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

​WATSON, WALTER (1780–1854), Scottish poet, was born of lowly parentage at Chryston, parish of Calder, Lanarkshire, on 29 March 1780. At the age of eight he became a herd, and after a spell at weaving he tried farm service for a time at home, and employment as a sawyer in Glasgow, after which he enlisted in the Scots greys in 1799. Discharged at the peace of Amiens, 1802, he presently married and settled as a weaver in Chryston. He changed to Kilsyth, Stirlingshire, in 1820, after which he made various experiments till 1849 in the adjoining counties of Stirling, Lanark, and Dumbarton—now working as a sawyer and again as a weaver—finally settling at Duntiblae, near Kirkintilloch, Dumbartonshire, where he died on 12 Sept. 1854. He was buried in Calder churchyard, and a granite monument was erected at his grave in 1875. He was survived by a widow and four members of a family of ten. Several of Watson's lyrics—especially such merry, festive songs as ‘Sit down, my Cronie,’ and ‘A wee drappie o't’—though not of specially fine quality, have a winning shrewdness and vivacity that have secured them a certain popularity. Watson published three small volumes of his verse in 1808, 1823, and 1843 respectively, and a volume of his ‘Select Poems’ was edited by Hugh Macdonald in 1853.
[Macdonald's Memoir; Rogers's Modern Scottish Minstrel; Grant Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Watson, Samuel

​WATSON, SAMUEL (1663–1715), sculptor, was born at Heanor, Derbyshire, in December 1663. He executed some of the fine wood-carvings at Chatsworth, commonly attributed to Grinling Gibbons [q. v.] The dead game over the chimney piece in the great chamber is by his hand, and for this and other decorations in the same chamber in lime-tree wood, all completed in 1693, he received 133l. 7s. The trophy containing the celebrated pen over the door in the south-west corner room is likewise his work. He also carved the arms in the pediment of the west front in 1704; the stone carvings in the north front, finished in 1707, and other decorations both in wood and stone. Walpole says that ‘Gibbons had several disciples and workmen … Watson assisted chiefly at Chatsworth, where the boys and many of the ornaments in the chapel were executed by him’ (Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, p. 557). But it seems clear, since he made out his own bill for the above-mentioned works, that he executed them on his own account. He died at Heanor on 31 March 1715.
C. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Watson, Thomas (1743-1781)

​WATSON, THOMAS (1743–1781), engraver, was born in London in 1743, and articled to an engraver on plate. He executed some good stipple prints, which include portraits of Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia, and Elizabeth Beauclerk as Una, both after Reynolds, and portraits of Mrs. Crewe and Mrs. Wilbraham, after Daniel Gardner; but he specially excelled in mezzotint, working from pictures by Reynolds, Dance, West, Gardner, Willison, Rembrandt, Correggio, and others. His portraits, after Reynolds, of Lady Bampfylde, Lady Melbourne, Mrs. Crewe as St. Geneviève, Lady Townshend and her sisters, and the ‘Strawberry Girl,’ are brilliant examples of the art, and proofs of them are now greatly prized. He also executed a set of six fine plates of Lely's ‘Windsor Beauties,’ now at Hampton Court. Watson for a time carried on business as a printseller in New Bond Street, and in 1778 entered into partnership with William Dickinson (1746–1823) [q. v.] He died and was buried at Bristol in 1781.
[J. Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits; Le Blanc's Manuel de l'Amateur d'Estampes; Thomas Watson, James Watson, and Elizabeth Judkins, by Gordon Goodwin, 1904.]
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pingo, Lewis

​PINGO, LEWIS (1743–1830), medallist, son of Thomas Pingo [q. v.], medallist, was born in 1743. In 1763 he was a member of the Free Society of Artists, and in 1776 was appointed to succeed his father as assistant-engraver at the mint. From 1779 till his superannuation in 1815 he was chief engraver. Pingo engraved the dies for the shillings and sixpences of George III in the issue of 1787 (Hawkins, Silver Coins, p. 411), and the second variety of the Maundy money of George III (ib. p. 416). He also engraved dies for the three-shilling Bank token and for the East India Company's copper coinage (Gent. Mag. 1818, pt. i. p. 180). He made patterns for the guinea, seven-shilling piece (Crowther, English Pattern Coins, p. 36), penny and halfpenny of George III (Montagu, Copper Coins, p. 105). Among Pingo's medals may be noticed: medal of Dr. Richard Mead, struck in 1773 (Hawkins, Medallic Illustr. ii. 675); the Royal Society Copley medal, with bust of Captain J. Cook, 1776; Freemasons' Hall medal, 1780; ‘Defence of Gibraltar,’ 1782 (Cochran-Patrick, Medals of Scotland, p. 108); Christ's Hospital medal, reverse, open bible; medal of William Penn ​(Hawkins, op. cit., ii. 348). His medals are signed l. p. and l. pingo.
Pingo died at Camberwell on 26 Aug. 1830, aged 87 (Gent. Mag. 1830, pt. ii. p. 283).
W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pine, Benjamin Chilley Campbell

