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

​SUFFELD or SUTHFELD, WALTER (d. 1257), who is also called Walter Calthorp, bishop of Norwich, was a native of Norfolk, and studied at the university of Paris, where he was ‘regens in decretis.’ He was elected bishop of Norwich towards the end of 1243, but Henry III withheld his assent till 9 July 1244, hoping to prevent the translation of the former Bishop William de Raleigh [q. v.] He was confirmed by Boniface, the elect of Canterbury, at St. Albans the same year, and consecrated at Norwich by Fulk Basset, bishop of London on 19 Feb. 1245 (Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Angl. p. 41; Matt. Paris, iv. 261, 378; Ann. Mon. ii. 336, i. 166). Soon afterwards he went to the Roman curia at Lyons, returning about March 1246 (Matt. Paris, iv. 555). Suffeld preached the sermon at Westminster on 13 Oct. 1247, when the vase containing the holy blood was brought thither by the king. He attended the parliament at London in February 1248, and in the following October went to the papal court, whence about a year later he returned with ‘a shameful privilege for extorting money in his bishopric’ (ib. iv. 642, v. 5, 36, 80). He was one of the bishops who attended the meeting at Dunstable on 24 Feb. 1251 to protest against the archbishop's right of visitation. Suffeld attended the parliament at London in April 1253, when the king promised to observe the charters. At the end of the year he was appointed by the pope to collect the tenth of ecclesiastical property which had been granted to the king. He was busy with this during all the subsequent year, and the new valuation of ecclesiastical property which was made under his direction was known as the ‘Norwich taxation,’ and became the basis of nearly all later clerical assessments (ib. v. 451, vi. 296; Ann. Mon. i. 326, 363–4, iii. 191).
Suffeld died at Colchester on 19 May 1257, and was buried in Norwich Cathedral. Miracles are said to have been worked at his tomb, for in a time of famine he had given all his plate and treasure for the use of the poor (Matt. Paris, v. 638). He founded the hospital of St. Mary and St. Giles at Norwich for poor priests and scholars (Cal. Papal Registers, i. 312), and built the lady-chapel of the cathedral. A synodal constitution and some statutes of his are printed in Wilkins's ‘Concilia,’ i. 708, 731. A document, ‘De potestate archiepiscopi Cantuariensis in prioriatu Cantuariensi,’ which was drawn up by Suffeld, is printed in Wharton's ‘Anglia Sacra,’ i. 174–5. There are two of his letters in the additamenta to Matthew Paris's ‘Chronica Majora,’ vi. 231–2. The substance of his will is given at length by Blomefield in his ‘History of Norfolk.’ His bequests included one to the scholars of Oxford. William de Calthorp, his nephew, was his heir.
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sulcard

​SULCARD or SULGARD (fl. 1075), chronographer, probably of Norman origin, was a monk of Westminster in the time of Edward the Confessor. He wrote a history of the monastery, which he dedicated to the Abbot Vitalis (1072–1082). Two copies are extant among the Cottonian MSS. (Titus A. viii. ff. 1–60 and Faustina A. iii. ff. 11 seq.). A passage from the latter manuscript is printed in Dugdale's ‘Monasticon.’ Oudin ascribes to Sulcard a chronicle by William of Malmesbury. A lost collection of general history, sermons, and letters is also ascribed to Sulcard. When Henry III rebuilt the Westminster monastery, he moved the bones of Sulcard to the south side of the entry to the old chapter-house, and put up a marble tomb with an inscription, of which the last two lines were:
Abbas Edwynus et Sulcardus cenobita: Sulcardus major est; Deus assit eis.
According to Pits there was in his day a stone to be seen at Westminster bearing the inscription:
Sulcardus monachus et chronographus.
[Dart's Hist. of Westminster Abbey; Pits, De Illustr. Angliæ Script.]
M. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Percy, Henry (1785-1825)

