was dismissed on 7 July. At the beginning of the next reign he declined the offer of the post of lord keeper of the great seal, and he was restored to the bench in May 1689, but was placed in the common pleas. He was sworn in on 11 March 1689, and died at Exeter, of the stone, on 7 Sept. 1696. He was buried at Broadway, near Llangharne, Carmarthenshire, where he had a country seat, and left a son Thomas (d. 1720) of Broadway, Carmarthenshire, who was created a baronet in 1698. The title became extinct on the death of Sir Thomas's son Herbert in 1721. His epitaph is given in Heber's edition of Taylor's ‘Works,’ 1822, i. cccxv. His portrait, by an unknown hand, is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rowntree, Joseph

​ROWNTREE, JOSEPH (1801–1859), quaker, youngest son of John Rowntree of Scarborough, by his wife, Elizabeth Lotherington, daughter of a quaker shipowner and captain, was born at Scarborough on 10 June 1801. He left school at thirteen, but continued to study, with the aid of his brother and sisters. At twenty-one he started in business as a grocer in York, and was admitted a member of the Merchants' Company. Education especially in the Society of Friends was his lifelong interest, and he was prominent in establishing, in 1828 and 1830, the York Quarterly Meeting Boys' and Girls' Schools, now occupying extensive premises at Bootham and The Mount, York. In 1832 he assisted in the establishment of the Friends' school at Rawdon, near Leeds, for children of a different class, and was one of the original trustees of the Flounders' Institute, Ackworth, for training teachers.
Rowntree was the friend of James Montgomery [q. v.], of Joseph John Gurney [q. v.], of Hannah Kilham [q. v.], and of Samuel Tuke [q. v.] With the latter he helped to establish the Friends' Educational Society in 1837, and served on the committee of the Friends' Retreat for the insane at York [see under Tuke, William]. He inaugurated several schemes of municipal reform in York, of which city he was alderman from 1853 and mayor in 1858. Although he was elected, he declined to serve from conscientious scruples. An able pamphlet by him helped to reform the marriage regulations of the Society of Friends (1860 and 1872), by which marriage with a person not in membership ceased to be visited with disownment. Other pamphlets were issued by Rowntree on ‘Colonial Slavery’ and on ‘Education.’
Rowntree died at York on 4 Nov. 1859. By his wife, Sarah Stephenson of Manchester (m. 1832), he had three sons.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roydon, Marmaduke

​ROYDON, Sir MARMADUKE (1583–1646), merchant-adventurer, son of Ralph Roydon or Rawdon of Rawden Brandesby in Yorkshire, by Jane, daughter of John Brice of Stillington, was baptised at Brandesby on 20 March 1583. At sixteen years of age he went to London, where he was apprenticed to Daniel Hall, a Bordeaux ​merchant, who sent him as his factor to France; this gave him a knowledge of French (cf. entries in State Papers, Dom. 1632, 18 April, 15 June, and 18 May). He returned to London about 1610 and was elected a common councilman. Soon afterwards he was presented with the freedom of the Clothworkers' Company, and made captain of the city militia. In 1614 he joined a mercantile venture to the New England coast, sending out two ships under Thomas Hunt and John Smith, which sailed from the Downs on 3 March 1614. Roydon was keenly interested in the discovery of the North-West Passage; he was one of the first settlers or ‘planters’ in Barbados, where he is said to have buried above 10,000l. He also adventured to other parts of the West Indies and to Spain, Turkey, and the Canaries in the old world. In 1628–9 he became M.P. for Aldborough; in the civil war he fought on the king's side, raised a regiment at his own cost, and took part in the defence of Basing House (1643). On 28 Dec. of the same year he was knighted. In 1645 he was made governor of Faringdon, Berkshire, where he died on 28 April 1646. In 1611, while a ‘clothworker of All Hallows Barking,’ he married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Thorowgood of Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire; his son Thomas fought as a colonel in the royal army, and after Marston Moor found an asylum in the Canaries. His nephew, Marmaduke Rawdon [q. v.], lived in his house for some years from 1626.
[Brown's Genesis of U.S.A. pp. 680, 988; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1627, 1632, 1635, 1638–9, 1643; Foster's Yorkshire Pedigrees; Life of Marmaduke Rawdon (Camd. Soc.), pp. xvii, xxiii.]
C. R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roxby, Robert