​PINE, Sir BENJAMIN CHILLEY CAMPBELL (1809–1891), colonial governor, the son of Benjamin Chilley Pine of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, was born in 1809. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, B.A. in 1833 and M.A. in 1840. He was admitted to Gray's Inn, 9 June 1831, ‘aged 22,’ and was called to the bar in 1841. In the same year he became queen's advocate at Sierra Leone.
In 1848 he acted temporarily as governor of Sierra Leone, and displayed much military capacity. He was present at the expedition to the Sherbro River, and helped to destroy a strong stockaded fort, whence the natives had harried the neighbourhood. In the following year his vigorous policy put an end to the civil war in the same district.
This success led to his appointment in 1849 as second governor of the infant colony of Natal. During the Kaffir war in the south-west he preserved peace within his territory, and received the thanks of the home government. In 1855 he led a force of volunteers against the Amabacas and enforced their submission. In 1856 Pine returned to the west coast as governor of the Gold Coast Colony, and was knighted. In May 1859 he went to the less trying climate of St. Christopher, West Indies, as lieutenant governor.
At that time each of the Leeward Islands, of which St. Christopher's formed part, was governed practically as a separate colony in a loose confederation, with a governor-in-chief at Antigua. Pine recommended that the government should be made federal, with a central authority at Antigua. In 1866 he was temporarily acting as governor of Antigua, and helped to persuade the legislature to reform the constitution. He did the same in his own island of St. Christopher. The home government adopted his views, and in February 1869 he was appointed governor-in-chief of the Leeward Isles, with a mandate to carry out his scheme. On 23 June 1870, in an exhaustive address, he laid his project before the council of Antigua, and in the course of the year carried it in all the islands. He was thus the first governor under the federal constitution of the Leeward Islands. He was made a K.C.M.G. in June 1871 for his services. In 1873, before he had finished his term as governor-in-chief at Antigua, he was sent back to his old colony of Natal. He retired on a pension in 1875.
Pine was made a bencher of Gray's Inn in 1880, and acted as its treasurer in 1885. He died on 27 Feb. 1891 at his residence in Wimpole Street, London.
He was twice married: first, in 1841, to Elizabeth, daughter of John Campbell, who died in 1847; secondly, in 1859, to Margaretta Anne, daughter of Colonel John Simpson of the Bengal army.
Pine, who was a rhetorical speaker and writer, was the author of articles on the African colonies in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pink, Charles Richard

​PINK, CHARLES RICHARD (1853–1889), architect, son of Charles Pink, was born on 4 July 1853 at Soberton in Hampshire. In 1871 he was articled for four years to Thomas Henry Watson. In 1873–4 he attended Professor T. Hayter Lewis's classes of fine art and construction at University College, London, carrying off the first prizes in ancient and mediæval art, and the second in ancient and modern construction. In 1875 he returned to Winchester, where he was employed in designing the Chilworth and North Baddesly schools. In 1876 he became an associate of the Institute of British Architects. He designed a number of houses and schools, and a few churches, mostly in Hampshire. Pink was especially well versed in architectural heraldry, his taste for which appears in his sketches, some of which were reproduced after his death in a little volume called the ‘Pink Memorial;’ they are spirited and graceful. He published ‘Notes on Heraldry’ in 1884, and a paper on ‘Architectural Education’ in 1886. In the professional education of architects he took the keenest interest. He served on the committee of the Architectural Association till 1885, when he was elected president, and in 1886 ​he was elected fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He died at Hyde, near Winchester, on 25 Feb. 1889, while still actively engaged in professional work.
L. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pinke, William

