OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Creasy, Edward Shepherd

​CREASY, Sir EDWARD SHEPHERD (1812–1878), historian, was born in 1812 at Bexley in Kent, where his father was a land agent. In the boy's early youth the father removed to Brighton, where he set up in business as an auctioneer and started the ‘Brighton Gazette,’ chiefly with a view of publishing his own advertisements. Young Creasy having displayed intellectual leanings was placed on the Eton foundation, and obtained the Newcastle scholarship in 1831. He became fellow of King's College, Cambridge, in 1834, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1837. For several years he went on the home circuit, and he was for some time assistant-judge at the Westminster sessions court. In 1840 he was appointed professor of modern and ancient history in London University. In 1860 he was appointed chief justice of Ceylon, and received the honour of knighthood. Ten years afterwards he returned home on account of indisposition, and although able again to resume his duties, his health was permanently broken, and he finally retired in about two years. He died 27 Jan. 1878. The work by which Creasy is best known is his ‘Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,’ 1852, which, in some degree on account of its striking title, immediately became popular, and, while it has secured the favour of the general reader, has met with the approval of those learned in military matters. The ‘Historical and Critical Account of the several Invasions of England,’ published in the same year (1852), though not so well known, possesses similar merit. His ‘Biographies of Eminent Etonians,’ which first appeared in 1850, has passed through several editions, but does not possess much intrinsic value. ‘The History of the Ottoman Turks’ has also obtained a wide circulation, the latest edition being that of 1878. Among his other works are:
* ‘History of England,’ 1869–70, in 2 vols.
* ‘Old Love and the New,’ a novel, 1870.
* ‘Imperial and Colonial Institutions of the British Empire, including Indian Institutions,’ 1872.
Along with Mr. Sheehan and Dr. Gordon Latham he took part in contributing to ‘Bentley's Miscellany’ the political squibs in verse known as the ‘Tipperary Papers.’
[Men of the Time, 9th edit.; Annual Register, cxx. 130; Athenæum for February 1878.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crawshay, William

​CRAWSHAY, WILLIAM (1788–1867), ironmaster, the eldest son of William Crawshay of Stoke Newington, Middlesex, was born in 1788, and on the death of his grandfather, Richard Crawshay, became sole proprietor of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, near Merthyr Tydvil, South Wales. He was of all the Crawshays the finest type of the iron king. His will was law: in his home and business he tolerated no opposition. With his workmen he was strictly just. His quickness of perception and unhesitating readiness of decision and action made his success as an ironmaster when railways were first introduced. States wanted railways; he found the means, repaid himself in shares, and large profits soon fell into his hands. Before 1850 there were six furnaces at Cyfarthfa, giving an average yield per furnace of sixty-five tons; but under his management there were soon eleven furnaces, and the average yield was 120 tons, and the engine power was worked up to a point representing five thousand horse. He had ten mines in active work turning out iron ore, eight to ten shafts and collieries, a domain with a railway six miles in length, and large estates in Berkshire, Gloucestershire, and in other districts. Crawshay was in the habit of stacking bar iron during bad times; at one period during a slackness of trade Crawshay stacked forty thousand tons of puddled bars; prices went up, and in addition to his regular profit he cleared twenty shillings per ton extra upon his stock, realising by his speculative tact 40,000l. in this venture. In 1822 he served as sheriff of Glamorganshire. When Austria and Russia menaced the asylum of the Hungarians in Turkey in 1849, he subscribed 500l. in their behalf. He died at his seat, Caversham Park, Reading, 4 Aug. 1867, aged 79, leaving directions that he was to be buried within four clear days, and in a common earth grave. His personalty was sworn on 7 Sept. under two millions. The whole of his property in Wales was left to his son, Robert Thompson Crawshay [q. v.], his holdings in the Forest of Dean to his son, Henry Crawshay, and his estates at Treforest to Francis Crawshay. He was three times married.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crawfurd, Thomas

