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

​SLATER, SAMUEL (d. 1704), nonconformist divine, was the son of Samuel Slater, minister of St. Katherine's in the Tower of London. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, whence he graduated B.A. in 1647 and M.A. in 1658. Having been ordained, he was first appointed minister at Nayland in Suffolk, and afterwards lecturer at Bury St. Edmunds, where he and Nicholas Clagett the elder [q. v.] were summoned at the first assizes after the Restoration for not reading the Book of Common Prayer. In consequence of the Act of Uniformity he was ejected in 1662, and proceeded to London. Upon the death of Stephen Charnock [q. v.] in 1680, Slater succeeded him as minister of the congregation in Crosby Square, Bishopsgate Street. There he died on 22 May 1704, leaving a widow, Hannah, daughter of Harman Sheafe of London, and formerly wife of one Hood. His portrait was engraved by R. White in 1692 (Bromley, Catalogue of Portraits, p. 228).
Besides numerous sermons, Slater was the author of: 1. ‘Poems,’ London, 1679, 8vo. 2. ‘An Earnest Call to Family Religion,’ London, 1694, 8vo. The poems are sometimes attributed to his father, but they may be confidently placed to the credit of the son. They are divided into two parts: first, ‘An Interlocutory Discourse concerning the Creation, Fall, and Recovery of Man;’ secondly, ‘A Dialogue between Truth and a doubting Soul.’ In his preface Slater says: ‘I was much taken with learned Mr. Milton's cast and fancy in his book—viz. “Paradise Lost.” Him I have followed much in his method, but I have used a more plain and familiar stile.’ Slater's estimate of his style will not be disputed.
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Slate, Richard

​SLATE, RICHARD (1787–1867), divine, probably the son of Thomas Slate, chip and Leghorn hat manufacturer, of 36 Noble Street, London, was born in London on 10 July 1787. In his seventeenth year he joined the congregation at Founders' Hall, Lothbury, and was a Sunday-school teacher in connection with the London Itinerant Society. In 1805 he entered Hoxton Academy, which he left in 1809 to become minister of the independent church at Stand, near Manchester, where he was ordained on 19 April 1810. Here he remained until September 1826, when he accepted the pastorate of Grimshaw Street Chapel, Preston, Lancashire, a charge which he retained for thirty-five years. He took part in all movements for the good of the town, and was active in the denominational work throughout the county. He died at Preston on 10 Dec. 1867, and was buried at Stand. He married Ann Watkins in 1810; she died in 1851.
He published: 1. ‘Select Nonconformists' Remains: being Original Sermons of Oliver Heywood, Thomas Jollie, Henry Newcome, and Henry Pendlebury. Selected with Memoirs of the authors,’ Bury, 1814. 2. ‘Memoirs of the Rev. Oliver Heywood,’ Idle, 1825 (forming the first volume of Heywood's ‘Works’). 3. ‘A Brief History of the Lancashire Congregational Union, and of the Blackburn Independent Academy,’ 1840. He contributed to Halley's ‘Lancashire Nonconformity’ and other local works, and wrote the notices of R. Frankland's students in Turner's edition of ‘Oliver Heywood's Diaries,’ vol. iv.
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Slattery, Michael

​SLATTERY, MICHAEL (1785–1857), Roman catholic archbishop of Cashel, was born in Tipperary of parents of the farming class in 1785. He graduated M.A. in Trinity College, Dublin—an unusual course for a person intended for the priesthood of the Roman catholic church—and in 1805 he entered Carlow College as an ecclesiastical student. In 1809 he was admitted to clerical orders, and at the same time was appointed professor of philosophy to Carlow College. He left the college in 1815 for the pastorship of a parish in the archdiocese of Cashel. In June 1833 he was appointed president of Maynooth College; but six months later the archbishopric of Cashel was conferred on him by Gregory XVI, and he was consecrated on 24 Feb. 1834. When Sir Robert Peel's proposal in 1845 for the establishment of the Queen's University with the three Queen's Colleges of Cork, Belfast, and Galway, on undenominational lines led to a division of opinion in the Roman catholic episcopate, Slattery was a prominent member of the larger group of bishops who refused to support Dr. Daniel Murray [q. v.], the archbishop of Dublin, in his policy of giving ‘a fair trial’ to the colleges. Slattery and his friends insisted on the scheme of university education being at once condemned as dangerous to the faith and morals of catholics. This view was endorsed by a rescript from the propaganda, issued in 1847; and at a synod, held at Thurles in August 1850, the bishops unanimously took up a position hostile to the colleges. Slattery, who was an accomplished scholar and a profound theologian, died at Thurles on 5 Feb. 1857, and was interred in the catholic cathedral of the town. There is a portrait of him in Maynooth College.
M. MacD.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Slane, Philip of

