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

1904 Errata appended.
​THICKNESSE, GEORGE (1714–1790), schoolmaster, third son of John Thicknesse, rector of Farthinghoe in Northamptonshire, was born in 1714. His mother, Joyce Blencowe, was niece of Sir John Blencowe [q. v.] Philip Thicknesse [q. v.], lieutenant-governor of Landguard Fort, was a younger brother. George Thicknesse entered Winchester College in 1726. In 1737 he was appointed chaplain (third master) of St. Paul's school, in 1745 surmaster, and in 1748 high master. The school, which had been declining in his predecessor's time, flourished under his rule. Philip Francis, the reputed author of ‘Junius,’ was one of his scholars. In 1759 he suffered for a time from mental derangement (Gent. Mag. 1814, ii. 629), but did not retire from his office till 1769, when the governors of St. Paul's awarded him a pension of 100l. a year, and requested him to name his successor.
Thicknesse, on his retirement, resided with an old schoolfellow, William Holbech, at Arlescote, near Warmington, Northamptonshire, till the death of the latter in 1771. He himself died, unmarried, ​on 18 Dec. 1790, and was buried on the north side of Warmington churchyard, in accordance with somewhat singular directions which he had given (ib. p. 412). A marble bust of him by John Hickey, with an inscription, the joint work of Sir Philip Francis and Edmund Burke, was placed in St. Paul's school by his pupils in 1792. The inscription is no longer extant (Notes and Queries, 8th ser. ix. 148).
J. H. L.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.263 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thierry, Charles Philip Hippolytus

​THIERRY, CHARLES PHILIP HIPPOLYTUS, Baron de (1793–1864), colonist, eldest son of Charles, baron de Thierry, a French refugee, was born in 1793, apparently at Bathampton in Somerset. After some military and diplomatic service he matriculated from Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 26 May 1819, aged 25, and migrated to Queens' College, Cambridge, on 8 June 1820, but did not graduate. At Cambridge he met in 1820 two Maori chiefs with one Kendall, and then conceived the idea of founding an empire in New Zealand. In 1822 Kendall returned to New Zealand and bought two hundred acres near Hokianga for Thierry, who based on this purchase a claim to all the land from Auckland to the north cape of the north island. He applied to Earl Bathurst, then secretary of state, for confirmation of this grant, but was met with the plea that New Zealand was not a British possession. He then tried the French government without success.
Proceeding to form a private company to carry out his plans, Thierry returned from France in 1826 and set up an office in London, where he slowly acquired some little support. About 1833 he went to the United States to enlarge his sphere of action, and thence by the West Indian islands and Panama he found his way to Tahiti, arriving there in 1835. Here he issued a proclamation asserting his claims and intentions. But the British consul actively opposed his design. In 1837 he had got as far as New South Wales. Here he collected sixty persons of rough character to form the nucleus of a colony, and sailed in the Nimrod to the Bay of Islands. Having summoned a meeting of chiefs at Mangunga, he explained his schemes and his title to the land he claimed; the chiefs refused to recognise his title, and showed alarm at his statement that he expected his brother to follow him with five hundred persons. He also made a formal address to the white residents of New Zealand, in the course of which he announced that he came to govern within the bounds of his own territories, that he came neither as invader nor despot, and proceeded to expound a scheme of settlement and administration which indicated leanings at once communistic and paternal. He stated that he had brought with him a surgeon to attend the poor, and a tutor and governess to educate the settlers' children with his own. But, despite this solemn bravado, Thierry and his party were destitute of supplies beyond the needs of two or three weeks. Ultimately, through the intervention of a missionary, one of the chiefs agreed to sell Thierry some land near Hokianga for 200l. to be paid in kind, blankets, tobacco, fowling-pieces, &c. The rest of his party were drafted into the service of other settlers, and thus his grand scheme ended in his settling down as a humble colonist. New Zealand was proclaimed a British colony in 1840. Later Thierry found his way back to New South Wales, and tried to renew his projects for a larger colonisation scheme; but he had no success, and died on 8 July 1864 at Auckland, a poor man, but much respected as an old colonist. He was married and had a family.
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thirning, William