​CRAWFURD or CRAWFORD, THOMAS (d. 1662), author of a ‘History of the University of Edinburgh,’ was educated at St. Leonards College in the university of St. Andrews, where he matriculated in 1618 and graduated M.A. in 1621 (St. Andrews University Rolls). He was an unsuccessful candidate for the professorship of philosophy in the university of Edinburgh in 1625, but on 29 March of the following year he was inducted professor of humanity in the same university. On 26 Feb. 1630 he was appointed by the town council of Edinburgh to the rectorship of the high school. On the occasion of the visit of Charles I to Scotland in 1633 Crawfurd was appointed to assist John Adamson [q. v.], principal of the university, and William Drummond [q. v.] of Hawthornden in devising the pageants and composing the speeches and verses. These were published under the title ‘Εἰσόδια Musarum Edinensium in Caroli Regis ingressu in Scotiam,’ 1633. On 31 Dec. 1640 he returned to the university as public professor of mathematics, and on 3 Jan. following he was in addition made one of the regents of philosophy, the total annual salary granted him for discharging the duties of both chairs being six hundred merks (33l. 6s. 8d.) At the M.A. graduation ceremony Crawfurd introduced the custom of publishing ‘Theses Mathematicæ.’ In a document in the university library he is styled ‘a grammarian and philosopher, likewise profoundly skilled in theology, and a man of the greatest piety and integrity.’ He died 30 March 1662. Crawfurd's ‘History of the University of Edinburgh from 1580 to 1646’ was published in 1808, from the transcript in the university library made by Matthew Crawford from the original, which he states to be then in the possession of Professor Laurence Dundas of the university. He was also the author of ‘Locorum Nominum propriorum Gentilitium vocumque difficiliorum, quæ in Latinis Scotorum Historiis occurrunt, explicatio vernacula,’ which, edited with additions and emendations by C. Irvine, was published in 1665; and ‘Notes and Observations on Mr. George Buchanan's History of Scotland, wherein the difficult passages of it are explained, the chronology in many places rectified, and an account is given of the genealogies of the most considerable families of Scotland,’ 1708, printed from a manuscript in the Advocates' Library. All these works are in the library of the British Museum. In the Advocates' Library there are some manuscript notes of Crawfurd's on ‘Virgil.’
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crawshay, Robert Thompson

​CRAWSHAY, ROBERT THOMPSON (1817–1879), ironmaster, youngest son of William Crawshay [q. v.] by his second wife, Elizabeth Thompson, was born at Cyfarthfa Ironworks 8 March 1817. He was educated at Dr. Prichard's school at Llandaff, and from a very early age manifested a great interest in his father's ironworks, and spent much of his time among them. As years increased he determined to learn practically the business of an ironworker, and in turn assisted in the puddling, the battery, and the rolling mills; he carried this so far that he even exchanged his own diet for that of the workmen. On the death of his brother William by drowning at the old passage of the Severn he became acting manager of the ironworks, and at a later period when his brother Henry removed to Newnham he came into the working control of the entire establishment. In 1864 the original lease of Cyfarthfa lapsed, and was renewed at Crawshay's earnest entreaties. On the death of his father, the active head of the business, in 1867 he became the sole manager, and not only considerably improved the works, but opened out the coal mines to a greater and more profitable issue. At this time there were upwards of five thousand men, women, and children employed at Cyfarthfa, all receiving good wages, and well looked after by their master. Crawshay was often spoken of as the ‘iron king of Wales.’ His name came prominently before the public in connection with the great strikes of 1873–5. He was averse to unions among masters or men, but assented, as a necessary sequence of the action of the men, to a combination among the masters. Unionism became active at Cyfarthfa at a time of falling prices; Crawshay called his men together and warned them of the consequences of persisting in their unreasonable demands; but as they would not yield the furnaces were one by one put out. Soon after came the revolution in the iron trade, the discarding of iron for steel through the invention of the Bessemer and Siemens processes, and the thorough extinction of the old-fashioned trade of the Crawshays and the Guests. Crawshay would have reopened his works for the benefit of his people had it not been very apparent that under no circumstances could Cyfarthfa again have become a paying concern. The collieries were, however, still kept active, employing about a thousand men, and several hundreds of the old workmen laboured on the estates. For the last two years of his life he took little interest in business; he had become completely deaf and broken down by other physical infirmities. While on a visit to Cheltenham for the benefit of his health he died rather ​ suddenly at the Queen's Hotel 10 May 1879, and on 21 June following his personalty was sworn under 1,200,000l. His son, William Crawshay, succeeded to the management of the extensive coalfields, and inherited his father's estate at Caversham in Berkshire.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Browne, Alexander