Philip Slane in the ODNB.
​SLANE, PHILIP of (d. 1326), bishop of Cork, was born at Slane in Meath. He became a Dominican friar, and on 20 Feb. 1321 was papally provided to the bishopric of Cork, receiving the temporalities on 17 July following. In March 1323 he was employed on a papal commission concerning the canons of Cloyne, and in 1324 is said to have gone on a mission to the pope concerning the ecclesiastical affairs of Ireland. He died about the end of 1326. Philip of Slane was author of an abridgment of the ‘Topographia Hiberniæ’ of Giraldus Cambrensis, which he dedicated to John XXII as ‘humilis capellanus frater Philippus ordinis Predicatorum, ecclesiæ Corkagensis in Hibernia minister.’ This abridgment is contained in Addit. MS. 19513 in the British Museum. There is a Provençal version of it in Addit. MS. 17920.
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Slater

​SLATER. [See also Sclater.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ramsay, James (1786-1854)

​RAMSAY, JAMES (1786–1854), portrait-painter, was born in 1786. His name first appears in the catalogue of the Royal Academy exhibition for 1803, when he sent a portrait of himself. Three years later he exhibited a portrait of Henry Grattan, and in 1810 one of John Towneley. In 1811 his contributions included portraits of the Earl of Moira and Lord Cochrane, and in 1813 that of Lord Brougham, whom he again painted in 1818. In 1814 he sent to the academy two scriptural subjects, ‘Peter denying Christ’ and ‘Peter's Repentance,’ and in 1819 views of Tynemouth Abbey and of North and South Shields, but his works were mainly portraits. There are at least three by him of Thomas Bewick, the engraver; the earliest, exhibited in 1816, and engraved by John Burnet, is now in the museum of the Newcastle Natural History Society; another, which appeared at the Royal Academy in 1823, is now in the National Portrait Gallery; and a third, a small full-length, which was engraved by Frederick Bacon, belonged to Robert Stirling Newall [q. v.] of Gateshead. A portrait by him of Charles, second earl Grey, painted for the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and now in the town-hall, was exhibited in 1837, together with that of Dr. Thomas Elliotson, now belonging to the Royal College of Physicians. His portrait of Henry Grattan, now in the possession of the Grattan family, was engraved in mezzotint by Charles Turner, A.R.A., and a copy of it by Sir Thomas Alfred Jones is in the National Gallery of Ireland. He likewise exhibited some scriptural, historical, and fancy subjects at the British Institution, including ‘Isaac blessing Jacob,’ in 1813, ‘The Trial of King Charles the First,’ in 1829, and ‘The Entry of the Black Prince into London,’ in 1841; and also a few portraits at the Society of British Artists.
About 1847 Ramsay left London for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with which town he appears to have been connected, possibly by birth, but he continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy, where he had another portrait of himself in 1849. He practised his art with success, and painted portraits of several members of Lord Clifford's family, James Northcote, R.A., Dr. Lardner, and many others. He died, after a protracted illness, at 40 Blackett Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on 23 June 1854, aged 68.
[Newcastle Journal, 24 June 1854; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School, 1878; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves and Armstrong, 1886–9, ii. 346; Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1803–54; British Institution Exhibition Catalogues (Living Artists), 1807–41; Society of British Artists Exhibition Catalogues, 1824–43.]
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ramsay, Robert (1842-1882)