​ROXBY, ROBERT (1809?–1866), actor, born about 1809, was son of William Roxby Beverley, an actor, who was manager at one time of the theatre in Tottenham Street, Fitzroy Square. Henry Roxby Beverley [q. v.] and William Beverley, the well-known scene-painter, were his brothers. After performing in the country, Roxby appeared in 1839 at the St. James's, under the management of Hooper. In 1843 he took the Theatre Royal, Manchester, where he played many leading parts in comedy. He was for some years in London at the Lyceum or Drury Lane, and was during eleven years stage-manager of the theatre last named. He acted much with Charles Mathews, whose principal parts he was in the habit of taking in the country, and was with him and Madam Vestris at the Lyceum from 1847 to 1855. This was his brightest period. On 10 Oct. 1855 he played, at Drury Lane, Rob Royland to the Mopus of Charles Mathews, in ‘Married for Money,’ an adaptation of Poole's ‘Wealthy Widow.’ On this occasion the Lyceum company had been engaged by E. T. Smith for Drury Lane. The following year at Drury Lane he supported Mrs. Waller, an actress from America and Australia. On 8 March 1858 he was the original Lord George Lavender in Sterling Coyne's ‘Love Knot.’ He played, 14 March 1860, an original part in Fitzball's ‘Christmas Eve, or the Duel in the Snow,’ founded on Gérome's famous picture; was on 28 Nov. 1861 the first Hardress Cregan in Byron's burlesque, ‘Miss Eily O'Connor.’ At the Princess's as stage manager, 23 Jan. 1863, he was seriously burnt in extinguishing a fire on the stage, by which two girls in the pantomime lost their lives. On the first appearance in London of Walter Montgomery [q. v.] at the Princess's as Othello, 18 June 1863, Roxby was the Roderigo. At the close of the year he was again at Drury Lane, where, 12 April 1864, he played in ‘An April Fool’ by Brough and Halliday. On 25 July 1866, after a long and painful illness, he died at the house of his brother, 26 Russell Square, London. Roxby was a capable stage-manager and, in spite of some hardness of style and weakness of voice, a respectable actor in light-comedy parts.
J. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wyatt, Matthew Cotes

​WYATT, MATTHEW COTES (1777–1862), sculptor, youngest son of James Wyatt [q. v.], was born in 1777 and educated at Eton. After studying in the schools of the Royal Academy he, through his father's influence, obtained employment at Windsor Castle, where he became a favourite with the king and queen. From 1803 to 1814 he was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy of portraits and historical subjects in oils, and in 1811 sent his only contribution in sculpture, a bust of the king. One of his earliest public commissions was the Nelson monument in the Exchange quadrangle at Liverpool. After the death of Princess Charlotte, Wyatt was employed to execute the marble cenotaph to her memory in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, for which 15,000l. had been subscribed; this was completed in 1826, and gained much admiration (Gent. Mag. 1826, i. 350). When George III died and a subscription for a national monument was started, Wyatt prepared a design representing the king standing in a quadriga, and of this he published an etching; but, though highly approved of and provisionally accepted, lack of funds necessitated its abandonment. Eventually, in 1832, a committee of the subscribers commissioned him to execute the bronze equestrian statue of the king which now stands in Pall Mall East, and is his best work. Other well-known productions by Wyatt are the marble monument to the Duchess of Rutland at Belvoir, and the poorly modelled colossal bronze equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington which was placed on Decimus Burton's arch at Hyde Park Corner in 1846 and remained there until 1883, when it was removed to Aldershot. A portrait of a Newfoundland dog, sculptured in coloured marbles by Wyatt, was shown at the International Exhibition of 1851. Thanks to royal and other influential patronage, Wyatt enjoyed a reputation and practice to which his mediocre abilities hardly entitled him, and he amassed considerable wealth. He died at his house in the Harrow Road, London, on 3 Jan. 1862. By his wife Maria (d. 1852) he had, with other children, two sons—Matthew, who became a lieutenant of the queen's bodyguard and was knighted; and James, who followed his father's profession and worked as his assistant.
[Art Journal, 1862; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Gent. Mag. 1822 i. 208, 1836 ii. 306, 1862, i. 241; Royal Academy Catalogues; private information.]
F. M. O'D.