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

​LANGWITH, BENJAMIN (1684?–1743), antiquary and natural philosopher, a Yorkshireman, was born about 1684. He was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, and elected fellow and tutor (Cooper, Memorials of Cambridge, i. 314). He graduated B.A. in 1704, M.A. in 1708, B.D. in 1716, and D.D. in 1717 (Cantabr. Graduati, 1787, p. 233). Thoresby placed his son under his care, but was obliged to remove him, owing to Langwith's negligence (Letters addressed to R. Thoresby, ii. 322–3, 881–2). He was instituted to the rectory of Petworth, Sussex, in 1718 (Dallaway, Rape of Arundel, ed. Cartwright, p. 335), and was made prebendary of Chichester on 15 June 1725 (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, i. 273). He was buried at Petworth on 2 Oct. 1743, aged 59. His widow, Sarah, died on 8 Feb. 1784, aged 91, and was buried in Westminster Abbey (Registers, ed. Chester, p. 437).
Langwith gave Francis Drake some assistance in the preparation of his 'Eboracum.' His scientific attainments were considerable. Four of his dissertations were inserted in the 'Philosophical Transactions.' He wrote also 'Observations on Dr. Arbuthnot's Dissertations on Coins, Weights, and Measures,' 4to, ​London, 1747, edited by his widow. It was reissued in the second edition of Arbuthnot's ‘Tables of Ancient Coins,’ &c., 4to, 1754.
[Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. i. 298; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lankrink, Prosper Henricus

​LANKRINK, PROSPER HENRICUS (1628–1692), painter, born in Germany in 1628, was son of a German soldier, who came with his wife and child to Antwerp, where he procured a command in the service of the Netherlandish army. After his father's death Lankrink was well educated by his mother, who destined him for the clerical profession; but as he showed a great talent for painting, she reluctantly allowed him to be apprenticed to a painter, and to study in the academy of drawing at Antwerp. Here Lankrink made rapid strides, and soon showed a decided skill in painting landscape. This he increased by facilities offered him for studying good works by Titian, Salvator Rosa, and others in the collection of an amateur. After his mother's death Lankrink visited Italy, and then came to England, where he soon attracted attention. He was patronised, among others, by Sir Edward Spragge [q. v.] and by Sir William Williams. The latter bought most of Lankrink's paintings, which were, however, all destroyed by fire. Lely employed Lankrink to paint the landscapes, flowers, and similar accessories in his portraits. His landscape paintings were much admired at the time: one, with a 'Nymph Bathing her Feet,' was engraved in mezzotint by John Smith. He painted a ceiling for Mr. Richard Kent at Corsham, Wiltshire. Lankrink was fond of good living, and popular at court and in society, especially with ladies, but in middle life he fell into idle and dissipated habits. He formed a very good collection of pictures, prints, and drawings by the old masters, and by means of a loan from a friend, which he never repaid, added to it greatly at the sale of Sir Peter Lely's collection (cf. North, Lives, iii. 193). He lived for many years in Piccadilly, but subsequently removed to Covent Garden, where he lived in the house which afterwards became Richardson's Hotel. He died there in 1692, and was buried at his request under the porch of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. His collections were sold afterwards to defray his debts.
[Walpole's Anecd. of Painting, ed. Wornum; Vertue's MSS. (Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 23068–23075); Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Pilkington's Dict. of Painters.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lansdowne, Lord

​LANSDOWNE, Lord. [See Granville or Grenville, George, 1667–1735, verse-writer.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chamier, Frederick