​PERCY, HENRY (1785–1825), colonel, aide-de-camp to Sir John Moore and to Wellington, fifth son of Algernon Percy, baron Lovaine, who was created Earl of Beverley in 1790, and brother of Hugh Percy [q. v.], bishop of Carlisle, and of Vice-admiral Josceline Percy, was born on 14 Sept. 1785. He was educated at Eton, and on 16 Aug. 1804 appointed lieutenant in the 7th fusiliers. He became captain unattached 9 Oct. 1806, and captain 7th fusiliers on 6 Nov. following. He was aide-de-camp to Sir John Moore at Coruña. On 21 June 1810 he was transferred as captain to the 14th light dragoons. He was taken prisoner with a party of his regiment during the retreat from Burgos in 1812, and was detained in France until the peace. In 1815 he was appointed aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington. He brought home the Waterloo despatches, arriving post in London on the evening of 20 June with the despatches and captured eagles, and was next day made C.B., and a brevet lieutenant-colonel from 18 June 1815. He retired on half-pay in 1821, and was returned to parliament for Beeralston, Devonshire, in 1823. Once a gay, handsome young fellow, he prematurely lost his health. He died at his father's house in Portman Square, London, 15 April 1825, in his fortieth year, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Marylebone.
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mitchell, Alexander

​MITCHELL, ALEXANDER (1780–1868), civil engineer, born in Dublin on 13 April 1780, was son of William Mitchell, inspector-general of barracks in Ireland. At school he showed a marked taste for mathematics. In 1802 his eyesight, always defective in consequence of an attack of small-pox, almost totally failed him. He soon carried on, in Belfast, the joint business of brickmaking and building, from which he retired in 1832, having previously invented several machines employed in those trades. In 1842 he became known as the inventor and patentee of the Mitchell screw-pile and mooring, a simple yet effective means of constructing durable lighthouses in deep water, on mudbanks and shifting sands, of fixing beacons, and of mooring ships. For this invention he was chosen an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and in 1848 was elected a member, receiving the Telford silver medal for a paper on his own invention. His system was generally approved of by engineers of eminence (Proc. of Inst. of Civ. Eng. ii. 150, vii. 108). He established himself at Belfast, and at 17 Great George Street, Westminster, as ‘Mitchell's Screw-Pile and Mooring Company.’ At the expiration of his patent in 1847 the privy council, in consideration of its merit, granted a renewal for fourteen years.
Mitchell's screw-pile was first used for the foundation of the Maplin Sand Lighthouse at the mouth of the Thames in 1838 (ib. vii. 146). In 1839 he designed and constructed, with the aid of his son, the Fleetwood-on-Wyre Lighthouse, Morecambe Bay. In the summer of 1844 a screw-pile lighthouse, serving also as a pilot station, was successfully placed by him in Belfast Lough, Carrickfergus Bay; but his attempt to construct a lighthouse on the Kish Bank, between Dublin Bay and Waterford, proved a failure. He also constructed, in the summer of 1847, ​a screw-pile jetty at Courtown on the coast of Wexford. After the success of screw-piles had been established, they were applied to more extensive undertakings. The great government breakwater at Portland, the long viaduct and bridges on the Bombay and Baroda railway, the whole system of Indian telegraphs, and the Madras pier, were among the works executed with this invention.
His improved method of mooring ships was likewise generally adopted. The corporation of Newcastle-upon-Tyne purchased, for 2,500l., the right of putting down screw moorings in the Tyne.
Mitchell, who retired from the Engineers' Institution in 1857 (ib. xvii. 85), settled first at Farm Hill, but latterly at Glen Devis, near Belfast, where he died on 25 June 1868. He had a family of two sons and three daughters, of whom only one, the wife of Professor Burden of Queen's College, Belfast, survived him.
He published: 1. ‘Description of a Patent Screw-pile Battery and Lighthouse,’ 8vo, Belfast, 1843. 2. ‘On Submarine Foundations, particularly the Screw-pile and Moorings,’ 8vo, London, 1848, a description of his invention, read before the Institution of Civil Engineers on 22 Feb. 1848.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mitan, James

