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

​HABERSHON, SAMUEL OSBORNE (1825–1889), physician, was born at Rotherham in 1825, and studied medicine (from 1842) at Guy's Hospital, London, where he greatly distinguished himself. He gained numerous scholarships at the university of London, where he graduated M.B. in 1848 and M.D. in 1851. After being appointed in succession demonstrator of anatomy and of morbid anatomy and lecturer in pathology,he became assistant physician in 1854, and in ​1866 full physician to Guy's. He lectured there on materia medica from 1856 to 1873, and on medicine from 1873 to 1877. Having been a member of the Royal College of Physicians from 1851, and fellow from 1856, he was successively examiner, councillor, and censor, and in 1876 Lumleian lecturer, in 1883 Harveian orator, and in 1887 vice-president of the college. He was president of the Medical Society of London in 1873. In November 1880, being then senior physician to Guy's, he resigned his post, together with John Cooper Forster [q. v.], the senior surgeon. Habershon died on 22 Aug. 1889 from gastric ulcer, leaving one son and three daughters; his wife had died in April of the same year. As a physician Habershon had a high reputation, especially in abdominal diseases, which he did much to elucidate. He was the first in England to propose the operation of gastrostomy for stricture of the œsophagus, which Cooper Forster performed on a patient of Habershon's in 1858. He was amiable, high-minded, and deeply religious, and was one of the founders of the Christian Medical Association.
Habershon wrote, besides twenty-eight papers in 'Guy's Hospital Reports,' from 1855 to 1872, and others in various medical transactions and journals:
* 'Pathological and Practical Observations on Diseases of the Abdomen,' 1857; fourth ed. 1888; American editions 1859, 1879.
* 'On the Injurious Effects of Mercury in … Disease,' 1859.
* 'On Diseases of the Stomach,' 1866; third ed. 1879; American ed. 1879.
* 'On Some Diseases of the Liver' (Lettsomian Lectures), 1872.
* 'On the Pathology of the Pneumogastric Nerve' (Lumleian Lectures), 1877, 2nd edit. 1885; Italian translation, 1879.
[Lancet, 31 Aug., 26 Oct. 1889; Wilks and Bettany's Biog. Hist. of Guy's Hospital.]
G. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mell, Davis

​MELL, DAVIS (fl. 1650), violinist, born at Wilton near Salisbury 15 Nov. 1604, was son of a servant of William Herbert, third earl of Pembroke [q. v.] He was primarily a clockmaker, and was, until the middle of the seventeenth century, accounted the first violinist in England in point of skill. He may be said to occupy the position of the earliest English violinist of note. Wood says that Mell was ‘one of the musick to King Charles I,’ and ‘had a sweet stroke.’ According to the same authority, Mell visited Oxford in March 1657–8, when ‘Peter Pett, Will Bull, Ken Digby, and others of Allsoules did give him a very handsome entertainment in the Taverne, called “The Salutation,” in St. Marie's Parish. The company did look upon Mr. Mell to have a prodigious hand on the violin, and they thought that no person, as all in London did, could goe beyond him. But when Tho Baltzar [q. v.], an Outlander, came to Oxon in the next yeare, they had other thoughts of Mr. Mell, who tho he played farr sweeter than Baltzar, yet Baltzar's hand was more quick.’ Elsewhere Wood describes Mell as ‘a well-bred gentleman, and not given to excessive drinking as Baltzar was.’ Wood seems to have entertained him at Oxford in August 1658. Mell was conjointly with George Hudson the first ‘Master of the Music,’ or leader of Charles II's ‘four and twenty fiddlers,’ a band of twenty-four performers on the violin, tenor, and bass, instituted by the king in 1660 in imitation of Louis XIV's ‘vingt-quatre violons du Roi.’ He was succeeded in 1661 by Baltzar. Some of Mell's compositions for the instrument are to be found in Christopher Simpson's ‘Division Violin,’ 1684. In Aubrey's ‘Miscellanies’ is an account of a child of Davis Mell, who was cured of a crooked back by the touch of a dead hand.
[Hawkins's History of Music, ed. 1875, p. 681; Anthony à Wood's Life and Times (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), i. 241, 257–8; Aubrey's Miscellanies; Hunter's Chorus Vatum in MS. Addit. 24491 f. 550.]
E. H.-A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mellish, George