​RAMSAY, ROBERT (1842–1882), Australian politician, son of A. M. Ramsay, a minister of the united presbyterian church, was born at Hawick in Roxburghshire in February 1842. His father emigrated in 1847 to Melbourne, and Robert was educated first at a private school, and then at the Scottish college in that city. Having studied law at Melbourne University and served his articles, he was admitted a solicitor in 1862, when he began practice on his own account. In January 1866 Macgregor, his former master, took him into partnership, and the firm was known as Macgregor, Ramsay, & Brahe of Melbourne.
Ramsay seems to have begun his political career by becoming secretary to a committee for abolishing state aid to religion, in which his father also took an active part. On 27 Oct. 1870 he took his seat in the legislative assembly as member for East Bourke, and, as the youngest member, moved the address; his speech gave prominence to the question of state education, which soon absorbed his attention. Sir James McCulloch [q. v.] was in power, and Ramsay, as a moderate protectionist, generally supported him. Sir Gavan Duffy succeeded McCulloch in June 1871, and in June 1872 Ramsay took a leading part in displacing his ministry. James Goodall Francis came in, and Ramsay joined his ministry without portfolio. He carried the bill which made a jury's decision depend on the vote of a three-fourths majority, and in the same session introduced a new education act. When, on 31 July 1874, the ministry was reconstructed, Ramsay became postmaster-general, and, by introducing the system of long terms of contract for the mail service, saved the colony considerable sums of money. In October 1875, in McCulloch's third ministry, he became minister of public instruction and also postmaster-general, and, vigorously administering the education act, he in two years opened more schools in country districts than any predecessor. His tenure of office came to an end on 11 May 1877, but in 1878 he represented the colony at the telegraphic conference at Melbourne. In October 1878 he led the attack upon O'Shanassy's education bill, and it was defeated [see O'Shanassy, Sir John]. On 5 March 1880 he joined James Service's ministry as chief secretary and minister of public instruction. In June his promptitude contributed to the capture of the Kelly gang of bushrangers [see Kelly, Edward], but he and his colleagues resigned in August on the question of reforming the council; this question was at last decided by a compromise between the two houses, which Ramsay actively helped to arrange. He was not again in office, but in 1881 he took an active part in promoting the bill abolishing all future pensions to servants of the government.
Ramsay died suddenly at his residence in Gipps Street, Melbourne, on 23 May 1882. He married, in 1868, Isabella Catherine, daughter of Roderick Urquhart of Yangery Park, Victoria, who, with four children, survived him.
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ramsay, John (1496?-1551)

Contains two serious confusions, according to Arundel, John in the ODNB: Ramsay is the same person as Bowle; and the publications are by a different person of the same name.
​RAMSAY, JOHN (1496?–1551), divine, born about 1496, was possibly son of John Ramsay (d. 1515), rector of Brabourne, Kent. He joined the college of canons regular at New Inn Hall, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1513–14 and B.D. in 1522. He was afterwards successively prior of St. Mary's College, Oxford (about 1528), and of Merton Abbey, Surrey. To the latter office he was elected on 31 Jan. 1530. In 1537 Thomas Paynell [q. v.] dedicated to him his translation of Erasmus's ‘Of the Comparation of a Virgin and a Martyr,’ which he had undertaken at Ramsay's request. Ramsay adopted reforming principles, and resigned his priory before the dissolution of the monasteries. The abbey was surrendered in 1538 by another prior, John Bowle (Dugdale, Monasticon, vi. 246).
Before 1545 Ramsay became rector of Woodchurch (Deanery of Lympne, Kent), and died in possession of the rectory in 1551 (Hasted, Kent, iii. 111).
Ramsay wrote: 1. ‘A Corosyfe to be layed hard unto the Hartes of all Faythfull Professours of Christes Gospel, gathered out of the Scriptures by John Ramsay,’ 12mo, no place or date. But at the close of the work it prays for Edward VI, and ‘for the laws permitting the liberty of Christ's Gospel.’ It was therefore published some time between 1548 and 1551; it is protestant and evangelical in tone. 2. ‘A Communication or a Dialogue between a Poor Man and his Wife, wherein thou shalt find Godly Lessons for thy Instruction,’ 8vo, without date or place (see Tanner, Bibl. Brit.)
[Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Clark's Oxford Reg.; Hasted's Kent, iii. 111, 303; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. (refers to Wood's Manuscript Cat. iv. 57, 1585); Wood's Athenæ Oxon. i. 339, Fasti, i. 36; Dugdale's Monast. vi. 246; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, ed. Gairdner; Foxe's Actes and Mon. v. 245.]
W. A. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ramsay, John (1802-1879)

