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

1904 Errata appended.
​SEDULIUS (d. 828), commentator on the Scriptures, has often been confounded by mediæval writers with Cœlius Sedulius the poet, who was the author of the ‘Carmen seculare,’ and of the hymns in the Roman Breviary, ‘A Solis ortus Cardine’ and ‘Hostis Herodes impie.’ Both writers are said to have been Irishmen, and their works have a religious purpose; but Ussher has shown that Cœlius Sedulius the poet flourished in the fifth century, and must be differentiated from the commentator who even quotes the poet, and is sometimes termed junior, in allusion to his later date.
Ware identified the later Sedulius with a British bishop of Irish birth, who is said to ​have been at Rome in 721, and there signed the decrees of a Roman council; but Lanigan considers this a mistake, and nothing seems to be known of the bishop in question.
He is with more reason identified with the Sedilius or Siadhal, son of Feradach, who was abbot of Kildare, and died in 828. He is described by Hepidanus, a monk of St. Gall, who wrote in 818, as Sedulius Scotus, a ‘distinguished author.’ The works of Sedulius consist of a Latin commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul, drawn from the works of the fathers, and one on the Gospel of St. Matthew, collected from various sources. They are frequently quoted by Archbishop Ussher in his ‘Religion of the Ancient Irish,’ and they have been published in the ‘Bibliotheca Patrum,’ where they are assigned to ‘Sedulius Scotus.’ According to the ‘Annals of the Four Masters,’ Sedulius was abbot of Kildare, and died in 828.
[Ussher's Works, iv. 245–58, 291–3, vi. 319–332; Lanigan's Eccl. Hist. i. 17, iii. 255; Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. vi.; Labbe apud Baronius, De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis, pp. 149–152.]
T. O.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.244 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 188 | ii | 6-5 f.e. | Sedulius: for must be the commentator read must be differentiated from the commentator |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Seebohm, Henry

​SEEBOHM, HENRY (1832–1895), ornithologist, born on 12 July 1832, was eldest son of Benjamin Seebohm of Horton Grange, Bradford, Yorkshire (who came to England from Germany in 1815), by his wife Esther Wheeler, of Hitchin, Hertfordshire. His parents belonged to the Society of Friends, and he was educated at the Friends' school, York, where he developed a taste for natural history. At an early age he engaged in business, and ultimately settled at Sheffield as a manufacturer of steel. His spare time was devoted to ornithology, and from time to time he made journeys into Holland, Greece, Asia Minor, Scandinavia, Germany, and Siberia to collect and study birds in their native haunts.
One of his most successful expeditions was to the valley of the Lower Petchora in 1875, with Mr. Harvie-Brown, when the eggs of the grey plover and of many rare species of birds were obtained. The account of this voyage, as well as of a trip to Heligoland, whither he went to study the migration of the birds at the house of the celebrated ornithologist, Herr Gätke, was given in his ‘Siberia in Europe,’ 8vo, London, 1880. In 1877, accompanied by Captain Wiggins, he visited the valley of the Yenesei, where further ornithological discoveries of great importance were made, and recorded in his ‘Siberia in Asia,’ 8vo, London, 1882. Later he visited Southern Europe and South Africa to study European birds in their winter quarters, and to collect materials for his work on ‘The Geographical Distribution of the Family Charadriidæ,’ 4to, London, 1887.
Seebohm joined the British Ornithologists' Union and the Zoological Society in 1873; he was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1878, and was one of the secretaries from June 1890 till his death. He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society in December 1879.
In later years he resided at South Kensington and Maidenhead. He died on 26 Nov. 1895.
Besides the works already named, Seebohm was the author of:
* ‘Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum, vol. v., Turdidæ,’ 8vo, London, 1881.
* ‘A History of British Birds and their Eggs,’ 8vo, London, 1883–5.
* ‘Classification of Birds,’ 8vo, London, 1890; supplement 1895.
* ‘The Birds of the Japanese Empire,’ 8vo, London, 1890.
* ‘Geographical Distribution of British Birds,’ 8vo, London, 1893.
* ‘Address to the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union,’ 8vo, London, 1893.
He also contributed upwards of eighty papers, chiefly on ornithological subjects, between 1877 and 1895, to the ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society,’ ‘The Ibis,’ and other scientific publications. He left unfinished a work on ‘The Eggs of British Birds’ and on ‘Thrushes.’ He was a liberal contributor to the national collection during his lifetime, and at his death left his whole ornithological collection to the British Museum (Natural History).
[Times, 28 Nov. 1895; Nature, 5 Dec. 1895, p. 105; Athenæum, 7 Dec. 1895, p. 794; Ibis, 1896, pp. 159–62; information kindly supplied by his brother, Mr. F. Seebohm; Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.) Cat.; Royal Soc. Cat.; Zool. Record.]
B. B. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Seed, Jeremiah

