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

​ROBERTSON, BARTHOLOMEW (fl. 1620), divine, was probably of Scottish origin. In March 1620 he was granted a pass by a ‘member of parliament to be employed about my necessary and spiritual affairs and business in and about London and elsewhere’ (State Papers, Dom. James I, cxx. 58). The member is doubtless one of the patrons to whom Robinson dedicated his books. He wrote: 1. ‘The Heavenly Advocate, or a Short Direction for the Speedy Understanding of the New Testament,’ London, 1617 (dedicated to Sir James Fullerton, gentleman of the bedchamber). 2. ‘The Crown of Life, containing the Combat betwixt the Flesh and the Spirit,’ London, 1618 (ded. to James I's queen Anne). 3. ‘The Soules Request, or a most sweet and comfortable Dialogue between Christ and the Soule,’ London, 1618 (ded. to Sir William Howgill). 4. ‘A Heavenly and Comfortable Mould of Prayers,’ 1618. 5. ‘A Meditation of the Mercy and Justice of God’ (ded. to Sir William Alexander). 6. ‘The Anatomy of a Distressed Soul,’ London, 1619 (ded. to Sir Robert Naunton [q. v.]). 7. ‘A Line of Life, pointing to the Immortality of a Virtuous Name’ (anon.), London, 1620.
[Robinson's Works in the Bodleian; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
W. A. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Grover, Henry Montague

​GROVER, HENRY MONTAGUE (1791–1866), miscellaneous writer, born at Watford, Hertfordshire, in 1791, was the eldest son of Harry Grover, solicitor, of Hemel Hempstead, by Sybilla, daughter of George Phillip Ehret. He was educated at St. Albans grammar school. By 1816 he had established himself in practice as a solicitor in London. He retired from business in 1824, and proceeded to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he graduated LL.B. in 1830. Having taken holy orders he was presented in 1833 to the rectory of Hitcham, Buckinghamshire. Owing to great bodily infirmity he lived in much seclusion. He died at Hitcham on 20 Aug. 1866.
His works are:
* 'Anne Boleyn, a tragedy' (in five acts and in verse), 8vo, London, 1826.
* 'Socrates, a dramatic poem ' (in five acts, with notes), 8vo, London, 1828.
* 'The History of the Resurrection authenticated. A Review of the Four Gospels on the Resurrection,' 8vo, London, 1841.
* 'Analogy and Prophecy, Keys of the Church. Shewing the progress of the Dispensation and the Interpretation of the Prophecies by analogies derived from the Mosaic Creation,' 8vo, London, 1846.
* 'A Voice from Stonehenge,' pt. i., 8vo, London, 1847.
* 'Changes of the Poles and the Equator, considered as a source of error in the present construction of the maps and charts of the globe,' 8vo, London, 1848.
* 'A Catechism for Sophs' (being a 'summary of scriptural doctrine'), 16mo, London, 1848.
* 'Soundings of Antiquity: a new method of applying the astronomical evidences to the events of history, and an assignment of true dates to the epochs of the Church,' 8vo, London, 1862.
Grover wrote also a political pamphlet entitled 'Corn and Cattle against Cotton and Calico,' articles in the 'Journal of Sacred Literature,' and papers on the 'Theory of the Sun's Orbit' and on 'Tides.'
[Gent. Mag. 1866, pt. ii. p. 553; Law Lists; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Groves, John Thomas

​GROVES, JOHN THOMAS (d. 1811), architect, first appears as an exhibitor at the Royal Academy in 1778 and 1780, as 'John Groves, jun.,' of Millbank Street, Westminster, sending in each case views of Westminster Abbey and surrounding buildings. A view of Westminster Abbey by Groves, drawn in 1779, was subsequently engraved by J. Collyer. He resided in Italy for about ten years between 1780 and 1790. After returning to Westminster, he sent some Italian subjects to the Royal Academy in 1791 and 1792. On 17 June 1794 he was appointed clerk of the works at St. James's, Whitehall, and Westminster, under the board of works, succeeding Sir John Soane [q. v.] In this capacity he made the arrangements in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, for the christening of Princess Charlotte in 1796. In 1807 Groves was appointed architect to the General Post Office, and was also surveyor to the first commissioners for the improvements at Westminster round St. Margaret's Church. Groves had considerable private practice as an architect. Among other works executed by him may be mentioned the baths at Tunbridge Wells and the Nelson monument on Portsdown Hill. He died of a paralytic stroke, 24 Aug. 1811, at his house in Great Scotland Yard, leaving a son and three daughters. He owned some freehold property at Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Grozer, Joseph

