OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gordon, Alexander (1786-1815)

​GORDON, Sir ALEXANDER (1786–1815), lieutenant-colonel, was third son of George Gordon, lord Haddo, and grandson of George Gordon, third earl of Aberdeen. His mother was Charlotte, youngest daughter of William Baird of Newbyth, and sister of Sir David Baird. He was brother of George Hamilton Gordon, fourth earl of Aberdeen [q. v.], of the Right Hon. Sir Robert Gordon, diplomatist [q. v.], and of Lieutenant-colonel the Hon. Sir Charles Gordon 42nd highlanders, who died at Geneva 30 Sept. 1835 (see Gent. Mag. new Ser. iv. 667). He was born in 1786, educated at Eton, and in 1803 was appointed ensign in the 3rd foot guards (now Scots guards), in which be became captain and lieutenant-colonel on 23 Aug. 1813. He served as aide-de-camp to his maternal uncle, General Sir David Baird [q. v.], at the recapture of the Cape of Good Hope in 1806, and to General Beresford with the force sent from the Cape to the Rio Plata [see Beresford, William Carr, Viscount]. He was employed by Beresford to treat with the Spanish authorities at Buenos Ayres. Afterwards he was again aide-de-camp to Baird at the capture of Copenhagen in 1807, and in Spain in 1808-9, including the battle of Corunna. In 1810 he was appointed aide-de-camp to Lord Wellington, in which capacity his brother Charles, then likewise a subaltern in the 3rd foot guards, also was employed for a time. Gordon served throughout the Peninsular campaigns. He brought home the despatches announcing the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo and was frequently mentioned in the despatches on other occasions (see Gurwood, vols. iii. iv. and v.) He received ten medals for general actions, and was made K.C.B. He was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington in Belgium, and received a mortal wound (thigh shattered) while rallying a battalion of Brunswickers, near La Haye Sainte, on 18 June 1815. He died a few hours after. Wellington alludes to him as an officer of great promise and a serious loss to the army (ib. viii. 154). Gordon appears to have been a great favourite in Brussels, and the principal residents in the city desired to bear the cost of the column erected to his memory on the field of Waterloo by his surviving sister and brothers.
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gordon, Archibald

​GORDON, ARCHIBALD, M.D. (1812–1886), inspector-general of hospitals, studied medicine at Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. in 1834. He entered the army as assistant-surgeon in 1836, served with the 53rd regiment in the Sutlej campaign of 1846, and in the Punjaub campaign of 1848-9 with the 24th regiment. He became surgeon in 1848, and surgeon-major in 1854. In the Crimea he was principal medical officer of the 2nd division throughout the siege of Sebastopol, and was made deputy-inspector-general of hospitals (1856),C.B., and a knight of the Legion of Honour. In 1857 he served as principal medical officer with the expeditionary force to China, and in the Oudh campaign of 1858-9. He became inspector-general in 1867, and retired in 1870. He was also honorary surgeon to the queen. He died at West Hoathley, Sussex, on 3 Aug. 1886.
[Hart's Army List; Brit. Med. Journ.]
C. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gordon, Andrew

​GORDON, ANDREW (1712–1751), natural philosopher, a descendant of the ancient house of the Dukes of Gordon, born at Cofforach, Angusshire, on 15 June 1712, was educated at Ratisbon, and afterwards travelled in Austria, Italy, and France. On his return to Ratisbon he took the habit of the order of St. Benedict in the Scotch monastery there, and in due course he was ordained priest. He subsequently studied law at Salzburg, and in 1737 he was appointed professor of philosophy in the university of Erfurt. His zeal in the cause of modern science aroused against him the enmity of many adherents of the old school, whom he attacked in a number of learned dissertations. He gained for himself a European reputation by his experiments in electricity. He was the first electrician who used a cylinder instead of a globe. His cylinders were eight inches long and four inches in diameter. They were made to turn with a bow, and the whole instrument was portable. Instead of using a cake of rosin, he insulated by means of a frame furnished with a network of silk. He was enabled to excite the electricity of a cat so strongly that the force, communicated by iron chains to spirit of wine, set it on fire. In recognition of his scientific acquirements he was elected a correspondent of the Academy of Sciences of Paris. He died on 22 Aug. 1751.
His most remarkable works are:
* ‘Programma de studii Philosophici Dignitate et Utilitate,’ Erfurt, 1737, 4to.
* ‘De Concordandis Mensuris,’ Erfurt, 1742, 4to.
* ‘Phsenomena Electricitatis exposita,’ Erfurt, 1744, 8vo; also published in German.
* ‘Philosophia Utilis et Jucunda,' Ratisbon, 1745 ​3 vols. 8vo.
* ‘Unpartheyische Nachricht von dem Ursprunge des jetzigen Krieges in Grosbritannien, in einem Briefe vorgetragen,’ Strasburg, 1745, 4to.
* ‘Dissertatio de Spectris,’ Erfurt, 1746, 4to.
* ‘Varia ad Philosophiæ Mutationem spectantia,’ Erfurt, 1749, 4to.
* ‘Physicæ Experimentalis Elementa,’ Erfurt, 1751-2, 2 vols. 8vo.
[Adelung's Gelehrten-Lexikon, ii. 1527; Priestley's Hist. of Electricity, 1775, i. 88, 159.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hamilton, William (1758-1790)

