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

​NANFAN or NANPHANT, Sir RICHARD (d. 1507), deputy of Calais, son of John Nanfan of Birtsmorton, Worcestershire, belonged to a family which originally sprang from Tresize, Cornwall. His father was sheriff of Cornwall in 1451 and 1457, and in 1453 became governor of Jersey and Guernsey, and collector of the customs there. Richard Nanfan was in the commission of the peace for Cornwall in 1485, and is said to have been esquire of the king's body in the same year. Throughout Henry VII's reign he received frequent grants of stewardships, and must have become very rich in later life. On 21 Dec. 1488 he was elected, in company with Dr. Savage and Roger Machado [q. v.], the Norroy king at arms, for a mission into Spain and Portugal. Before starting Nanfan was knighted. The party left Southampton early in 1489, and reached Medina del Campo on 12 March. They had interviews with Ferdinand and Isabella, and left for Beja in Portugal on 22 April. After staying a month there and treating with the king the party left for Lisbon, and Nanfan ​came home in a salt-laden ship of twenty tons' burden.
At some time soon after 1488 (he was sheriff of Cornwall in 1489) Nanfan, as Cavendish says, ‘had a great room in Calais.’ Though some have said that he was only treasurer there, it seems certain that he was deputy (Letters … of Richard III and Henry VII, Rolls Ser. i. 231). He is mentioned as being at Calais in 1492, and in 1500 was one of the witnesses at a treasonable conversation of Sir Hugh Conway, the treasurer, of which John Flamank sent home an account. At Calais he was an early patron of Wolsey, who was his chaplain, and who through Nanfan became known to the king. He returned to Birtsmorton early in the sixteenth century, and died in January 1506–7. Wolsey was one of his executors. His widow Margaret died in 1510. He left no legitimate children; but a natural son, John, who went to Spain with him, took his Worcestershire estates.
His great-great-grandson, John Nanfan (fl. 1634), was grandfather of Captain John Nanfan (d. 1716) of Birtsmorton, Worcestershire, who was captain in Sir John Jacob's regiment of foot, and sailed in 1697 for New York, where, by the influence of the governor, Richard Coote, earl of Bellamont [q. v.], who had married Nanfan's cousin Catherine, he was made lieutenant-governor. On Bellamont's death in 1700 the government of New York devolved upon Nanfan till the arrival of Lord Cornbury in 1702. In 1705 Nanfan returned to England; he died at Greenwich in 1716, and was buried at St. Mary Abchurch, London. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of William Chester of Barbados (Waters, Chesters of Chicheley, pp. 172–3; Nash, Worcestershire, i. 86, &c.; Lodge, Peerage, ed. Archdall, s.v. ‘Bellamont;’ Winsor, Hist. of America, v. 195; Roosevelt, New York, p. 84; Rawl. MS. in Bodl. Libr. A. 272, 289).
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pearson, James

​PEARSON, JAMES (d. 1805), glass-painter, was a native of Dublin, but was trained as an artist in Bristol. He had a large practice as a glass-painter, and introduced some improvements into the colouring of glass. Pearson executed on glass, in 1776, ‘Christ and the Four Evangelists’ for Brasenose College, Oxford, and ‘The Brazen Serpent,’ from the designs of J. H. Mortimer, R.A., for the east window of Salisbury Cathedral, inserted at the expense of the Earl of Radnor. He was assisted in his work by his wife, Eglington Margaret Pearson (d. 1823), daughter of Samuel Paterson the auctioneer, who sold the first collection of pieces of glass-painting brought from abroad, and they together copied some of the paintings by the old masters, such as ‘The Saluta​tion’ by Carlo Maratti, ‘The Temptation of St. Anthony’ by Teniers, &c., which they transferred to glass. A copy of Guido's ‘Aurora’ by Mr. and Mrs. Pearson is in the collection of the Duke of Norfolk at Arundel Castle. A collection of small paintings on glass, executed by Mr. and Mrs. Pearson conjointly, was sold by auction in 1797. Specimens of Pearson's work are to be seen in the churches of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, and St. Giles's, Cripplegate; and also in the parish churches of Battersea and Wandsworth. Pearson died in 1805. Mrs. Pearson executed two sets of copies from Raphael's cartoons, one purchased by the Marquis of Lansdowne, and the other by Sir Gregory Page-Turner, bart. While she was making a third copy, a too close application to her art brought on an illness of which she died on 14 Feb. 1823. Mr. and Mrs. Pearson exhibited paintings at the Society of Artists' exhibitions in 1775, 1776, and 1777, and were then residing in Church Street, St. John's, Westminster.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pearson, John (1758-1826)