​GROZER, JOSEPH (fl. 1784–1798), mezzotint engraver, is stated to have been born about 1755. He was an able engraver in mezzotint, and executed many plates after Sir Joshua Reynolds, Romney, and others, which are much esteemed. Among his earliest known engravings are 'The Young Shepherdess,' published in 1784, and 'The Theory of Design,' 1785, both after Reynolds. Grozer resided at 8 Castle Street, Leicester Square, and published some of his prints himself. About 1798 most of his plates appear in other hands, so that he probably died about that date. Among his mezzotint engravings may be noted 'Master Braddyll,' 'Frederick, Viscount Duncannon,' 'Henrietta, Viscountess Duncannon,' 'Hon. Frances Harris (with a dog),' 'Lord Loughborough,' and others, after Reynolds; 'James, Earl of Cardigan,' 'Abraham Newland,' after Romney; 'Morning, or the Benevolent Sportsman,' 'Evening, or the Sportsman's Return,' and others after G. Morland; 'The Duke and Duchess of York,' after Singleton; 'Euhun Sang Lum Akao,' a Chinese, after H. Danloux, and many others. ​Grozer worked occasionally in stipple, among these engravings being 'The Age of Innocence' and 'Sophia, Lady St. Asaph,' after Reynolds;' Sergeant Daniel McLeod,' after W. R. Bigg, and others.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gruffydd, Thomas

​GRUFFYDD, THOMAS (1815–1887), harper, was born at Llangynidr in Breconshire in 1815. His maternal grandfather was the rector of the parish, in which his ancestors were yeomen. When three years old he lost one eye through falling on a hatchet, and when a schoolboy almost lost the other by a blow. He was already musical, and after these accidents devoted all his energies to music and to harp-playing. He was placed under one Jones, harper to Mr. Gwynne of Glanbran, near Llandovery, with whom he remained for some years. His countrymen followed him in large crowds wherever he played in public. He had a good voice and sang well. When he lost his sight his hearing became preternaturally keen and his memory strong. In course of time he married, and became successor to his old teacher as harper to the family of Llanover. In 1843 he accompanied Jones to Buckingham Palace to play Welsh airs before the queen and Prince Albert. Carnhuanawc (Thomas Price [q. v.]) was present at the time, and was asked by the prince to explain the peculiarities of the Welsh triple harp. Gruffydd was invited alone to Marlborough House to play. He won numerous prizes for harp-playing at the Eisteddfodau. In 1867 he visited Brittany, accompanied by his daughter, spending most of the time as guest of Comte de la Villemarqué, who presented him on leaving with a valuable gold ring bearing the inscription, 'Keltied Bro C'hall da Gruffydd, Llanover.' He was made harper to the Prince of Wales, before whom he played when the prince visited Raglan and Chepstow Castles. He was for many years recognised as the greatest Welsh harper of his age. A song of his, music and words, was published recently, under the name 'Gwlad y Bardd,' i.e. 'The Land of the Bard.' He died 30 Aug. 1887, and was buried in Llanover churchyard by the side of his parents.
[Memoir by Gwynionydd in Geninen, 1888.]
R. J. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ridley, Mark

​RIDLEY, MARK, M.D. (1560–1624), physician, second son of Lancelot Ridley [q. v.], was born in 1560 at Stretham, Cambridgeshire, of which place his father was rector. He graduated B.A. from Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1580, and M.A. in 1584. He was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London on 25 Sept. 1590, and was elected a fellow on 28 May 1594. He went to Russia as physician to the English merchants resident there, was recommended to the czar by Lord Burghley, and appointed his chief physician. In 1598, on the death of the czar, Boris Gudonoff, he returned to England, with many compliments from the new czar, and settled in practice in London. He was elected censor of the College of Physicians in 1607, again from 1609 to 1613, and in 1615 and in 1618, and was treasurer in 1610 ​and 1620. He was fond of mathematics, and in 1613 published ‘A Short Treatise of Magneticall Bodies and Motions,’ a small quarto printed by Nicholas Okes, at the Hand, near Holborn Bridge. He claims acquaintance with William Gilbert [q. v.], whom he commends as the greatest discoverer in magnetical science. After twenty-four chapters on the properties and description of the magnet, he discusses the variation of the compass and methods of estimating it in eight chapters, the inclinatory needle in eight others, and concludes with a chapter on finding the longitude, and one ‘of the matter of the Magneticall globe of the earth by the needle.’ He writes in a clear, scientific style, and in his preface gives a succinct account of the history of the subject. In 1617 he published ‘Animadversions on a late Work entitled Magnetical Advertisement.’ He died early in 1624, leaving no issue. His portrait, at the age of thirty-four, is engraved in his short treatise after the table of contents, and represents him as a man of middle height with a square-cut beard and curling hair. His coat-of-arms is blazoned within the frame.
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ridley, Humphrey