​HAMILTON, WILLIAM (1758–1790), surgeon, born at Glasgow 31 July 1758, was the son of Thomas Hamilton, professor of anatomy and botany, by Isabel Anderson, daughter of a former professor of church history. From the grammar school he went to Glasgow College in 1770, and graduated MA. in 1775. He studied medicine for two years at Edinburgh, and afterwards in London, under William Hunter, who took him ​into his house and gave him charge of his dissecting-room. In 1780 he returned to Glasgow, and conducted his invalid father's anatomical class. Next year he was appointed, on the recommendation of William Hunter, to his father's chair. On the death of the latter, in 1782, he succeeded to a large surgical practice, to which he added obstetrics. He was in constant request as a consultant, his anatomical knowledge and obstetric skill being highly valued by his colleagues and old pupils. He is credited with smooth manners towards patients, with benevolence to the poor, and with circumspection in public affairs. He kept notes of his cases, intending to write a system of surgery. He died on 13 March 1790, after a tedious illness brought on by overwork. He. published nothing; but his biographer has preserved four specimens of his accurate method (on treatment of inversio uteri, on dislocations of the shoulder, on hydrothorax, and on a form of hernia). He married, in 1783, Elizabeth Stirling, by whom he had two sons, Sir William (1788–1856) [q. v.] and Thomas (1789–1842) [q. v.]
[Memoir by Cleghorn in Trans. Royal Soc. Edinb. vol. iv., Appendix, p. 35.]
C. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hamilton, William (1780-1835)

​HAMILTON, WILLIAM, D.D. (1780–1835), theological writer, was born at Longridge, in the parish of Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, on 4 Feb. 1780, of a family of some standing. After eight years' study at Edinburgh he was licensed as a probationer in 1804, called to be minister of St. Andrew's Chapel, Dundee, in 1807, and in 1809 translated to Strathblane in Stirlingshire, where he remained until his death. Hamilton was a scholarly man, an ardent evangelical churchman, and an excellent pastor. His sympathy with liberal political views and popular movements exposed him in some quarters to unjust rebuke. He was an ardent temperance reformer, when there were few such among the clergy, a friend of missions, a supporter of Sunday schools, and of bible and tract societies. He instituted a parochial library, and delivered popular lectures on topics of science and philosophy to his parishioners. He instituted and personally managed a savings bank. As a churchman he was strongly opposed to the system of lay patronage, and in the general assembly of 1834 he moved a resolution against it, though he knew that it would sustain the defeat which followed. Hamilton wrote:
* 'The Establishment of the Law by the Gospel,' 1820.
* 'A Dissertation intended to explain, establish, and vindicate the Doctrine of Election,' 1824.
* 'A Defence of the Scriptural Doctrine concerning the Second Advent of Christ, from the erroneous representations of Modern Millenarians,' 1828.
* 'The Mourner in Zion comforted,' 1830.
* 'Speech delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Church Patronage Society in Glasgow,' 1830.
* 'Remarks on certain opinions recently propagated respecting Universal Redemption and other Topics connected with that Subject,' 1830.
* 'An Essay on the Assurance of Salvation,' 1830.
* 'The Nature and Advantages of Private Social Meetings for Prayer,' 1835.
Shorter publications embraced a 'Memoir of Fanny Graham,' a 'Lecture on Savings Banks,' a tract on 'Temperance,' and speeches on 'Patronage.' Hamilton died suddenly on 16 April 1835. Among his children were James Hamilton, D.D., of London, and Andrew Hamilton, author of several volumes of travels and descriptive works.
[Scott's Fasti; Autobiography and Memoir, forming the first of two volumes of Life and Remains, edited by James Hamilton, Glasgow, 1836.
W. G. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hamilton, William (d.1729)

