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

​NUTTALL, WILLIAM (d. 1840), author, son of John Nuttall, master fuller, born at Rochdale, Lancashire, kept a school in that town for many years. He married three times, the last time unhappily. About 1828 he removed to Oldham, but poverty and distress overtook him, and he committed suicide in 1840. He was buried in Oldham churchyard. He wrote: 1. ‘Le Voyageur, or the Genuine History of Charles Manley,’ 1806. 2. ‘Rochdale, a Fragment, with Notes, intended as an Introduction to the History of Rochdale,’ 1810. It is in doggerel verse, and is curious as the first attempt at a history of the town. The manuscript of his intended history of Rochdale was utilised by Baines in his ‘History of Lancashire.’
[Papers of the Manchester Literary Club, 1880 (paper by H. Fishwick); W. Robertson's Old and New Rochdale, p. 102; Fishwick's Lancashire Library.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Theophilus

​THOMPSON, THEOPHILUS (1807–1860), physician, son of Nathaniel Thompson, was born at Islington on 20 Sept. 1807. His early professional education was received at St. Bartholomew's Hospital and at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of M.D. in 1830, the subject of his inaugural dissertation being ‘De effectibus aliquando perniciosis missionis sanguinis.’ He also studied at Paris with Louis, Andral, and Dupuytren, and attended the lectures of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire at the Jardin des Plantes. Soon after settling down to practice in London he was appointed physician to the Northern Dispensary, which office he held for fourteen years; he was also one of the lecturers at the Grosvenor Place school of medicine. In 1847 he was elected physician to the hospital for consumption, then situated in Marlborough Street; in this institution he took great interest, and his writings show how thoroughly he availed himself of his opportunities for studying the disease. He first introduced cod-liver oil into England, and was the first to give bismuth to arrest the diarrhœa of phthisis, and oxide of zinc for night sweats. The nomenclature of physical signs in lung affections, now in use, is largely due to his suggestions.
Thompson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1846, and in the ‘Proceedings’ of that society (vii. 41 and ix. 474) are two papers by him on the changes produced in the blood by the administration of cod-liver oil and cocoanut oil. He filled the presidential chairs of the Medical and Harveian societies, and contributed five papers to the ‘Transactions’ of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. Thompson died on 11 Aug. 1860. He married the second daughter of Nathaniel Watkin of Stroud, Gloucestershire. Thompson was the author of: 1. ‘On the Improvement of Medicine,’ an oration, 1838. 2. ‘History of the Epidemics of Influenza in Great Britain from 1510 to 1837’ (Sydenham Soc.), 1852; a new edition bringing the subject down to 1890 was issued by his son, Dr. E. Symes Thompson, in 1890. 3. ‘Clinical Lectures on Pulmonary Consumption,’ 1854. 4. ‘Lettsomian Lectures on Pulmonary Consumption.’ He also contributed the articles ‘Chorea,’ ‘Hysteria,’ ‘Neuralgia,’ and ‘Influenza’ to Tweedie's ‘Library of Medicine.’ There are in the possession of the family a watercolour portrait by Alfred Essex and a miniature by William Essex.
T. B. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Thomas (1708?-1773)

​THOMPSON, THOMAS (1708?–1773), missionary and apologist for the African slave trade, son of William Thompson, was born at Gilling in the North Riding of Yorkshire about 1708. He was educated at Richmond school, and on 19 Feb. 1727–8 was admitted ​to Christ's College, Cambridge, whence he graduated B.A. in 1731–2 and proceeded M.A. in 1735. He was elected a fellow on 5 June 1738 and was appointed college curate at Fen Drayton, near Cambridge, on 5 May 1744. On 8 May 1745 he sailed for New York in the Albany, under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to take charge of the churches in Monmouth county, New Jersey, his fellowship being declared vacant on 21 April 1746. At the close of 1751 he proceeded to the coast of Guinea in order to establish a mission there. Not meeting with much success, and being unable to endure the climate, he left Africa in 1756, and, after visiting the West Indies, returned to England. On 26 Aug. 1757 he was appointed vicar of Reculver in Kent, and on 1 Dec. 1761 vicar of Eleham in the same county, where he died on 5 June 1773.
Thompson was the author of:
* ‘An Account of two Missionary Voyages,’ London, 1758, 8vo, which was translated into German by Johann Tobias Koehler, and published in 1767 in the first volume of his ‘Sammlung neuer Reisebeschreibungen aus fremden Sprachen’ (Göttingen, 8vo).
* ‘The African Trade for Negro Slaves shown to be consistent with the Principles of Humanity and with the Laws of Revealed Religion,’ Canterbury, 1772, 8vo; for the latter work Thompson, without considering the subject very deeply, draws his arguments from Aristotle and his illustration from the Pentateuch. It drew a reply from Granville Sharpe [q. v.]
[Information kindly given by the master of Christ's College, Cambridge; Thompson's Works; Luard's Grad. Cantabr.; Gent. Mag. 1773, p. 303; Hasted's Hist. of Kent. iii. 345, 640.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, William (1805-1852)

