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

​MORTIMER, GEORGE FERRIS WHIDBORNE (1805–1871), schoolmaster and divine, born on 22 July 1805 at Bishopsteignton in Devonshire, was the eldest son of William Mortimer, a country gentleman of that place. He was educated at the Exeter grammar school and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he matriculated 18 March 1823, and obtained an exhibition. Thence he migrated to Queen's, where he secured a Michel exhibition, and was placed in the first class of the final classical school at Michaelmas 1826 with the present archdeacon of Taunton, George Anthony Denison, and another. After graduating B.A. in 1826 he engaged actively in tuition. He proceeded M.A. in 1829, and D.D. in 1841, having been ordained on 24 Feb. 1829. He was successively head-master of the Newcastle grammar school (1828) and of the Western proprietary school at Brompton, London (1833). In 1840 he was appointed, in succession to John Allen Giles [q. v.], to the scene of his longest and most important labours, the headship of the City of London School. The school had been opened in 1837 [see under Carpenter, John, 1370?–1441?], but its prosperity had been injured by the action of the first head-master. Mortimer's administrative ability and genial manner rendered the success of the school certain. He treated with conspicuous honesty and fairness the large proportion of boys, not members of the church of England, who from various causes were found there. In 1861 he had the unique distinction of seeing two of his scholars respectively senior wrangler and senior classic at Cambridge. Charles Kingsley read privately with him for ordination. Dr. Mortimer received in 1864 the honorary prebend of Consumpta per mare in St. Paul's, and for many years was evening lecturer at St. Matthew's, Friday Street. At Michaelmas 1865 he resigned his head-mastership, and for the next few years interested himself actively in the Society of Schoolmasters and other educational institutions. He died 7 Sept. 1871, at Rose Hill, Hampton Wick, and was buried in Hampton churchyard. He married in 1830 Jane, daughter of Alexander Gordon of Bishopsteignton; and by this lady, who still survives, he left a numerous family.
Besides two sermons, Mortimer published while at Newcastle a pamphlet entitled 'The Immediate Abolition of Slavery compatible with the Safety and Prosperity of the Colonies' (1833, 8vo).
[Information from the family; personal knowledge.]
J. H. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leighton, Henry (d.1440)

Lichton in the ODNB.
​LEIGHTON, LICHTON, or LYCHTON, HENRY (d. 1440), bishop successively of Moray and Aberdeen, was the son of Henry and Jonet de Lichton, and belonged, it is said, to the Leightons of Usan, Forfarshire. Before 1414 he was parson of Duffus, Elginshire, and canon and chanter (precentor) of Elgin Cathedral. Leighton, now described as ‘legum doctor et baccalaureus in decretis,’ was elected bishop of Moray, and was consecrated 8 March 1414–15 at Valentia by Benedict XIII, being the third bishop of Moray in succession consecrated by the same pope. On the death of his predecessor Bishop John Innes [q. v.] the chapter had resolved that the new bishop should devote a third of his revenues to the restoration of the cathedral, which had been burned in 1390 by Alexander Stewart, the Wolf of Badenoch. While still bishop of Moray Leighton presented to the cathedral of Aberdeen two pairs of episcopal gloves and jewelled images of St. James and St. John. Translated to Aberdeen, probably in 1423, he soon displayed similar munificence there. Besides bestowing on his church many books and costly ornaments, recorded in its inventories, he was the builder of by far the greater part of the existing cathedral. The nave with its south aisle, fine porch, still finer west window (the ‘Seven Sisters’), and western towers, not the spires, were his work; and, plain as the cathedral is, its size and the admirable suitability of its style to the intractable granite of which it is composed fairly entitle him to a place among the great church-builders of Scotland. He made other additions to the episcopal residence, ​embellishing either the bishop's palace or its grounds. A more questionable transaction was the conversion of the revenues of St. Peter's Hospital to the maintenance of his table and the support of two chaplains of St. Peter in the cathedral; for this, however, he obtained the sanction of Pope Eugenius IV in 1435. He was employed on many diplomatic missions—to England (to arrange for the ransom of James I), to Rome, to France (to treat of the marriage of the infant Princess of Scotland with the dauphin), and in his old age he was appointed to mediate between the factions of Crichton, the chancellor, and the Livingstones. He died 14 Dec. 1440, and was buried in the north transept of his cathedral, where, though another's effigy has usurped his monument, his epitaph may still be read.
[Registrum Moraviense; Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis; Fordun; Leslie; Boece's Vitæ Episcop. Aberd.; Grub l.c.]
J. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leighton, William Allport

