OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Miles, William (d.1860)

​ ​MILES, WILLIAM (1780–1860), major-general Indian army, obtained a cadetship in 1799, becoming on 6 March 1800 ensign, and on 20 March 1800 lieutenant in the 1st Bombay native infantry. He joined his regiment in 1801 at Alexandria, where it formed part of the force sent from India under Sir David Baird to join in the expulsion of the French. On settling in India he took part in operations against Baroda and in 1804 at Bhurtpore. He became captain 27 March 1815, and in the same year was made commandant of the British guard at Baroda. In 1817 he captured the fortified town of Pahlanpore, reinstating the rightful heir and acting for some years as political superintendent of the state. In 1820 he, as political agent with Colonel Barclay's expedition, concluded a treaty with the Rajah of Radhanpore. He became major 21 May 1821, and on 1 May 1824 was appointed lieutenant-colonel 1st Bombay European regiment. In 1826 he concluded a treaty with the chiefs of Suigam, in Gujerat, formerly noted freebooters, who since the treaty have been peaceful cultivators. He was subsequently resident in Kuch and political agent in Gujerat. He became brevet-colonel 1 Dec. 1829, and retired from the command of the 9th Bombay native infantry 28 July 1834. He was promoted major-general 28 Nov. 1854 and died 21 May 1860.
Miles published a translation (London, 1838) of the ‘Shajrat Ul Atrak,’ or genealogical tree of the Turks and Tartars, a native work, the chief merit of which is said, in the introduction, to reside in the details it furnishes of Ghengis Khan (Ceenghis Khan) and his successors. He also translated for the Oriental Translation Fund ‘Ali Kirmānā’ Husain's ‘History of Hyder Naik,’ London [1842], 8vo; and his ‘History of the Reign of Tipú Sultan,’ London [1844], 8vo.
[Information supplied by the India Office; Hunter's Gazetteer of India; Philippart's East India Military Calendar; Miles's own papers.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Miley, John

​MILEY, JOHN, D.D. (1805?–1861), catholic divine, a native of co. Kildare, was born about 1805. He was educated at Maynooth and Rome, in which city he resided from 1833 to 1835, devoting himself chiefly to the study of theology and the history of the papacy. On his return to Ireland in 1835 he was appointed curate of the metropolitan parish, Dublin. He was an ardent admirer of Daniel O'Connell, and warmly defended his attitude on certain politico-religious questions, notably national education and the Catholic Bequest Bill in 1838. He attended the Liberator during his confinement in Richmond Gaol in 1844. He was greatly distressed at the rupture between O'Connell and the young Ireland party, and in December 1846 he laboured hard to effect a reconciliation between him and Smith O'Brien. With the permission of Archbishop Murray he accompanied O'Connell as his private chaplain to Italy in 1847, and by his assiduous devotion did much to alleviate his last sufferings. In obedience to O'Connell's injunction he carried his heart to Rome, and having seen it placed with impressive ceremonies in the church of St. Agatha, he returned with his friend's body to Ireland, and on 4 Aug. preached his funeral sermon in the metropolitan church, Marlborough Street. In 1849 he was appointed rector of the Irish college in Paris, and ten years later became parish priest of Bray, where he died on 18 April 1861. He was an accomplished preacher, well read in ecclesiastical history, and the author of ‘Rome under Paganism and the Popes,’ 1848; ‘History of the Papal States,’ 1850; ‘Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes,’ 1856; ‘L'Empereur Napoléon III et la Papauté,’ 1859.
[Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography; Fitzpatrick's Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell; Freeman's Journal, 7 Aug. 1847, 19 April 1861.]
R. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mill, Henry

​MILL, HENRY (1683?–1771), engineer to the New River Company, eldest son of Andrew and Dorothy Mill, was born in 1683 or 1684. Betham (Baronetage, i. 175) says that he was of the family of Mill of Camois Court, Sussex, and according to his epitaph in Breamore Church, near Salisbury, he was a relative of Sir Hugh Myddelton [q. v.] It was probably owing to the latter circumstance that he obtained the appointment about 1720 of engineer to the New River Company. It is probable that he was identical with the Henry Mill who in 1706 obtained a patent (No. 376) for an improvement in carriage springs, and also in 1714 another patent (No. 395) for an apparatus ‘for impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another, so neat and exact as not to be distinguished from print, very useful in settlements and public records.’ The patent contains no description of the apparatus, but it has always been regarded as the first proposal for a type-writer. The engineer's epitaph sets forth that ‘his capacity [was] excellent in … all the branches of the mathematicks, and other liberal sciences,’ and in his will, proved 6 April 1771 (P. C. C. Trevor, fol. 170), he mentions his ‘private fancied toys,’ a phrase which might well include models of his inventions.
The obituary notice in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ states that he erected waterworks at Northampton, and that he received the freedom of the borough in recognition of his services, but there was no regular water supply at Northampton until the present century, and the municipal records of the town show that in 1722 Henry Mill obtained his freedom by purchase. He was employed by Sir Robert Walpole to carry out the water supply for Houghton Hall, and a well sunk by him is still in use. It has the peculiarity of being provided with a flight of steps leading down to the pumps, which are said to show great ingenuity.
Mill died unmarried at his house in the Strand on 26 Dec. 1771, and he was buried in Breamore Church, near Salisbury, where there is a long epitaph to his memory. The epitaph states that he was ‘aged eighty-seven,’ but he is entered in the parish register as ‘aged 88 years.’
R. B. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mill, James (fl.1744)