​BROWNE, ALEXANDER (fl. 1660), miniature painter, engraver, and printseller, who lived in the reign of Charles II, painted the portrait of that monarch and that of the Prince of Orange. In 1675 he published 'Ars Pictoria, or an Academy treating of Drawing, Painting, Limning, and Etching,' fol., London. The designs are after foreign artists, and chiefly copied from Bloemart's drawing-book. Mr. J. Chaloner Smith, in his 'Catalogue of British Mezzotint Portraits,' enumerates forty-four plates after A. van Dyck and Sir Peter Lely, which were published by Browne 'at the blew balcony in Little Queen Street,' but do not bear any engraver's name. It has been conjectured, but on insufficient grounds, that these may be the work of Browne himself.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878.]
L. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Browne, David

​BROWNE, DAVID (fl. 1638), a learned Scotchman, is known only by inclinations in his curious books on calligraphy. His first work was ‘The New Invention, intituled Calligraphia or the Art of Fair Writing . . . by His Majesties Scribe, Master David Browne. Sainct Andrewes, 1622,’ 12mo. It gives a copy of King James’s letter granting the author ‘the only licence and priviledge . . . under paine of 1000 pounds monie to be paid by the contraveners.’ It is dedicated to the king, whose ‘scribe’ he calls himself. Its 270 pages comprise arguments and instructions full of heavy learning, wise saws, puerile illustrations, and the most common matters having ​reference to writing. King James, when at Holyrood House, appears to have seen and approved of his wonderful exercises, illustrated by certain 'rare practices of a disciple,' a child only nine years old. His book gives spaces here and there to be filled up by his clerks for the various pupils or purchasers, but existing copies are without these necessary illustrations of the art. His second work, entitled 'The Introduction to the true understanding of the whole arte of expedition in teaching to write . . . Anno Dom. 1638,' 8vo, is more extraordinary than the other, as on the title-page he claims to teach his art in six hours, parades his own excellence beyond all others, and asserts that 'a Scotishman is more ingenious than one of another nation;' yet the book itself has little to do with calligraphy, and teaches nothing. There is one plate at the end of the book, a specimen of 'The new, swift, current, or speedy Italian writting,' very inferior in style and execution to the handiwork of other penmen of the century. At the time this book was published the author taught his art. at 'the Cat and Fiddle in Fleet Street,' where 'Mary Stewart and her daughters also instructed young, noble, and gentlewomen in good manners, languages,' &c., by his direction. He afterwards removed to a country-house at Kemmington (sic), near the Newington Butts. The dates of his birth and death are not known.
[Browne's Works; Massey's Origin of Letters.]
J. W.-G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brown, William (d.1814)

