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

​ROCHE, EUGENIUS (1786–1829), journalist, was born on 23 Feb. 1786 in Paris. His father, a distant relative of Edmund Burke Roche, first baron Fermoy, was professor of modern languages in L'École Militaire, Paris, and survived his son. Eugenius was educated by his father in Paris, and at the age of eighteen came to London, where ​commenced writing for the press. In 1807 he started a periodical called ‘Literary Recreations,’ which was not financially successful. But in it Byron, Allan Cunningham, and other poets of note made their first appearance in print. In 1808 Roche began the publication of ‘The Dramatic Appellant,’ a quarterly journal, whose object was to print in each number three of the rejected plays of the period. In it will be found two of Roche's own contributions to the drama, ‘William Tell’ and ‘The Invasion.’ The former was being rehearsed when Drury Lane Theatre was destroyed by fire on 24 Feb. 1809. The ‘Dramatic Appellant’ was not a conspicuous success, and in 1809 Roche became parliamentary reporter of the ‘Day,’ an advanced liberal newspaper, of which he was appointed editor about 1810. Its name was afterwards changed to the ‘New Times’ and then to the ‘Morning Journal.’ While editing it he was imprisoned for a year for an attack on the government in reference to the case of Sir Francis Burdett [q. v.] On his release he became editor of the ‘National Register,’ a weekly paper. In August 1813 he accepted an engagement on the ‘Morning Post,’ becoming one of its editors shortly afterwards. He was also associated with the ‘Courier,’ for a time an influential organ of liberal opinion. He was recognised as one of the ablest journalists of his day. He died on 9 Nov. 1829 in Hart Street, Bloomsbury. A large sum was subscribed for his second wife and family, and his poems were collected and published, with a memoir and portrait, for their benefit, with a very distinguished list of subscribers, under the title of ‘London in a Thousand Years,’ in 1830.
D. J. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roche, Regina Maria

​ROCHE, Mrs. REGINA MARIA (1764?–1845), novelist, born about 1764 in the south of Ireland, was daughter of parents named Dalton. In 1793 appeared her first novel, ‘The Vicar of Lansdowne,’ by Regina Maria Dalton, and it was at once followed by ‘The Maid of the Hamlet,’ in 2 vols. She soon afterwards married a gentleman named Roche. In 1798 she sprang into fame on the publication of her ‘Children of the Abbey’ (4 vols.), a story abounding in sentimentality, and almost rivalling in popularity Mrs. Radcliffe's ‘Mysteries of Udolpho,’ which was published in 1797. Many editions of it were called for, and until her death she industriously worked at a similar style of fiction. She died, aged 81, at her residence on the Mall, Waterford, 17 May 1845.
Her works are: 1. ‘The Vicar of Lansdowne,’ 2nd ed., 2 vols., London, 1793. 2. ‘The Maid of the Hamlet,’ 12mo, 3 vols., 1793. 3. ‘The Children of the Abbey,’ 4 vols. 1798 (numerous other editions). 4. ‘Clermont,’ 12mo, 4 vols. London, 1798. 5. ‘The Nocturnal Visit,’ 4 vols. 12mo, 1800 (a French version appeared in 1801 in 5 vols.). 6. ‘The Discarded Son, or the Haunt of the Banditti,’ 5 vols. 12mo, 1807. 7. ‘The Houses of Osma and Almeria, or the Convent of St. Ildefonso,’ 3 vols. 12mo, London, 1810. 8. ‘The Monastery of St. Colomba,’ 5 vols. 12mo, 1812. 9. ‘Trecothiek Bower,’ 3 vols. 12mo, 1813. 10. ‘London Tales’ (anonymously), 2 vols., 1814. 11. ‘The Munster Cottage Boy,’ 4 vols. 1819. 12. ‘The Bridal of Dunamore’ and ‘Lost and Won,’ two tales, 3 vols. 12mo, London, 1823. 13. ‘The Castle Chapel,’ 3 vols. 12mo, London, 1825 (a French version appeared the same year). 14. ‘Contrast,’ 3 vols., London, 1828. 15. ‘The Nun's Picture,’ 3 vols. 12mo, 1834. 16. ‘The Tradition of the Castle, or Scenes in the Emerald Isle,’ 4 vols. 12mo, London, 1824.
D. J. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roche, Robert