​PEARSON, JOHN (1758–1826), surgeon, son of John Pearson of Coney Street, York, was born there on 3 Jan. 1758. He was apprenticed, at the age of sixteen, to a surgeon in Morpeth, whence he removed, in June 1777, to Leeds. There he lived for three years, under the roof of William Hey (1736–1819) [q. v.], the great surgeon to the Leeds General Infirmary, whose biography he afterwards wrote. He came to London in 1780, and entered as a student at St. George's Hospital, to work under John Hunter (1728–1793) [q. v.] He appears to have been granted the diploma of the Surgeons' Company on 4 Oct. 1781, when he was found qualified to act as surgeon to a regiment. In the same year he became house surgeon to the Lock Hospital at so critical a period of its fortunes that in 1782 he was appointed surgeon there, a post he held until 1818. He was also made surgeon, about this time, to the public dispensary, then newly founded, in Carey Street, an office which he resigned in 1809. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 24 March 1803, and he afterwards became a fellow of the Linnean Society. In 1820 he was made an honorary member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, and he also became a member of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh. In 1785 he was living in Air Street, but he afterwards moved into Golden Square. He died on 12 May 1826. He married Sarah, daughter and heiress of Robert Norman of Lewisham. His son John Norman [q. v.] is separately noticed.
Pearson appears to have been a careful surgeon, with a strong scientific bias. His writings, however, are neither numerous nor important. His chief works are: 1. ‘Principles of Surgery,’ pt. i. 1788, 8vo (the second part was never published); a new edition, 1808. The principles are drawn up in a concise and aphoristical form for the use of students attending Pearson's lectures on surgery. 2. ‘A plain and rational Account of the Nature … of Animal Magnetism,’ 1790, 8vo. 3. ‘Practical Observations on Cancerous Complaints,’ London, 1793, 8vo. 4. ‘Observations on the Effects of Various ​Articles of the Materia Medica in the Cure of Lues Venerea,’ London, 1800, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1807, 8vo. 5. ‘Some Account of the Two Mummies of the Egyptian Ibis,’ ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ 1805, pt. i. p. 264, and plates. 6. ‘Life of William Hey,’ London, 1822, 2 vols. 8vo; 2nd edit. 1823.
D’A. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pearson, John (1819-1886)

​PEARSON, Sir JOHN (1819–1886), judge, born on 5 Aug. 1819, was son of John Norman Pearson [q. v.], and elder brother of Charles Henry Pearson [q. v.] He graduated B.A. at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, on 24 Feb. 1841, and proceeded M.A. on 2 July 1844, having been called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 11 June the same year. A sound and painstaking lawyer, but without influential connections or conspicuous brilliance, Pearson rose slowly at the chancery bar, and did not take silk until 1866 (13 Dec.). In the following year he was elected a bencher of his inn, of which he was treasurer in 1884–1885. In 1882, on the retirement of Vice-chancellor Hall, Pearson was appointed on 24 Oct. to succeed him, but without the title of vice-chancellor, and on 30 Nov. following was knighted at Windsor. He died at his residence, 75 Onslow Square, South Kensington, after a painful illness of some weeks' duration, on 13 May 1886. His remains were interred in Brompton cemetery.
During his brief judicial career Pearson proved himself an eminently competent judge. His decisions on the Settled Land Act of 1882 did much to determine the construction of that important statute; nor did he show less ability in dealing with patent cases and company law. Pearson was for some time a member of both the councils of legal education and law reporting.
Pearson married, on 21 Dec. 1854, Charlotte Augusta, daughter of William Short, rector of St. George's, Bloomsbury, who survived him.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pearson, John Norman