​THOMPSON, WILLIAM (1805–1852), naturalist, son of a linen merchant in Belfast, was born in that city on 2 Dec. 1805, and, after school education, was apprenticed to the linen business in 1820. For a time he carried on his father's business, but, meeting with little success, he abandoned it and devoted himself to science. From boyhood he was fond of observing birds and insects, and after his indentures terminated in 1826 he gave more and more time to natural history. In 1826 he went a tour of four months on the continent, and in the following year published on 13 Aug. his first paper, ‘On the Birds of the Copeland Isles.’ In 1833 he contributed ‘Notes on Sterna Arctica’ to the Zoological Society of London. When the British Association met at Glasgow in 1840 his ‘Report on the Fauna of Ireland—Division Vertebrata,’ attracted much attention. He went a voyage to the Levant in 1841 with Edward Forbes [q. v.], and made some observations on migratory birds, and from 1841 to 1843 he made ​numerous contributions to the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History.’ In 1843 he was elected president of the Natural History Society of Belfast, which he joined in 1826. He died unmarried on 17 Feb. 1852, while on a visit to London, and was buried at Belfast.
Forbes and other naturalists of the time esteemed him highly. His chief work was his ‘Natural History of Ireland,’ of which the first volume appeared in 1849, and the fourth posthumously in 1856, under the editorship of Robert Patterson [q. v.], George Dickie [q. v.], and Robert Ball [q. v.] It is still the standard book on its subject, and, besides its valuable scientific details, contains many passages of general interest. He was the first observer who described the wonderful breeding places of murrans, whirrans, albanachs, skearts, herring-gulls, gamehawks, and other rare species which are to be found on the coast of Clondehorky, co. Donegal. His portrait occurs in Ransome's ‘Scientific Portraits.’
[Memoir (with portrait) by Patterson in Natural History of Ireland; Literary Gazette, 1852, p. 182; Works.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, William (1678-1739)

​THOMPSON or THOMSON, Sir WILLIAM (1678–1739), judge, second son of Sir William Thompson (d. 1695), serjeant-at-law (a scion of the Thompsons of Scotton or Shotton, Durham), was admitted in 1688 a student at the Middle Temple, where he was called to the bar in 1698. He was returned to parliament, 4 May 1708, for Orford, Suffolk, but, having taken an active part in the impeachment of Sacheverell and the prosecution of his riotous supporters, Dammaree, Willis, and Purchase (March-April 1709-10), lost his seat at the general election of the ensuing autumn. Returned for Ipswich, 3 Sept. 1713, he was unseated on petition, 1 April 1714; but regained the seat on 28 Jan. 1714-15, and retained it until his elevation to the exchequer bench.
On 3 March 1714-15 Thompson was elected recorder of London, and soon after was knighted. He took part in the impeachment of the Jacobite George Seton, fifth earl of Wintoun [q. v.], 15-19 March 1715-16, Appointed to the solicitor-generalship, 24 Jan. 1716-17, he was dismissed from that office, 17 March 1719-20, for bringing an unfounded charge of corrupt practices against attorney-general Nicholas Lechmere (1675-1727) [q. v.] Retaining the recordership, he was accorded in 1724 precedence in all courts after the solicitor-general. On 23 May 1726 he was appointed cursitor baron, and on 27 Nov. 1729 he succeeded Sir Bernard Hale [q. v.] as puisne baron of the exchequer, having first been called to the degree of serjeant-at-law (17 Nov.) This office with the recordership he retained until his death at Bath, 27 Oct. 1739. His portrait by Seeman, his own bequest to the corporation of London, with a ring for each of the aldermen, is at Guildhall. A print of it is at Lincoln's Inn.
Thompson married twice: (1) by license dated 16 July 1701, Mrs. Joyce Brent, widow; (2) in 1711, Julia, daughter of Sir Christopher Conyers, bart., of Horden, Durham, relict of Sir William Blacket, bart., of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It does not appear that he had issue by either wife.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, William (1712?-1766?)

