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

​HUNTER, SAMUEL (1769–1839), editor of the 'Glasgow Herald,' born in 1769, was son of John Hunter (1716–1781), parish minister of Stoneykirk, Wigtownshire. Receiving his elementary education in his native place, he qualified as a surgeon at Glasgow University, and for a time, about the end of the century, practised his profession in Ireland. Somewhat later he acted as captain in the north lowland fencibles, and settled in Glasgow, where his geniality and strong common sense speedily made him popular. On 10 Jan. 1803 he was announced as part proprietor and conductor of the 'Glasgow Herald and Advertiser,' to which he largely devoted himself for the following thirty-four years. Soon afterwards, owing to the prevalent dread of a French invasion, he figured first as major in a corps of gentlemen sharpshooters, and secondly as colonel commandant of the fourth regiment of highland local militia. Entering the Glasgow town council, Hunter rose to be a magistrate, and was very successful and popular on the bench. In 1820 fresh military activity brought him forward as commander of a choice corps of gentlemen sharpshooters. From this time till 1837, when he retired from the 'Herald'—then a sheet of four pages, appearing bi-weekly—he was one of the most prominent of Glasgow citizens. After retiring he settled at Rothesay, and he died on 9 June 1839 when visiting his nephew, Archibald Blair Campbell, D.D., parish minister of Kilwinning, Ayrshire. He was buried in Kilwinning churchyard.
[Glasgow Herald, 14 June 1839; Irving's Eminent Scotsmen.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hunter, Thomas (1666-1725)

​HUNTER, THOMAS (1666–1725), Jesuit, born in Northumberland on 6 June 1666, made his humanity studies in the college of the English Jesuits at St. Omer; entered the society in 1684; was appointed professor of logic and philosophy at Liege, and was professed of the four vows 2 Feb. 1701–1702. He became chaplain to the Sherburne family at Stonyhurst, Lancashire, in 1704. After the marriage of Sir Nicholas Sherburne's daughter and heiress, Mary Winifred Frances, in 1709, with Thomas, eighth duke of Norfolk, Hunter generally resided with the duchess as her chaplain. He died on 21 Feb. 1724–5.
His works are: 1. 'A Modest Defence of the Clergy and Religious against R.C.'s History of Doway. With an account of the matters of fact misrepresented in the same History,' sine loco, 1714, 8vo. This is in answer to the anonymous work of the Rev. Charles Dodd [q. v.] entitled 'The History of the English College at Doway, from its first foundation in 1568 to the present time,' 1713. Dodd replied to Hunter in 'The Secret Policy of the English Society of Jesus,' 1715, a work which is sometimes called Dodd's 'Provincial Letters.' 2. 'An Answer to the 24 Letters entitled The Secret Policy of the English Society of Jesus; containing a Letter to the Author of the same; and five Dialogues, in which the chief matters of fact contained in those letters are examined.' Manuscript at Stonyhurst, A copy was in Charles Butler's collection. 3. `An English Carmelite. The Life of Catharine Burton [q. v.], Mother Mary Xaveria of the Angels, of the English Teresian Convent at Antwerp,' London, 1876, in vol. 18 of the 'Quarterly Series,' edited by the Rev. Henry James Coleridge, S.J. The original manuscript is in the custody of the Teresian nuns at Lanherne, Cornwall.
[Butler's Hist. Memoirs (1822), ii. 250; Coleridge's preface to Hunter's Life of Catharine Burton; De Backer's Bibl. de la Compagnie de Jésus (1872), ii. 227; Foley's Records, v. 401, vii. 384; Hist. MSS. Commission 3rd Rep. 234 col. 1, 340 col. 2; Kirk's MS. Biog. Collection, quoted in Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 120.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Edwards, Arthur