​MITAN, JAMES (1776–1822), engraver, was born in London on 13 Feb. 1776, and educated at an academy in Soho. In 1790 he was articled to a writing engraver named Vincent; but, desiring to qualify himself for higher work, he obtained instruction from J. S. Agar, studied in the schools of the Royal Academy, and made copies of Bartolozzi's tickets. Mitan became an able engraver in the line-manner, chiefly of book illustrations; but as he worked largely for other engravers, the plates bearing his name are not numerous. Of these the best were done for Mrs. Inchbald's 'British Theatre' 1806-9, Sharpe's 'Poets' and 'Classics,' Bannatyne's edition of Shakespeare, T. Moore's 'Irish National Airs' (after Stothard), 1818, Dibdin's 'Bibliographical Tour through France and Germany,' 1821, and 'Ædes Althorpianæ,' 1822, and Jarvis's translation of 'Don Quixote' (after Smirke), 1825. A set of fifty-six small plates of natural history engraved by Mitan, apparently from his own designs, was published in 1822. Between 1802 and 1805 he exhibited at the Royal Academy a series of compositions illustrating George Moore's 'Theodosius de Zulvin,' and in 1818 a design for a national memorial of the victory of Waterloo. In the latter year he also made a design, eighteen feet long, for a chain bridge over the Mersey. Mitan did much work for the admiralty and the Freemasons. He died of paralysis in Warren Street, Fitzroy Square, on 16 Aug. ​1822 leaving a wife and family. A plate of C. R. Leslie's 'Anne Page and Slender,' which Mitan left unfinished, was completed by Engleheart and published in 1823.
Mitan, Samuel (1786–1843), brother and pupil of James Mitan, practised in the same style. He engraved many of the plates in Captain Batty's 'French Scenery,' 1822, and was employed upon Ackermann's various publications. He became a member of the Artists' Annuity Fund in 1810, and died at the Polygon, Somers Town, 3 June 1843.
[Gent. Mag. 1823 ii. 86, 1843 ii. 104; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Royal Academy Catalogues.]
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mitand, Louis Huguenin du

​MITAND, LOUIS HUGUENIN du (fl. 1816), educational writer, born in Paris in 1748, was son of Huguenin du Mitand. His father at one time possessed an ample fortune, but ultimately lost it. Louis, however, received an excellent education, and on coming to London about 1777 obtained a livelihood by teaching Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, according to principles laid down in his 'Plan of a New Method for Teaching Languages,' 12mo, London, 1778. In the introduction of this work he has given a humorous account of himself. He undertook a work in fourteen languages, to comprise an abstract of the best books written in each of them, accompanied by grammars, but did not complete it. His Greek and French grammars and other school-books had a considerable sale. To the 'Morning Chronicle' he contributed from time to time Latin verses on various public events, which he printed in 1780, 4to. He also edited the eighth edition of John Palairet's 'Abrégé' sur les Sciences et sur les Arts,' 12mo, London, 1778, and published a greatly improved edition of Boyer's 'French Dictionary,' 2 vols. 4to, London, 1816.
[Dict. of Living Authors under Du Mitand.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mitchelburn

​MITCHELBURN. [See Michelborne.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mitch, Richard

​MITCH, RICHARD (fl. 1557), lawyer, of an Essex family, was educated at Cambridge (B.A. 1542, M.A. 1544). He was admitted a fellow of St. John's College 14 March 1542-3, but subsequently removed to Trinity Hall. Mitch was an active opponent at Cambridge of the growth of the reformed religion. On 27 Jan. 1547 he was constituted one of Gardiner's proctors to produce evidence on the examination and trial of that bishop. On the accession of Queen Mary he organised a curious attack in the regent house on Dr. Sandys, the vice-chancellor, who had exhibited sympathy for Lady Jane Grey (Foxe, Acts and Monuments, viii. 592). In 1556 Mitch was one of the examiners of John Hullier, preacher, of Lynn, on the charge of heresy, for which the latter was subsequently burnt, and the same year he gave active assistance to Cardinal Pole's delegates during the visitation of the university of Cambridge. He was among the lawyers and heads of houses who, in January 1556-7, were called and sworn to give evidence against the heresies of Bucer and Fagius before the exhumation and burning of the bodies of those reformers.
Mitch commenced LL.D. 1557, and was admitted an advocate at Doctors' Commons 26 April 1559, and an advocate of the court of arches about the same date (Strype, Life of Parker, i. 87). Subsequently, owing doubtless to his religious opinions, he left the country, and his name occurs in a list of recusants from Essex, who were fugitives over seas (Strype, Annals, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 596).
[Lamb's Coll. of Doc. from Corpus Christi Coll.; Strype's Annals; Baker's History of St. John's Coll.; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabrigienses; Coote's Civilians; Foxe's Acts and Monuments; Fuller's Hist. of Univ. of Cambridge.]
W. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Panmure, Lord of