​BROWN, WILLIAM (d. 1814), rear-admiral, of an old Leicestershire family, was made a lieutenant in the navy in 1788, and a commander in 1792, when he came home from the Mediterranean in command of the Zebra sloop. After sixteen months' uneventful service on the home station, in command of the Kingfisher and Fly sloops, he was advanced to post rank on 29 Oct. 1793. In 1794 he commanded the Venus frigate in the Channel fleet under Lord Howe, and in her was present at the action of 1 June, but without any opportunity of distinction. In 1795 he commanded the Alcmène, and, ​ though in feeble health, continued in her on the home station and the coast of Portugal till November 1797, when he was discharged to sick quarters at Lisbon. On his recovery, he was in March 1798 appointed by Lord St. Vincent to the Defence, of 74 guns, and on her being paid off in the following January he commissioned the Santa Dorothea.
In 1805 Brown commanded the Ajax, of 74 guns, and in her was present in the action off Cape Finisterre on 22 July; but by bearing up at the critical moment of the attack, in order to communicate with the admiral, during the prevalence of a fog, he weakened the English van, and must be considered as to.some extent a cause of the unsatisfactory result of the action (James, Naval History, 1860, iii. 361). He afterwards, at the request of Sir Robert Calder, left the Ajax in command of the first lieutenant, and returned to England in order to give evidence at Calder’s court-martial [see Calder, Sir Robert]. He was thus absent from Trafalgar, where the Ajax was commanded by Lieutenant Pilfold. Brown was afterwards for some time commissioner of the dockyards at Malta and at Sheerness. He attained his flag rank in 1812, and in June 1813 was appointed commander-in-chief at Jamaica, where he died, 20 Sept. 1814, after an illness of five days. He married a daughter of Mr. John Travers, a director of the East India Company, by whom he had several children.
[O’Byrne`s Nav. Biog. Dict. under ‘Charles Foreman Brown’ and ‘William Cheselden Browne ;’ Official Correspondence in the Public Record Office.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brown, William Laurence

​BROWN, WILLIAM LAURENCE (1755–1830), theological writer, was born at Utrecht in Ilolland, where his father was minister of the English church, 7 Jan. 1756. His father having been appointed professor of ecclesiastical history at St. Andrews, Scotland, the son studied at the university; but afterwards he proceeded to Utrecht, where, after completing his theological studies, he was in 1778 ordained minister of the English church. He obtained in 1783 the Stolpian prize at Leyden for an essay on the origm of evil, and various prizes from the Teylerian Society at Haarlem, the subject of one being 'On the natural Equality of Man.' In 1784 the university of St. Andrews conferred on him the degree of D.D. In 1788 he was appointed professor of moral philosophy and ecclesiastical history at Utrecht, and two years after he became rector of the university, hereafter there was added to his duties the professorship of the law of nature.
Driven from Holland in 1796 by the French invasion, Brown with his wife and five children crossed the Channel in mid winter in an open boat, and after a stormy passage landed at London. The magistrates ​of Aberdeen appointed him to the chair of divinity in Marischal College on the resignation of Dr. George Campbell, and in 1796 he also succeeded Campbell as principal of the university.
Brown soon became a conspicuous and influential member of the general assembly, sympathising mainly with the reforming party in the church. He made several contributions to literature after his arrival in Scotland, the most important being 'An Essay on the Existence of a Supreme Creator,' written in response to the offer of valuable prizes by the trustees of the late Mr. Burnett of Dens, Aberdeen, 2 vols. 8vo, 1816. Brown's essay obtained the first prize, amounting to 1,250l., the second being awarded to the Rev. John Bird Sumner, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. Another elaborate work was entitled 'A Comparative View of Christianity, and of the ether forms of religion which have existed, and still exist, in the world, particularly with regard to their moral tendency,' 2 vols. 8vo, 1826. He died 11 May 1830.
Brown's works were written from the point of view of the time, and were marked Dy considerable ability; but the standpoint of discussion has altered so completely that now they have little more than an antiquarian interest.
[Catalogue of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh; Hew Scott's Fasti, iii. 475; R. Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen.]
W. G. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Browne, Edward (d.1730)