​THOMPSON, WILLIAM (1712?–1766?), poet, born at Brough in Westmoreland in 1712 or 1713, was the second son of Francis Thompson (1665–1735), vicar of Brough, by his wife, the widow of Joseph Fisher [q. v.], archdeacon of Carlisle. William was educated at Appleby, and matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford, on 26 March 1731, graduating B.A. in 1735, and M.A. on 26 Feb. 1738–9. He was elected a fellow of his college, and succeeded to the rectory of Hampton Poyle with South Weston in Oxfordshire.
While still an undergraduate, in 1734, he wrote ‘Stella, sive Amores, tres Libri,’ and two years later, ‘Six Pastorals,’ but considered neither production worthy of publication. In 1745, while at Hampton Poyle, he published ‘Sickness, a Poem’ (London, 4to), in which he paid a tribute to the memory of Pope and Swift, both recently dead. In 1751 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Oxford professorship of poetry against William Hawkins (1722–1801) [q. v.], and in the same year published ‘Gondibert and Bertha,’ a tragedy (London, 8vo), the subject of which was taken from D'Avenant's poem ‘Gondibert.’ In 1756, on the presentation to the university of the Pomfret statues, he wrote ‘Gratitude’ (Oxford, 8vo), a poem in honour of the donor, Henrietta Louisa Fermor, countess dowager of Pomfret [q. v.] In 1758 he published ‘Poems on several Occasions’ (London, 8vo). Thompson was a close imitator of Spenser, and marred his work by the needless use of archaic words and phrases. His ‘Hymn to May,’ his ‘Nativity,’ and his poem on ‘Sickness’ were once highly esteemed. He died about 1766, and his library was sold by Thomas Davies (1712?–1785) [q. v.] in 1768. In 1753 he superintended an edition of Joseph Hall's ‘Virgidemiarum,’ and at his death he left manuscript notes and observations on William Browne's ‘Works,’ which were revised and published by Thomas Davies in his edition of Browne's ‘Works’ (London, 1772, 8vo). Chalmers has confused William Thompson with Anthony Thompson, dean of Raphoe, who died on 9 Oct. 1756 (Cotton, Fasti Eccl. Hib. 1860, v. 265).
[Chalmers's English Poets, 1810; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Notes and Queries, II. xi. 49, 183, III. i. 220, VIII. iii. 306; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 636.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, William (1730?-1800)

​THOMPSON, WILLIAM (1730?–1800), portrait-painter, was born in Dublin about 1730. He received his artistic education in London, and does not seem to have exhibited his works elsewhere. Between 1760 and 1782 he exhibited forty-three portraits at the Society of Artists, of which he was for some time secretary, and one portrait at the Free Society of Artists. Though valuable as likenesses, his portraits do not show much artistic merit. A couple of them were engraved in mezzotint. Having married a wealthy lady, he temporarily abandoned his profession, but got into debt and was imprisoned. His noisy protests against his incarceration earned for him some notoriety. After the death of his first wife he married another rich woman, and was enabled to retire from active work. He was connected with the notorious house in Soho Square kept by Mrs. Theresa Cornelys [q. v.], where he founded and carried on a school of oratory. He died suddenly in London early in 1800.
He published ‘An Enquiry into the Elementary Principles of Beauty in the Works of Nature and Art,’ and also, anonymously, in 1771, ‘The Conduct of the Royal Academicians while members of the Society of Arts, from 1760 to their expulsion in 1769.’
[Bryan's Dict. of Painters, ed. Graves, vol. ii.; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Algernon Graves's Dict. of Artists.]
D. J. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Palmer, Anthony (1675?-1749)