​MILL, JAMES (fl. 1744), Indian colonel, devised a project for the conquest of India, and appears to have submitted it in 1744 to Francis, duke of Lorraine, husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, who at the time was commanding the imperialist army against the Turks. His scheme, which is given in the appendix to Bolt's ‘Affairs of Bengal,’ sets forth that the Moghul empire was overflowing with gold and silver, and had always been weak and defenceless. It was a miracle that no European nation with a maritime power had attempted the conquest of Bengal. By a single stroke infinite wealth might be acquired, which would counter-balance the mines of Brazil and Peru. The country might be conquered or laid under contribution as easily as the Spaniards conquered the naked Indians of America. A rebel subject named Aliverdi Khan had torn away the three provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa from the Moghul emperor, and had acquired treasure to the amount of 30,000,000l. sterling. The provinces were open to the sea, and three ships with fifteen hundred to two thousand regular troops would suffice for the operation. The British government would co-operate for the sake of the plunder and the extension of their trade. The East India Company had better be left alone. No company could keep a secret, and the East India Company was so distracted as to be incapable of any firm resolution. In 1743 ‘James Mill, esq.,’ was appointed captain and second in command of the East India Company's military in Bengal (Gent. Mag. 1743, p. 275). Bolt described Mill as a colonel who had served twenty years in India. The India office contains no lists of officers in the employment of the East India Company of so early a date.
[Wheeler's Early Records of British India, p. 269 et seq., on the authority of Bolt's Affairs of Bengal.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rasbotham, Dorning

​RASBOTHAM, DORNING (1730–1791), author, son of Peter Rasbotham and his wife Hannah, daughter of John Dorning of Birch House, Farnworth, in the parish of Dean, Lancashire, was born at Manchester in 1730, and was educated at the Manchester grammar school. He was chairman of the quarter sessions at Manchester for twenty-five years, and high sheriff of Lancashire in 1769. He made extensive collections for a history of his native county, and his manuscripts, partly written in Byrom's shorthand, proved of great use to Baines when compiling his ‘History of Lancashire.’ In 1774 he wrote ‘Codrus, a Tragedy,’ in five acts and in verse, which was refused by two London managers, but successfully performed at Manchester in that year. He published it anonymously by way of appealing to the public from the verdict of the managers. It was produced again at Manchester in 1778 for the benefit of Younger the actor, when Kemble, Lewis, and Mrs. Siddons took part in the performance. In 1782 he printed ‘Verses originally intended to have been spoken at the Breaking-up of the Free Grammar School in Manchester,’ &c., and he is stated to have written, among other minor pieces, ‘A Dissuasive from Popular Rioting directed against Mechanical Manufacturing Improvements,’ 1779.
Rasbotham died on 7 Nov. 1791, and was buried at the parish church of Dean, where there is a mural tablet to his memory, with an inscription by Thomas Barnes, D.D. He married, in 1754, Sarah, eldest daughter of James Bayley of Withington, near Manchester, and granddaughter of Samuel Peploe [q. v.], bishop of Chester, and had five children, of whom one, the Rev. Dorning Rasbotham, was a fellow of Manchester Collegiate Church.
[Baines's Hist. of Lancashire, orig. ed. ii. 42, with portrait; Manchester School Register, i. 162, 189 (Chetham Soc.); Raines's Fellows of Manchester Collegiate Church, ii. 294 (Chetham Soc.), where he is called ‘Ramsbottom;’ Baker's Biogr. Dramatica, 1812, iii. 111; Procter's Manchester in Holiday Dress, 1866, p. 68; Scholes's Bolton Bibliography, 1886, p. 59.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rastell, John (1532-1577)