​CHAMIER, FREDERICK (1796–1870), captain in the navy, son of John Chamier, member of council for the Madras presidency, by Georgiana Grace, eldest daughter of Admiral Sir William Burnaby, bart., entered the navy in June 1809, on board the Salsette, in which he served on the Walcheren expedition. He was afterwards midshipman of the Fame and of the Arethusa in the Mediterranean, and from 1811 to 1814 was in the Menelaus with Sir Peter Parker, and was on shore with him when Sir Peter was killed at Bellair on 30 Aug. 1814. On 6 July 1815 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and continued serving in the Mediterranean, on the home station, and in the West Indies till 9 Aug. 1826, when he was promoted to the command of the ​Britomart sloop, which he brought home and paid off in 1827. He had no further employment, and in 1833 was placed on the retired list of the navy, on which he was promoted to be captain on 1 April 1856.
On his retirement Chamier settled in the neighbourhood of Waltham Abbey and devoted himself to literary pursuits. He was the author of several novels, which, humble imitations of Marryat's, had at one time a considerable popularity, though now almost forgotten. Amongst these may be named 'Life of a Sailor' (1832); 'Ben Brace' (1836), 'The Arethusa' (1837), 'Jack Adams' (1838), 'Tom Bowline' (1841). Of greater real value was his work of editing and continuing down to 1827 James's 'Naval History' (1837), in the introduction to which he cleverly and good-humouredly disposed of some disparaging criticisms on the original work which had been made by Captain E. P. Brenton [q. v.] In 1848 Chamier was in Paris, and in the following year published an account of what then took place under the title 'A Review of the French Revolution of 1848.' A few years later he published 'My Travels; an Unsentimental Journey through France, Switzerland, and Italy' (3 vols. post 8vo, 1855). The narrative of this journey, taken in the company of his wife and daughter, is apparently meant to be autobiographical; but it is written throughout in such a detestably would-be facetious style that it is difficult to say what part of it is true and what is only meant to be funny. He died in October 1870. He married in 1832 Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. John Soane of Chelsea, and grand-daughter of Sir John Soane.
[O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict.; Times, 2 Nov. 1870.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Champneys, John

1904 Errata appended.
​CHAMPNEYS, JOHN (fl. 1548), religious writer, born near Bristol, is described by Strype as living in later life at 'Stratford-on-the-Bow,' near London. He was a layman and an ardent reformer. He published in London in 1548 a controversial treatise in English, 'The Harvest is at hand wherein the tares shall be bound and cast into the fyre and brent,' London (by H. Powell), 1548. Some extreme Calvinistic opinions advanced in this work and in others by the same writer, which are not now known, offended Archbishop Cranmer, who insisted on the author's recantation on 27 April 1548. The proceedings are described at length in Strype's 'Cranmer,' ii. 92-4. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign a writer of the same name, who had had to recant some Pelagian heresies, published anonymously a reply to Jean Veron's 'Fruteful Treatise of Predestination' (1563?), which Veron answered in his 'Apology.'
Another John Champneys (d. 1566) was a skinner of London; was sheriff in 1522 and lord mayor in 1534, when he was knighted. Stow states that he was struck blind in his later years, a divine judgment for having added 'a high tower of brick' to his house in Mincing Lane, 'the first that I ever heard of in any private man's house, to overlook his neighbours in this city.' He was son of Robert Champneys of Chew, Somersetshire, and was buried at Bexley, Kent, 8 Oct. 1556 (Machyn, Diary, Camd. Soc. p. 115). His epitaph is given in Thorpe's 'Registrum Roffense,' p. 924. His family long continued in Kent.
[Tanner's Bibliotheca Brit.; Strype's Cranmor, ii. 92-4; Machyn's Diary, Camd. Soc. p. 352; Hasted's Kent, i. 160, iii. 326; Stow's Survey, ed. Thoms, p. 51; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
S. L. L.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.62 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 36 | i | 32 | Champneys, John: for Somersetshire read Somerset, was alderman of Castle Baynard ward 1527-33, of Broad Street 1533-4, and of Cordwainer 1534 till death |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chandler, Benjamin

​CHANDLER, BENJAMIN, M.D. (1737–1786), surgeon, who practised for many years at Canterbury, was admitted extra-licentiate of the London College of Physicians on 31 Oct. 1783, and died on 10 May 1786. He wrote ‘An Essay towards an Investigation of the resent successful and most general Methods of Inoculation,’ 8vo, London, 1767, which was the earliest detailed account of the practice, and ‘An Injury into the various Theories and Methods of Cure in Apoplexies and Palsies,’ 8vo, Canterbury, 1785, which is a criticism of Cullen’s two chapters on that subject, and a comparison of his views with those of others and the results of his own experience.
[Munk’s Coll. of Phys., 1878, ii. 331; Chandler’s works cited.]
G. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Champion, Anthony