​PALMER, ANTHONY (1675?–1749), New England pioneer, probably born in England about 1675, went out at an early age to Barbados, and made there a considerable fortune as a merchant at Bridgetown. In 1707 he was induced to invest in land in Philadelphia, and, migrating thither, continued his mercantile ventures with success. In 1708 he was summoned to the provincial council of Pennsylvania, of which he remained a member till his death. In 1718 he became a justice of the peace, shortly afterwards a judge of the court of common pleas, and in 1720 one of the first masters in chancery. In 1747 he was president of the council, and in May, when Governor Thomas resigned, he assumed the administration of the colony, and governed it, for eighteen months, through a period of great anxiety. England was at war with France and Spain, whose privateers were making constant descents on the coast of Delaware. The assembly, controlled by quakers, declined to take measures of defence. Palmer induced his government to act independently, and was remarkably successful. About the same time he made treaties of friendship with several Indian tribes, especially those of the Six Nations.
In 1730 he purchased Fairman Mansion at Philadelphia, and, cutting up part of the grounds into building lots, became the founder of what is now the Kensington district of Philadelphia. Here he lived in great state till his death in May 1749.
His daughter Thomasine married the son and heir of Sir William Keith, governor of Pennsylvania.
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Palmer, Barbara

​PALMER, BARBARA, Duchess of Cleveland (fl. 1675). [See Villiers.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Palmer, Edward (fl.1572)

1904 Errata appended.
​PALMER, EDWARD (fl. 1572), antiquary, was the son of a gentleman of Compton Scorfen, Ilmington, Warwickshire, and belonged to the old family of Palmer in that neighbourhood (cf. Dugdale, Warwickshire, ed. 1730, p. 633). He was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and appears in the list of its students in 1572 (University Register, Oxf. Hist. Soc., vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 38). He took no degree, but, living on his patrimony, devoted himself to heraldry, history, and antiquities. He became known to learned men of his day, especially to Camden, who calls him (Britannia, ‘Gloucestershire’) a curious and diligent antiquary. He does not appear to have published anything, but Wood (Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 28; cf. Gent. Mag., 1815, pt. ii. p. 233) states that he made ‘excellent collections of English antiquities, which, after his death, coming into the hands of such persons who understood them not, were therefore … embezzled, and in a manner lost. He had also a curious collection of coins and subterrane antiquities, which in like sort are also embezzled.’ A note by him on the valuation of coins current is in Cotton MS. Otho, E. X., fol. 301, b. ii.
W. W.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.214 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 121 | ii | 34-35 | Palmer, Edward: for Crompton Scorfen read Compton Scorpin |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Palmer, Charlotte

​PALMER, CHARLOTTE (fl. 1780–1797), author, was engaged in the profession of teaching. In 1780 she published with Newbery a novel in five volumes, ‘Female Stability; or the History of Miss Belville.’ It is written in epistolary fashion. On the title-page the author is called the late Miss Palmer, yet in 1797 appeared ‘Letters on Several Subjects from a Preceptress to her Pupils who have left School.’ It was addressed chiefly to real characters. Among the subjects are dress, choice of books, and clandestine marriage. The book, which ends with a poem entitled ‘Pelew,’ referring to Prince Lee-Boo, is a curious and instructive picture of the manners of the time (Welsh, Bookseller of Last Century, p. 281).
Miss Palmer's other works are: 1. ‘Integrity and Content: an Allegory,’ 1792. 2. ‘It is and it is not: a Novel,’ 2 vols. 1792. 3. ‘A newly invented Copy-book,’ 1797.
E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Palmer, Eleanor

​PALMER, ELEANOR, Lady (1720?–1818), born about 1720, was the daughter and coheiress of Michael Ambrose, a wealthy brewer, second son of William Ambrose of Ambrose Hall, co. Dublin. During the period of Lord Chesterfield's viceroyalty of Ireland (1745-7), Miss Ambrose was pre-eminent among the court beauties. Chesterfield himself greatly admired her, and was said to have called her 'the most dangerous papist in Ireland.' At a ball given at Dublin Castle on the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne, when she appeared with an orange lily at her breast, the lord lieutenant improvised the lines:
Say, lovely Tory, where's the jest? Of wearing orange in thy breast, When that same breast uncovered shows The whiteness of the rebel rose?
In 1752, when the Gunnings were proving formidable rivals, Miss Ambrose was married to Roger Palmer of Castle Lackin, Mayo, and Kenure Park, co. Dublin, who was then member for Portarlington. He was created a baronet on 3 May 1777. By him she had three sons: Francis, who predeceased her; John Roger, the second baronet, who died 6 Feb. 1819; and William Henry, third baronet, who died 29 May 1840, leaving three sons and three daughters as the issue of his second marriage with Alice Franklin. Lady Palmer survived her husband, and, though rich, lived for some time before her death almost alone in a small lodging in Henry Street, Dublin. Here it was that Richard Lalor Shell visited her. He gave a highly coloured account of his visit, declaring that she was 'upwards of a hundred years old,' and was excessively vehement in her support of the catholic claims. With every pinch of snuff she poured out a sentence of sedition. A half-length portrait of Lord Chesterfield hung over the chimneypiece of the room.
Lady Palmer died at Dublin, in full possession of her faculties, on 10 Feb. 1818, aged 98. A pastel, seen at the Dublin National Portrait Exhibition in 1872, has since perished by fire. Seductive eyes, a dazzling complexion, and an arch expression, were the leading features of the portrait.
[Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 1892; Lodge's Genealogy of the Peerage; Burke's Romance of the Aristocracy, ii. 5-9; Shell's Sketches, Legal and Political, ed. Savage, i. 136- 138, the account being a reprint of an article in the New Monthly Mag. for February 1827 on the 'Catholic Bar;' Gent. Mag. 1818, i. 379; Miss Gerard's Celebrated Irish Beauties of the Last Century. 1895, pp. 14-28; Webb's Compend. Irish Biogr., art. 'Ambrose.']
G. Le G. N.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Palmer, Alicia Tindal