​THIRNING, WILLIAM (d. 1413), chief justice of the common pleas, probably came from Thirning in Huntingdonshire; his name occurs in connection with the manor of Hemingford Grey in that county (Cal. Inq. post mortem, iii. 218). Thirning first appears as an advocate in the year-books in 1370. In 1377 he was on the commission of peace for the county of Northampton, and on 20 Dec. of that year was engaged on a commission of oyer and terminer in the county of Bedford (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Richard II, i. 48, 95). In June 1380 he was a justice of assize for the counties of York, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland (ib. i. 516). Thirning was appointed a justice of the common pleas on 11 April 1388, and became chief justice of that court on 15 Jan. 1396. In the parliament of January 1398 the judges were asked for their opinions on the answers for which their predecessors had been condemned in 1388. Thirning replied that ‘the declaration of treason not yet declared belonged to the parliament, but that had he been a lord of parliament, if he had ​been asked, he should have replied in the same manner’ (Rolls of Parliament, iii. 358). On the strength of this opinion the proceedings of 1388 were reversed. Thirning's attitude on this occasion did not prevent him from taking the chief part in the quasi-judicial proceedings of the opposition of Richard II. He was one of the persons appointed to obtain Richard's renunciation of the throne on 29 Sept., and was one of the commissioners who on the following day pronounced the sentence of deposition in parliament. It is said to have been by Thirning's advice that Henry of Lancaster abandoned his idea of claiming the throne by right of conquest, the chief justice arguing that such a claim would have made all tenure of property insecure (Annales Henrici Quarti, p. 282). Thirning was the chief of the proctors sent to announce the deposition to Richard. After the reading of the formal commission, Richard refused to renounce the spiritual honour of king. Thirning then reminded him of the terms in which on 29 Sept. he had confessed he was deposed on account of his demerits. Richard demurred, saying, ‘Not so, but because my governance pleased them not.’ Thirning, however, insisted, and Richard yielded with a jest (ib. pp. 286–7; Rot. Parl. iii. 424). On 3 Nov. Thirning pronounced the decision of the king and peers against the accusers of Thomas of Gloucester (Annales Henrici Quarti, p. 315). This was his final interference in politics, but he continued to be chief justice throughout the reign of Henry IV, and on the accession of Henry V received a new patent on 2 May 1413. Thirning must have died very soon after, for his successor, Richard Norton (d. 1420) [q. v.], was appointed on 26 June of the same year, and in Trinity term of that year his widow Joan brought an action of debt.
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Robertson, Thomas (d.1799)

1904 Errata appended.
​ROBERTSON, THOMAS (d. 1799), divine and author, was licensed probationer of the church of Scotland by the presbytery of Lauder on 3 Jan. 1775. In the same year he was presented to the parish of Dalmeny by the Earl of Rosebery, and ordained on 26 Oct. In 1784 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, almost immediately after its foundation; and in 1792 received the honorary degree of D.D. from the university of Edinburgh. In the following year he was appointed one of his majesty's chaplains in ordinary. He died in Edinburgh on 15 Nov. 1799. By Jane Jackson, whom he married in 1775, he had, besides a daughter Janet, three sons: John; William Findlay, lieutenant in the East India Company's service; and Charles Hope, a writer in Edinburgh.
Robertson was author of ‘An Enquiry into the Fine Arts’ (Edinburgh, 1784, 4to), of which only the first volume was published. It contains an elaborate treatment of the history and theory of ancient and modern music. He also published a ‘History of Mary Queen of Scots’ (Edinburgh, 1793), in which he endeavoured to distinguish Mary's authentic writings from the forgeries assigned to her, and published facsimiles of both classes of documents in an appendix. An essay by him on the character of Hamlet appears in the ‘Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’ (ii. 251).
E. I. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.234 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Robertson, Thomas (fl.1520-1561)