​SEED, JEREMIAH (1700–1747), divine, born in 1700, was son of Jeremiah Seed, who graduated B.A. from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1682, and was rector of Clifton, Westmoreland, from 1707 until his death in 1722 (Grad. Cant. p. 346; Nicolson and Burn, Hist. of Cumb. and West. i. 414). He was educated at Lowther grammar school, and matriculated on 7 Nov. 1716 at Queen's College, Oxford, proceeding B.A. on 13 Feb. 1721–2, and M.A. 1725 (Foster, Alumni, 1715–1886, iv. 1271). He was chosen a fellow in 1732, and became for some years curate to Dr. Waterland, vicar of Twickenham, whose funeral sermon he preached on 4 Jan. 1741 (2nd edit. London, 1742). Seed was presented by his college in the same year to the rectory of Knight's Enham, Hampshire, where he remained until his death on 10 Dec. 1747.
​Seed was much admired as a preacher. Dr. Johnson remarked that he had ‘a very fine style,’ but ‘he was not very theological.’ Others deemed his preaching ‘elegant but languid.’ Two sermons were published during his lifetime; others posthumously as ‘Discourses’ (London, 1743, 8vo; 6th, 1766). ‘The Posthumous Works,’ consisting of sermons, essays, and letters ‘from the original manuscripts,’ was edited by Joseph Hall, M.A., fellow of Queen's College, London, and was printed for M. Seed (?his widow), 1750, 2 vols., with a portrait by Hayman, engraved by Ravenet. Other editions appeared, 2 vols., Dublin, 1750; London, 1770, 8vo, 1 vol.; and the work is said to have been translated into Russian.
[Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Rose's Biogr. Dict.; Darling's Cyclop. Bibliogr. ii. 2688–9; Gent. Mag. 1747, p. 592; London Mag. xvi. 581; Lysons's Environs of London, iii. 586; Boswell's Johnson, ed. Hill, iii. 248.]
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pilfold, John

​PILFOLD, JOHN (1776?–1834), captain in the navy, second son of Charles Pilfold of Horsham, was born at Horsham about 1776. He entered the navy in 1788 on board the Crown with Commodore Cornwallis, and served in her during her commission in the East Indies, returning to England in May 1792 [see Cornwallis, Sir William, 1744–1819]. He then joined the Brunswick, in which he was present in the battle of 1 June 1794 [see Harvey, John, 1740–1794], and was specially recommended by Harvey for promotion. On 14 Feb. 1795 he was promoted by Lord Howe to be lieutenant of the Russell, and in her he was present in the action off Lorient on 23 June. In September 1795 he was appointed to the Kingfisher sloop on the Lisbon station, in which he took part in the capture of several privateers; and on 1 July 1797, being the first lieutenant, supported the commander, John Maitland, sword in hand, in suppressing a violent mutiny which broke out on board. Pilfold was shortly afterwards moved into the Impétueux, in which, on 6 June 1800, he commanded the boats in the destruction of the French corvette Insolente in the Morbihan [see Pellew, Edward, Viscount Exmouth]. On the renewal of the war in 1803 he was appointed to the Hindostan, from which he was moved to the Dragon, and afterwards to the Ajax. In the latter he took part in the action off Cape Finisterre on 22 July 1805. William Brown (d. 1814) [q. v.], the captain of the Ajax, went home with Sir Robert Calder [q. v.], who was to be tried by court-martial, and the Ajax was left before Cadiz under the command of her first lieutenant, Pilfold, who had thus the distinction of commanding her a few days later in the battle of Trafalgar, for which he was advanced to post rank on 25 Dec. 1805, and received the gold medal with the other captains present in the action. In 1808 he was granted an honourable augmentation to his arms, and in June 1815 he was nominated commander of the Bath.
From 1827 to 1831 he was captain of the ordinary at Plymouth, and he died at Stonehouse on 12 July 1834. He married, in 1803, a daughter of Thomas South of Donhead, Wiltshire, and left two daughters.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pike, John (fl.1322?)