​CHAMPION, ANTHONY (1725–1801), poet and versifier, was the son of Peter Champion, a member of a family long resident in the parish of St. Columb in Cornwall, who acquired a considerable fortune as a merchant at Leghorn. He was born at Croydon on 5 Feb. 1724-5, and was first educated at Cheam School. In 1739 he was sent to Eton, and, after stoppin there for three years, matriculated at St. Mgary Hall, Oxford, in February 1742, where he was placed under the care of Walter Harte, a distinguished tutor and a respectable man of letters. At Oxford he remained for two years, when he left without taking his degree, and entered as a student at the Middle Temple. He ultimately became a bencher of the inn, and continued to reside within its precincts until his death, when he left the society the sum of 1,000l. Champion was twice returned to parliament for a Cornish borough, and on both occasions through the influence of the Eliot family. His first constituency was St. Germans (22 April 1754), the second was Liskeard (30 March 1761). In the House of Commons he sat, like the illustrious Gibbon, who also represented the latter constituency, a mute observer of the scene, and although he dabbled in poetry, his effusions remained unpublished until after his death. He died on 22 Feb. 1801, and in the same year a volume of 'Miscellanies in verse and prose, English and Latin, by the late Anthony Champion,' was published by his lifelong friend, William Henry, lord Lyttelton. Numerous entries relating to Champion's ancestors will be found in the reprint by A. J. Jewers of the registers of St. Columb Major.
[Life prefixed to Miscellanies; Return of Members of Parliament, ii. 110, 124; J. H. Jesse's Etonians, ii. 168-9.]
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Champion, Joseph

​CHAMPION, JOSEPH (fl. 1762), calligrapher, was born at Chatham in 1709. He was educated partly in St. Paul's school, but chiefly under the eminent penman, Charles Snell, who kept Sir John Johnson's free school in Foster Lane, and with whom he served a regular apprenticeship. Afterwards he opened a boarding-school in St. Paul's Churchyard, and in 1761 he was master of a 'new academy' in Bedford Street, near Bedford Row.
His principal works are: 1. 'Practical Arithmetic, 733. 2. 'Penmanship: or, the Art of Fair Writing,' London, 1740; oblong ​8vo, with the author's portrait, engraved by Hulett, prefixed. 3. Forty-seven folio specimens of writing engraved in George Bickham's 'Universal Penman,' 1743. 4. 'The Tutor's Assistant in teaching Arithmetic,' 1747. 5. 'The Parallel; or Comparative Penmanship exemplified,' London [1750], oblong folio, containing 24 plates engraved by E. Thorowgood, with the author's portrait prefixed. 6. 'New and Complete Alphabets, in all the various hands of Great Britain, with the Greek, Hebrew, and German characters,' London [1754], oblong folio, engraved by (G. Bickham. The plates were reissued under the title of 'Bowles's New and Complete Alphabets,' London [1780?] 7. 'The Living Hands,' 1758. 8. 'A Penman's Employment,' London, 1762, oblong 4to.
[Massey's Origin and Progress of Letters, 37-43; Bromley's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, 399; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, i. 61; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lauderdale, Earls and Duke of

​LAUDERDALE, Earls and Duke of. See Maitland.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lauder, Thomas (1395-1481)

​LAUDER, THOMAS (1395–1481), bishop of Dunkeld, born in 1395, was in 1437 master of the hospital of Soltre or Soltry in Midlothian, belonging to the Trinitarians or Red Friars. His name occurs in the charters of this hospital from 8 Jan. 1437–8 until August 1444. In the latter year he founded a chapel at the altar of St. Martin and St. Thomas in the Holy Cross aisle of St. Giles's Church, Edinburgh. This endowment was confirmed by royal charter given by James III in 1481. He was named preceptor to James II, who in 1452 promoted him to the see of Dunkeld. By his exemplary life and frequent preaching he is said to have made a salutary impression on the rude population of his ​diocese. When he first began to officiate at Dunkeld he was driven from the altar by armed bands of highland robbers; yet he so far pacified the country as to be able to hold a synod in his church. This building, begun by James Kennedy (1406?–1465) [q. v.], Lauder's predecessor, was finished and dedicated by him in 1464. He provided it with glass windows and adorned the portico with statuary. He increased the number of canons, provided prebends, and founded a chantry. He obtained the royal authority to form the Bishop lands on the north side of the Tay into a barony, to be called the barony of Dunkeld; and those on the south side into another, to be called the barony of Aberlady. He built a bridge over the Tay near to his palace, which was completed on 8 July 1461, and performed many other acts of public utility and charity. He wrote the life of Bishop John Scott, one of his predecessors in the see of Dunkeld, and also a volume of sermons termed 'Postiles, or Brief Notes on the Evangelists.' He died 4 Nov. 1481, and was buried in the cathedral.
[Vitæ Dunkeldensis Ecclesiæ Episcoporum ab Alexandro Myln ejusdem ecclesiæ Edinburg, 1831; Dempster's Hist. Eccl. Gent. Scot. No. 820; Spotiswood's Hist.; Registrum Domus de Soltre, necnon Ecclesiæ Collegiatæ S. Trinitatis prope Edinburg, &c. (Bannatyne Club), 1861.]
J. G. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lauder, James Eckford