​ROBERTSON or ROBINSON, THOMAS (fl. 1520–1561), schoolmaster and dean of Durham, was born at or near Wakefield ​in Yorkshire early in the sixteenth century. He entered at Queen's College, Oxford, but migrated to Magdalen, where at some uncertain date he was elected demy. He graduated B.A. on 18 March 1520–1, and M.A. on 5 July 1525. He was by this time, according to Wood, ‘a great vilifier of the Questionists in the university,’ that is to say, he opposed the scholastic teachers of theology. In 1526 he became master of Magdalen College school, succeeding not John Stanbridge [q. v.], as Mr. Sommer says, but the less celebrated Thomas Byshoppe. About this time also he was elected fellow of Magdalen. He continued at the school till 1534, and established his reputation as a teacher; Henry Knowles and Bishop Parkhurst bore testimony to his merits (Parkhurst, Epigrammata Juvenilia, 1573, p. 28). John Longland [q. v.], bishop of Lincoln, spoke in his favour to Cromwell in 1537, saying he had long been his chaplain. He was one of the divines who signed the preface to the ‘Institution of a Christian Man’ in 1537, and on 3 July 1539 he became B.D. He was then said by Wood to be ‘Flos et decus Oxoniæ.’ On 30 Oct. 1540 he was collated treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral; he held this office till May 1548. He took part in the discussions as to Anne of Cleves' divorce. On 19 Feb. 1540–1 he was collated archdeacon of Leicester, then in the diocese of Lincoln; he continued archdeacon till his resignation in December 1560. He became vicar of Wakefield in 1546. At one time and another he held various prebends in Lincoln Cathedral, and he took part in many ecclesiastical commissions during the reign of Edward VI (Dixon, Church Hist. vol. ii. passim). Robertson took part in the drawing up of the prayer-book of 1548, but was dissatisfied with the result. Accordingly he welcomed the advent of Queen Mary, and was on 23 July 1557 made dean of Durham. After Elizabeth's accession he refused the oath of supremacy and resigned his deanery. In 1561 he was described as ‘one thought to do much harm in Yorkshire.’
Robertson took part in the composition of Lily's ‘Latin Grammar.’ He also published ‘Annotationes in librum Gulielmi Lilii de Latinorum nominum generibus,’ &c., Basle, 1532, 4to, a collection of four grammatical tracts. Printed among Burnet's ‘Records,’ at the end of his ‘History of the Reformation,’ are ‘Resolutions of some Questions relating to Bishops and Priests,’ &c., and ‘Resolutions of some Questions concerning the Sacraments,’ both by Robertson.
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Robertson, William Bruce

​ROBERTSON, WILLIAM BRUCE (1820–1886), divine, third surviving son of John Robertson, factor on the estate of Plean and Auchenbowie, Stirlingshire, by Margaret Bruce, born Kirkwood, was born at Greenhill in St. Ninian's parish, Stirlingshire, on 24 May 1820. He was educated at the village school of Greenhill and at home, under the tutorship of his elder brother, James, who became minister of the united presbyterian church at Newington, Edinburgh. Robertson matriculated at Glasgow University in 1832, and distinguished himself specially in the Greek class under Sir Daniel Keyte Sandford [q. v.]; but, owing to his youth, he studied moral philosophy and natural philosophy at the Andersonian University, Glasgow, instead of completing at once his arts course. In 1836 he became tutor in the family of Captain Aytoun of Glendevon, taking the winter sessions at Glasgow University. From 1837 to 1841 he was a student at the Secession Theological Hall at Edinburgh. While there he became acquainted with De Quincey, by whose advice he went to Germany, entering in 1841 Halle University, where Tholuck was his chief professor. In the following year he travelled through Switzerland and Italy. Returning to Scotland, he was licensed as a preacher in the spring of 1843 by the presbytery of Stirling and Falkirk, and shortly afterwards was called to the secession church in Irvine, Ayrshire. He was ordained in this charge on 26 Dec. 1843, and it was his first and last pastorate. In 1854 he published a collection of hymns for use in his Sunday school, including among others his well-known translation of ‘Dies Iræ.’ Meanwhile, the secession and relief churches were joined in 1847 to form the united presbyterian denomination, and Robertson continued his connection with it. A new church was built for him at Irvine in 1861 and called Trinity church. His health broke down in 1871, and under medical advice he spent a year at Florence and on the Riviera. He returned to Irvine in 1873. But he was compelled to accept the assistance of a colleague in February 1876. After a two years' visit to Florence he resigned his charge. He took up his residence at Bridge of Allan, making tours on the continent in the winter. When the Luther celebrations took place, in November 1883, he again visited Germany. He died at Westfield, Bridge of Allan, on 27 June 1886.
Robertson was more famous as a pulpit ​orator than as a writer. Several of his sermons have been preserved from shorthand reports, and are published in Guthrie's biography of him; but they give little idea of the magnetic influence he exercised in the pulpit. Three of his lectures—‘Martin Luther,’ ‘German Student Life,’ and ‘Poetry’—were published in one volume in 1892. Numerous poems, hymns, and letters are included in Dr. Brown's ‘Life of Robertson.’
A. H. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Robertson, William (d.1686?)