​PEARSON, JOHN NORMAN (1787–1865), divine, son of John Pearson (1758–1826) [q. v.], born 7 Dec. 1787, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained the Hulsean prize in 1807. He then took orders, and acted as chaplain to the Marquis of Wellesley until the Church Missionary Society appointed him, in 1826, the first principal of its newly founded missionary college at Islington. In 1839 he was appointed vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Tunbridge Wells, a position which he resigned in 1853. He afterwards lived in retirement, doing occasional duty for the surrounding clergy, at Bower Hall, near Steeple Bumpstead in Essex, until his death in October 1865. He married Harriet, daughter of Richard Puller of London and sister of Sir Christopher Puller, by whom he had a numerous family. His sons Sir John and Charles Henry are separately noticed.
There is a three-quarter length portrait of Pearson in oils, dated 1843, but unsigned, in the hall of the Missionary College in Upper Street, Islington.
Pearson's works are: 1. ‘A Critical Essay on the Ninth Book of Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses,’ Cambridge, 1808. 2. ‘Christ Crucified; or some Remarkable Passages of the Sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ, devotionally and practically considered,’ London, 1826, 12mo. 3. ‘Life of Archbishop Leighton,’ prefixed to an edition of his ‘Works’ in 1829. 4. ‘The Candle of the Lord uncovered; or the Bible rescued from Papal Thraldom by the Reformation,’ London, 1835, 8vo. 5. ‘The Faith and Patience of the Saints exhibited in the Narrative of the Sufferings and the Death … of I. Lefevere;’ a new translation, 1839, 12mo. 6. ‘Psalms and Hymns chiefly designed for Public Worship,’ London, 1840, 12mo. 7. ‘The Days in Paradise,’ London, 1854, 12mo. He also published several volumes of sermons.
D’A. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sherwood

​SHERWOOD. [See also Shirwood.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sherwood, William

​SHERWOOD, WILLIAM (d. 1482), bishop of Meath, was an Englishman who was papally provided to the bishopric of Meath in 1460. In 1464 he had a quarrel with the deputy, d|Thomas|FitzGerald}}, eighth earl of Desmond [q. v.], some of whose followers were said to have been murdered at the instigation of the bishop. Desmond and Sherwood both went to England to lay the matter before the king, and the former was for the time successful. The bishop is said to have inspired the opposition which led to Desmond's attainder and execution on 14 Feb. 1468. In 1475 Sherwood was appointed deputy for George, duke of Clarence, but his rule excited much opposition, and in 1477 he was removed from office. He was also chancellor of Ireland from 1475 to 1481. Sherwood died at Dublin on 3 Dec. 1482, and was buried at Newtown Abbey, near Trim.
[Annals of Ireland, in Irish Archæological Miscellany, p. 253; Annals of the Four Masters, v. 1035, 1051; Register of St. Thomas's, Dublin, p. 423 (Rolls Ser.); Ware's Works, ii. 150, ed. Harris; Cotton's Fasti Eccl. Hib. iii. 114; Leland's History of Ireland, ii. 52, 62–3; Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland, pp. 380, 399, 407.]
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sherwin, Ralph (1550-1581)