​EDWARDS, ARTHUR (d. 1743), major, for many years the archaeological ally of Dr. Stukeley and Lord Winchilsea (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. xi. 772), was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 17 Nov. 1725 ([Gough], List of Members of Soc. Antiq. 4to, 1798, p. 4). He died first major of the second troop of horse guards in Grosvenor Street, London, 22 June 1743 (Gent, Mag. xiii. 389; affidavit appended to will). His will of 11 June 1738 was proved at London 13 July 1743, a second grant being made 7 Nov. 1745 (registered in P. C. C, 230, Boycott). Therein he refers to his family merely as 'my brothers and sisters, the children of my father.' The fire of 23 Oct. 1731, by which the Cotton Library was so seriously injured, induced Edwards to make the munificent gift of 7,000l. to the trustees 'to erect and build such a house as may be most likely to presence that library as much as can be from all accidents.' Owing, however, to the protraction of a life interest in the legacy, it did not become available until other arrangements had made its application to building purposes needless (Edwards, Memoirs of libraries, i. 434, 460). It was consequently, in pursuance of the testator's contingent instructions, appropriated to the purchase of 'such manuscripts, books of antiquities, ancient coins, medals, and other curiosities as might be worthy to increase and inlarge the said Cotton Library.' Edwards also bequeathed about two thousand volumes of printed books and their cases; also, his 'pictures of King George the 1st, the Czar Peter, Oliver Cromwell, and Cosimo di Medicis the 1st, with his secretary, Bartolomeo Concini … to be placed in the aforesaid library.'
[Authorities as above.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Edwards, Edward (1803-1879)

​EDWARDS, EDWARD (1803–1879), marine zoologist, was born on 23 Nov. 1803, at Corwen, Merionethshire, where he received his education. He started in life as a draper at Bangor, Carnarvonshire, which business he carried on until 1839, when he retired from it. In the following year he established a foundry and ironworks at Menai Bridge, which he appears to have carried on for several years with much success. In 1864, being interested in observing the forms of marine life in the beautiful waters of the Menai Straits, he began to study the habits and characters of the fish in their native element. He was induced to attempt an artificial arrangement for preserving the fish in health in confinement, so as to be enabled to study their habits more closely. By an imitation of the natural conditions under which the fishes flourished, he succeeded in introducing such improvements in the construction of aquaria as enabled him to preserve the fish for an almost unlimited period without change of water. His most notable improvement was his 'dark-water chamber slope-back tank,' the result of a close study of the rock-pools, with their fissures and chasms, in the rocks on the shores of the Menai Straits. This improvement retarded for a long time the falling off in the taste for domestic aquaria, and the principle of Edwards's tank was most successfully adopted in all the large establishments of this country, and in many of the continental and American zoological schools. To the pursuit of this interesting branch of natural history Edwards devoted the last years of his life, dying, at the age of seventy-five, on 13 Aug. 1879, after an attack of paralysis.
[Athenæum, No. 2706, 6 Sept. 1879; information from friends in Anglesea, and from Edwards's son, Mr. John R. Edwards of Liverpool.]
R. H-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Knight, William Henry

​KNIGHT, WILLIAM HENRY (1823–1863), painter, was born on 26 Sept. 1823 at Newbury, Berkshire, where his father, John Knight, was a schoolmaster; he was articled to a solicitor in that town, but after having two pictures accepted by the Society of British Artists in 1844, abandoned the law, and in the following year came to London. He took lodgings in the Kennington Road, where he maintained himself by drawing crayon portraits while studying at the British Museum and in the schools of the Royal Academy. In 1846 he sent his first contribution to the Academy, ‘Boys playing at Draughts,’ which was purchased by Alderman Salomons, and from that year was a constant exhibitor; he also sent many pictures to the British Institution. Among his best works were ‘A Christmas Party preparing for Blind Man's Buff,’ 1850; ‘Boys Snowballing,’ 1853; ‘The Broken Window,’ 1855 (engraved in the ‘Art Journal,’ August 1865); ‘The Village School,’ 1857; ‘Knuckle Down,’ 1858; ‘The Lost Change,’ 1859; ‘An Unexpected Trump,’ 1861; and ‘The Counterfeit Coin,’ 1862. These titles indicate the character of Knight's art, which was limited to scenes of everyday life, with children prominently introduced. His pictures are of cabinet size, very delicately finished. He died on 31 July 1863, leaving a widow and six children.
[Art Journal, 1863, p. 133; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Royal Academy Catalogues.]
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Knightbridge, John