​MELLISH, Sir GEORGE (1814–1877), lord justice of appeal, second son of Edward Mellish, D.D., rector of East Tuddenham, Norfolk, and afterwards dean of Hereford, by his wife Elizabeth Jane, daughter of a prior dean of Hereford, William Leigh of Rushall Hall, Staffordshire, was born at Tuddenham, 19 Dec. 1814. His godfather was George Canning, who was his mother's first cousin. He was educated at Eton, where his name appears in the school lists (pp. 137 a, 147 a) in 1829, in the middle division, and in 1832 in the sixth form. At school he was a good sculler, but neither ​an athlete nor a diligent scholar. In 1833 he entered as a commoner at University College, Oxford, but shortly gained an open scholarship on Sir Simon Bennet's foundation. He took a second class in literæ humaniores in 1836, and graduated B.A. on 26 Jan. 1837, and M.A. on 24 Oct. 1839. He was a good speaker at the Union, as he had been at the debating society at Eton, but obtained less distinction in the schools than his talents seemed to merit. He became an honorary fellow of his college in 1872, and received the honorary degree of D.C.L. 17 June 1874.
Mellish was admitted a student of the Inner Temple 6 Nov. 1837, and read in the chambers of Spencer Walpole, John Unthank, and Crompton. For eight years he practised as a special pleader, and on 9 June 1848 he was called to the bar and joined the northern circuit. He rapidly obtained a good mercantile business, became a queen's counsel in 1861, and quitted the lead of his circuit after a few years to devote himself to a very heavy leading practice in London. Neither the bent of his mind nor the state of his health fitted him for the strain of nisi prius work, though he appeared for one of the defendants in the prosecution of Overend, Gurney & Co. His forte lay in arguments in banco, in chancery, and in the House of Lords. More than once he refused a puisne judgeship, but in 1870, on the death of Sir George Giffard, he was appointed a lord justice of appeal in chancery, was knighted, and sworn of the privy council. The experiment of appointing a common-law practitioner to so important a post in chancery was bold, but it was justified by its success, and the court, which consisted of him and Lord Justice James, continued for some years to give judgments of the highest importance and value. All his life, however, he had suffered from gout, and in spite of his great fortitude under severe pain in court, he was frequently disabled from work. He died unmarried at his house, 33 Lowndes Square, London, on 15 June 1877. His chief judicial fault was an eager habit of controversially interrupting the arguments of counsel, but his learning was profound, his intellect logical and clear, and his character impartial and amiable.
[For a lengthy estimate of his character by Lord Selborne see Law Mag. and Rev. 4th ser. iii. 62–4. See also G. K. Richards in Law. Mag. 4th ser. iii. 55; Solicitors' Journal, 23 June 1877.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mellon, Alfred

​MELLON, ALFRED (1820–1867), musician, born in Birmingham, 17 April 1820, became a violinist in the opera and other orchestras, and subsequently leader of the ballet at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden. He held at a later date the post of ​musical director at the Haymarket and Adelphi Theatres, and afterwards of the Pyne and Harrison English opera company, by whom his opera ‘Victorine’ was produced at Covent Garden in 1859. He was conductor of the Musical Society, and also of a series of promenade concerts given under his name at Covent Garden. In 1865 he became conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society, and dying 27 March 1867, was buried in Brompton cemetery. He married Miss Woolgar, the well-known actress. He was an excellent musician.
[Grove's Dictionary of Music, ii. 248; Musical Times, May 1867.]
J. C. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Melia, Pius

​MELIA, PIUS, D.D. (1800–1883), Roman catholic divine, born at Rome in 1800, became professor of literature in the Jesuits' College there, and afterwards visited Corsica, Tuscany, and other countries as a missionary priest. In 1848 he came to England and took charge of the mission at St. Leonards, whence he was removed to Walthamstow. About fourteen years later he was made almoner of the Italian Benevolent Society, and sought to ameliorate the condition of the poor Italian immigrants to this country, and to prevent the abuses arising from the importation of Italian children. For many years he officiated on Sundays at Brentwood, and also preached to the Italians of London on Sunday afternoons. He was a member of the Pious Society of Missions, and the erection of the Italian church of St. Peter in Hatton Garden, London, was in great measure due to his persevering efforts. He died in London on 25 May 1883, and was buried at St. Mary's, Kensal Green. He was the author of: 1. ‘Doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Rulers and Members of Christian States, extracted and explained,’ London, 1860, 8vo; entitled on the cover ‘The Pope, the Prince, and the People.’ 2. ‘The Origin, Persecution, and Doctrines of the Waldenses, from documents,’ London, 1870, 4to. 3. ‘Hints and Facts on the Origin of Man, and of his Intellectual Faculties,’ London, 1872, 8vo.
[Annual Reg. 1883, p. 152; Tablet, 2 June 1883, p. 873; Times, 1 June 1883, p. 8, col. 4; Weekly Register, 2 June 1883, p. 699.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Meliton, William of