​SHERWIN, RALPH (1550–1581), Roman catholic divine, born at Radesley, near Langford, Derbyshire, in 1550, was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. on 22 Nov. 1571, and M.A. on 2 July 1574. He was made senior of the act celebrated in the latter year, ‘being then accounted an acute philosopher and an excellent Græcian and Hebrician’ (Wood, Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 478). He left the university in 1575, and, proceeding to the English College at Douay, was ordained priest on 23 March 1576–7 (Records of the English Catholics, i. 8). Afterwards he proceeded to Rome, and his name stands as No. 1 in the diary of the English College in that city on 23 April 1579. He left it on 18 April 1580 for the English mission, in company with other priests, including Robert Parsons [q. v.] and Edmund Campion [q. v.], the first jesuits who came to this country. After exercising his priestly functions in London for a short time, he was arrested, and committed prisoner to the Marshalsea, being subsequently removed to the Tower, where he was several times examined and twice racked. He was a close prisoner for nearly a year, and during that time held several conferences with protestant ministers, sometimes in private, and at other times in public audience. In November 1581 he was arraigned before the queen's bench, with several other ecclesiastics, and charged with having conspired to procure the queen's deposition and death, and to promote rebellion at home and invasion of the realm from abroad. He was condemned to death, and executed at Tyburn, with Campion and Alexander Brian, on 1 Dec. 1581 (Stow, Annales, 1614, p. 694). He was beatified by Leo XIII on 29 Dec. 1886 (Tablet, 15 Jan. 1887, pp. 81, 82).
Peter White wrote ‘A Discouerie of the Jesuiticall opinion of Justification, guilefully vttered by Sherwyne at the time of his Execution,’ London, 1582, 8vo. To Sherwin has been erroneously attributed ‘An Account of the Disputations in Wisbech Castle between William Fulke of Cambridge and certain Roman Priests who were Prisoners there,’ a manuscript formerly in the possession of Richard Stanihurst (Dodd, Church Hist. ii. 131).
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sherwin, Ralph (1799-1830)

1904 Errata appended.
​SHERWIN, RALPH (1799–1830), actor, born in April 1799 at Bishop Auckland in Durham, received the rudiments of education in his birthplace, and subsequently at a school in Witton, presumably Witton-le-Wear. During five years he studied medicine in London and Edinburgh. His first appearance on the stage was made in York in July 1818, under Mansell. In the York company he remained two years, acting in Leeds, Hull, and Sheffield. He then went to Birmingham, under Bunn, losing his wardrobe when the theatre was burned down. At Brighton, under Brunton, he played low comedy and old men, subsequently rejoining Bunn at Leicester, and reappearing in the newly erected theatre in Birmingham. On 11 Feb. 1823, as Sherwin from York, he appeared at Drury Lane, playing Dandie Dinmont in ‘Guy Mannering’ to the Dominie Sampson of Liston. Engaged for three years, he acted Robin in ‘No Song no Supper,’ Paddock in ‘My Spouse and I,’ Diggory Delph in ‘Family Jars,’ and other parts. He was, on 12 Feb. 1825, the original Shock, a very poor shepherd, in Joseph Lunn's adaptation, ‘The Shepherd of Derwent Vale, or the Innocent Culprit;’ on 31 May Sam Sharpset in the ‘Slave’ to Macready's Gambia, and on 29 June Russet in the ‘Jealous Wife.’ Few opportunities were, however, given him, and at the end of the three years he seems not to have been re-engaged. Irregular habits were the reputed cause of his dismissal. He then took to driving a stage-coach, which he upset, returning for a short time to the stage. Sherwin had a fine face and figure, expressive features, and a voice smooth and powerful. He was a good mimic, could sketch likenesses with remarkable fidelity, and was an efficient representative of Yorkshire characters. His talent was, however, impaired by indulgence. He died in 1830, in Durham, at his father's house.
J. K.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.250 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 101 | ii | 20 | Sherwin, Ralph (1799-1830) : for Wilton (bis) read Witton |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sherwin, William (fl.1670-1710)