​ROCHE, ROBERT (1576–1629), poetaster, born about 1576, a native of Somerset of lowly origin, was admitted of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in November 1594, being then aged 18, and graduated B.A. 9 June 1599. He was presented to the vicarage of Hilton in Dorset in 1617, and held the benefice until his death on 12 May 1629. A Latin inscription in the aisle of Hilton church marks the common grave of Roche and a successor in the vicariate, John Antram; an English quatrain is appended. Roche's son Robert graduated B.A. from Magdalen Hall, 23 Jan. 1630, and became vicar of East Camel.
Roche was author of ‘Eustathia, or the Constancie of Susanna, containing the Preservation of the Godly, Subversion of the Wicked, Precepts for the Aged, Instructions for Youth, Pleasure with Profitte … Dominus mea rupes. Printed at Oxford by Joseph Barnes, and are to be sold in Paules Churchyard at the Sign of the Bible,’ 1599, b.l. 8vo. It contains seventy-four pages of didactic doggerel, of which a long specimen is given in Dr. Bliss's edition of Wood's ‘Athenæ,’ on the ground of its extreme rarity. The only copy known is in the Bodleian; it once belonged to Robert Burton.
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roche, James

​ROCHE, JAMES (1770–1853), styled by Father Prout ‘the Roscoe of Cork,’ was the son of Stephen Roche, and a descendant of John Roche of Castle Roche, a delegate at the federation of Kilkenny in 1641. His mother, Sarah, was daughter of John O'Brien of Moyvanine and Clounties, Limerick. Born at Cork, 30 Dec. 1770, he was sent at fifteen years of age to the college of Saintes, near Angoulême, where he spent two years. After a short visit home he returned to France and became partner with his brother George, a wine merchant at Bordeaux. There he made the acquaintance of Vergniaud and Guillotin. He shared in the enthusiasm for the revolution, and paid frequent visits to Paris, associating with the leading Girondins. While in Paris in 1793 he was arrested under the decree for the detention of British subjects, and spent six months in prison. He believed himself to have been in imminent danger of inclusion in the monster Luxembourg batch of victims, and attributed his escape to Brune, afterwards one of Napoleon's marshals. On his release he returned to the south of France, endeavouring to recover his confiscated property. In 1797 he quitted France, living alternately at London and Cork. In 1800, with his brother Stephen, he established a bank at Cork, which flourished until the monetary crisis of 1819, when it suspended payment. Roche's valuable library was sold in London, the creditors having invited him to select and retain the books that he most prized. He spent the next seven years in London as commercial and parliamentary agent for the counties of Cork, Youghal, and Limerick. Retiring from business with a competency, he resided from 1829 to 1832 in Paris. The remainder of his life was passed at Cork as local director of the National Bank of Ireland, a post which allowed him leisure for the indulgence of his literary tastes. He was well read in the ancient and the principal modern languages, and his historical knowledge enabled him to assist inquirers on obscure and debatable points, and to detect and expose errors. He contributed largely, mostly under his initials, to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ ‘Notes and Queries,’ the ‘Dublin Review,’ and the ‘Cork Magazine.’ In 1851, under the title of ‘Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, by an Octogenarian,’ he reprinted for private circulation about forty of these articles. He also took an active part in literary, philanthropic, and mercantile movements in Cork. He died there, 1 April 1853, leaving two daughters by his wife Anne, daughter of John Moylan of Cork.
J. G. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roche, Michael de la