​RIDLEY, HUMPHREY, M.D. (1653–1708), physician, son of Thomas Ridley of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, was born in 1653. He matriculated from Merton College, Oxford, on 14 July 1671, but did not take a degree at Oxford, though he there studied medicine; in September 1679 he graduated M.D. at Leyden, maintaining a thesis ‘De Lue Venerea.’ He was incorporated M.D. at Cambridge in 1688. He settled in London, became a candidate or member of the College of Physicians on 30 Sept. 1691, and was elected a fellow on 30 Sept. 1692. He gave the Gulstonian lectures in 1694. He published in 1695 ‘The Anatomy of the Brain,’ dedicated to the president and fellows of the College of Physicians. The book was formally approved by the censors' board on 7 Sept. 1694, and, although following so soon after the important writings of Thomas Willis and Raymond Vieussens, contains additions to their accounts of the brain. He ​dissected the venous supply of the corpora striata more exactly than Willis, and demonstrated from observation in the engorged brains of men who had been hanged, the lymph vessels of which only one had been mentioned by Anthony Nuck in 1692. He was also the first to describe and name the circular sinus. His is the first English description of a sarcoma or new growth of the pineal gland (Anatomy, p. 83). He attacks the use of imagination in scientific writings, and gives anatomical reasons for doubting whether the soul is more seated in the brain than in the body at large. The figures which illustrate the book were drawn by William Cowper (1666–1709) [q. v.] the surgeon. A Latin translation was published at Leyden in 1725 by Langerak. On its title-page Ridley is erroneously named Henry, a mistake due to the fact that in his own book his initial only appears. In 1703 Tonson published for him a volume, entitled ‘Observationes quædam Medico-practicæ et Physiologicæ,’ which shows him to have been as good a clinical observer as he was an anatomist. The observations, some of which are accompanied by accounts of autopsies, are more than thirty in number. The most interesting is that on hydrophobia in an English groom who accompanied his master to Ryswick in October 1697, when the peace was being concluded, and was there bitten by a Danish dog. Symptoms of hydrophobia developed on 11 Dec., and it was observed that in the convulsions his head was generally turned towards the wound, while just before his death difficulty of swallowing ceased and he took a large quantity of toast soaked in beer. Ridley died in April 1708, and was buried in St. Andrew's Church, Holborn.
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ridley, William Henry

​RIDLEY, WILLIAM HENRY (1816–1882), religious writer, born on 2 April 1816, was eldest son of Henry Colborne Ridley (1780–1832), rector of Hambledon, near Henley-on-Thames, a descendant of the Ridleys of Willimoteswick. His mother was Mary, daughter of James Ferrier of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 15 May 1834, was a student 1836–41, and graduated B.A. in 1838, and M.A. in 1840. He succeeded to the family living of Hambledon on 25 July 1840, and continued there until his death. In 1859 he became rural dean of Wycombe, and in 1871 an honorary canon of Christ Church, Oxford. He died at Brighton on 17 Feb. 1882, having married, on 25 Aug. 1841, Sophia Albertina, second daughter of Charles Richard Sumner [q. v.], bishop of Winchester; by her, who died on 1 July 1884, he had an only son, Henry Colborne Mannoir Ridley.
Ridley was a voluminous writer of theological literature, but many of his publications are only single sermons and tracts. The latter include two ‘Plain Tracts on Confirmation’ (1844 and 1862), which had a wide circulation. His chief works are: 1. ‘The Holy Communion,’ parts i. and ii. 1854; 3rd edit. 1860. 2. ‘What can we do for our Soldiers in the East?’ 1854. 3. ‘Clerical Incomes and Clerical Taxation; Dr. Phillimore's Bill for the Assessment of Tithe Commutation Rent Charges,’ 1856. 4. ‘What can we do for our Fellow Subjects in India?’ 1857.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ridley, Thomas