​HAMILTON, WILLIAM (d. 1729), archdeacon of Armagh, was brother of Andrew Hamilton, D.D., who held the archdeaconry of Raphoe from 1690 to 1764. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, and graduated B.A. 1691, MA. 1696, and LL.B. 1700. Three of his sons, James, Henry, and Andrew, were educated at the same university. Having received holy orders he was collated on 24 Dec. 1700 to the archdeaconry of Armagh (to which dignity the rectory of Carnteel, co. Tyrone, was then attached), and held that preferment until his death in 1729.
His publications are: 1. 'The Exemplary Life and Character of James Bonnell, Esq., late Accomptant-General of Ireland,' Dublin, 1703; fourth edition, London, 1718, and frequently reprinted. 2. 'Sermon on the Death of Queen Anne,' Dublin, 1714. 3. 'Sermon preached at Armagh on 5 Nov. 1722,' Dublin, 1723. 4. 'Sermon before the House of Commons on 5 Nov. 1725,' Dublin, 1725. He likewise edited 'The Harmony of the Holy Gospels digested into one History; done originally by William Austin, and reformed and improved by James Bonnell, Esq.,' London, 1705.
[Todd's Cat. of Dublin Graduates, p. 250; Sir James Ware's Works, ed. Harris, ii. 252; Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernicæ, iii. 47, v. 207.]
B. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hall, John (d.17Dec1707)

​HALL, JOHN (d. 1707), criminal, born of poor parents in Bishop's Head Court, Gray's Inn Lane, London, was brought up as a chimney-sweeper, but soon turned pickpocket, and in January 1682 was convicted of theft at the Old Bailey, and whipped at the cart's tail. He was sentenced to death in 1700 for housebreaking, but was pardoned on condition of removing within six months to America. He managed to desert the ship in which his passage was secured, and in 1702 was sentenced to be burnt in the cheek and to undergo two years' imprisonment for stealing portmanteaus from behind a coach. On his return in 1704 he joined, with two companions, Stephen Bunce and Richard Low, in a series of daring burglaries, and managed for a time to escape arrest, and when arrested in 1705, and again in 1706, was acquitted for want of evidence. In 1707 he and his two friends, Bunce and Low, were convicted of breaking open the house of Captain Guyon, near Stepney, and were hanged at Tyburn on 17 Dec. 1707. Luttrell, in his ‘Brief Relation,’ vi. 115, mentions the conviction of Hall, ‘a notorious highwayman,’ on 10 Dec. 1706, but the ‘Newgate Calendar’ gives 1707 as the date of Hall's death. Hall is credited with composing before his execution: ‘Memoirs of the Right Villanous John Hall, the late famous and notorious robber, penn'd from his own mouth,’ published in London in 1708. This is a general account of a thief's life in and out of Newgate, with interesting lists of thieves' technical terms. A fourth edition of the same year contains some verses by Hall and his two friends, and an elegy and epitaph in verse upon him. In 1714 another edition, also called ‘the fourth,’ was issued.
[Knapp and Baldwin's Newgate Calendar, i. 47–8; Hall's Memoirs.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hall, John (d.1707)

​HALL, JOHN (d. 1707), divine, was elected a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1658, proceeded B.A. and M.A. in due course, and B.D. in 1666. He was collated on 11 March 1663–4 to the rectory of Hanwell, Middlesex. On 11 July 1664 he was collated to the prebend of Isledon in the church of St. Paul, and on 20 Feb. 1665–6 to the rectory of St. Christopher-le-Stocks, London. On 5 Oct. 1666 he was collated to the rectory of Finchley, Middlesex. On 21 March 1666–7 he exchanged the prebend of Isledon for that of Holywell, alias Finsbury. He was president of Sion College, London, and died towards the close of 1707.
He was the author of: 1. ‘Grace leading unto Glory: or a Glimpse of the Glorie, Excellencie, and Eternity of Heaven. … Written by J. H.,’ London, 1651. Dedicated to Elizabeth Cecil, countess dowager of Exeter. 2. ‘Jacobs Ladder: or the Devout Souls Ascention to Heaven, in prayers, thanksgivings, and praises. In four parts, viz. Private Devotions, Family Devotions for every day in the week, Occasional Devotions, Sacred Poems upon select subjects. With Graces and Thanksgivings. Illustrated with sculptures,’ 2nd edit., enlarged, London, 1676, 24mo; 9th edit. London, 1698; 14th edit. London, 1716; 16th edit. London, 1728; 19th edit. London, 1764. The work contains accounts of the Gunpowder plot, the plague, and the fire of London.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hall, John Vine