​KNIGHTBRIDGE, JOHN (d. 1677), divine, was the fourth son of John Knightbridge, attorney, of Chelmsford, Essex, by Mary, daughter of Charles Tucker of Lincoln's Inn (Visitations of Essex, Harl. Soc., vol. xiii. pt. i. p. 432). He graduated B.A. in 1642 as a member of Wadham College, Oxford, was translated to Peterhouse, Cambridge, on 3 May 1645, and five days later was admitted to a fellowship in place of Christopher Bankes of Yorkshire, who had been ejected (Addit. MS. 5874, f. 64). After resigning his fellowship in July 1659, he became rector of Spofforth, Yorkshire (ib. 5861, f. 267). In 1673 he proceeded D.D. (Cantabr. Graduati, 1787, p. 229). He died in the parish of St. Paul, Covent Garden, London, in December 1677 (Probate Act Book, P. C. C., 1677). By his will (P. C. C. 57, Reeve) he gave 40l. to the common fund of Wadham College, and the same sum to Peterhouse. He also gave to the master and fellows of Peterhouse as feoffees in trust his fee-farm rent of the manor of Heslington, near York, a house in the Minories, London, 7l. a year from his land in Chelmsford called Little Vinters, and another house and land, upon condition that they paid 50l. annually to a professor of moral theology or casuistical ​divinity. The first election to the chair, called the Knightbridge professorship, was made in 1683. He presented a library for the use of the clergy of Chelmsford and the neighbourhood, which is placed in a chapel on the north side of Chelmsford parish church.
[Addit. MS. 5861, ff. 298, 299, 300, 304, 305; Cambr. Univ. Calendar; Trans. of Essex Arch. Soc. ii. 197.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Knight, William (1786-1844)

​KNIGHT, WILLIAM (1786–1844), natural philosopher, son of William Knight, a bookseller, of Aberdeen, was born in that city on 17 Sept. 1786. In 1793 he entered the Aberdeen grammar school, where he was a contemporary of Lord Byron. Though not in the same class with him, he preserved a vivid recollection of the poet, whose disposition he described in later life as ‘most damnable.’ He entered the Marischal College and University in 1798, graduated M.A. ​there in 1802, and delivered several courses of lectures to the students in natural history and chemistry between 1810 and 1816. In 1811 he was defeated in his candidature for the chair of natural philosophy, but was elected in 1816 to the professorship of natural philosophy in the Academical Institution, Belfast. In 1817 he received from Marischal College and University the degree of LL.D., and in the following year he published his chief work, entitled ‘Facts and Observations towards forming a New Theory of the Earth,’ Edinb. 1818, 8vo, being a series of desultory papers mainly on geological subjects. Knight returned to Aberdeen from Belfast in 1822, when he was appointed professor of natural philosophy at the Marischal College and University. His style of lecturing, says Professor Masson (Macmillan's Magazine, ix. 331), was characterised by much pungency, occasionally relieved by a ‘sarcastic scurrility which no other lecturer ventured on, and which was far from pleasant.’ Though his teaching was varied and interesting, its effect was greatly marred by the shallowness of his mathematical knowledge. Knight died at Aberdeen on 3 Dec. 1844, his class during the session 1844–5 being taken by Mr. Alexander Bain, afterwards professor of logic in the university of Aberdeen. He married, on 17 Sept. 1821, Jean, eldest daughter of George Glennie, professor of moral philosophy at Marischal College from 1796 to 1846. By her he had two sons and four daughters.
Besides the work mentioned above Knight published: 1. ‘Outlines of Botany,’ Aberdeen, 1813; 2nd edition, 1828. 2. ‘First Day in Heaven, a Fragment,’ London, 1820; a curious book, afterwards suppressed by the author. More important than any of his printed works are his eight volumes of manuscript collections relating to Marischal College, now in the library of the university of Aberdeen, which have formed the basis of the ‘Fasti Academiæ Mariscallanæ,’ edited by Mr. P. J. Anderson for the New Spalding Club. To these must be added some ‘Autobiographical Collections,’ now in the hands of relatives, which are full of racy criticisms of contemporaries.
[Information kindly supplied by Mr. P. J. Anderson, secretary, New Spalding Club, Aberdeen; Alma Mater (Aberdeen Univ. Mag.), January and February, 1889; James Riddell's Aberdeen and its Folk; Philos. Mag. xlviii. 384.]
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Knight, William (fl.1612)

