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

1904 Errata appended.
​BRADY, Sir MAZIERE (1796–1871), lord chancellor of Ireland, born on 20 July 1796, was a great-grandson of the Rev. Nicholas Brady, D.D. [q. v.], the psalmist, and the second son of Francis Tempest Brady, a gold and silver thread manufacturer in Dublin. In 1812 Brady entered Trinity College, Dublin; in 1814 he obtained a scholarship there, and twice carried off the vice-chancellor's prize for English verse. He proceeded B.A. (1816) and M.A. (1819), and was called to the Irish bar in Trinity term of 1819. In 1833, under the ministry of Earl Grey, he, as an avowed liberal, was appointed one of the commissioners to inquire into the state of the Irish municipal corporations. In 1837 he was made solicitor-general for Ireland, in succession to Nicholas Ball [q. v.], and became attorney-general in 1839. In the year following he was promoted to the bench as chief baron of the Court of Exchequer. He was raised to the bench of the Irish Court of Chancery, somewhat against his inclination, in 1846. He was lord chancellor of Ireland during the Russell administration, 1847-52. He became in 1850 the first vice-chancellor of the Queen's University, of the principles of which foundation Brady was a constant advocate. From 1853 to 1858 Brady was again lord chancellor of Ireland. He resumed the post once more in 1859, and held it through the second administrations of Lord Palmerston and Earl Russell until the overthrow of the latter in 1866. On 28 June of that year he sat for the last time in the Irish Court of Chancery. He retired amidst general regret. He was fond of scientific studies, especially geology. In 1869 he was created a baronet by Mr. Gladstone. He died at his residence in Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin, on Thursday, 13 April 1871. At the time of his death, besides holding the vice-chancellorship of the Queen's University, he was a member of the National Board of Education, and president of the Irish Art Union, and of the Academy of Music.
Brady was twice married: first, in 1823, to Eliza Anne, daughter of Bever Buchanan of Dublin, who died in 1858: and secondly to Mary, second daughter of the Right Hon. John Hatchell, P.C., of Fortfield House, co. Dublin. His first wife left him five children, by the eldest of whom, Francis William Brady, Q.C., he was succeeded in his title and estates.
[Catalogue of Dublin Graduates, 1869; Freeman's Journal, 14 and 18 April 1871; Daily News, 15 April 1871; Irish Times, 18 April 1871; Times, 15 and 13 April 1871; Burke's Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland, 1872; Wills's Irish Nation, its History and its Biography, 1875; Debrett's Baronetage, 1884.]
A. H. G.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.35 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 191 | ii | 18 | Brady, Sir Maziere: for Nicholas Ball read Stephen Woulfe |
| | | 25 | for 1847 read 1846 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brady, Thomas

​BRADY, THOMAS (1752?–1827), general (feldzeugmeister) in the Austrian army, was born at Cavan, Ireland (one account has it Cootehill), some time between October 1752 and May 1753. He entered the Austrian service on 1 Nov. 1769. In the list for that date his name appears as 'Peter,' but in all subsequent rolls he is called 'Thomas.' He served till 4 April 1774 as a cadet in the infantry regiment 'Wied.' On 10 April 1774 he was promoted ensign in the infantry regiment 'Fabri;' he became lieutenant 30 Nov. 1775, first or ober-lieutenant 20 March 1784, and captain in 1788. He distinguished himself as a lieutenant at Habelschwerdt in 1778, and received the Maria Theresa cross for personal bravery at the storming of Novi on 3 Nov. 1788, during the Turkish war. He was appointed major 20 July 1790, served on the staff till 1793, and on 1 April of that year was nominated lieutenant-colonel of the corps of Tyrolese sharpshooters. He was transferred on 21 Dec. to the infantry regiment 'Murray,' of which he became colonel on 6 Feb. 1794, and fought with it at Frankenthal, in General Latour's corps, in 1795, and distinguished himself on 19 June 1796 at Ukerad. He was promoted to major-general 6 Sept. 1796, in which rank he served in Italy and commanded at Cattaro in 1799. He became lieutenant-general 28 Jan. 1801, and in 1803 was given the honorary colonelcy of the 'Imperial' or first regiment of infantry. In 1804 he was appointed governor of Dalmatia. In 1807 he was made a privy councillor in recognition of his services as a general of division in Bohemia. In 1809 be took a leading part in the battle of Aspern, a large portion of the Austrian army being under his conduct. General Brady was ​retired on the pension of a full general on 8 Sept. 1800, and died on 16 Oct. 1827.
[Archives of the Imperial Royal Ministry of War, Vienna; information from local sources.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Braham, Frances