​SHERWIN, WILLIAM (fl. 1670–1710), engraver, son of William Sherwin (1607–1687?) [q. v.], the nonconformist divine, was born at Wallington, Hertfordshire, of which place his father was rector, about 1645. Between 1670 and 1711 he engraved in the line manner a number of portraits, of which the best have considerable merit, and all are interesting on account of their scarcity and their subjects. These comprise large plates of Charles II, Queen Catherine, Prince Rupert, Lord Gerard of Brandon, the Duchess of Cleveland, and Slingsby Bethell; and various small ones prefixed to books. He engraved the title to Reynolds's ‘Triumphes of God's Revenge against Murder,’ 1670, several of the plates in Sandford's ‘History of the Coronation of James II,’ 1687, and the portraits of Dr. William Sermon [q. v.], prefixed to his works. Sherwin was one of the first workers in mezzotint, being instructed in the practice by Prince Rupert, to whom he dedicated a pair of large portraits of Charles II and his queen engraved in that method; the former of these bears the date 1669, the earliest found on an English mezzotint. Among his other mezzotint plates are portraits of the Duke of Albemarle, Elizabeth Cavendish, duchess of Albemarle, Adrian Beverland, and several royal personages. Sherwin seems to have worked mainly from his own drawings. On his print of his father, dated 1672, he styles himself engraver to the king by patent. He married Elizabeth Pride, great-niece and ward of George Monck, duke of Albemarle, whose heir-at-law she eventually became, and there exists a pedigree of the Moncks of Potheridge engraved by Sherwin expressly to show his wife's claim to that position. He is supposed to have died about 1714.
[Strutt's Dict of Engravers; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Dallaway and Wornum; J. Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits; Dodd's manuscript Hist. of Engravers in Brit. Museum (Add. MS. 33404).]
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sherwin, William (1607-1687?)

​SHERWIN, WILLIAM (1607–1687?), divine, born in 1607, was appointed to the sequestered living of Wallington, Hertfordshire, shortly before October 1645. In that month the sequestered minister, John Bowles, was summoned before the committee for plundered ministers for assaulting Sherwin. Sherwin also acted as lecturer or assistant to Josias Bird at Baldock. He was either silenced at Wallington in 1660 or ejected in 1662. He died at Fowlmere, Cambridge, in the house of his son-in-law, aged about 80. Sherwin married, on 11 Sept. 1637, Dorothea Swan, described as ‘generosa.’ His son, William Sherwin (fl. 1670–1710) [q. v.], the engraver, prefixed an engraved portrait of his father to several of his works.
Most of Sherwin's works are anonymous, and they were sometimes reprinted with titles differing from the originals. He wrote:
* ‘A Covenant to walk with God. … Solemnly entered into by certain persons resolving to live according to and in the power of the life of Christ in them,’ London, 1646, 12mo.
* ‘Πρόδρομος,’ London, 1665, 4to.
* ‘Eἰρηνικόν,’ London, 1665, 4to.
* ‘Λόγος περὶ Λόγου, or the Word written concerning the Word Everlasting,’ London, 1670, 4to.
* ‘Ίερo-μητρόπολις, or the Holy, the Great, the Beloved New Jerusalem … made manifest,’ London, 1670 (?), 4to.
* ‘Ἐκκλησιαστης, or the first and last preacher of the Everlasting Gospel,’ &c., London, 1671, 4to.
* ‘Xλεῖς [sic] εὐαγγελίου τοῦ μυστικοῦ or a key of the doctrines,’ &c., 1672; contains a reprint of fourteen separate tracts of Sherwin's dating 1671–4.
* ‘Oἰκουμένη μέλλουσα: the world to come, or the doctrine of the Kingdom of God,’ 1671–4, 4to; a general reprint of several treatises, like No. 7.
* ‘The doctrine of Christ's glorious Kingdom now shortly approaching,’ 1672, 4to.
* ‘Ἐξαναστασις, or the Saints rising … at the first blessed resurrection,’ &c., London, 1674, 4to.
* ‘Xρόνοι αποκαταστασέως πάντων, or the times of restitution of all things,’ &c., London, 1675, 8vo.
* ‘Eὐαγγέλιον αἰώνιον, or the Saints first revealed and covenanted mercies,’ &c., London, 1676, 4to.
[Addit. MS. 15669, ff. 186, 365; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, ii. 201; Calamy's Account, p. 361; Urwick's Nonconformity in Herts, pp. 568–9.]
W. A. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sherwood, Robert