​RASTELL, JOHN (1532–1577), jesuit, born at Gloucester in 1532, was admitted into Winchester school in 1543 (Kirby, Winchester Scholars, p. 124); and thence proceeded to New College, Oxford, of which he became a perpetual fellow in 1549. He graduated M.A. 29 July 1555, and about that time was ordained priest (Oxford Univ. Register, i. 228). Being unable to comply with the religious changes in Elizabeth's reign, he left his college, ‘wherein he had always been accounted an excellent disputant,’ and retired to Louvain. He removed to Antwerp in 1564, and subsequently went to Rome, where he entered the jesuit novitiate of St. Andrew 6 April 1568, being, for a short time, fellow-novice with St. Stanislas Kostka. After completing his noviceship, he was English penitentiary for a time at St. Peter's, Rome. He was then sent as confessor and consultor to the house of the jesuits at Hall. Thence he was removed to Augsburg, and finally to Ingoldstadt, where he was appointed vice-rector of the college of his order. He died in the college on 15 or 17 June 1577 (Drews, Fasti Soc. Jesu, 1723, p. 227). Wood, Dodd, and Oliver incorrectly state that he died about 1600.
He was a determined antagonist of Bishop Jewell, and published: 1. ‘A Confutation of a Sermon pronounced by M. Iuell, at Paules crosse, the second Sondaie before Easter … Anno Dñi M.D.L.X.,’ Antwerp (Giles Diest) 21 Nov. 1564, 8vo, ff. 176. The latter part of the work is entitled ‘A Challenge against the Protestants.’ The ‘Confutation’ was answered in 1579 by Dr. William Fulke [q. v.] 2. ‘A Replie against an Answer (falslie intitled) in Defence of the Truth, made by Iohn Rastell: M. of Art and Studient in Diuinite,’ Antwerp (Giles Diest), 10 March 1565, 8vo, ff. 205. 3. ‘A Copie of a Challenge, taken owt of the Confutation of M. Iuells Sermon,’ Antwerp, 1565, 8vo. 4. ‘A Treatise intitled, Beware of M. Iewell,’ Antwerp, 1566, 8vo, in three volumes or parts, the last of which is entitled ‘The third Book, declaring by examples out of ancient Councels, Fathers, and later Writers, that it is time to beware of M. Jewel.’ 5. ‘A Briefe Shew of the false Wares packt together in the named Apology of the Church of England,’ Louvain (John Fowler), 1567, 8vo. A catalogue of ‘English Popish Books,’ printed by Strype, includes Rastell's ‘Return of Untruths,’ which was answered by Jewell (Annals of the Reformation, vol. ii. App. p. 159, fol.).
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rashleigh, Philip

​RASHLEIGH, PHILIP (1729–1811), antiquary, eldest son of Jonathan Rashleigh, M.P. for Fowey in Cornwall (d. 24 Nov. 1764), who married, on 11 June 1728, Mary, daughter of Sir William Clayton of Marden in Surrey, was born at Aldermanbury, London, 28 Dec. 1729. He matriculated from New College, Oxford, 15 July 1749, and contributed to the poems of the university on the death of Frederick, prince of Wales, a set of English verses, which is reprinted in Nichols's ‘Select Collection of Poems’ (viii. 201–2); he left Oxford without taking a degree. At the death of his father he was elected member for the family borough of Fowey, on 21 Jan. 1765, and sat continuously, in spite of contests and election petitions, until the dissolution of 1802, when he was known as the ‘Father of the House of Commons’ ({{sc|Courtney, Parl. Rep. Cornwall, pp. 105, 108–9). His knowledge of Cornish mineralogy procured his election as F.S.A. and F.R.S. in 1788. He died at Menabilly, near Fowey, 26 June 1811, and was buried in the church of Tywardreath, Cornwall. He married his first cousin, Jane (1720–1795), only daughter of the Rev. Carolus Pole and granddaughter of Sir John Pole of Shute, Devonshire. They had no issue, and the family estates passed to a nephew. A portrait of Rashleigh, seated in a chair, was painted by Opie about 1795, and is now in the possession of Mr. Jonathan Rashleigh of Menabilly. It is a ‘fine specimen of the painter's best period’ (Rogers, Opie and his Works, p. 150).
Rashleigh's collection of minerals was remarkable for its various specimens of tin. It is still at Menabilly, and its most valuable portions are described in two volumes of ‘Specimens of British Minerals’ from his cabinet (1797 and 1802). In the same collection are models in glass of the hailstones that fell on 20 Oct. 1791, particulars of which, with the figured representations, are given, on Rashleigh's information, in King's ‘Remarks on Stones fallen from the Clouds,’ pp. 18–20. He contributed antiquarian papers to the ‘Archæologia,’ ix. 187–8, xi. 83–4, xii. 414, but they were derided by Dr. John Whitaker as the work of an ‘amateur in antiquarianism’ (Nichols, Lit. Illustrations, viii. 564; Numismatic Chronicle, new ser. vol. viii. 137–57; Trans. Royal Inst. of Cornwall, October 1867). A paper by him on certain ‘alluvial deposits’ at Sandrycock, Cornwall, is in the ‘Transactions’ of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, ii. 281–4, and a letter from him to E. M. Da Costa, on some English shells, is in the British Museum Addit. MS. 28541, f. 196. He constructed a remarkable grotto at Polridmouth, near the family seat.
[Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. ii. 547; Parochial Hist. of Cornwall, iv. 273, 279; C. S. Gilbert's Cornwall, ii. 246, 874–6; Vivian's Visitations of Cornwall; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Gent. Mag. 1811, i. 683; Polwhele's Biogr. Sketches, i. 17–9.]
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ranyard, Ellen Henrietta