​BRAHAM, FRANCES, afterwards Countess Waldegrave. [See Waldegrave.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bethune, John Elliot Drinkwater

* related portals: John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune.
* sister projects: Wikipedia article, Wikidata item.
​BETHUNE, JOHN ELLIOT DRINKWATER (1801–1851), an eminent Indian legislator and educationist, was the eldest son of Lieutenant-colonel John Drinkwater Bethune, C.B. and F.S.A. [q. v.], author of the 'History of the Siege of Gibraltar.' Having been educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and called to the bar in 1827, Bethune was employed by Lord Grey's government, shortly after its accession to office, on several important commissions, and subsequently as counsel to the Home Office, which appointment he retained for nearly fourteen years. While holding this office he drafted, among many other legislative measures, the Municipal Reform Act, the Tithe Commutation Act, and the County Courts Act. In 1848 Bethune was appointed fourth ordinary, or legislative member of the Supreme Council of India, and after his arrival at Calcutta accepted the additional unpaid office of president of the Council of Education. In India, as in England, his principal official duties engaged him in the consideration of questions of legislative reform. Two of the most important of these were a bill for removing the exemption enjoyed by European British subjects from the jurisdiction of the criminal courts of the East India Company, and a bill for extending to the whole of British India the law passed for Bengal by Lord William Bentinck's government in 1832, relieving native converts to Christianity or to any other religion from forfeiture of rights or property or of rights of inheritance. The first of these measures was postponed until the Indian penal code should have been enacted, and has not yet become law to the extent contemplated by Bethune and his colleagues; the second was passed a few months before his death. An act for establishing small cause courts at the presidency towns, upon the principle of the English county courts, was another of the measures which illustrated his career as a legislator.
As an educationist, Bethune's name is identified with the establishment at Calcutta of a school for educating native girls of the higher classes, which he endowed by his will with lands and other property in that city. This institution, still called the Bethune Girls' School, was for some time after Bethune's death supported by the governor-general. Lord Dalhousie, from his private funds, and was subsequently taken charge of by the state, by which it is still maintained.
Bethune died at Calcutta on 12 Aug. 1851, greatly lamented by all classes, native as well as European.
[Annual Reg. 1851, pp. 319–320; The Unrepealed Acts of the Grovernor-General of India in Council, vol. i., Calcutta, 1875; Report of the Indian Education Commission, p. 525, Calcutta, 1883.]
A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bethune, John (1812-1839)

​BETHUNE, JOHN (1812–1839), poet, a younger brother of Alexander Bethune [q. v.], was born, like him, at Upper Rankeillor, Monimail, Fifeshire, in 1812. In 1813 his ​parents removed to Lochend, near the Loch of Lindores. He never received any school education. He was taught to read by his mother, and writing and arithmetic by his brother Alexander. The two lads, from the thirteenth year of the elder, earned their living by breaking stones on the road between Lindores and Newburgh. John, having been apprenticed to weaving in the village of Collessie, became so expert in the craft that in 1825 he set up looms for himself in a house immediately adjoining his father's, and with Alexander for apprentice. The failure of the trade all over Scotland in this year ruined them all. The two brothers returned to their former occupation of outdoor labourers. Alexander tells how John would eagerly seize any scrap of white paper that offered itself whereon to write out his poems. Before 1831 he had a large collection of manuscripts of the most miscellaneous sort. In October 1829 he was a day-labourer on the estate of Inchtyre. His integrity and capacity in this humble position 80 commended him to the proprietor that, on the death in 1835 of the overseer, he was appointed his successor at a salary of 26l. per annum, with fodder for a cow, and with his brother for assistant. Unfortunately the estate changed hands, and the situation was lost. In 1838, to Alexander's 'Tales and Sketches of the Scottish Peasantry ' he contributed five pieces. In 1889 appeared ' Lectures on Practical Economy ' by both brothers. In the title-page he describes himself as a 'Fifeshire Forester.' Under the same signature of a 'Fifeshire Forester' he contributed many poems to the two Scottish periodicals called the 'Scottish Christian Herald' and the 'Christian Instructor' — the latter under the editorship of Dr. Andrew Thomson. In 1838 his health failed; he therefore gave up manual labour, and endeavoured to gain a livelihood out of literary work. He died of consumption on Sunday, 1 Sept. 1839, in his twenty-seventh year.
[Authorities cited under Bethune, Alexander; local inquiries.]
A. B. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bethell, Christopher