​PINKE, WILLIAM (1599?–1629), author, born in Hampshire, was probably one of the Pinkes of Kempshot, Winslade, and related to Robert Pinck or Pink [q. v.], the warden of New College, Oxford. He entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, as a commoner in Michaelmas term 1615, and graduated B.A. on 9 June 1619, M.A. 9 May 1622. He took holy orders, and became tutor or ‘reader’ to George Digby, second earl of Bristol [q. v.] He was also appointed philosophy reader of Magdalen, and was elected a fellow in 1628. He was known as an excellent classical scholar and linguist. He died in February 1629, before the promise of his abilities was fulfilled, and was buried in Magdalen College chapel. He is described as a thoroughgoing puritan.
He wrote: ‘The Tryal of a Christian's syncere loue vnto Christ,’ edited, with a dedication to Lord George Digby, by William Lyford [q. v.], Oxford, 1630, 4to; 1631, 4to; 1634, 12mo; 1636, 16mo; 1657, 12mo; 1659, 12mo; the first edition of this work contains two sermons, the second and all subsequent editions contain four. He was also author of ‘An Examination of those Plausible Appearances which seeme most to commend the Romish Church and to preiudice the Reformed,’ Oxford, 1626; this is a translation of the ‘Traité auquel sont examinez,’ &c., La Rochelle, 1617, by John Cameron (1579?–1625) [q. v.] Wood mentions a dedication to the master of the Skinners' Company, which is not in the copy at the British Museum. Pinke also left numerous manuscripts.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wroth, William

​WROTH, WILLIAM (1576?–1642), Welsh nonconformist, was born about 1576 in the neighbourhood of Abergavenny. He was of good family, and on 27 Nov. 1590 matriculated at Oxford from New Inn Hall. On 18 Feb. 1595–6 he graduated B.A. from Christ Church, and on 26 June 1605 M.A. from Jesus College. In 1611 he was presented by Sir Edward Lewis of Van to the rectory of Llan Faches, Monmouthshire, to which was added in 1613 that of Llanfihangel Roggiett, hard by. About 1620 the sudden death of a friend made a deep impression upon him, and he became renowned as an earnest preacher and a zealous puritan. So large was the concourse of folk who came to hear him that he frequently preached in the churchyard; he visited other districts, and was especially in request at Bristol. His zeal led to his being summoned in 1635 before the court of high commission; the case, however, was not promptly dealt with, for in 1637 Wroth was still reckoned ‘refractory,’ though in 1638 he had made some kind of submission. In November 1639, having resigned (or been ejected from) his living, he formed at Llan Faches, with the aid of Henry Jessey [q. v.] and Walter Cradock [q. v.], the first separatist church in Wales, of which he was chosen pastor. He died in the early part of 1642. Cradock, in a sermon preached before the House of Commons in 1646, speaks of Wroth as ‘that blessed apostle of South Wales,’ and quotes, in illustration of his pastoral diligence, a saying of his ‘that there was not one person in his congregation whose spiritual estate he did not fully know.’
J. E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wrotham, William de

​WROTHAM, WILLIAM de (d. 1217), judge, was the grandson of Geoffrey de Wrotham of Baddenville, near Wrotham in Kent, a domestic servant of several archbishops of Canterbury, including Hubert Walter [see Hubert], who gave him lands near Wrotham, Kent. By his wife, Maud de Cornhill, Geoffrey was father of William de Wrotham (d. 1208?), who was sheriff of Devonshire in 1198–9, acted as justiciar in the reigns of Richard I and John, and married Muriel de Lydd. As he survived until about 1208, it is difficult to distinguish him from his son, but apparently it was the son who was custos of the stanneries of Devonshire and Cornwall from 1199 to 1213 (Madox, History of the Exchequer, ii. 132), and appears in 1204 as one of the bailiffs of the seaports and of the fifteenth of merchandise, and in 1205 as one of the ‘custodes galearum.’ On 30 Sept. 1206 he was acting as custodian, with Hugh of Wells, of the temporalities of the bishopric of Bath and the abbey of Glastonbury (Rot. Pat. p. 57 b); and on 4 Feb. 1206 he was appointed to inquire into the maladministration of the borough of London ​(Rot. Claus. p. 64). On 25 June of the same year he was custodian of the temporalities of the bishopric of Winchester (ib. p. 73b). He was also forester of the counties of Somerset and Dorset, and later of Somerset and Exmoor. He was a canon of Wells in 1204, and in the same year became archdeacon of Taunton (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, i. 166). Soon after he received the churches of Warden in Sheppey and East Malling in Kent. Le Neve, misreading ‘Tant’ for ‘Cant,’ makes Wrotham archdeacon of Canterbury in 1206. He paid two thousand three hundred marks for the king's favour in 1208, and he seems to have held the office of warden of the seaports during most of John's reign (see Rot. Claus. passim). He was constantly with the king in 1209–1210 and 1212–13, and is mentioned by Roger of Wendover as one of John's advisers during the time of the interdict. He must have left the country during the war at the end of the reign, but was permitted by Henry III to return in safety in 1217. He died in that year, being succeeded by his nephew and heir, Richard de Wrotham (Rot. Claus. i. 352–3). His chief grants of land were in Somerset, and, according to the pedigrees given in Collinson, he was ancestor of the Wroth or Wrothe family, a name said to be a contraction of Wrotham [cf. art. Wroth, Sir Thomas, (1516–1573)].
W. E. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wroe, Richard