​HALL, JOHN VINE (1774–1860), author of ‘The Sinner's Friend,’ was born on 14 March 1774 at the town of Diss, Norfolk. His father had been a man of property, but had lost it. At eleven ‘little Jack’ was apprenticed to a schoolmaster who, he says, ‘taught me to write the law-hands, and by way of making the most of me hired me to the then clerk of the peace’ (Autobiography). In January 1786 he became errand-boy to a bookseller in Maidstone, and rose to be the chief assistant. In 1801, tempted by larger pay, he became clerk and traveller to a Maidstone wine merchant. Here he fell into drunken and profligate habits, and read Volney's ‘Law of Nature’ and Paine's ‘Age of Reason.’ In 1802 a friend lent him Porteus's ‘Evidences of Christianity,’ and his views changed. In February 1804 he bought a bookseller's shop at Worcester, and removed thither. His intemperate habits cost him terrible struggles, and he became a rigid total abstainer from ​1818, and an ardent advocate of teetotalism. In 1812 he became the subject of strong religious convictions. In April 1814 he returned to Maidstone as proprietor of the bookshop where he had been errand-boy twenty-eight years before. One of his favourite occupations here was visiting the prisoners in the county gaol, especially those under sentence of death. In 1821 he conceived the idea of writing ‘The Sinner's Friend,’ the first edition of which consisted of a series of selections from Bogatzky's ‘Golden Treasury,’ with a short introduction by himself. It appeared on 29 May 1821. In subsequent editions he gradually substituted pages from his own pen for those taken from Bogatzky, until in the end the little work was entirely his own, with the exception of one extract. It quickly became a favourite in the religious world. It has been translated into thirty languages, and reached a circulation of nearly three millions of copies. In 1850 he retired from business, and in 1854 went to reside at Heath Cottage, Kentish Town. He now became an elder in Surrey Chapel, of which his son, the Rev. Newman Hall, LL.B., was minister, and busied himself about religious and temperance work. He died on 22 Sept. 1860. His remains were interred in Abney Park cemetery. He married, at Worcester, in August 1806, Mary Teverill.
[Conflict and Victory, the Autobiography of the author of The Sinner's Friend, edited by Newman Hall, LL.B., 1874.]
T. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hall, Robert (1763-1824)

​HALL, ROBERT, M.D. (1763–1824), medical writer, born in Roxburghshire in 1763, was a great-grandson of Henry Hall of Haughhead (d. 1680) [q. v.], the covenanter. From school at Jedburgh he went to the medical classes at Edinburgh. After three years' practice in Newcastle he entered the navy as surgeon, and served several years on the Jamaica station. On his return he proceeded M.D. at Edinburgh, and took up practice at Jedburgh. Thence he went to London and occupied himself in translating, compiling, editing, &c. On the fitting out of an expedition to the Niger he was appointed medical officer. Invalided by a fall and the climate, he returned to Madeira. He died at Chelsea early in 1824, of a decline. Mrs. Agnes C. Hall [q. v.] was his wife. His writings are:
* Translation of Spallanzani on the ‘Circulation,’ with Tourdes' notes and life of the author, London, 1801.
* Translation of Guyton de Morveau's ‘Means of Purifying Infected Air,’ London, 1802 (with a vindication of Johnstone's priority as against Carmichael Smyth).
* ‘Elements of Botany,’ 1802.
* Revised edition of Clare's ‘Treatise on the Motion of Fluids,’ 1804.
He also contributed papers to the medical journals on cow-pox, hydrophobia, pemphigus, &c.
[Georgian Era, ii. 585; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Gent. Mag. March 1824.]
C. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hall, Robert (1817-1882)

​HALL, ROBERT (1817–1882), vice-admiral, was born at Kingston in Upper Canada in 1817, and entered the navy in 1833. In November 1843 he was made lieutenant, and, after serving in the Pacific and on the west coast of Africa, was promoted to be commander on 6 Sept. 1852. In 1853 he served as commander of the Agamemnon, one of the earliest of the screw line-of-battle ships; in 1854 he commanded the paddle sloop Stromboli in the Baltic, going out in her, at the end of the season, to the Mediterranean and Black Sea; in May and June 1855 he took part in the expedition to Kertch and the Sea of Azof, under the command of Captain Lyons [q. v.], and on Lyons's death was promoted to be captain of the Miranda, which he brought home and paid off in 1857. From 1859 to 1863 he commanded the Termagant in the Pacific, and on his return to England was appointed private secretary to the Duke of Somerset, then first lord of the admiralty. In 1866 he was appointed superintendent of Pembroke dockyard, and in 1872 became naval secretary to the admiralty. This appointment he held till the spring of 1882, when he resigned; but a few weeks afterwards, his successor being sent to Ireland as under-secretary, Hall was requested to resume his old post. He had barely done so when he died suddenly of heart disease, on 11 June 1882.
[Times, 14 June 1882; O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict.; Navy Lists.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cartwright, Joseph