​ROBERTSON, WILLIAM (d. 1686?), lexicographer, was a graduate of Edinburgh, and is probably the William Robertson who was laureated by Duncan Forester in April 1645 (Edin. Graduates, Bann. Club, p. 62). From 1653 to 1680 he lived in the city of London and taught Hebrew. In 1680 he was appointed university teacher of Hebrew at Cambridge at a salary of 20l. a year.
His principal works are: 1. ‘A Gate or Door to the Holy Tongue opened in English,’ London, 1653, 8vo; this reappeared with a few changes in 1654, as ‘The First Gate or Outward Door to the Holy Tongue,’ and was followed in 1655 by ‘The Second Gate or the Inner Door.’ 2. ‘Compendious Hebrew Lexicon,’ London, 1654; this was very favourably received, and was edited by Nahum Joseph in 1814. 3. ‘An Admonitory Epistle unto Mr. Richard Baxter [q. v.] and Mr. Thomas Hotchkiss, about their applications, or misapplications, rather, of several texts of Scripture, tending chiefly to prove that the afflictions of the godly are proper punishments;’ in the second of two appended dissertations he defends ‘great Dr. Twisse's definition of Pardon,’ London, 1655. 4. ‘The Hebrew Text of the Psalms and Lamentations, with text in Roman letters parallel,’ London, 1656; dedicated to the Hon. John Sadler, his ‘worthy Mæcenas and patron.’ 5. ‘Novum Testamentum lingua Hebræa,’ London, 1661. 6. ‘The Hebrew portion of Gouldman's Copious Dictionary,’ Cambridge, 1674. 7. ‘Schrevelii Lexicon Manuale Græco-Latinum, with many additions,’ Cambridge, 1676. 8. ‘Thesaurus linguæ sanctæ,’ London, 1680; this was used largely by Chr. Stock and J. Fischer in their ‘Clavis linguæ sanctæ,’ Leipzig, 1753. 9. ‘A Dictionary of Latin Phrases,’ Cambridge, 1681; re-edited in 1824. 10. ‘Index alphabeticus hebræo-biblicus,’ Cambridge, 1683; Leusden translated it into Latin and published it at Utrecht in 1687 as ‘Lexicon novum hebræo-latinum.’ 11. ‘Manipulus linguæ sanctæ,’ Cambridge, 1683. 12. ‘Liber Psalmorum et Threni Jeremiæ,’ in Hebrew, Cambridge, 1685.
E. C. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Robertson, Robert