​WROE, RICHARD (1641–1717), warden of Manchester church, son of Richard Wroe of Heaton Yate or Heaton Gate in the parish of Prestwich, Lancashire, was born at Radcliffe, Lancashire, on 21 Aug. 1641, and educated at the Bury grammar school and at Jesus College, Cambridge, which he entered in June 1658. He graduated B.A. in 1661, M.A. in 1665, B.D. in 1672, and D.D. in 1686; and was incorporated M.A. of Oxford University in May 1669. Through the influence of Lord Delamere (afterwards Earl of Warrington) he obtained in 1672 a royal mandate for the next presentation to a fellowship of the college at Manchester. He was admitted in February 1674–5. His next promotion was to a prebendal stall in Chester Cathedral in March 1677–8. He had previously been appointed domestic chaplain to Dr. ​John Pearson (1613–1686) [q. v.], his diocesan, who in 1679 appointed him curate of Wigan church, and in April 1681 presented him to the rectory of Bowdon, Cheshire. This he resigned in March 1689–90. On 1 May 1684 he was installed warden of Manchester College, and in the same year became vicar of Garstang, Lancashire, which benefice he resigned in 1696 on being presented to the rectory of West Kirby, Cheshire. William Hulme [q. v.] appointed him one of the first trustees of the Hulmeian benefactions. As rural dean of Manchester he rendered great assistance to Bishop Gastrell in the compilation of his ‘Notitia Cestriensis.’ He was a student of natural philosophy and a correspondent of Flamsteed (Rigaud, Corresp. of Scientific Men, 1841, ii. 136, 159). During the long period of his wardenship he had great influence in the town, due to his high personal character, earnest piety, and persuasive eloquence. The animation and felicity of his pulpit discourses earned him the title of ‘silver-tongued Wroe.’ As a whig he was sincerely devoted to the Hanoverian dynasty (cf. Hibbert Ware, Foundations in Manchester, ii. 20 et seq.). A number of his letters on public and personal affairs addressed to Roger and George Kenyon, 1694–1713, are preserved in the Kenyon manuscripts (Hist. MSS. Comm. 14th Rep. App. iv. 1894). He was the author of five separately published sermons.
Wroe died at Manchester on 1 Jan. 1717–1718, and was buried in the chancel of the collegiate church. His portrait is in the possession of Lord Kenyon. A few copies of an etched portrait by Geikie were published at Manchester about 1824, and a woodcut appears in the ‘Palatine Notebook,’ 1882.
He was thrice married: first, to Elizabeth (surname unknown), who died in 1689; second, in 1693, to Ann Radcliffe, who died in the following January; third, on 3 March 1697–8, to Dorothy, daughter of Roger Kenyon of Peel, M.P. By his last wife he had four children, three of whom predeceased him; the youngest, Thomas, became a fellow of Manchester College.
[Palatine Notebook, 1882, ii. 1, and authorities there cited; ib. ii. 33, iii. 88, iv. 56, 145; Raines's Wardens of Manchester (Chetham Soc.), ii. 148; Worthington's Diary (Chetham Soc.), ii. 328, 376, 383; Fishwick's Hist. of Garstang (Chetham Soc.), ii. 182; Fishwick's Lancashire Library, p. 418.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Younge, Elizabeth

​YOUNGE, ELIZABETH (1744?–1797), actress. [See Pope.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Balfour, Thomas Graham