​MELITON, MILITON, or MILTON, WILLIAM of (d. 1261), Franciscan, was D.D. and fifth master of the Friars Minors at Cambridge about 1250. He was afterwards called to Paris, and was appointed by Innocent IV to finish the ‘Summa Theologiæ’ of Alexander of Hales in 1252. About 1260 Meliton, Bonaventura, and other distinguished Minorites, at the request of Isabel or Elizabeth, sister of St. Louis, king of France, revised and corrected the rule which she had drawn up for the government of her new nunnery at Longchamp. Meliton died suddenly at Paris in 1261, leaving a reputation for learning and great holiness. His commentaries on Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, Ezekiel, the Twelve Minor Prophets, the Canonical Epistles, and the Apocalypse, are extant among the manu​scripts of the National Library at Paris, and his ‘Quæstiones de Sacramento’ in the library of St. Anthony, Padua. Other works are preserved at Assisi. All or nearly all of these manuscripts date from the thirteenth century—showing that Meliton's popularity, though considerable, was not lasting.
[Monumenta Franciscana, vol. i.; Lanercost Chronicle, p. 70; Bollandists' Acta Sanctorum, sub die 31 Aug. p. 801; Wadding's Annales Minorum, vol. iv.; Supplementum ad Scriptores, p. 324, ed. 1806; Hist. Litt. de la France, xix. 416, xxvi. 403.]
A. G. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mellor, John

​MELLOR, Sir JOHN (1809–1887), judge, son of John Mellor, a member of an old South Lancashire family, and partner in the firm of Gee, Mellor, Kershaw & Co., who resided at Leicester, and was mayor of the borough and a justice of the peace there, was born at Hollinwood House, Oldham, 1 Jan. 1809. He was educated at the Leicester grammar school, and afterwards under Charles Berry, a unitarian minister of Leicester. Being unwilling to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles, he abandoned his original intention of entering at Lincoln College, Oxford, and after reading for a time in the office of a Leicester attorney, he entered as a student at the Inner Temple in 1828, read in the chambers of Thomas Chitty for four years, attended John Austin's lectures at University College, and was called to the bar 7 June 1833. He joined the midland circuit, and practised at Leicester borough and Warwick sessions, at assizes, and at the parliamentary bar. After becoming a queen's counsel in 1851 he became leader of the circuit, and also had a fair London practice. From 1849 to 1852 he was recorder of Warwick, and from 1855 to 1861 recorder of Leicester. He stood as a liberal unsuccessfully for Warwick in 1852, and for Coventry in 1857, but late in 1857 he was elected for Great Yarmouth, and at the general election of 1859 was returned for Nottingham. He spoke little in parliament. On 3 Dec. 1861 he succeeded Mr. Justice Hill in the queen's bench and was knighted. He was a member of the special commission which tried the Fenian prisoners at Manchester in 1867 and of the court which tried Arthur Orton, alias Castro, for perjury in the Tichborne case in 1873. In June 1879 being troubled with increasing deafness, he retired on a pension and was sworn of the privy council. Thereafter he often attended the judicial committee, went the northern circuit once as commissioner of assize, and frequently acted as an arbitrator in important cases. He died at his house, 16 Sussex Square, Bayswater, on 26 April 1887, and was buried at Dover, where he had lived in his later years, on 30 April. He married in 1833 Elizabeth Cooke, only daughter of William Moseley of Peckham, Surrey, by whom he had eight sons, John William, a queen's counsel, a member of the privy council, judge advocate-general from 1880 to 1885, and chairman of committees in the House of Commons in 1893; James Robert, master of the crown office; and six others. He published two lectures on the ‘Christian Church before the Reformation,’ 1857, and ‘The Life and Times of John Selden,’ and a pamphlet advocating the abolition of oaths in courts of law or in parliament in 1882.
[Foss's Judges of England; Law Times, 7 May 1887; Times, 25 April 1887; Solicitors' Journal, 30 April 1887.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mellis, Hugh