​BETHELL, CHRISTOPHER (1773–1859), bishop of Bangor, was the second son of the Rev. Richard Bethell, of Wadham College, Oxford, B.A. 1755, M.A. 1759, rector of St. Peter's, Wallingford, who died 12 Jan. 1806, having married in 1771 Ann, daughter of James Clitherow, of Boston House, Middlesex. He was born at Isleworth, Surrey, 21 April 1773, and educated at King's College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. 1796, M.A. 1799, and D.D. 1817; obtained a fellowship, and was second member's prizeman 1797. He was rector of Kirby Wiske, Yorkshire, from 1808 to 1830; dean of Chichester from 5 April 1814 until he became a bishop, and prebendary of Exeter 22 June 1830. Lord Liverpool nominated him bishop of Gloucester 11 March 1824. The Duke of Wellington transferred him to the more lucrative see of Exeter 8 April 1830, and again on 28 Oct. in the same year to the still more lucrative see of Bangor, which he held up to the time of his death.
Dr. Bethell was during the whole of his life identified with the high-church party. He was the author of several theological works, the principal of which is ‘A General View of the Doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism,’ 1821, of which a fourth edition was published in 1845. His other works are chiefly charges and sermons. His ignorance of the Welsh language was a very great hindrance to his usefulness in the diocese of Bangor, where 195,000 out of 200,000 people understood little more than their native tongue. He died at the palace, Bangor, 19 April 1859, and was buried in Llandegai churchyard on 27 April. At the time of his death he was the oldest prelate on the episcopal bench.
[Guardian, 27 April 1859, p. 375; Record, 23 April 1859, p. 3.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Betham, William (1749-1839)

​BETHAM, WILLIAM (1749–1839), antiquary, was born at Little Strickland, near Morland, Westmoreland, on 17 May 1749. His family seems to have been settled in the county from the twelfth century, and to have derived its name from the little village of Betham, near Milnthorpe. From the sixteenth century Betham's immediate ancestors resided at Little Strickland. He was educated at the public school of Bampton, was ordained in 1773, apparently without graduating at a university, and became chaplain to the earl of Ancaster. From 1784 to 1833 he was head master of the endowed school at Stonham Aspel, Suffolk; he resigned the post in 1833, on being presented to the rectory of Stoke Lacy, in the diocese of Hereford. He died six years later, aged 90. In 1774 he married Mary, daughter of William Damont, of Eye, Suffolk, and by her he had fifteen children. His eldest surviving son was Sir William Betham, Ulster king of arms [q. v.], and Matilda Betham, the authoress [q. v.], was his daughter. Betham was the author of two important antiquarian works. In 1795 he published by subscription, in London, ‘Genealogical Tables of the Sovereigns of the World, from the earliest to the present period,’ a folio ​volume giving pedigrees of royal families, beginning with the ‘Antediluvian Patriarchs,’ and concluding with the ‘House of Cromwell.’ It was dedicated to George III. At the period of this publication Betham announced a work on the baronetage of England. The first volume, however, did not appear till 1801, when it was published at Ipswich with the following title: ‘The Baronetage of England, or the History of the English Baronets, and such Baronets of Scotland as are of English Families, with Genealogical Tables and Engravings of their Armorial Bearings.’ The first volume was dedicated to James Cecil, marquis of Salisbury. The second volume, dedicated to Charles, marquis and earl Cornwallis, was published at London in 1802. The third, fourth, and fifth volumes appeared in 1803, 1804, and 1805. An unprinted collection of letters, addressed to the author by the subscribers and others interested in the work during its progress, is in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 21033). A portrait of Betham, engraved from a drawing by his daughter Matilda, is prefixed to this volume. Betham also made collections with a view to a ‘History of Suffolk,’ but his advanced age compelled him to relinquish the undertaking; his papers were advertised for sale in the ‘Suffolk Chronicle,’ 3 Feb. 1833, but nothing is known of their subsequent history.
[Gent. Mag. (new ser.), xii. 655–6; Davy's MS. Suffolk Collections in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 19118, pp. 189 et seq.; Nicholson and Burn's Hist. of Westmoreland, i. 223.]
J. T. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bermingham, Michel