​PIKE, PIK, or PYKE, JOHN (fl. 1322?), chronicler, was master of the schools of St. Martin-le-Grand, London (cf. Bibl. Reg. MS. 13 C. xi). He wrote:
* ‘Suppletio Historiæ Regum Angliæ.’ There are three fourteenth-century copies of this work: Cotton. MS. Julius D. vi, Arundel MS. 220, and Bibliothèque Nationale, 6234, Fonds Latin, olim Baluze. A modern copy is in British Museum Harleian MS. 685, f. 46. In Julius D. vi. f. 1, the rubric states that it was extracted by Johannes Pik ‘de compendio Brome,’ i.e. from the ‘Compendium’ of John Brome, and Augustinian, who died in 1449. Pike's work is chiefly compiled from Ralph de Diceto's ‘Abbreviationes,’ ‘Imagines,’ and ‘De Mirabilibus Angliæ,’ and from Brome's ‘Compendium.’ Two passages are printed in Gale's ‘Scriptores XV’ (i. 553, 560), under the name of Diceto. The history of the Norman kings is brought down to the coronation of John.
* ‘In ista Compilacione tractatur quale jus dominus noster Rex Angliæ intendit habere ad terram Scotie;’ this consists of extracts from named chroniclers and a short history of the relations of Edward I and Edward II to Scotland, down to the death of Thomas of Lancaster [q. v.] in 1322 (Jul. D. vi. f. 67, and Arundel MS. 220, f. 278).
* A history of English bishoprics, enlarged from Diceto's (Arundel MS. 220, f. 147 b). The history of Canterbury has been, in part, printed by Wharton (Anglia Sacra, ii. 677), and erroneously ascribed to Diceto (Stubbs, Diceto, vol. i. p. lxxxviii). The lives of the bishops are brought down in some cases only to the coronation of John, in others to a later date, the latest being that of the consecration of John, bishop of Norwich, in 1299. Walter Reynolds (1314–1327) is included in the list of archbishops; a later hand adds his two successors. That the author was Pike is proved by references to passages in the ‘Suppletio’ (No. 1 above).
* Another collection of extracts closely similar to the ‘Suppletio’ in character (Arundel MS. 220, ff. 4, 52; Harl. MS. 3899). The history of the British kings (extracted from Geoffrey of Monmouth) is here much fuller than in the ‘Suppletio.’ After extracts on the Saxon and Norman kings, the chronicle is carried to the birth of Edward, prince of Wales, in 1239. Bale, Pits, and Tanner, in stating that William Horman [q. v.], vice-provost of Eton, made an epitome of Pike's ‘Suppletio,’ confound Pike with Picus Mirandulæ.
[Hardy's Catalogue, ii. 124, iii. 12, 376; Glover's Livere de Reis de Brittanie, p. xii; Pits, De Illustribus Angliæ Scriptoribus, s. an. 1115; Bale's Scriptorum Catalogus, p. 170, No. 61.]
M. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pike, Richard (1834-1893)

​PIKE, RICHARD (1834–1893), master-mariner, born in 1834 at Carboniere in Conception Bay, Newfoundland, was brought up in the northern fisheries, in whaling and sealing, and in 1869 obtained command of a steamer engaged in that trade. In 1875 he was captain of the Proteus, a stout-built vessel of 467 tons and 110 horse-power, which in 1881 was chartered by the United States government to carry Lieutenant Greely and his party through Smith Sound to Lady Franklin Bay. This was safely effected; and, in 1883, the Proteus, still commanded by Pike, was again chartered to carry out relief to the expedition, the United States ship Yantic being ordered to accompany her as a depot, as far as was prudent, but not to venture into the ice, for which she was not fitted. On 23 July, off Cape Sabine, the Proteus was nipped in the pack and sank almost immediately; no lives were lost, but there was scant time to save some provisions and clothes. Sometimes in the boats, sometimes painfully dragging them over the rough ice-floes, Pike and his companions succeeded, after extreme hardship, in reaching Upernavik, where they were taken up by the Yantic. For that year there was no relief to Greely's party; but the survivors were rescued in the following year. In 1891 Pike, in the steamer Kite, was engaged to carry Mr. R. E. Peary and his party, which he put on shore in McCormick Bay in Murchison Sound (lat. 77 43' N.),and returned without misadventure. In the next year he brought the party back, and was to have taken Peary out again in the summer of 1893. The arrangement was cancelled by Pike's death, at St. John's, on 4 May. 'A typical Newfoundlander,' wrote his shipmates in the Kite, 'as active in mind and body as many men of half his years.' 'A quiet, unassuming man,' wrote a correspondent of the 'Times,' 'thoroughly capable and reliable, unequalled as an Arctic navigator, and in the front rank of our sealing captains.'
[Times, 20 May 1893; Greely's Three Years of Arctic Service, i. 37, ii. 163; Keely and Davis's In Arctic Seas (with what seems a good portrait), pp. 24–6; Mrs. Peary's Arctic Journal.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pilcher, George