John Mellis in the ODNB.
​MELLIS, HUGH (fl. 1588), mathematician, had from his youth, as he himself informs us, a natural genius for drawing proportions, maps, cards, buildings, and plates. He attended Dr. Robert Forth at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and went to the arithmetic lecture in the common school. He left the service of Forth, who afterwards became a master in chancery, about 1564. Subsequently he kept a school for writing and arithmetic at Mayes Gate, near Battle Bridge, in the parish of St. Olave, ‘in shorte Southwarke.’
His works are: 1. ‘Brief Rules, called Rules of Practize, of Rare, Pleasant, and commodious effect, abridged into a briefer Method than hitherto hath bene published. With diuers other very necessarie Rules, Tables, and Questions, not only profitable for Merchants, but also for Gentlemen and all other occupiers whatsouer;’ dedicated to Dr. Robert Forth, it constitutes the third part or addition to Robert Recorde's ‘Grounde of Artes, teaching the perfecte Worke and Practise of Arithmetike,’ London, 1582. 2. ‘A Briefe Instruction and Maner how to keepe Bookes of Accompts after the order of Debitor and Creditor, & as well for proper Accompts partible, &c. … Newely augmented and set forth by John Mellis,’ London (J. Windet), 1588. In the preface he describes his work as a reissue ‘of an auncient old copie printed here in London the 14 of August, 1543,’ from the pen of ‘Hugh Oldcastle, Scholemaster.’ No copy of Oldcastle's edition is known. 3. ‘A Short and Plaine Treatise of Arithmeticke in whole numbers comprised into a briefer Method than hetherto hath bin published,’ London, 1588, 8vo, ff. 54; annexed to the preceding work.
[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), pp. 743, 1227; De Morgan's Arithmetical Books, pp. 22, 27; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), pp. 1531, 1721; Massey's Origin and Progress of Letters, ii. 16.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Merewether, Henry Alworth

​MEREWETHER, HENRY ALWORTH (1780–1864), serjeant-at-law, born in 1780, was eldest son of Henry Merewether of Calne, Wiltshire. A younger brother, Francis (1784–1864), was well known as the rector of Coleorton, a living to which he was presented by his friend Sir George Beaumont in 1816 (cf. Gent. Mag 1864, pt. ii. pp. 387–9). Henry was educated at Reading school under Dr. Valpy, was called to the bar 5 May 1809, was created serjeant-at-law 25 June 1827, and became king's counsel with patent of precedence in Hilary term 1853. He practised on the western circuit with much success. Merewether was appointed recorder of Reading, and was attorney-general to Adelaide, queen-dowager. He received the degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford on 12 June 1839.
He was elected town-clerk of London on 23 June 1842, by a majority of twenty-six votes, in competition with William Pritchard, then high bailiff of Southwark. By accepting this appointment he relinquished an income of over 5,000l. at the bar. It is said by those among the corporation who knew him that the office of town-clerk had never been filled with such dignity as in his time. He appeared on behalf of the corporation in the court of chancery and elsewhere on several occasions, and defended their interests with great learning and ability. He resigned the office of town-clerk on 10 Feb. 1859, and died at his family seat, Castlefield, near Calne, Wiltshire, on 22 July 1864, in his eighty-fourth year.
Merewether was twice married, and left several children. His eldest son, Henry Alworth (1812–1877), was recorder of Devizes and a bencher of the Inner Temple. His youngest son, Sir William Lockyer Merewether, is separately noticed.
The serjeant's principal work is ‘The History of the Boroughs and Municipal Corporations of the United Kingdom,’ written in conjunction with Archibald John Stephens, and published in three octavo volumes in 1835. He also wrote: 1. ‘A New System of Police,’ 8vo, London, 1816. 2. ‘A Sketch of the History of Boroughs, and of the Corporate Right of Election,’ 8vo, London, 1822. 3. ‘Report of the Case of the Borough of West Looe,’ 8vo, London, 1823. 4. ‘An Address to the King, the Lords, and Commons on the Representative Constitution of England,’ 8vo, London, 1830. 5. ‘The Speech … at the Bar of the House of Commons against the Bill intituled An Act to make Temporary Provision for the Government of Jamaica,’ 8vo, London, 1839. 6. ‘The Speech … upon the Claim of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to the Seashore, &c.,’ 8vo, London, Dublin, 1850.
[Gent. Mag. 1864, pt. ii. pp. 393–4; City Press, 30 July 1864, p. 4; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Burke's Landed Gentry, 5th edit., 1871; Haydn's Book of Dignities, 1890, pp. 413, 417; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
C. W-h.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Meriton, George (d.1624)