The ODNB identifies three William Knights of the period, with this one being author of the Concordance, but not the version of Joseph Hall's work.
​KNIGHT, WILLIAM (fl. 1612), divine, a native of Arlington, Sussex, was matriculated as a pensioner of Christ's College, Cambridge, on 1 July 1579, went out B.A. in 1582–3, was subsequently elected a fellow of his college, and in 1586 commenced M.A. His friend Joseph Hall, afterwards bishop of Norwich, wrote, encouraging him to persist in the calling of the ministry, and commended his ‘variety of tongues and style of arts.’ Knight was instituted to the rectory of Barley, Hertfordshire, on 19 April 1598, but before the close of that year he exchanged the benefice, with Andrew Willet, for the rectory of Little Gransden, Cambridgeshire. On 12 July 1603 he was incorporated M.A. at Oxford. Willet terms him ‘vir probus, prudens, doctus, mihique amicissimus.’
He was author of: 1. ‘A Concordance Axiomatical, containing a Survey of Theological Propositions, with the Reasons and Uses in Holy Scripture,’ London, 1610, fol. 2. Latin epistle prefixed to Joseph Hall's ‘Mundus alter et idem,’ Frankfort, n. d.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. iii. 16; Bishop Hall's Works (Pratt), vii. 251, x. 132; Heywood and Wright's Univ. Trans. i. 465, ii. 10; Horsfield's Sussex, i. 322; Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 800; Strype's Annals, iii. 400, App. p. 201 fol.; Willet's Epist. Ded. to Harmonie on 2 Samuel; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), i. 229, 300.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Knighton, Henry

​KNIGHTON (or CNITTHON, as he himself spells the name), HENRY (fl. 1363), historical compiler, was a canon of St. Mary's Abbey, Leicester. He is the author of a ‘Compilatio de eventibus Angliæ,’ a work in four books beginning with Edgar and ending in 1366. His name, Henricus Cnitthon, is supplied by the initial letters of the sixteen chapters of each of the first three books. In his prologue he states that he follows the seventh book of Cestrensis (i.e. Higden), and that he adds to his extracts from him the accounts of other matters, ‘quæ aspectui meo sparsim se obtulerant.’ But he carefully conceals that almost the whole of the additional matter, with the exception of a few references to Leicester and its abbey, is transcribed from Walter of Hemingburgh. When Hemingburgh speaks of his own monastery (Gisburn) as ‘nostram,’ this is altered to its own name (e.g. ‘quandam ecclesiam de Gysburne,’ Twysden, col. 2522). At the end of the third book he states that he is proceeding alone, and the fourth book, which is not divided into chapters, and occupies from 1337 to 1366, may be original. It gives nearly the same sequence of events as is found in Robert of Avesbury. He speaks of being present at the visit of Edward III to the abbey of Leicester in 1363. As the history breaks off abruptly in 1366, he probably did not survive that year.
A fifth book is added in the manuscripts, begun ten years later (1377), and carrying on the history to 1395. This is clearly the work of another writer, whose style as well as ‘his whole tone of speaking of church matters’ is very different from that of Knighton. The documents preserved by the continuator, the details respecting the rising of 1381, and those of the history and opinions of Wycliffe, are of great value. He ‘is a partisan of the Duke of Lancaster,’ and almost ‘the only writer of that day on the less popular side.’ He was clearly, like Knighton, a canon of St. Mary's, Leicester, but there is no clue to his name. The book was in the library of Leicester Abbey, as may be seen in Nichols's ‘History of Leicester,’ App. p. 102. It is preserved in two manuscripts in the Cotton collection in the British Museum, Claudius E. 3 and Tiberius C. 7, from the latter of which Twysden printed his edition in the ‘Decem Scriptores.’ A new edition is in progress in the Rolls Series, under the editorship of the Rev. Dr. Lumby.
[Authorities given in text.]
H. R. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Knill, Richard