​ROCHE, MICHAEL de la (fl. 1710–1731), French protestant refugee and author, was threatened while young with persecution in France—probably on the revocation of the edict of Nantes. He was in ‘continual fear,’ for a whole year, of being imprisoned, and forced ‘to abjure the Protestant religion.’ He escaped to England with great difficulty. Unlike the great majority of his fellow refugees, he became almost immediately a member of the church of England. ​De la Roche had been a student of literature from youth, and when he settled in London obtained employment from the booksellers, mainly devoting himself to literary criticism. Imitating some similar ventures that had been made in Holland, he commenced in 1710 to issue in folio a periodical which he entitled ‘Memoirs of Literature.’ Afterwards, ‘for the convenience of readers,’ he continued it in quarto, but it was brought to an end in September 1714, when, he says, ‘Mr. Roberts, his printer,’ advised him ‘to leave off writing these papers two months earlier than he designed.’ The ‘Memoirs’ were begun again in January 1717, and continued till at least April 1717. De la Roche, according to his own account, was a friend of Bayle, and doubtless paid frequent visits to Holland. Early in 1717 he arranged to edit a new periodical, ‘Bibliothèque Angloise, ou Histoire littéraire de la Grande Bretagne,’ which was written in French and published at Amsterdam. De la Roche apologised for the inelegancies of his French style. He was still living for the most part in London. The fifth volume of the ‘Bibliothèque Angloise,’ dated 1719, was the last edited by De la Roche. The publisher transferred the editorship in that year to De la Chapelle, giving as a pretext that De la Roche's foreign readers accused him of anti-Calvinism, hostility to the Reformation, and a too great partiality to Anglicanism (see Avertissement, dated January 1720, to vol. i. of Mémoires Littéraires). Shortly afterwards De la Roche began to edit yet another periodical, the ‘Mémoires Littéraires,’ which was published at The Hague at intervals till 1724. In 1725 he started ‘New Memoirs of Literature,’ which ran till December 1727, and finally, in 1730, ‘A Literary Journal, or a continuation of the Memoirs of Literature,’ which came to an end in 1731.
These various publications appeared at monthly or quarterly intervals. The prices for those published in England varied from 1s. to 6d. for each part, but they apparently brought little profit to the editor. They were the prototypes of literary magazines and reviews.
[See Avertissement to Mémoires Littéraires, and vol. iii. of a Literary Journal, dated 1731; Agnew's Protestant Exiles from France, ii. 150–154, and iii. 166; Smiles's Huguenots; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 507, iv. 94, ix. 385.]
F. T. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pierce, Edward

Edward Pearce in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​PIERCE or PEARCE, EDWARD (d. 1698), sculptor and mason, practised in London during the latter half of the seventeenth century, and was son of Edward Pierce, a decorative painter of some repute ​about 1640 to 1666. The elder Pierce was for some time employed by Vandyck as an assistant, but his chief works were altar-pieces, ceilings, &c., in London churches, all of which have unfortunately perished either in the great fire or in subsequent conflagrations. The same fate attended the examples of his art at Belvoir Castle in Lincolnshire. He is said to have etched a series of designs for ornamental friezes, published in 1640, and to have died at Stamford in Lincolnshire about 1670. A portrait of the elder Pierce, painted by Isaac Fuller [q. v.], was in the collection of Colonel Seymor and afterwards in that of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill. Another of his sons, John Pierce, also became a painter.
Edward Pierce the younger was a pupil of Edward Bird [q. v.], the sculptor, and was for a considerable time employed as an assistant to Sir Christopher Wren. He rebuilt the church of St. Clement Danes in the Strand in 1680 from Wren's designs; the original contract is in the British Museum (Addit. Chart. 1605; in this his name is written ‘Pearce’). He also executed the four dragons at the angles of the pedestal to the monument on Fish Street Hill, the statues of Sir Thomas Gresham and Edward III for the Royal Exchange, a large marble vase for Hampton Court Palace, and the busts of Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Christopher Wren for the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. Pierce executed a marble bust of Oliver Cromwell, now in the possession of E. J. Stanley, esq., at Quantock Lodge, Somerset; the terra-cotta model of this bust is in the National Portrait Gallery. His largest though not his best work in sculpture was the monument to Sir William Maynard in Little Easton church, Essex. Pierce died in Surrey Street, Strand, in 1698, and was buried in the Savoy.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Piddington, Henry