​MERITON or MERYTON, GEORGE, D.D. (d. 1624), dean of York, was born in Hertfordshire, probably at Braughing. His father was a tenant of Thomas Howard, first earl of Suffolk (1561-1626) [q. v.], who inherited estates in Hertfordshire from his mother, and he himself was born under the earl's roof (Meriton, Epistle to Sermon of Nobilitie). He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1584-5, M.A. in 1588, and was on 4 July 1589 elected fellow of Queen's College. There he filled the post of junior bursar, 1595-6, senior bursar 1596-7, and proceeded B.D. in 1596, and D.D. in 1601. During his residence at Cambridge he made known his adherence to church establishment by frequent discussions on ceremonies which he held with Thomas Brightman [q. v.] in the chapel of Queen's College. He was collated to the rectory of Hadleigh in Suffolk by Archbishop Whitgift in 1599, and was appointed to the deanery of Bocking (usually held in conjunction with the rectory) on 24 May 1599. He was made dean of Peterborough on 12 June 1612, was chaplain to Anne of Denmark, wife of James I, dean of York on 27 March 1617, and prebendary of Tockerington in the cathedral church of York on 5 March 1617. He re- ​ signed Hadleigh in 1618, and dying on 23 Dec. 1624, was buried in York Cathedral.
Meriton married Mary Rands, granddaughter of Henry Rands, bishop of Lincoln, by whom he had several children, whose baptisms are recorded in the registers of Hadleigh.
He published : 1. 'A Sermon of Nobilitie,' London, 1607. 2. 'A Sermon of Repentance,' London, 1607. 3. 'A Sermon preached before the General Assembly at Glasgow,' London, 1611. 4. 'The Christian Man's Assuring House, and a Sinner's Conversion,' London, 1614.
B. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Merfyn Frych

​MERFYN Frych, i.e. Freckled (d. 844), Welsh prince, succeeded to the lordship of Anglesey (with, possibly, other adjacent districts), on the failure of the male line of Maelgwn Gwynedd with the death of Hywel, in 825. He was the son of Gwriad ab Elidyr, a descendant of Llywarch Hên [q. v.] According to the twelfth-century poem entitled ‘Cyfoesi Myrddin a Gwenddydd ei Chwaer,’ he came ‘from the land of Manaw’ (Myvyrian Archaiology, 2nd edit. p. 110), which Skene conjectures to be Manaw Gododin, on the banks of the Forth (Four Ancient Books of Wales, i. 94). According to the modern authorities (Gwentian Brut; Powel; Warrington; Cambrian Biography; Carnhuanawc) he became prince in right of his wife, Esyllt, daughter of Cynan Tindaethwy. But older and better accounts speak of him as the son of Cynan's daughter, who is termed Ethil or Ethellt (Harl. MS. 3859, as given in Cymmrodor, ix. 169; Jesus Coll. MS. 20, as given in Cymmrodor, viii. 87). This is more consistent with the Welsh law of inheritance, which in certain cases recognised a claim through a mother, but never one derived from a wife (see the sections treating of ‘mamwys’ (maternity) in the Record edition of the ‘Welsh Laws’). The same authorities which speak of Esyllt as Merfyn's wife call him the son of Nest, daughter of Cadell, the last but one of the princes of Powys of the older line. Jesus Coll. MS. 20 is probably right in making Nest Merfyn's wife and the mother of Rhodri the Great. Many modern writers style Merfyn king of Man, but this is merely an ill-grounded inference from the passage in the ‘Cyfoesi’ quoted above, which speaks, it should be noted, not of ‘ynys,’ but of ‘tir Manaw.’
Of Merfyn's reign nothing is known. The traditional name ‘Camwri’ (‘Injustice’) given him in one manuscript of the Welsh Laws (Ancient Laws of Wales, edit. 1841, i. 342) shows that his rule was not accepted without demur; nevertheless, he founded a family which supplied both North and South Wales with princes until the conquest of Edward I.
[Annales Cambriæ, Rolls ed.; pedigrees in Harl. MS. 3859 and Jesus Coll. MS. 20.]
J. E. L.