​SHERWOOD, ROBERT (fl. 1632), lexicographer, born in Norfolk, entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, on 4 July 1622, and graduated B.A. in 1626. He subsequently removed to London, where he set up a school in St. Sepulchre's churchyard. He possessed an intimate knowledge of the French language, which he utilised in 1622 by writing a French-English dictionary to be appended to the new edition of the English-French dictionary of Randle Cotgrave [q. v.] Sherwood also published ‘The French Tutour,’ London, 1634, 8vo. It is asserted that he translated John Bede's ‘Right and Prerogative of Kings’ from the French in 1612, but the date of publication appears to be rather too early to warrant the ascription of the book to him.
[Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. iii. 167; Cole's Athenæ Cantabrigienses in Add. MS. 5880.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Shewen, William

​SHEWEN, WILLIAM (1631?–1695), quaker, was born probably in Bermondsey, London, about 1631. In 1654 the quakers were meeting in the parlour of his house, in a yard at the sign of the Two Brewers in Bermondsey Street. Here he carried on his business of pin-maker. On 24 April 1674 he carried on a disputation with Jeremiah Ives [q. v.] in the market-place at Croydon. On 4 March 1683, Horselydown meeting having been closed by the magistrates' order, the quakers assembled in the street, whereupon Shewen and some others were committed to Tooley Street counter as rioters. He removed to Enfield in 1686, and died there on 28 May 1695, being buried at Bunhill Fields. He married, in 1679, Ann Raper, a widow (d. 1706). In 1696 she gave 100l. to build a new meeting-house at Enfield, on condition of receiving interest for her life.
Shewen's publications include:
* ‘The Universality of the Light … asserted,’ 1674, 4to; this refers to the Croydon address of Ives.
* ‘William Penn and the Quaker in Unity, the Anabaptist mistaken and in Enmity,’ 1674, 4to, also in answer to Ives.
* ‘The True Christian's Faith and Experience briefly declared,’ 1675, 8vo; reprinted (with 4) 1679; reprinted 1767, 12mo, 1772, 1779; a new edit. London, 1806, 12mo; another edit. 1840; translated into German, with ‘A Few Words concerning Conscience,’ 1676–8, 12mo; extracts from it published by the Friends' Tract Association, London, 1850, 12mo.
* ‘A Few Words concerning Conscience,’ 1675, sm. 8vo.
* ‘A Small Treatise concerning Evil Thoughts and Imaginations,’ 1679, 8vo; reprinted (with 4) 1684, 12mo; also London, 1861, 12mo.
* ‘Counsel to the Christian Traveller,’ London, 1683, 8vo; reprinted 1764, 8vo; 3rd edit. 1769, 8vo; 4th edit. revised and corrected, to which is added ‘A Treatise concerning Thoughts,’ Dublin, 1771, 12mo; reprinted in America, Salem, 1793, 8vo, 6th edit. Dublin, 1827.
* ‘A Brief Testimony for Religion. … Presented to the consideration of all, but more especially those that may be chosen Members of Parliament, that they may see cause to concur with the King's Gracious Declaration for Liberty of Conscience,’ 1688, 4to.
[Whiting's Persecution Exposed, p. 239; Whitehead's Christian Progress, p. 594; Besse's Sufferings, i. 462, 689; Beck and Ball's London Friends' Meetings, pp. 215, 235, 301; Hildeburn's Issues of the Pennsylvania Press, i. 38; Smith's Cat. of Friends' Books, ii. 567; Richard Davies's Autobiography, 7th ed. 1844, p. 24; Registers at Devonshire House.]
C. F. S.