​RANYARD, ELLEN HENRIETTA (1810–1879), founder of the female bible mission, born in the district of Nine Elms, London, on 9 Jan. 1810, was eldest daughter of John Bazley White, cement maker. At the age of sixteen she and a friend, Elizabeth Saunders, caught a fever while visiting the sick poor. Her friend died, and from that time Miss White regularly visited the poor, collected pence for supplying them with bibles, and interested herself in the bible society. After her family removed to Swanscombe in Kent, she married there, on 10 Jan. 1839, Benjamin Ranyard. In 1852 she wrote ‘The Book and its Story, a Narrative for the Young, on occasion of the Jubilee of the British and Foreign Bible Society. By L. N. R., with an Introductory Preface by the Rev. Thomas Phillips, Jubilee Secretary.’ The book proved extraordinarily popular. In 1857, with her husband and family, she took up her residence at 13 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, London. Soon afterwards she founded, in Seven Dials, a missionary society for the supply of bibles, and described her labours in a periodical, which she supported, called ‘The Book and its Missions, past and present’ (vols. i. to ix. 1856–64). From 1865 the magazine was wholly devoted to furthering her mission, and was renamed ‘The Missing Link Magazine, or Bible Work at Home and Abroad’ (1865–79). In 1879 upwards of 170 bible women were employed in the work of the mission. In 1868 Mrs. Ranyard commenced training nurses, and eighty were ultimately engaged in attending on sick poor in the poorest districts of London. She died, of bronchitis, at 13 Hunter Street, London, on 11 Feb. 1879. Mrs. Ranyard's work was continued as the London Bible and Domestic Female Mission, whose doings are chronicled in ‘Bible Work at Home and Abroad,’ vol. i. 1884. Her husband died a month later, on 10 March 1879, aged 86. Both were buried in Norwood cemetery. Her son, Arthur Cowper Ranyard [q. v.], is noticed separately.
Under the signature of L. N. R., besides tracts and short stories, Mrs. Ranyard wrote: 1. ‘Nineveh and its Relics in the British Museum,’ 1852. 2. ‘The Bible Collectors, or Principles in Practice,’ 1854. 3. ‘Leaves from Life,’ 1855. 4. ‘The Missing Link, or Bible Women in the Homes of the London Poor,’ 1859. 5. ‘Life Work, or the Link and the Rivet,’ 1861. 6. ‘The True Institution of Sisterhood, or a Message and its Messengers,’ 1862. 7. ‘Stones crying out and Rock-Witness to the Narratives of the Bible concerning the Times of the Jews,’ 1865; 2nd edit. 1865. 8. ‘London and Ten Years Work in it,’ 1868. 9. ‘The Missing Link Tracts Series,’ 1871, a set of seven tracts. 10. ‘The Border Land, and other Poems,’ 1876.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Raper, Henry (1767-1845)