​RAMSAY, JOHN (1802–1879), poet, born in Kilmarnock in 1802, received a limited education. After residing for several years with an uncle at Dundonald, Ayrshire, he was apprenticed to carpet-weaving in Kilmarnock, and soon began to versify while attending to his loom. Subsequently he became a grocer in Kilmarnock, but, meeting with reverses, relinquished the business, and for fifteen years travelled through Scotland selling his poems. Finally, he became the agent of a benevolent society in Edinburgh. He died at Glasgow on 11 May 1879.
While a carpet-weaver Ramsay contributed verses to the ‘Edinburgh Literary Journal,’ edited by Henry Glassford Bell [q. v.] In 1836 he published his collected poems under the title of ‘Woodnotes of a ​Wanderer,’ which reached a second edition in 1839. ‘The Eglinton Park Meeting,’ the leading piece in the volume, is a humorous and fairly vigorous description in ‘ottava rima’ (modelled perhaps on ‘Anster Fair’) of a review of the Ayrshire yeomanry by the Marquis of Hastings in 1823. ‘Dundonald Castle,’ in somewhat laboured heroic couplets, is energetic and picturesque.
[The Contemporaries of Burns and the more recent poets of Ayrshire; Rogers's Modern Scottish Minstrel; Grant Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland; Irving's Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ramsay, Robert (fl.1630)

​RAMSAY or RAMSEY, ROBERT (fl. 1630), musician, began the study of music in 1609, and graduated Mus. Bac. at Cambridge in 1616. Subsequently he was master of the choristers at Trinity College, and a payment to him of 5l. is recorded on 12 Jan. 1631–2. In the Tudway collection (Harl. MSS.) he is described as organist of Trinity College about 1639; Tudway inaccurately calls him John Ramsey. Of Ramsey's extant compositions there are anthems in his autograph at the Euing Library, Anderson's College, Glasgow, and eleven others in the part-books at St. Peter's College, Cambridge. Along with the latter appear a complete service (with a Litany), a Latin Litany, and two settings of the Latin Te Deum and Jubilate. Both Litanies were published in Jebb's ‘Choral Responses and Litanies of the English Church.’ This music was doubtless composed for Cosin, who in 1634 became master of Peterhouse. Ramsey's service is also in the old part-books at Ely, and was copied by Tudway, together with a canon-anthem by Ramsey. A Te Deum by him is preserved in a fine part-book (Addit. MS. 29289).
Herrick's translation of Horace's ‘Donec-gratus,’ which was undertaken by the poet in 1627 while he was at Cambridge, was set by Ramsey, but the music is not known to be extant. A volume of songs and dialogues (in the British Museum Addit. MS. 11608), transcribed during the Commonwealth, contains two compositions by him, an elegy ‘What teares, deere Prince,’ and ‘In guiltie night,’ the dialogue (Saul, Samuel, and the Witch of Endor) subsequently set by Purcell. A madrigal is in Additional MSS. 17786–17791. In a volume of poetry, apparently written at Cambridge about 1630 (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 15227), Ramsey's signature is appended to the well-known ‘Go, perjured man,’ which was afterwards made famous by Dr. Blow's setting; but Herrick published the poem as his own. An imperfect set of part-books in the Bodleian Library (MS. Mus. f. 20–24) contain several others of Ramsey's works, among them three elegies said to be taken from ‘Dialogues of sorrow for the death of the late Prince Henrie, 1615.’ This work, if published, has been lost. Another set in the same library (ib. f. 25–8) has preserved Ramsey's ‘comenchement song,’ a motett, ‘Inclina Domine,’ for eight voices. One anthem is included in James Clifford's word-book of anthems used at St. Paul's after the Restoration.
[Abdy Williams's Degrees in Music, p. 127; Ecclesiologist for 1859, pp. 244–5; Cat. of Euing Library, p. 158; Dickson's Cat. Ely MSS. p. 37; Herrick's Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 50, 72; Tudway in Harl. MSS. 7337, 7340; information from Mr. G. E. P. Arkwright; Conclusion-books of Trinity College, kindly communicated by the Rev. R. Sinker.]
H. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ramsay, Laurence