​RIDLEY, Sir THOMAS (1550?–1629), chancellor of Winchester, born at Ely about 1550, was the second son of Thomas Ridley, gent., of Bewling, Shropshire, by his wife Anne, daughter of William Day of Wingfield in the same county. His father belonged to a branch of the Northumberland Ridleys. He was educated at Eton, which he entered in 1565, and at King's College, Cambridge, where he became fellow. He graduated B.A. in 1570–1, and proceeded M.A. in 1574 and D.D. in 1583. About 1580, before he was thirty years old, he was appointed headmaster of Eton by Provost Day. On 7 June 1598 he was incorporated D.C.L. at Oxford. He studied law, and was admitted advocate in 1590, and before 1599 a master in chancery, chancellor of Winchester, and vicar-general to George Abbot [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury. He also sat in parliament for Wye in 1586–7, and for Lymington in 1601. He was knighted at Greenwich on 24 June 1619. He died on 23 Jan. 1628–9, and was buried at St. Benet's Church, Paul's Wharf, London. He married Margaret, daughter of William Boleyn, who is said to have been connected with the family of Anne Boleyn. By her he left two daughters—Anne, who married Sir Edward Boseville or Boswell, and Elizabeth; he is also said to have had a son Thomas, who was father of Glocester Ridley [q. v.], but he is not mentioned in Sir Thomas's will, which is printed in Ridlon's ‘Ancient Ryedales,’ p. 428, and the genealogy is doubtful. Ridley wrote ‘A View of the Civile and Ecclesiastical Law,’ &c., London, 1607, 4to, with which James I was so pleased ‘that Sir Edward Coke undertook from thence to prophesy the decay of the common law’ (Lloyd, State Worthies, 1670, p. 423). Another edition, with notes by John Gregory, was published at Oxford in 1634 (Madan, Early Oxford Press, p. 180). Other editions appeared in 1676 (Oxford, being called the fourth), and London 1684.
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Style, William

​STYLE, WILLIAM (1603–1679), legal author, eldest son of William Style of Langley, Beckenham, Kent (grandson of Sir Humphrey Style, esquire of the body to Henry VIII), by his second wife, Mary, daughter of Sir Robert Clarke [q. v.], was born in 1603. He matriculated at Oxford, from Queen's College, on 12 June 1618, and resided for a time at Brasenose College, but left the university without a degree. He was admitted in November 1618 a student at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar in 1628. After the death without issue (1659) of his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Style, bart., gentleman of the privy chamber to James I, and cup-bearer to Charles I, he resided on the ancestral estate of Langley. He died on 7 Dec. 1679, and was buried in Langley church. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Duleing of Rochester, he had issue two sons: William, who died in his lifetime unmarried, and Humphrey, who died without male issue. The present baronet, Sir William Henry Marsham Style of Glenmore, co. Donegal, is descended from Sir Humphrey Style's second son, Oliver, and thus represents a younger branch of the family.
Style translated from the Latin of John Michael Dilherr ‘Contemplations, Sighes, and Groanes of a Christian,’ London, 1640, 12mo. He compiled:
* ‘Regestum Practicale, or the Practical Register, consisting of Rules, Orders, and Observations concerning the Common Laws and the practice thereof,’ London, 1657, 8vo, 3rd edit. 1694.
* ‘Narrationes Modernæ, or Modern Reports begun in the now Upper Bench Court at Westminster in the beginning of Hilary Term 21 Caroli, and continued to the end of Michaelmas Term, 1655, as well on the criminal as on the pleas side,’ London, 1658, fol.
He also edited, with additions, Glisson and Gulston's ‘Common Law Epitomiz'd,’ London, 1679, 8vo. Style's Reports are the only published records of the decisions of Henry Rolle [q. v.] and Sir John Glynne [q. v.]
[Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Hasted's Kent, i. 86; Berry's County Geneal. (Kent); Inner Temple Books; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 470; Wallace's Reporters; Marvin's Legal Bibliography; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 22; Foster's Baronetage.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sturges, Octavius

​STURGES, OCTAVIUS, M.D. (1833–1895), physician, eighth son of John Sturges of Connaught Square, London, was born in London in 1833. He obtained a commission in the East India Company's service, studied at Addiscombe, went to India in 1852, and in 1853 became a lieutenant in the Bombay artillery. He left India in 1857, and began to study medicine, for which he had always had a predilection, at St. George's Hospital. In October 1858 he entered at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1861, M.B. in 1863, and M.D. in 1867. He was captain of the first university company of volunteers at Cambridge. He became a member of the College of Physicians of London in 1863, and was elected a fellow in 1870. He was medical registrar at St. George's Hospital 1863–5, became assistant-physician at the Westminster Hospital in 1868, and physician in 1875. He lectured there successively on forensic medicine, materia medica, and medicine. He was elected assistant-physician to the Hospital for Sick Children in 1873, and physician in 1884. At the time of his death he was senior physician there and at the Westminster Hospital. He delivered the Lumleian lectures at the College of Physicians on diseases of the heart in childhood, and was senior censor in the same year. He died unmarried on 3 Nov. 1895 from injuries due to his being knocked down by a hansom cab while crossing a street eight days before.
Sturges described his experiences at Addiscombe and in India in a novel written in collaboration with a niece, entitled ‘In the Company's Service,’ and published in 1883. He also published ‘An Introduction to the Study of Clinical Medicine’ in 1873, ‘The Natural History and Relations of Pneumonia’ in 1876, and ‘Chorea and Whooping Cough’ in 1877. His book on pneumonia contains many original observations, and is of permanent value; while his treatise on chorea, in which that disease is regarded as a disease of function, shows close observation of the mental and moral as well as the physical condition of the young, and lucidly expounds a consistent theory of the nature and causation of the disease. He was a physician of wide observation and excellent sense, and his abilities were profoundly respected in his university and in the College of Physicians.
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sturgion, John