​PIDDINGTON, HENRY (1797–1858), meteorologist, second son of James Piddington of Uckfield, was bred in the mercantile marine, apparently in the East India and China trade, and was for some time commander of a ship. About 1830 he retired from the sea, being appointed curator of the Museum of Economic Geology in Calcutta, and sub-secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In 1831 and the following years he published several short geological or mineralogical notes in the ‘Journal’ of the society, and in 1839 began a series of memoirs on the storms of the Indian seas, which was to lead to very positive results. His ​attention had been forcibly called to the subject while at sea, by the ship he commanded being dismasted in a storm, and saved only by the fortunate veering of the wind; and the publication in 1838 of Colonel (afterwards Sir) William Reid's ‘Law of Storms’ gave him the clue for which he had been seeking [see Reid, Sir William]. He immediately began collecting logs and information from different ship-captains, who, as yet unable to understand his aims, were not always complaisant or even civil. His labours, however, received a semi-official recognition from the government of India, which, on 11 Sept. 1839, issued a formal notice inviting observations on ‘any hurricane, gale, or other storm of more violence than usual.’ ‘A scientific gentleman in Calcutta,’ it continued, ‘has obligingly undertaken to combine all reports that may be so received into a synopsis for exhibition of the results;’ and such reports, marked ‘Storm Report,’ might be sent, post free, to the secretary of the government.
Piddington accumulated a vast amount of detailed information, the discussion of which was from time to time published in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society.’ In 1844 he collected the results in a small book, little more than a pamphlet, entitled ‘The Horn-book for the Law of Storms for the Indian and China Seas.’ Written by a seaman for seamen, it dealt with the subject in a thoroughly practical way, which won the confidence of the shipping world, and probably obtained for its author the appointment of president of the marine court of inquiry at Calcutta. In 1848 he published ‘The Sailor's Horn-Book for the Law of Storms,’ on essentially the same lines as the preceding pamphlet, but much enlarged, and with fuller details. As a practical manual it had a great and deserved success, ran through six editions, and continued to be, within its limitations, the recognised text-book on the subject for over thirty years. It was in the first edition of this book (1848) that Piddington proposed the word ‘cyclone’ as a name for whirling storms; not, he said, ‘as affirming the circle to be a true one, though the circuit may be complete, yet expressing sufficiently the tendency to circular motion in these meteors’ (p. 8). The name was accepted by meteorologists. Piddington received an appointment as coroner, which he held till his death, at Calcutta, on 7 April 1858, aged 61.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pidgeon, Henry Clark

​PIDGEON, HENRY CLARK (1807–1880), painter in water-colours and antiquary, was born in 1807. Intended originally for the church, he eventually adopted art as a profession, practising as an artist and teacher of drawing in London. In 1847 he removed to Liverpool, where he was for a time professor of the school of drawing at the Liverpool Institute, gave private lessons, and drew numerous local scenes and antiquities. He became a member of the Liverpool Academy in 1847, and was secretary of that body during 1850. He was a non-resident member from that date till the reconstruction of the academy in 1865. Some fifty works by him were hung at the academy's annual exhibitions. Pidgeon joined Joseph Mayer [q. v.] and Abraham Hume (1814–1884) [q. v.], in 1848, in founding the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. He and Hume were joint-secretaries till January 1851, when Pidgeon removed to London. To the society's publications he contributed many etchings and lithographs.
Pidgeon, on resettling in London, continued his practice as a painter and a teacher of art. He had been elected an associate of the Institute of Painters in Water-colours in 1846, and a full member in 1861. He was also president of the Sketching Club. From 1838 he exhibited in London four pictures at the Royal Academy, two at the British Institute, fifteen at the Suffolk Street Gallery, besides some twenty works at the Royal Manchester Institution, between 1841 and 1856.
He died at 39 Fitzroy Road, Regent's Park, on 6 Aug. 1880, in his seventy-fourth year. The only known portrait of Pidgeon appears in a group of the three founders of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.
Pidgeon's work is broad in treatment and good in colour, and has much of the depth and tone of Varley. He was an excellent draughtsman. Many of his drawings are in the writer's possession. He contributed papers and drawings to the journals of the Archæological Institute, the British Archæological Association, and the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society.
A. N.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pierrepont, Evelyn (1711-1773)