​PANMURE, Lord of. [See Philip de Valoniis (Valognes), d. 1215.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Panton, Thomas (1731-1808)

​PANTON, THOMAS (1731–1808), sportsman, born in 1731, was son of Thomas Panton, who was master of the king's running-horses at Newmarket. A sister, Mary, married in 1750 Peregrine Bertie, fourth duke of Ancaster. Thomas Panton the younger lived as a country gentleman at Fen Ditton in Cambridgeshire, and was high sheriff for that county in 1789. He kept foxhounds, and is said once to have killed a fox close to the Rubbing House at Newmarket, after a twenty-five mile run without a check. The time, unhappily, is not recorded. His chief reputation was gained as an owner of racehorses; he was a member of the Jockey Club in 1753, within a few years of its foundation, and figured conspicuously on the turf until his death. That he enjoyed a good character may be assumed from the fact that the author of that scurrilous book ‘The Jockey Club’ (1792) could find no harm to say of him. ‘Tommy ​Panton's address’ is one of the ingredients prescribed in the poetical squib ‘A Receipt to make a Jockey.’ He won the Derby in 1786 with Noble. His best horse probably was Feather. He died on 29 Nov. 1808 at Newmarket.
J. A. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Panton, Thomas (d.1685)

​PANTON, THOMAS (d. 1685), gambler, was youngest son of John Panton, the representative of an old Leicestershire family, living at Ashby-de-la-Zouch. When the nucleus of a regular army was formed by Charles II in 1661, Panton, who appears to have attended the king abroad and already enjoyed a titular colonelcy, obtained a commission in his majesty's life-guards, and also held a captaincy in the foot-guards. He drew his pay from both regiments till 1667, when, having become a Roman catholic, he resigned his commissions into the king's hands during a review in St. James's Park. He won the favour of several of the ladies about the court, and relieved them of considerable sums at the card-table. Some of his gallantries are recorded by Lucas, but it was as a card-player that Panton really excelled. ‘There was no game,’ says Lucas, ‘but what he was an absolute artist at it, either upon the Square or Foul play. … His chief game was Hazard, and in one night at this play he won as many thousand pounds as purchased him an estate of above 1,500l. a year.’ After this coup, Panton married, bought the manor of Cuxhall in Bucknall, and other estates in Herefordshire, and entirely abjured all games of chance. He speculated, however, in property about London, bought from Mrs. Baker, about 1670, the well-known seventeenth-century gaming-house known as ‘Piccadilly Hall,’ improved this property, and in 1671 began building a ‘fair street of good houses,’ now known as Panton Street, between the Haymarket and Hedge Lane (Dorset Street). He died in 1685, and was buried on 26 Oct. of that year in Westminster Abbey. His widow Dorothy resided in ‘a capital mansion on the east side of the Haymarket’ until her death on 1 April 1725, at the age of eighty-four; she was buried by the side of her husband on 5 April. Her will, dated 1 June 1722, was proved on 8 April 1725 by her eldest son, Brigadier-general Thomas Panton. The latter carried intelligence of the battle of Blenheim to the States-General (Boyer, Anne, p. 154), was severely wounded at Malplaquet on 11 Sept. 1709 (Pelet, Mem. Milit. ix. 370), took the news of the capture of Douay to the court of St. James's in 1710 (Luttrell), and returned to the camp at Bouchain in September 1711, bearing the queen's inquiries as to Marlborough's health (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. App. p. 143). He became major-general 1 May 1730, lieutenant-general 5 Nov. 1735, and died 20 July 1753, the oldest general in the army (Beatson, Political Index, ii. 130; Gent. Mag. 1753, p. 344). Panton's eldest daughter, Elizabeth (d. 1700), married about 1679 Henry, fifth lord Arundell of Wardour. Another daughter, Dorothy, married, in 1675, William Stanley of Chelsea, and predeceased her husband, who died of delirium tremens, under strange circumstances, in 1691 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 13th Rep. App. v. 347).
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Panmure, Earls of

​PANMURE, Earls of. [See Maule, Patrick, first Earl, d. 1661; Maule, James, fourth Earl, 1659?–1723; Maule, Harry, titular Earl, d. 1734.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pantin, Thomas Pindar