​KNILL, RICHARD (1787–1857), dissenting minister, fourth child of Richard Knill, carpenter (d. 15 Dec. 1826), by Mary Tucker (d. 1826), was born at Braunton, Devonshire, on 14 April 1787. In 1804 he enlisted as a soldier, but was shortly afterwards bought out by his friends. He became a student of the Western Academy at Axminster in 1812, and under the influence of a sermon by Dr. Alexander Waugh, volunteered for missionary work. He was accepted by the London Missionary Society, and embarked for Madras 20 April 1816. Here he engaged in English services for the schools, soldiers, and residents, while studying the native languages. His health soon failed, and he was sent in September 1818 to Nágarkoil in Travancore, whence, after suffering from the cholera, he returned to England 30 Nov. 1819. A cold climate being recommended, he sailed on 18 Oct. 1820 for St. Petersburg, intending to proceed to Siberia as a missionary; but, on the persuasion of the British and Americans, consented to remain in that city. Here he laboured successfully, and obtained the support of the emperor and the royal family. A Protestant Bible Society was formed for supplying the bible in their own tongues to Germans, Finns, Poles, Livonians, and other persons not belonging to the Greek church. A school was opened for the children of foreigners, and a mission to the sailors at Cronstadt established. Returning to England in August 1833 to obtain funds for erecting a larger church in St. Petersburg, his labours were so successful in creating funds and friends for the London Missionary Society, that he was requested to remain at home, and for eight years he visited almost every place in the United Kingdom, advocating the claims of the foreign missions. Quite worn out by his incessant labours, he on 1 Jan. 1842 settled down as congregational minister at Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, where he remained until his removal to Chester in 1848. His last days were not the least useful, and his preaching in the Chester Theatre for twenty Sunday afternoons was most successful. Few men of his time had greater mastery over large assemblies of men. He died at 28 Queen Street, Chester, on 2 Jan. 1857. On 9 Jan. 1823 he married Sarah, daughter of James and Isabella Notman, a native of St. Petersburg, by whom he had five children.
Knill was the author of: 1. ‘The Farmer and his Family,’ 1814. 2. ‘Memoir of the Life and Character of Walter Venning,’ 1822. 3. ‘The Influence of Pious Women in Promoting a Revival of Religion,’ 1830. 4. ‘Some Account of John Knill,’ 1830. 5. ‘The Happy Death-bed,’ 1833. 6. ‘A Traveller arrived at the End of the Journey,’ 1836. 7. ‘A Dialogue between a Romish Priest and R. Knill, Missionary,’ 1841. 8. ‘A Scotchman Abroad,’ 1841.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Forrest, Robert

​FORREST, ROBERT (1789?–1852), sculptor, was born in 1788 or 1789 at Carluke, Lanarkshire. He was an entirely self-taught artist, and was brought up as a stone-mason in the quarries of Clydesdale. His first public work was the statue of the ‘Wallace wight’ which occupies a niche in the steeple of Lanark parish church, and was erected in 1817. He was subsequently employed to cut the colossal figure of the first Viscount Melville which surmounts the pillar in the centre of St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh, and he was also the sculptor of the statue of John Knox in the necropolis of Glasgow. One of his best works is the statue of Mr. Ferguson of Raith at Haddington; it was erected in 1843. In 1832 Forrest opened his public exhibition of statuary on the Calton Hill with four equestrian statues, under the patronage of the Royal Association of Contributors to the National Monuments. In progress of time the gallery was extended to about thirty groups, all executed by Forrest. He died at Edinburgh, after an illness of about six weeks' duration, 29 Dec. 1852.
L. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Forrest, Ebenezer

​FORREST, EBENEZER (fl. 1774), attorney, resided at George Street, York Buildings, London, and was intimate with Hogarth and John Rich, proprietor of the Lincoln's Inn Theatre. He was the father of Theodosius Forrest [q. v.] His opera entitled ‘Momus turn'd Fabulist, or Vulcan's Wedding,’ was performed at the Lincoln's Inn Theatre on 3 Dec. 1729 and some subsequent nights. He also wrote ‘An Account of what seemed most remarkable in the five days’ peregrination of the five following persons, viz. Messrs. Tothall, Scott, Hogarth, Thornhill, and F. Begun on Saturday, 27 May 1732, and finished on the 31st of the same month,' London, 1782 (illustrated with plates by Hogarth): reprinted with W. Gostling's Hudibrastic version, London, 1872, 4to.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Forrest, John

​FORREST, JOHN (1474?–1538), martyr. [See Forest.]