​STURGION, JOHN (fl. 1661), pamphleteer, was at one time a private in Cromwell's lifeguards. On 27 Aug. 1655 he was arrested as the author of a pamphlet against the Protector, called ‘A Short Discovery of his Highness the Lord Protector's Intentions touching the Anabaptists in the Army’ (Thurloe Papers, iii. 738). He was discharged from the lifeguards and for a time imprisoned. In 1656 Major-general Goffe complained that Sturgion's preaching attracted large crowds at Reading (ib. iv. 752). About July 1656 Sturgion and other anabaptists sent an address to Charles II complaining of their sufferings under ‘that loathsome hypocrite,’ the Protector, and announcing their return to their allegiance to the king, begging him also to establish liberty of conscience and abolish tithes (Clarendon, Rebellion, xv. 105; Cal. Clarendon Papers, iii. 145). He was suspected of a share in Sindercombe's plot against Cromwell, became one of Sexby's chief agents, and was arrested on 25 May ​1657 with two bundles of ‘Killing no Murder’ under his arms [see Sexby, Edward, and Sindercombe, Miles]. For this he was committed to the Tower, where he remained till February 1659 (Thurloe, vi. 311, 317; Rawlinson MS. A lvii. 413). At the Restoration he was appointed one of the messengers of the court of exchequer (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, p. 104). In October 1662 he petitioned for leave to resign his place to Thomas Benbow, on the ground of bodily infirmity (ib. 1661–2, p. 513). Sturgion was the author of ‘A Plea for Toleration of Opinions and Persuasions in Matters of Religion differing from the Church of England’ (4to, 1661). It is addressed to Charles II, consists largely of extracts from Jeremy Taylor's ‘Liberty of Prophesying,’ and is reprinted in ‘Tracts on Liberty of Conscience,’ edited by E. B. Underhill for the Hanserd Knollys Society in 1846 (p. 312).
[Authorities mentioned in the article.]
C. H. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Suckling, Maurice

​SUCKLING, MAURICE (1725–1778), comptroller of the navy, second son of Maurice Suckling, prebendary of Westminster and rector of Barsham in Suffolk, whose wife Anne, daughter of Sir Charles Turner, was a niece of Robert Walpole, first earl of Orford [q. v.], was born at Barsham on 14 May and baptised on 27 May 1725. His sister Catherine married the Rev. Edmund Nelson, and was the mother of Horatio (afterwards Lord) Nelson [q. v.] Suckling was promoted to be a lieutenant in the navy on 8 March 1744–5, and in May 1747 was appointed by Byng to the Boyne, then in the Mediterranean. In November 1748 he was appointed to the Gloucester; in 1753 he was in the Somerset. On 2 Dec. 1755 he was promoted to the rank of captain and appointed to the Dreadnought, of 60 guns, in which he went out to the West Indies. The Dreadnought was one of the three 60-gun ships detached in October 1757, under Captain Arthur Forrest [q. v.] of the Augusta, and on the 21st fought a spirited action with a vastly superior French squadron. In 1761 Suckling returned to England, when the Dreadnought was paid off and Suckling was appointed to the Lancaster, which was employed in the Channel under Lord Hawke. After the peace he was for some years on half-pay, but on the imminence of war with Spain consequent on the dispute about the Falkland Islands [see Farmer, George], he was appointed in November 1770 to the Raisonnable, and from her was moved in April 1771 to the Triumph, guardship in the Medway. In April 1775 he was appointed comptroller of the navy, a post which he held till his death on 14 July 1778. He was buried in the chancel of Barsham church.
Suckling married, on 20 June 1764, his cousin Mary, daughter of Horatio, lord Walpole of Wolterton. She died in 1766 without issue.
J. K. L.