​ROBERTSON, ROBERT, M.D. (1742–1829), physician, was born in Scotland in 1742. On completing his medical apprenticeship he obtained employment as a surgeon on a whaling ship, sailed from Dundee, and spent four months on the coast of Greenland. In September 1760 he entered the royal navy as a surgeon's mate, and served in January 1761 on board the Prince of Orange at the reduction of Belleisle. In 1763 he served in the Terpsichore off the coasts of Portugal, Newfoundland, and Ireland; and from July 1764 spent two years on the Cornwall guardship at Plymouth, proceeding in 1766 to the West Indies. There in 1768 he was appointed surgeon to the Diligence sloop, which returned to England in April 1769, and was paid off. He next served in the Weasel on the west coast of Africa, and till 1775 remained there or in the West Indies. He was afterwards on the North American station till 1791, and during the whole thirty years kept records of cases of interest, including many varieties of fever, of dysentery, and of scurvy. He warmly supported the views on scurvy of James Lind (1716–1794) [q. v.], whom he knew. On 12 Feb. 1779 he was created M.D. in the university of Aberdeen. In 1793 he became physician to Greenwich Hospital, and on 25 June 1793 was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London. He published in 1779 ‘A Physical Journal kept on Board H. M. Ship Rainbow,’ in 1789 ‘Observations on Jail, Hospital, or Ship Fever,’ and in 1790 ‘An Essay on Fevers.’ The chief results obtained in these works were re-embodied in four volumes published by him in 1807 under the title ‘Observations on the Diseases incident to Seamen,’ and in two others entitled ‘Synopsis Morborum’ in 1810. His works contain some interesting cases, but in the effort to generalise he often becomes obscure, and his chief merit lies in his industry in collecting notes. He was elected F.R.S. on 31 May 1804. He died at Greenwich in the autumn of 1829.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 426; Works, Gent. Mag. 1829, ii. 561; Thomson's Hist. of Royal Society, 1812.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Robertson, Thomas Campbell

​ROBERTSON, THOMAS CAMPBELL (1789–1863), Indian civil servant, born at Kenilworth on 9 Nov. 1789, was youngest son of Captain George Robertson, R.N., who was offered the honour of knighthood by George III for his intrepid conduct at the battle of the Dogger Bank in 1781, and of Anne, daughter of Francis Lewis of New York, formerly of Llandaff, North Wales. On the death of his father in 1791, the family removed to Edinburgh, where Thomas was educated at the high school. In 1805 he obtained a writership in the Bengal civil service, and, although he had no influence, his promotion was fairly rapid. In 1810 he ​became registrar of the zillah of Bakarganj, in 1814 he officiated as judge and magistrate of Shahabad, and in 1820 he was appointed judge and magistrate of Cawnpore. In 1823 he was sent to Chittagong, and there he became involved in the opening hostilities of the first Burmese war. In 1825 he accompanied Sir Archibald Campbell's force to Ava as civil commissioner, and had a principal share in framing the treaty which terminated the war. In 1827 he sailed to England, on a furlough. Returning to India in 1830, he was appointed a commissioner of the revenue. In 1835 he became a judge of the Sadr Diwáni, and in 1838 was constituted a member of the supreme council. He obtained the post of lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces in 1840, and at the same time was nominated to fill provisionally the post of governor-general in case of any sudden vacancy. As lieutenant-governor he distinguished himself by his efforts to conciliate native sentiment in opposition to the policy of the younger school of Indian civilians. He especially sought to prevent the wholesale dispossession of the talukdars, who had risen in many cases from the position of hereditary revenue contractors to that of proprietors of the soil. The severe treatment of this class has since been regarded as one of the causes that brought about the acute discontent which culminated in the mutiny, and it is universally admitted that a more conciliatory policy would have been wiser. The state of Robertson's health obliged him to retire from the service in 1843. On his return to England he devoted himself chiefly to literary pursuits. He died in Eaton Square, London, on 6 July 1863. While at home, in 1830, he married Amelia Jane, daughter of the Hon. John Elliot; she died in 1837, leaving three children. In 1852 he married Emma Jane, daughter of J. Anderson, esq., who survived him.
He was author of:
* ‘Remarks on several Recent Publications Concerning the Civil Government and Foreign Policy of British India,’ London, 1829, 8vo.
* ‘Political Incidents of the First Burmese War,’ London, 1853, 12mo.
* ‘Political Prospects of British India,’ London, 1858, 8vo.
[Private information; Kaye and Malleson's History of the Indian Mutiny, i. 118; Kaye's Lives of Indian Officers, 3rd edit. ii. 130; Dodwell and Miles's Bengal Civil Servants, p. 428.]
E. I. C.