​PILCHER, GEORGE (1801–1855), aural surgeon, son of Jeremiah Pilcher of Winkfield, Berkshire, was born on 30 April 1801, and was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England on 2 April 1824. Immediately afterwards he began to practise as a surgeon in Dean Street, Soho, London, and was soon appointed lecturer on anatomy, physiology, and surgery at the Webb Street school of medicine, Snow's Fields, then belonging to his brother-in-law, Richard Dugard Grainger. He was for many years consulting surgeon to the Surrey Dispensary. In 1838 he was awarded the Fothergillian prize at the Medical Society for his treatise ‘On the Structure and Pathology of the Ear,’ and in 1842 he was elected president of the Medical Society of London. When the Webb Street school was reabsorbed into the Borough hospitals from which it had originally sprung, Pilcher became attached to Lane's school, which was affiliated to St. George's Hospital. At that hospital he became lecturer upon surgery on 6 July 1843, and in the same year he was made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England on the foundation of that select class of members. In 1849 he was admitted a member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He died suddenly on 7 Nov. 1855, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.
Pilcher was an able surgeon and a good physiologist. He entered upon the practice of aural surgery at a time when the quackery of John Harrison Curtis had raised that speciality to an unenviable notoriety. To Toynbee, Pilcher, Yearsley, and Harvey aural surgery in this country mainly owes the position it now holds in the estimation of the medical profession. Pilcher pub​lished: 1. ‘Essay on the Physiology of the Excito-motory System,’ read before the Medical Society, 1835. 2. ‘The Structure, Economy, and Diseases of the Ear,’ with plates, 8vo, London, 1838; 2nd edit. 1842. 3. ‘Some Points in the Physiology of the Tympanum,’ read before the physiological section of the Medical Society of London, 23 Feb. 1854.
D’A. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilson, Edward (1814-1878)

​WILSON, EDWARD (1814–1878), Australian politician, was born at Hampstead in 1814. After completing his education he was employed in the London branch of a Manchester firm. Finding this occupation not to his taste, he proceeded to Australia in 1842. His first intention was to settle at Sydney, but on arriving at Melbourne he bought a small place upon Merri Creek, and remained there until 1844, when, in conjunction with J. E. Johnston, he took up a cattle station near Dandenong. While thus employed he wrote a series of letters, signed ‘Iota,’ severely criticising the administration of Charles Joseph Latrobe [q. v.] Their reception encouraged him to turn to journalism, and in 1847 he and his partner purchased the ‘Argus’ from William Kerr, who had founded it in the preceding year. In 1851 they also incorporated the Melbourne ‘Daily News’ with the ‘Argus.’ Notwithstanding the disorganisation of society produced in 1852 by the discovery of gold, Wilson succeeded in continuing the daily issue of his paper, and its circulation became in consequence extremely large. Prior to this Wilson took a leading part in opposing the influx of convicts from Tasmania, co-operating with the Anti-transportation League founded in 1851, and supporting the passage of the Convicts Prevention Act. He advocated the separation of Port Phillip from New South Wales, denounced the conduct of the governor, Sir Charles Hotham [q. v.], towards the miners, and strongly opposed the tendency of Earl Grey's order in council of 1847 to convert the temporary licenses of the crown's pastoral tenants into the equivalent of an assignable freehold. His vigorous attacks in the ‘Argus’ on all kinds of abuses involved him in several libel actions, the most notable being that brought against him in 1857 by George Milner Stephen, formerly colonial secretary, the result of which closed Stephen's political career in Victoria, and that occasioned by his exposure of the Garra Bend lunatic asylum. Finding his sight failing, Wilson returned to England, and in 1864 published ‘Rambles in the Antipodes.’ In 1868 he was one of the founders of the Colonial Institute, and in the same year he settled at Hayes in Kent, where he died on 10 Jan. 1878. He was buried in the Melbourne cemetery on 7 July. Wilson was the founder of the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria in 1861; and while he is credited with having introduced the lark and thrush into Australia, and with attempting to naturalise the llama, he is also accused of having brought over the sparrow.
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilson, George (fl.1607)