​CARTWRIGHT, JOSEPH (1789?–1829), marine painter, was apparently a native of Dawlish in Devonshire, and was attached to the navy in a civil capacity. When the Ionian Islands came into the possession of the English, he was appointed paymaster-general of the forces at Corfu, which post he held for some years. On his return to England he published a volume entitled ‘Views in the Ionian Islands,’ and henceforth devoted himself to art, and especially to painting marine subjects and naval engagements. He exhibited many pictures at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the Society of British Artists, and obtained a great reputation in his particular line. In 1825 he was elected a member of the Society of British Artists, and in 1828 he was appointed marine painter to H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence, lord high admiral of England. He died, much esteemed and regretted, at his apartments at Charing Cross, on 16 Jan. 1829, aged about forty. Among his principal pictures were ‘The Burning of L'Orient at the Battle of the Nile,’ ‘The Battle of Algiers,’ ‘The Battle of Trafalgar,’ ‘The Port of Venice at Carnival Time,’ ‘H.M.S. Greyhound and H.M.S. Harrier engaging a Dutch Squadron in the Java Seas,’ ‘Frigates becalmed in the Ionian ​Channel,’ ‘A Water-spout off the Coast of Albania.’
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School; Graves's Dict. of Artists; Gent. Mag. xcix. (1829) 187; Annual Register, 16 Jan. 1829; Times, 17 Jan. 1829; Catalogues of Exhibitions at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the Society of British Artists.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Carus, Thomas

1904 Errata appended.
​CARUS, THOMAS (d. 1572?), judge, was of a Lancashire family, long settled at Horton and elsewhere in that county (Grandeur of the Law, 253; Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1 July 1609). He joined the Middle Temple, and was appointed reader in Lent term 1556. Towards the end of Mary's reign he was summoned to the degree of serjeant-at-law, and actually received it after Elizabeth's accession, 19 April 1559. He was appointed a judge of the queen's bench probably in Trinity term 1566, in succession to Mr. Justice Corbet, and continued in that office till his death, the date of which is uncertain, but is probably 1572, a successor being appointed on 14 May of that year. His name, however, is not given in Dyer's or Plowden's reports after Easter term 1570. In 1569 (10 Feb.) he, with Sir James Dyer, chief justice of the common pleas, Mr. Justice Weston, and Mr. Justice Harper, heard and determined a controversy between the president and council in Wales and the chamberlain of Chester as to the jurisdiction of the county palatine of Chester, the question arising in Radford's case. He left a daughter, Elizabeth, who was second wife to Sir Nicholas Curwen of Workington, M.P., for Cumberland.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Green's State Papers, Addenda; Hutchison's Cumberland, ii. 145.]
J. A. H.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.56 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 234 | i | 9 f.e. | Carus, Thomas: before He joined insert He was M.P. for Wigan in 1547 and for Lancaster in 1553 and 1555. |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Carvell, Nicholas

​CARVELL, NICHOLAS (d. 1566), poet, was elected from Eton to King's College 1545, was B.A. 1549, M.A. 1553. He was at Zurich during the reign of Queen Mary, but returned after Elizabeth's accession and died in the summer of 1566. The following poems in the ‘Mirror for Magistrates,’ signed ‘Cavyl,’ have been attributed to him: 1. ‘How the two Mortimers for their sundry vices ended their days unfortunately.’ 2. ‘The Wilfull fall of the blacke Smith and the foolishe ende of the Lord Awdeley in June, anno 1496.’ He also contributed to the collection on the death of Bucer in 1551. In ​Harwood's ‘Alumni Etonenses,’ p. 161, he is confounded with James Calfhill [q. v.]
[Strype's Memorials, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 233; Zurich Letters (Parker Society), i. 194; Troubles of Frankfort, pp. 16, 65, 169; Mirror for Magistrates (Haslewood), ii. 23, 396; Warton's English Poetry, iii. 185, 186, 225; Cooper's Athenæ Cant. i. 232.]