​RAPER, HENRY (1767–1845), admiral, born in 1767, entered the navy in February 1780, on board the Berwick, which in July joined the flag of Sir George Rodney in the West Indies. Returning in 1781, he took part in the battle on the Doggerbank on 5 Aug. Raper afterwards served in the Cambridge, and in her was at the relief of Gibraltar by Lord Howe in October 1782. He then joined the Marquis de Seignelay, with Commander John Hunter (1738–1821) [q. v.], his former shipmate in the Berwick, and remained in her till 1785. From 1785 to 1788 he was in the Salisbury, the flagship of Rear-admiral John Elliot [q. v.], at Newfoundland, and afterwards in the Impregnable and Queen Charlotte in the Channel till 22 Nov. 1790, when he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. Through 1791 he served in the Vesuvius bomb, and in October 1793 was appointed to the Queen Charlotte, flagship of Earl Howe, to whom he acted as signal lieutenant in May and on 1 June 1794. On 4 July he was promoted to be commander, and in September, on the recommendation of Howe, was appointed signal officer on the staff of Vice-admiral de Valle, of the Portuguese squadron acting in conjunction with Howe. On resigning this post in December, he was presented with a diamond-hilted sword. In November 1795 he commanded the Racoon ​in the Thames; and on 1 Feb. 1796 was posted to the Champion, a small frigate employed on the coast of Ireland and afterwards in the North Sea. In January 1798 he assisted in the seizure of a Swedish convoy, which was brought into the Downs (Schomberg, Naval Chronology, iii. 264); and in the following May took part in the attempt to destroy the locks and sluice-gates of the Bruges-Ostend Canal [see Popham, Sir Home Riggs].
From January 1799 to September 1802 he commanded the Aimable in the West Indies (James, Nav. Hist. ii. 416). In 1810 he declined an offer of the rank of vice-admiral in the Portuguese service; and was in November appointed to the Mars, which he commanded till February 1813, on the Lisbon station and in the Baltic. Notwithstanding repeated applications he had no further employment; but was promoted in due course to be rear-admiral on 12 Aug. 1819, vice-admiral on 22 July 1830, and admiral on 23 Nov. 1841. He died in London on 5 April 1845, aged 78 (Gent. Mag.) He was the author of ‘A New System of Signals, by which Colours may be wholly dispensed with,’ 1828, 4to. He married, in 1798, Miss Craig, by whom he left issue. His eldest son, Henry, is separately noticed.
[O'Byrne's Nav. Biogr. Dict.; Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biogr. ii. (vol. i. pt. ii.) 714; Gent. Mag. 1845, i. 649; Service Book in the Public Record Office.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rastall, William Dickinson

​RASTALL, WILLIAM DICKINSON (1756–1822), topographer. [See Dickinson, William.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Raper, Henry (1799-1859)

​RAPER, HENRY (1799–1859), lieutenant in the navy and writer on navigation, born in 1799, was eldest son of Admiral Henry Raper [q. v.] He entered the navy in November 1811 on board the Mars, then commanded by his father. When the Mars was paid off he was sent to the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, whence he passed with distinction, obtaining the silver medal for proficiency in mathematics. After a short time in the Nymphen frigate he was appointed, in October 1815, to the Alceste with Captain Murray Maxwell [q. v.] In her he made the voyage to China, experienced shipwreck in Gaspar Straits, and took part in the encampment on the island of Pulo Leat. He was afterwards in the Tyne and the Seringapatam; and in January 1821, by his father's interest, joined the Adventure sloop with Commander William Henry Smyth [q. v.] With Smyth he served in the Mediterranean, was placed in charge of the chronometers, and had exceptional opportunities for the scientific study of navigation, nautical astronomy, and surveying. On 17 May 1823 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and was appointed to the Euryalus, from which he was shortly after moved to the Dispatch brig. In January 1825, when Captain Frederick William Beechey [q. v.] commissioned the Blossom for a voyage round Cape Horn and to Behring Strait, he placed the filling up of three vacancies in the hands of Smyth, and on his nomination offered Raper the post of first lieutenant. Raper, however, imagined that his father had been undeservedly slighted by the admiralty, and declined Beechey's offer, thus virtually retiring from active service.
From that time he devoted himself to nautical science. He became a fellow of the Royal Geographical and Royal Astronomical Societies, repeatedly served on their councils, and was for many years secretary of the latter. In 1832 he was appointed by the admiralty on a committee to consider the method of measuring the tonnage of ships, and the report was drawn up principally by him. In 1840 he published his ‘Practice of Navigation,’ which was at once recognised as the best work on the subject, a position which it still holds in the opinion of practical navigators, although at the Royal Naval College the preference has always been given to the work of Dr. James Inman [q. v.] or later modifications of it. For this valuable work Raper was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society; and in 1850 Smyth, then president of the society, called special attention to the third edition ‘as well, generally, for the useful additions engrafted on its pages, as, particularly, for its admirable and well-organised table of geographical positions,’ to the number of eight thousand eight hundred. Raper always intended to publish a second volume, treating of the theory of the practical rules contained in the first; but the work grew under his hands, and his failing health prevented his completing it. He died at Torquay on 6 Jan. 1859, leaving a widow.
[Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xxix. p. ccxxvi; Gent. Mag. 1859, i. 221.]
J. K. L.