​BERMINGHAM, MICHEL (1685–fl. 1750) medical writer, was born in London in 1685 and became a member of the Academy of Surgery at Paris. He published: 1. Some documents in French and English belonging to the Hospital of Incurables in Paris, London 1720, 4to. 2. 'Manière de bien nourrir et soigner les enfants nouveau-nés,' 1750. 4to 3. A translation of the statutes of the doctors regent of the Faculty of Paris. An account by him of an excision of the parotid glands (1736) is preserved among the Birch MSS. (No. 4433, art. 155). There is an engraved portrait of him.
[Bromley's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, 232; Musgrave's Adversaria; Ayscough's Cat. of the Sloane and Birch MSS. 440, 521.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bermingham, William

1904 Errata appended.
​BERMINGHAM, WILLIAM (d. 1311), archbishop of Tuam, son of Meiler Bermingham, second lord of Athenry, and uncle of Sir John Bermingham, earl of Louth [q.v.]. was consecrated in 1289. In 1297 began the celebrated quarrel between him and the Dominican friars of Athenry. The archbishop, by his archdeacon Philip le Brand, held a visitation at Athenry, at which the friars were, in the usual course, summoned to appear. The friars, it seems, claimed exemption from the visitatorial powers of the archbishop; only three of them attended the the chapter, and thy delivered a protest so loudly and violently, and abused the archdeacon so grossly, that he excommunicated them. Immediately after the archbishop issued a proclamation forbidding the people to give them food of alms, or sell them anything, or enter the church. In this strait the friars applied to the lord chancellor, who issued a mandamus directing the archbishop to withdraw his proclamation forthwith . The archbishop's reply not being satisfactory, they proceeded against him through the attorney-general for his proclamation, and compelled him to give heavy security that he would cause the archdeacon to revoke all he had unduly done. They next took legal proceedings against the archdeacon, laying damages at 1 ,000l.; but the defendant, though pleading justification, did not appear on the day of trial, on which the sheriff issued a distraint against him. Here we lose sight of ​the case, and how it ended we cannot tell; at any rate it is clear that the friars had the best of the whole quarrel.
About this time the see of Annadown, not far from Tuam, happened to become vacant, and Archbishop Bermingham attempted to unite it with the see of Tuam. But the dean and chapter of Annadown resisted the attempt, and in 1306 elected a Franciscan friar named Gilbert to the vacant bishopric. The archbishop used every effort to carry his point. and even went to Avignon to lay his complaint before the pope. But here also he was defeated, for on his return he found that Gilbert had been confirmed in his bishopric by a decree from the primatial court of Armagh. The archbishop died in 1311, and was buried in the abbey of Athenry, near his father Meiler.
In the 'Annals of Lough Key' this prelate is called William MacFeorais; for which change of name see Bermingham, John, earl of Louth.
[Harris's Ware, Bishops, 608; Burke's Catholic Archbishops of Tuam, 30; Annals of Lough Key, A.D. 1288, 1290, 1307, 1312 ]
P. W. J.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.24 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 372 | ii | 27 | Bermingham, William: for 1311 read 1312 |
| 373 | i | 17 | for 1311 read 1311-2 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bermingham, John