​BALFOUR, THOMAS GRAHAM (1813–1891), physician, belonged to the family of Pilrig, and was born in Edinburgh on 18 March 1813. He was son of John Balfour, a merchant of Leith, and his wife Helen, daughter of Thomas Buchanan of Ardoch. He was great-grandson of James Balfour, professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh in 1754, and of Robert Whytt [q. v.], the celebrated medical writer and professor of physiology at Edinburgh. He graduated M.D. at Edinburgh in 1834, and in 1836 entered the Army Medical Service and was immediately engaged in the first four volumes of the 'Statistics of the British Army,' From 1840 to 1848 he served as assistant surgeon in the grenadier guards. In 1857 he was appointed secretary to Sidney Herbert's committee on the sanitary state of the army, and in 1859 he became deputy inspector-general in charge of the new statistical branch of the army medical department, a post which he held for fourteen years. He was elected F.R.S. on 3 June 1858 and in 1860 a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. In 1887 he was appointed honorary physician to the queen. He was placed on half-pay as surgeon-general in 1876, and in his forty years of service had done much to improve the sanitary condition of the forces. He married in 1856 Georgina, daughter of George Prentice of Armagh, and had one son, Graham Balfour. He died at Coombe Lodge, Wimbledon, on 17 Jan. 1891.
[Memoir by his cousin, George W. Balfour; private information; Journal of Royal Statistical Society, 1891.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Baillie-Cochrane, Alex. D.R.W.C.

​BAILLIE-COCHRANE, ALEX. D. R. W. C, first Baron Lamington, 1816–1890. [See Cochrane-Baillie.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Williams, George James

​WILLIAMS, GEORGE JAMES (1719–1805), wit and correspondent of Walpole and Selwyn, known as ‘Gilly Williams,’ born at Denton in Lincolnshire in 1719, was a younger son of William Peere Williams [q. v.], by Anne, daughter and coheiress of Sir George Hutchins [q. v.] Through the influence of Lord North, who married in 1756 a daughter of Williams's sister, he obtained on 8 Nov. 1774 the post of receiver-general of excise, which he held until 1801.
Williams was one of the gayest and wittiest of his set in London society. He was one of the famous partie quarrée consisting, besides himself, of George Selwyn, Dick Edgecumbe, and Horace Walpole, who met at stated periods in the year at Strawberry Hill, and constituted what Walpole styles his ‘out-of-town party.’ In November 1751 Williams informed Selwyn that he had desired Lord Robert Bertie to put him up for White's: ‘Don't let any member shake his head at me for a wit.’ It was not, however, until 1754 that ‘Gilly Williams’ was elected. When White's was ‘deserted’ in summer after parliament had risen, Williams continued to meet his friends ‘at wit and whist’ in George Selwyn's Thursday Club at the Star and Garter in Pall Mall, a favourite resort in the past of Swift and of Smollett.
Williams was the steadiest of all Selwyn's correspondents down to the close of 1766. In March 1765 he gives a humorous account of Walpole's ‘Castle of Otranto,’ then in process of completion, and he furnishes an amusing picture of Brighthelmstone in the sixties of the eighteenth century. He adopted as his motto a sentiment derived from Sir William Temple, ‘Old wood to burn, old friends to converse with, and old books to read.’ He seems, however, to have dropped out of his old circle, and little is heard of him after 1770. He died in Cleveland Court, St. James's, near the house where his old friend Selwyn had lived, on 28 Nov. 1805. He married, on 30 July 1752, Diana, daughter of William Coventry, fifth earl of Coventry, who appears to have died early without issue.
In December 1761 Horace Walpole wrote of ‘the charming picture Reynolds painted for me of Edgecumbe, Selwyn, and Gilly Williams.’ This picture was bought by Henry ​Labouchere at the Strawberry Hill sale for 157l. 10s., and is now in the possession of Lord Taunton. It was engraved in line by Greatbach for Wright's edition of 'Walpole's Letters,' and is reproduced in Cunningham's edition and in Jesse's 'Selwyn.' A mezzotint was executed by J. Scott for the 'Engravings of Works by Sir Joshua Reynolds' of 1865, and this is reproduced in the 'History of White's.'
[Gent. Mag. 1805, ii. 1176; Burke's Extinct Baronetage, p. 570; Walpole's Corresp. and Memoirs of the Reign of George III; Warburton's Horace Walpole and his Contemporaries, 1851; Jesse's Selwyn and his Contemporaries, 1844, vols. i. and ii. passim; Dobson's Horace Walpole, 1890, pp. 166, 205, 241; History of White's Club; Wheatley and Cunningham's London, iii. 305.]
T. S.