​WILSON, GEORGE (fl. 1607), writer on cock-fighting, was vicar of Wretton in Norfolk. In spite of his profession he took a keen interest in the pastime of cock-fighting, and in 1607 he wrote ‘The Commendation of Cockes and Cock-fighting. Wherein is shewed that Cocke-fighting was before the Comming of Christ … London. Printed for ​Henrie Tomes, and are to be sold at his Shop, ouer against Graies Inne Gate in Holburne, 1607,’ 4to. In this work, after descanting with some learning on the antiquity of the amusement, he launches into a eulogy of the manly qualities which it fostered, and concludes with some instances of prowess which he himself had witnessed, mentioning with especial commendation a gamecock named Tarlton after the famous comedian, because before combat it was accustomed to drum loudly with its wings. The tract was written partly with the object of reviving public interest in the sport. It was dedicated to Sir Henry Bedingfield, and was several times reprinted, reaching a third edition in 1631, and a tenth in 1655.
[Wilson's Commendation of Cockes; Collier's Bibliogr. Cat. ii. 529; Hazlitt's Handbook to the Literature of Great Britain; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Blackwood's Mag. 1827, xxii. 587.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilson, Harry Bristow

1904 Errata appended.
​WILSON, HARRY BRISTOW (1774–1853), divine and antiquary, born on 23 Aug. 1774, was a son of William Wilson of the parish of St. Gregory, London. He left Merchant Taylors' school in 1792, and was admitted commoner of Lincoln College, Oxford, on 12 Feb. 1793. Elected scholar on the Trappes foundation in the following year (30 June), he graduated B.A. on 10 Oct. 1796, and M.A. on 23 May 1799. He proceeded B.D. on 21 June 1810, and D.D. on 14 Jan. 1818. In February 1798 he became third master at Merchant Taylors', and from 1805 to 1824 was second master. He became curate and lecturer of St. Michael's Bassishaw, and lecturer of St. Matthias and St. John the Baptist, London, in 1807, and in 1814 received in addition the Townsend lecturership at St. Michael's, Crooked Lane. On 2 Aug. 1816 he was collated by Archbishop Manners-Sutton to the united parishes of St. Mary Aldermary and St. Thomas the Apostle. There he was continually involved in litigation with his parishioners. But in spite of these differences he established a parochial lending library, and abolished fees for baptism.
Wilson was a learned adherent of the evangelical school, with more of the scholar than the divine. His chief theological works were a pamphlet against the catholic claims (‘An Earnest Address respecting the Catholics,’ 1807, 8vo), and a volume of sermons issued the same year. But he published some valuable antiquarian books. The chief of these was his ‘History of Merchant Taylors' School,’ issued in two quarto parts in 1812 and 1814 respectively. He received a subsidy from the company of 100l. towards the expenses of publication. The work is scholarly, if somewhat diffuse.
In 1831 Wilson published another quarto on ‘the History of the Parish of St. Laurence Pountney, including four documents unpublished, an account of Corpus Christi or Pountney College,’ within which Merchant Taylors' school was established in 1561. The work remained unfinished on account of the ​expenses in which Wilson's litigation involved him.
Wilson also published: ‘Observations on the Law and Practice of the Sequestration of Ecclesiastical Benefices,’ 1836, 8vo; and ‘Brief Notices of the Fabric and Glebe of St. Mary Aldermary,’ 1840, 8vo. The copy of the latter work in the British Museum contains an autograph letter by the author.
He died on 21 Nov. 1853. He married Mary Anne, daughter of John Moore (1742–1821) [q. v.], by whom he had two sons and a daughter. The elder son, Henry Bristow Wilson, is separately noticed.
[Gent. Mag. 1854, i. 535, 536; Clark's Hist. of Lincoln Coll. p. 187; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; An Aged Rector's Valedictory Address, 1853; Allibone's Dict. Engl. Lit.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
G. Le G. N.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.281 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 97 | ii | 26 | Wilson, Henry B.: omit unmarried |