​PANTIN, THOMAS PINDAR (1792–1866), theological writer, son of Thomas Pantin of St. Sepulchre's, London, born in 1792, matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford, 24 June 1817, and graduated B.A. in 1821, and M.A. in 1827. He was instituted rector of Westcote, Gloucestershire, in 1828, and remained there until his death on 2 Sept. 1866. He was succeeded at Westcote by his kinsman, John Wicliffe Pantin.
Pantin wrote several small polemical works directed against Roman catholic claims: 1. 'Observations on certain Passages in Dr. Arnold's Christian Duty of granting the Roman Catholic Claims; relating to the Supremacy of the Bishop and the Idolatry of the Church of Rome,' Lutterworth, 1829, 8vo. 2. 'The Novelty of Popery in Matters of Faith and Practice,' London, 1837. 3. 'The Church of England, Apostolical in its Origin, Episcopal in its Government, and Scriptural in its Belief; wherein also its Claims in Opposition to Popery and Dissent are considered and asserted,' London, 1849, 8vo. He also edited, with additional notes, Bishop Stillingfleet's 'Origines Britannicæ' (2 vols. Oxford, 1842), and Bishop Bull's 'Corruptions of the Church of Rome,' with a preface and notes (London, 1836).
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Panton, Paul

​PANTON, PAUL (1731–1797), Welsh antiquary, was born in Wales in 1731. He was distinguished for his knowledge of Welsh history and antiquities, and formed a collection of Welsh manuscripts contained in nearly one hundred volumes. This collection included the manuscripts left to him by Evan Evans [q. v.], the Welsh poet and antiquary, on whom Panton had settled an annuity. The Evans manuscripts consisted of more than eighty volumes, some of which were ancient, though the greater number were ​transcripts from the Wynsstay and Hengwrt libraries (Myvyrian Arch. 2nd ed. p. xii). Panton's collection was deposited in the library of his residence, Plâs Gwyn, in the parish of Llan Edwen, Anglesey, North Wales (Carlisle, Topogr. Dict. of Wales, ‘Llan Edwen’), and was opened freely to antiquaries. Panton died in 1797. The manuscripts were left to his son, Paul Panton of Plâs Gwyn, who allowed the editors of ‘The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales’ to make free use of them for that work (Preface, dated 1801). In 1852 the manuscripts were described (Williams, Dict. of Eminent Welshmen, s.v. ‘Panton’) as still in the library at Plâs Gwyn. In 1875 many of the manuscripts were said to be in the possession of Paul Panton, R.N., of Garreglwyd, Holyhead, Anglesey, a descendant of the original owner (Nicholas, County Families of Wales, 1875, i. 47).
W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Panter, David

1904 Errata appended.
​PANTER, DAVID (d. 1558), bishop of Ross, son of David Panter, who was brother of Patrick Panter [q. v.] His mother was Margaret Crichtoun, widow countess of Rothes. He first appears as vicar of Carstairs, and subsequently as prior of St. Mary's in Galloway, and as commendator of the abbey of Cambuskenneth. He was in France in February 1541–2 on some unknown errand, and on 31 March 1543 was sent thither with Sir John Campbell of Lundie on a mission to the French king. He had already acted for some time as secretary to James V. He returned in June with John Hamilton, abbot of Paisley, in time to assist Cardinal Beaton's opposition to the English matrimonial schemes of the English court. The letters of the English ambassadors, preserved in Sadler's 'Papers,' and Buchanan's bitter ​criticism testify to the strength of his influence on behalf of France. In December he was ordered by the governor to deliver back, according to custom, the badge of knighthood of the Golden Fleece to the Emperor Charles V. In 1545 he was elected bishop of Ross, and in May of that year was sent on a mission to the king of France, the emperor, and Mary of Hungary. He was abroad for seven years. On his return he received consecration to his bishopric at Jedburgh, before a brilliant assembly of the Scots nobles. He died, according to Holinshed, at Stirling on 1 Oct. 1558, and was succeeded in the bishopric by Henry Sinclair [q. v.] Some of his official letters are printed in Ruddiman's 'Epistolæ,' 1724, vol. ii.
G. G. S.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.214 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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