​LAUDER, JAMES ECKFORD (1811–1869), painter, younger brother of Robert Scott Lauder, was born at Silvermills, Edinburgh, on 15 Aug. 1811 (see inscription on the back of his brother's monument in Warriston cemetery, Edinburgh). In his early art studies he was aided by his elder brother, and he attended the antique class of the Trustees' Academy from July 1830 till June 1833. In 1834 he joined his brother in Italy, where he remained nearly four years. On his return he settled in Edinburgh, and from 1832—when he was first represented by 'The Gipsy Girl'—he was a very regular contributor to the exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy, of which he was elected an associate in 1839, and a full member in 1846. He also exhibited fourteen works in the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the Suffolk Street Gallery, London, between 1841 and 1853; and in 1847 his 'Parable of Forgiveness' gained a prize of 200l. at the Westminster Hall competition. Among his more important pictures were 'Julia and Lucetta,' a scene from the 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' 1840; 'Day and Night,' 1845; 'Lorenzo and Jessica,' 1849; 'Bailie Duncan Macwheeble at Breakfast,' 1854; 'The Parable of the Ten Virgins,' 1855, ​engraved by Lumb Stocks; and 'Hagar,' 1857, now in the National Gallery of Scotland. He died at Edinburgh on 27 March 1869.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists of the English School; information from family; books of Trustees' Academy; catalogues of exhibitions.]
J. M. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lauder, William (d.1425)

​LAUDER, WILLIAM (d. 1425), lord chancellor of Scotland and bishop of Glasgow, was son of Sir Allan Lauder of Haltoun (or Hatton) in Midlothian. He was appointed archdeacon of Lothian. On 24 Oct. 1405 Henry IV granted him a safe-conduct to traverse England, on his return from France, whither he had gone on public business. He was made bishop of Glasgow by Pope Benedict XIII in 1408. The regent Murdoch, duke of Albany, appointed him lord chancellor in 1423, and on 9 Aug. of that year he was named first commissioner to treat with England for the ransom of James I, which was accomplished during the following year. He added the battlements on the tower of Glasgow Cathedral, made the crypt under the chapter-house, and had the steeple built as far as the first battlement. His arms are still to be seen on these portions of the cathedral. He died on 14 June 1425.
[Fordun's Scotichronicon; Rymer's Fœdera; Spotiswood's Church Hist.; Innes's Origines Parochiales Scotiæ; Chalmers's Caledonia; Gordon's Scotichronicon, ii. 497.]
J. G. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Croft, Herbert (d.1622)

Dates c.1595 to 1629 in the ODNB.
​CROFT, Sir HERBERT (d. 1622), catholic writer, was son of Edward Croft, esq. [see under Croft, Sir James], of Croft Castle, Herefordshire, by his wife Ann, daughter of Thomas Browne of Hillborough, Norfolk. He was thus grandson of Sir James Croft [q. v.] He was educated in academicals at Christ Church, Oxford, ‘as his son Col. Sir William Croft used to say, tho' his name occurs not in the Matricula, which makes me think that his stay was short there.’ He sat for Carmarthenshire in the parliament which assembled on 4 Feb. 1588–9; for Herefordshire in that of 19 Nov. 1592; for Launceston in that of 24 Oct. 1597; and again for Herefordshire in that of 7 Oct. 1601. When James I came to the throne Croft waited upon his majesty at Theobald's, and received the honour of knighthood, 7 May 1603. He was again returned as one of the members for Herefordshire to the parliaments which respectively assembled on 19 March 1603–4 and 5 April 1614. After he had lived fifty-two years in the profession of the protestant religion he became a member of the Roman catholic church. Thereupon he retired to St. Gregory's monastery at Douay, and by letters of confraternity (February 1617) he was received among the English Benedictines, ‘who appointing him a little cell within the ambits of their house, he spent the remainder of his days therein in strict devotion and religious exercise.’ He died on 10 April (N.S.) 1622, and was buried in the church belonging to the monastery, where a monument was erected to his memory, with a Latin inscription which is printed in Wood's ‘Hist. et Antiq. Univ. Oxon.’ (1674), ii. 269. Lord Herbert of Cherbury was friendly with Sir Herbert, and refers to him several times in his autobiography.
He married Mary, daughter and heiress of Anthony Bourne of Holt Castle, Worcester​shire, and had issue four sons and five daughters. His third son, Herbert Croft [q. v.], became bishop of Hereford.
He wrote: 1. ‘Letters persuasive to his Wife and Children in England to take upon them the Catholic Religion.’ 2. ‘Arguments to shew that the Rom. Church is the true Church,’ written against R. Field's ‘Four Books of the Church.’ 3. ‘Reply to the Answer of his Daughter M. C. (Mary Croft), which she made to a Paper of his sent to her concerning the Rom. Church.’ At the end of it is a small piece entitled ‘The four Ministers of Charinton gagg'd by four Propositions made to the Lord Baron of Espicelliere of the Religion pretended; and presented on S. Martin's Day to Du Moulin in his House, & since to Durand and Mestrezat.’ All these were printed at Douay about 1619 in a 12mo volume of 255 pages. Wood, who had seen the work, states that only eight copies were printed, one for the author himself, another for his wife, and the rest for his children; but all without a title.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crocker, Charles