​BERMINGHAM, Sir JOHN, Earl of Louth (d. 1328), was the second son of Piers or Peter, third lord of Athenry. In 1312 he was knighted by Mortimer, the viceroy, for assisting to expel the De Lacys from Meath. In 1318 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the English forces in Ireland, and marched north with about 1,600 men against Edward Bruce, whose career in Ireland had been up to this a continued success, and who had been acknowledged king by the Irish a little time before. Bruce was encamped near Faughard, two miles from Bundalk, and Bermingham encamped within half a mile of him. There is a tradition that on the day before the battle Bermingham entered Bruce's camp disguised as a friar, and solicited and got alms from Bruce himself. Against the earnest advice of his generals Bruce engaged, and the battle was fought on Sunday, 14 Oct. 1318. Bruce*s army was utterly routed ; Bruce himself was killed by John de Maupas, one of Bermingham's knights, and Bermingham slew in single combat Lord Alan Steward, Bruce's general of the field. For this service King Edward ​ created Bermingham earl of Louth, and granted him the manor of Ardee in the same county. In 1321 he was appointed lord justice of Ireland, and next year he met King Edward at Carlisle to aid him against the Scots. In 1325 he founded the monastery of Tethmoy, since called from him Monasteroris (see helow), near Edenderry in King's County, the ruins of which are still to be seen. He was killed at Braganstown near Ardee in 1328, in a fierce quarrel that took place between some of the Anglo-Irish families of Oriel; and many eminent persons, both native Irish and Anglo-Irish, were killed with him. The 'Four Masters' record the event in these words: 'Sir John MacFeorais, earl of Louth, the most vigorous, puissant, and hospitable of the English in Ireland, was treacherously slain by his own people, namely by the English of Oriel. With him also were slain many others of the English and Irish amongst whom was blind O'Carroll, chief minstrel of Ireland and Scotland in his time.'
The Berminghams are called in Gaelic MacFeorais (pron. MacOris), i.e. the son of Feoras or Pierce Bermingham, one of the chief heads of the family settled in Ireland.
[Lodge's Peerage, by Archdall, iii. 33; Four Masters, A.D. 1318, 1328; Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland, pp. 144-6; Joyce's Irish Names of Places, vol. ii. c. viii.]
P. W. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bernal, Ralph

1904 Errata appended.
​BERNAL, RALPH (d. 1864), politician and art collector, was sprung from a race of Jewish descent and Spanish origin. He was entered at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he took his degrees of B.A. and M.A. in 1806 and 1809 respectively. In 1810 he was called to the bar as a member of Lincoln's Inn, but he inherited a large property in the West Indies, and preferred a parliamentary to a legal life. For thirty-four years (1818-62) he had a seat in the House of Commons, and during that period spent 66,000l. in election contests. He represented the city of Lincoln from 1818 to 1820, and Rochester from 1820 to 1841. In the latter year he contested the constituency of Weymouth, and was seated on petition. After representing that borough from 1841 to 1847 he returned to Rochester, and continued to sit for it until he retired from political life in 1862. Throughout his parliamentary career he was prominent in the ranks of the whigs, and from about 1830 to 1860 he acted as chairman of committees. His speech in the house (19 May 1826) on the slave-trade, on appeal for delay on behalf of the West Indian interest, was printed as a pamphlet. Several of his contributions appeared in the Annuals and Keepsakes of the day, and his inaugural address, as president of the British Archæological Society in 1863, on some antiquities in Rochester and on the Medway, is in the ninth volume of its 'Journal,' pp. 201-1 4. But it was as an art collector in glass, plate, china, and miniatures, that he was best known. On his death an attempt was made to secure his collections for the nation, but it failed, and they were sold in 1866. Two catalogues of his works of art, with a few introductory lines by J. R. Planché, in eulogy of Bernal's taste and knowledge, were issued. There were in all 4,294 lots, and the sale realised nearly 71,000l. Bernal died at Eaton Square on 26 Aug. 1864. He was twice married and had issue by each wife. His first wife, Anne Elizabeth, only daughter of Richard Samuel White, of New Ormond Street, London, whom he married on 10 April 1806, died at Bryanston Square, London, on 10 July 1823, from her clothes catching fire when she was weak through a confinement. His second wife was a daughter of Dr. Henry White, R.N., the surgeon of Chatham dockyard.
[Bagenal's Life of R. Bernal Osborne; Gent. Mag. 1823, pt. ii. 92. 1854. pt. ii. 628; Return of Members of Parliament; Picciotto's Anglo-Jewish History, 157-8; Sir Henry Cole's Biography, 1885, i. 289-90.]
W. P. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.24 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Line | |
| 37 | Bernal, Ralph: after a seat insert as a liberal |
| 15 f.e. | for retired from political life read was rejected |
| 12 f.e. | for about 1830 to 1850 read 1833 to 1841 and from 1847 to 1852 |