​PIERREPONT, EVELYN, second Duke of Kingston (1711–1773), born in 1711, was only son of William, earl of Kingston, by his wife Rachel, daughter of Thomas Baynton of Little Chalfield, Wiltshire. Evelyn, first duke of Kingston [q. v.], was his grandfather. He was educated at Eton. His father died on 1 July 1713, and his mother on 18 May 1722. He succeeded his grandfather as second Duke of Kingston on 5 March 1726, and took his seat in the House of Lords on 1 June 1733 (Journals of the House of Lords, xxiv. 292). 'The Duke of Kingston,' says his aunt in 1726, 'has hitherto had so ill an education, 'tis hard to make any judgment of him; he has his spirit, but I fear will never have his ​father's sense. As young noblemen go, 'tis possible he may make a good figure amongst them' (Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 1837, ii. 209). He was appointed master of the staghounds north of the Trent on 8 July 1738, and on 20 March 1741 was elected a knight of the Garter. On 17 April 1741 he became one of the lords of the bedchamber, a post, however, which he did not long retain. Upon the outbreak of the rebellion in 1745, Kingston, at his own expense, raised a regiment of light horse, which greatly distinguished itself against the rebels at the battle of Culloden. He was gazetted a colonel in the army on 4 Oct. 1745, major-general on 19 March 1755, and lieutenant-general on 4 Feb. 1759. At the coronation of George III in September 1761, Kingston was the bearer of St. Edward's staff. In January 1763 he was appointed lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum of Nottinghamshire, and also steward of Sherwood Forest, but resigned both these offices in August 1765. In September 1769 he became recorder of Nottingham, and on 26 May 1772 he was promoted to the rank of general in the army. He died at Bath on 23 Sept. 1773, aged 62, and was buried at Holme-Pierrepont, Nottinghamshire, on 19 Oct following.
Kingston is described by Walpole as being 'a very weak man, of the greatest beauty, and finest person in England' (Journal of the Reign of King George III, 1859, i. 259). He went through the ceremony of marriage with the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh [q. v.], the wife of the Hon. Augustus John Hervey (afterwards third Earl of Bristol) [q. v.], at St. George's, Hanover Square, on 8 March 1769. In the riot which occurred in London on the 22nd of that month, Kingston was 'taken for the Duke of Bedford, and had his new wedding coach, favours, and liveries covered with mud ' (WALPOLE, Letters, 1857, v. 149). All his honours became extinct upon his death without issue. On the death of the Countess of Bristol in August 1788, his estates devolved upon his nephew, Charles Meadows, who assumed the name of Pierrepont, and was subsequently created Earl Manvers. Kingston lost a large number of valuable manuscripts, letters, and deeds by fires at Thoresby (4 April 1745) and at New Square, Lincoln's Inn (27 June 1752). There is no record of any speech or protest by him in the House of Lords. A full-length portrait of Kingston, signed P. Tillemans, belonged in 1867 to Earl Manners.
G. F. R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pidding, Henry James

​PIDDING, HENRY JAMES (1797–1864), humorous artist, born in London in 1797, was son of a stationer and lottery-office keeper at No. 1 Cornhill. He is said to have been a pupil of Azilo, a painter of domestic scenes. Pidding attained some note by his paintings of humorous subjects from domestic life, and was a very prolific exhibitor at the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street, of which society he was elected a member in 1843. He also exhibited pictures at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and various local exhibitions. About 1860 he attempted to make a sensation with a larger painting of ‘The Gaming Rooms at Homburg.’ Several of his pictures were engraved, some by his own hand in mezzotint, such as ‘The Greenwich Pensioners’ (now at Woburn Abbey), ‘Massa out, Sambo very dry’ (formerly in the collection of Lord Charles Townshend), ‘A Negro in the Stocks,’ ‘A Fair Penitent,’ &c. In 1836 Pidding etched a series of six humorous illustrations to ‘The Rival Demons,’ an anonymous poem. Pidding resided at Greenwich, where he died on 13 June 1864, aged 67.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osborne, Dorothy

​OSBORNE, DOROTHY, afterwards Lady Temple (d. 1695). [See under Temple, Sir William.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osborn Wyddel

​OSBORN WYDDEL i.e. the Irishman, (fl. 1280), founder of the houses of Cors y gedol, Wynne of Ynys maengwyn, "Wynne of Maes y neuadd, and other important families in Merionethshire, came over from Ireland and settled in the neighbourhood of Llanaber, Barmouth, in the latter part of the thirteenth century. Tradition, the only authority for his career, asserts that he was a Geraldine, of the Desmond branch of that family. On this assumption Sir William Betham, Ulster king of arms, thought he was in all probability a son of John FitzThomas, the first Geraldine lord of Decies and Desmond (d. 1261). The circumstances of his settlement in Ardudwy (North-west Merionethshire) are unknown, though it may be conjectured that he was driven to seek a home in Wales by the temporary overthrow of the Geraldine influence in Desmond which followed the battle of Callan (1261). A spot called Berllys (or Byrllysg), a little to the north of Cors y gedol, is pointed out as the site of Osborn's first residence. He afterwards married, it is said, the heiress of Cors y gedol, and moved thither. He was assessed in the parish of Llanaber for the fifteenth levied in 1293 or 1294 upon holders of land in Wales.
[Dwnn's Heraldic Visitations of Wales, ii. 71; Archæologia Cambrensis, 3rd ser. iv, 315, ix. 66-9; Kalendars of Grwynedd, note by Mr. W. W. E Wynne, p. 69; Williams's Eminent Welshmen.]
J. E. L.