​BROWNE, EDWARD (d. 1730), an eminent quaker, son of James Browne of Cork, was a native of that city. He was long an inhabitant of Sunderland, where he served his apprenticeship and afterwards rose to considerable opulence. In 1727 he built himself a commodious mansion, with several other dwelling-houses adjoining, intended for the residences of the captains of his ships and other persons in his employment. The mansion-house afterwards became the customhouse for the port of Sunderland. Browne died at Cork 27 Aug. 1730. 'Some Account of Edward Browne of Sunderland, with copies of manuscripts respecting him,' was printed for private circulation at Sunderland, 1821, 12mo, and reprinted for sale London, 1842, 12mo.
[Joseph Smith's Cat. of Friends' Books, i. 329 ; Richardson's Local Historian's Table Book (Hist. Div.), i. 329.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gordon, Charles (d.1681)

​GORDON, CHARLES, first Earl of Aboyne (d. 1681), was fourth son of George, second marquis of Huntly [q. v.] He was little more than a child when his father and eldest brother were carried prisoners to Edinburgh in 1639, and still young when his father was executed ten years afterwards. The eldest son of the family had been killed in 1645 by a random shot when pursuing the defeated covenanters at the battle of Alford. The second son escaped to France, where he died of grief on hearing that Charles I had been executed. Lewis, the third son, called ‘the plague of Moray,’ from the predatory habits of his followers, represented the family, but did not inherit the estates, which were occupied for the parliamentary party by the Earl of Argyll. In 1650 Charles II landed at Spey mouth and passed a night in Gordon Castle, which he found uninhabited. The estates were all in a neglected condition. Charles was crowned at Scone on 1 Jan. 1651, and in a parliament held at Perth on 5 March issued a proclamation restoring Lewis Gordon, third marquis of Huntly, to his honour and estates. The defeat at Worcester made this proclamation unavailing, and the family still continued to be in a distressed condition. Lewis lingered in exile on the continent and died in 1653, after which only a thousand crowns yearly were allowed to his widow for the support of herself and her children. After the Restoration in 1660 George Gordon, son of Lewis, obtained his title and estates as Marquis of Huntly, and on 10 Sept. 1660 his uncle, Lord Charles, received a peerage with the title of Lord Gordon of Strathavon and Glenlivat and Earl of Aboyne, by patent to him and the heirs male of his body. In 1661 he had a charter under the great seal of the whole lands and lordship of Aboyne, Aberdeenshire. As a catholic he was excluded from public life, and his time was occupied in the improvement of his estate, including the erection of Aboyne Castle, which occupied six years in building. He married Elizabeth Lyon, daughter of John, second earl of Kinghorn, and, leaving a family, died in March 1681.
[Douglas's Peerage, pp. 24-5; Gordon's Hist. of the Antient, Noble, and Illustrious Family of Gordon, ii. 257, 277; A Concise Hist. of the Antient and Illustrious House of Gordon, pp. 198, 199, 249, 257, 261, 262, 265; Shaw's Hist. of the Province of Moray, i. 56-9; Collections for a Hist. of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff (Spalding Club), p. 587.]
J. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gordon, Charles (d.1702)

​GORDON, CHARLES, second Earl of Aboyne (d. 1702), succeeded his father, Charles Gordon [q. v.], as second Earl of Aboyne in 1681, but for many years lived in seclusion. On 27 July 1698 he offered to take his place in the Scottish parliament, when an objection was raised that he had been bred and continued to be a professed papist. Aboyne publicly declared in parliament that he had embraced the protestant religion. This statement was corroborated by the president of parliament and by other members. The earl was allowed accordingly to take his seat. He married his cousin, Elizabeth Lyon, second daughter of Patrick, third earl of Strathmore and Kinghorn, and, leaving one son and three daughters, died in April 1702.
[Douglas's Peerage, pp. 24. 25; Hist. of the Family of Gordon; Concise Hist. of the House of Gordon.]
J. T.
Note: the initials J. T. are ambiguous. They refer to one of:
* Author:James Tait (vol. 20-22, 24-25)
* Author:James Taylor (1859-1946) (1912 supp.)
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