​RAMSAY or RAMSEY, LAURENCE (fl. 1550–1588), versifier, apparently joined in 1550 a body of sectaries, meeting at Faversham in Kent, who advocated anabaptism and Pelagianism (Strype, Memorials, II. i. 370). Subsequently he identified himself with advanced puritanism. About 1571 he venomously attacked the catholics in a pedestrian poem in seven-line stanzas entitled ‘The Practise of the Diuell. The auncient poisened Practises of the Diuell, in his Papistes, against the true professors of Gods holie worde, in these our latter dayes. Newlie set forth by L. Ramsey,’ London (by Timothie Rider), 4to (Bodl.). The same publisher issued in 1578 a broadside by Ramsay, ‘A short Discourse of Mans fatall end, with an unfayned commendation of the worthinesse of Syr Nicholas Bacon’ (folio sheet; Britwell), and on 5 Aug. 1583 Edward White obtained a license for the publication of Ramsay's ‘Wishinge and Wouldinge,’ which is not known to be extant. It was possibly a poem resembling Nicholas Breton's ‘I would and I would not.’ Ramsay seems in later life to have been attached to the household of the Earl of Leicester, who affected sympathy with the puritans. After Leicester's death, Edward Aggas obtained (15 Oct. 1588) a license for the publication of ‘Ramsies farewell to his late lord & master therle of Leicester, which departed this worlde at Cor'burye the 4 Sept. 1588.’ No copy is now known. None of his works are in the British Museum Library.
[Strype's Annals, II. i. 125, 268–9; Brydges's Restituta, iii. 439; Collier's Stationer's Register (Shakespeare Society), ii. 181; Ritson's Bibl. Poet. p. 309; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xii. 142.]
S. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ramsay, Thomas (fl.1653)

​RAMSAY or RAMSEY, THOMAS (fl. 1653), Roman catholic agent, son of Alexander Ramsey, a Scottish physician, born in St. Dunstan's parish, near Temple Bar, about 1631, was sent by his father, at the age of sixteen, to Holland to his uncle, Alexander Petree, that he might study at Leyden. His uncle, however, disapproved of this plan, and on his advice he was removed to Glasgow, where he studied philosophy and Greek for a twelvemonth, and graduated M.A. Driven to Edinburgh by a visitation of the plague, he devoted himself to philosophy for another year, and graduated M.A. there also. Being advised to perfect himself abroad, he sailed to Bremen and thence proceeded to Würzburg, and eventually reached Rome. His actions there are not very clear. He himself asserts that he abode with the Dominicans a year and then entered the jesuit college. But there is no mention of him in the register of the college, and another account makes him an officer of the inquisition. After two years in Rome, he was sent to Hildesheim, whence he was ordered to England. Taking the name of Thomas Horsley, he made his way to Hamburg, stayed with Dr. Elborough, the English minister, and took a passage in the Elizabeth for Newcastle, where he had formerly made a stay with his father. Having landed early in 1653, he called himself Joseph Ben Israel, and described himself as a Jew from Mantua, who was convinced of the doctrine of the Trinity from the study of Plato, and was seeking the worthiest exponents of truth. Disappointed in the hospitality of the Newcastle ministers, he went into Durham to Lieutenant-colonel Paul Hobson, concerning whom he had made inquiries abroad. After a month's stay, Hobson sent him to Thomas Tillam, baptist minister at Hexham, by whom he was baptised. The presbyterian and independent ministers were not, however, well disposed towards a baptist convert, and measures were taken to test his story. Certain admissions which he had made in the throes of sea-sickness to Christopher Shadforth, master of the Elizabeth, were alleged against ​him, but he stoutly denied them. His ruin was completed, however, by the interception of a letter which he had written to his father. He confessed that the jesuits had sent him to England to seduce people to catholicism. On 13 July 1653 a warrant was issued for his arrest (Cal. State Papers, 1653, p. 428), and he was examined by order of the privy council (ib. pp. 73, 101). His fate is uncertain. On 29 March 1660 a certain Thomas Ramsey received a pass to France (ib. 1659–60, p. 572), but his identity with the catholic agent is doubtful.
E. I. C.