​PALMER, ALICIA TINDAL (fl. 1810), novelist, is described as a native of Bath. Her first book, a novel in three volumes, ‘The Husband and Lover,’ was published in 1809. In the next year appeared ‘The Daughters of Isenberg: a Bavarian Romance,’ in four volumes. It was sharply ridiculed by Gifford in the ‘Quarterly’ (iv. 61–7). Miss Palmer had previously sent him three 1l. notes. Gifford did not return the money, but affected to assume that it was intended for charitable purposes, and wrote to Miss Palmer that, as she had not mentioned the objects of her bounty, he hoped the Lying-in Hospital would not disappoint her expectations (Murray, Memoir and Correspondence, i. 180–1). In 1811 Miss Palmer published a third novel in three volumes, ‘The Sons of Altringham,’ written, so the preface states, to defray the expenses of the admission of a boy to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. All three books are written in a high-flown and inflated style, and are without literary importance. In 1815 appeared Miss Palmer's ‘Authentic Memoirs of Sobieski.’ Among the subscribers were Lord Byron and Edmund Kean.
E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Palmarius, Thomas

​PALMARIUS, THOMAS (fl. 1410), divine. [See Palmer.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Niall (d.405)

​NIALL (d. 405), king of Ireland, son of Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin, also king of Ireland, and his second wife Cairinne, is known in Irish writings as Naighiallach, a word translated ‘of the nine hostages,’ but not accounted for by any early record. He made war upon the Leinstermen and the Munstermen, and also fought in Britain and perhaps in Gaul. It has been supposed that he was the Scot whose attack on Stilicho is commemorated by Claudian (In primum Consulatum F. Stilichonis, ii. 247). In tales and poems he is described as having a bard named Laidcenn, and as having been himself educated by Torna Eigeas. He was killed by one of his hostages, Eochaidh, son of Enna Ceannseallach, king of Leinster, at Muir nIcht, perhaps the Ictian Sea, or coast of Gaul. The fact that there is no history of his tomb or burial in Ireland seems to confirm this identification. Though often mentioned in Irish literature, very little is recorded of his time, and that he is one of the best-known kings of Ireland is due to the fame of his descendants. Several of the chief tribes of the north and of Meath regarded him as their ancestor, and it is from him that the O'Neills take their name. The following are the names of those of his fourteen sons who had children, with those of the more important tribes who claimed descent from them: (1) Laeghaire (O'Coindhelbhain); (2) Conall Crimhthainne (O'Melaghlin); (3) Fiacha (MacGeoghegan and O'Molloy); (4) Maine (O'Catharnaigh), all these in Meath, and in the north; (5) Eoghan (O'Neill); (6) Conall Gulban (O'Cannanain and O'Donell). The descendants of Cairbre and Enda Finn are less famous.
In the ‘Book of Leinster,’ a twelfth-century manuscript (fol. 33, col. 2, l. 10), is a poem by Cuan O'Lothchain containing tales of Niall's childhood. In the ‘Book of Ballymote,’ a manuscript of the fifteenth century, the history of his life is related in prose and verse (fol. 265, cols. a and b). In the ‘Leabhar Buidhe Leacain,’ a fourteenth-century manuscript, is a lament for him ascribed to Torna Eigeas, but obviously of much later date. He is always described as having long yellow hair.
N. M.