​CROCKER, CHARLES (1797–1861), poet, was born at Chichester of poor parents 22 June 1797. In his twelfth year he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and he worked at this trade for twenty years, meantime composing verses which he wrote down at intervals of leisure. Some lines which he sent to the ‘Brighton Herald’ having attracted considerable attention, a list of subscribers was obtained for the publication of a volume of his poems, from which a large profit was obtained. Among his warmest friends was Robert Southey, who asserted that the sonnet ‘To the British Oak’ was one of the finest, if not the finest, in the English language. In 1839 he obtained employment from Mr. Hayley Mason, the publisher of his works, in the bookselling department of the business, but in 1845 he resigned this situation for that of sexton in Chichester Cathedral, to which was soon afterwards added that of bishop's verger. He thoroughly mastered all the architectural details of the building, and his descriptive account of it to visitors was generally followed with more than usual interest. He also published a small handbook on the building entitled ‘A ​ Visit to Chichester Cathedral.’ A complete edition of his ‘Poetical Works’ appeared in 1860. He died 6 Oct. 1861.
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Croft, Richard

​CROFT, Sir RICHARD, bart. (1762–1818), accoucheur, was born on 9 Jan. 1762, being a son of Herbert Croft, a chancery clerk, and receiver of the Charterhouse. After a medical pupilage with Mr. Chawner, brother of his stepmother, Croft studied at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and afterwards became partner with Chawner at Tutbury in Staffordshire. He next practised at Oxford for some years, and finally removed to London, where he married the elder twin daughter of Dr. Denman, the leading accoucheur. Having attended the Duchess of Devonshire and other ladies of rank, Croft succeeded to Denman's practice on his retirement. In 1816, on the death of his elder brother, Sir Herbert Croft (1751-1816) [q. v.], the family baronetcy devolved upon him. In 1817 he was selected to attend the Princess Charlotte in her confinement. The fatal result (5-6 Nov. 1817) led to an angry outburst of public feeling against Croft, who appears to have had the entire actual conduct of the labour, although Dr. Baillie as physician, and Dr. Sims as consulting accoucheur, were at hand. The princess, it seems, was bled frequently during her pregnancy, no lady or nurse about her had been a mother, she was allowed to become exhausted without being duly aided, and all the physicians had retired to rest very soon after the birth was complete.
That Croft was not too skilful and rather self-confident appears evident. Overcome with depression and despair at the blame cast upon him, although the royal family were most considerate and sympathetic towards him, he shot himself on 13 Feb. 1818.
[Gent. Mag. lxxxvii. (1817), pt. ii. 449, lxxxviii. (1818), pt. i. 188, 277; Cooke's Address to British Females … with a Vindication of … Sir R. Croft, &c., 1817; Rees Price's Critical Inquiry into the Nature and Treatment of the Case of the Princess Charlotte, &c., 1817; Huish's Memoirs of the Princess Charlotto, 1818; London Medical Repository, 1 Dec. 1817; the same account, altered, was separately published as 'Authentic Medical Statement,' &c., with additional observations by A. T. Thomson; Foot's Letter on the necessity of a public inquiry into the cause of the death of the Princess Charlotte, &c., 1817.]
G. T. B.