​LEIGHTON, WILLIAM ALLPORT (1805–1889), botanist, only son of William Leighton, by Lucy Maria, daughter and coheiress of John Allport of Prescot, near Baschurch, Shropshire. His father was the keeper of the Talbot Hotel in Shrewsbury, a noted house in the old coaching days, and the son was born there on 17 May 1805. He went to school at the Manse on Claremont Hill, Shrewsbury, with Charles Darwin, who first roused in him an interest in plants. He was afterwards at the Wolverhampton grammar school, and in 1822 was articled to a solicitor in Shrewsbury, but on the death of his father he inherited a competency, and abandoned the study of the law in favour of the church. Proceeding to Cambridge he matriculated at St. John's College, and graduated B.A. in 1833. Henslow, professor of botany at Cambridge, found in Leighton one of his most zealous pupils, and Leighton on his return to his native town deferred ordination on purpose to draw up a flora of Shropshire. Seven years later, in 1841, he brought out his ‘Flora of Shropshire,’ the etchings to illustrate some of the more difficult genera being from his own hand. In 1843 he was ordained deacon and priest, and took clerical duty in his birthplace till 1848, when he resigned his cure, and thenceforward occupied himself entirely with botany.
Soon after the completion of his ‘Flora’ he began working up the cryptogams, and in 1851 the Ray Society published his ‘Angiocarpous Lichens elucidated by their Sporidia.’ From that date onward appeared numerous contributions by Leighton to lichen literature, of which the chief was ‘Lichen Flora of Great Britain’ in 1871. This reached a third edition in 1879, and Leighton, ​finding soon afterwards that the strain on his eyesight was too great to allow him to pursue his studies, gave his collection to the national herbarium at Kew. He died at Lucifelde, Shrewsbury, on 28 Feb. 1889, and was buried in the Shrewsbury General Cemetery. He married, first, in 1827, Catherine, youngest daughter of David Parkes, a Shrewsbury antiquary, by whom he left one son and two daughters; secondly, Mrs. Gibson, by whom he left a son.
[Shrewsbury Chronicle, 8 March 1889; Journ. Bot. 1889, p. 111.]
B. D. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leighton, William (fl.1603-1614)

Dates c.1565 to 1622 in the ODNB.
​LEIGHTON, Sir WILLIAM (fl. 1603–1614), poet and composer, of Plash in Shropshire, eldest son of William Leighton (1533–1607), one of the council of the Welsh Marches, by Isabella, daughter of Thomas Onslowe of London, merchant, was at the accession of James I a gentleman-pensioner. He published in praise of his majesty an adulatory poem entitled ‘Vertue Triumphant, or a Lively Description of the Fovre Vertues Cardinall’ (London, 1603, 4to), with copious marginal references to the bible and classical authors, and an allusion to the author's ‘deepe-grounded root of his duteous loue’ to his late mistress, Queen Elizabeth. It was probably in return for this that he was knighted on 23 July 1603. In 1608 Leighton was sued for debts by Sir William Harmon, two years later was outlawed, and was subsequently imprisoned.
In January 1613 he published at London ‘The Teares or Lamentations of a Sorrowful Soule,’ dedicated to Prince Charles. Some prefatory verses by Arthur Hopton (1588?–1614) [see under Hopton, Sir Arthur] are inscribed to ‘my endeared friend and kinsman, Sir William Leighton.’ In the ​introduction to these ‘himnes and spiritual sonnets’ he says: ‘I intend … to divuldge very speadely in print some sweete Musicall Ayres and Tunable Accents.’ This promise was fulfilled by the appearance in 1614 of a work bearing that title, the music being described as composed ‘both for Voyces and diuers Instruments.’ This applies to the first part of the work only, which consists of ‘consort songs’ for four voices with accompaniments for a treble viol and a lute in tablature. The first eight pieces only are by Leighton. The remaining ones are by the leading English and Anglo-Italian musicians of the day. In the introduction he writes: ‘Some of the most excellent musitions this Age can afford haue in their loue to me composed … musicke’ expressly for the volume. The second and third parts of the work consist of unaccompanied part-songs for four and five voices. Leighton appears to have been still in prison at the time. The work is prefaced by some dozen short poems in praise of the author by various friends. Judging by the ‘long attendance on Majestie in the English Court,’ and the ‘many extremities and oppressions undergone in his later days,’ of which he writes in his ‘Musicall Ayres,’ Leighton must have been an elderly man in 1614, and cannot therefore be identical with the Sir William Leighton who was confined in the Tower in 1658–9 (Rawlinson MS. A. 57). Leighton had a son and two daughters by his wife Winifred, daughter of Simon Harcourt of Ellenhall in Staffordshire. She died in 1616. Copies of Leighton's three books are in the British Museum.
[Harley MSS. 1396 and 1241; Cotton MS. Claudius C. iii.; Addit. MS. 24489; Collectanea Top. et Geneal. v. 204; Shropshire Archæolog. Soc. Trans. ii. 293.]
A. H.-H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leighton, Henry (d.1669)

​LEIGHTON, HENRY (d. 1669), French scholar, a native of Scotland, was chiefly educated in France. In 1642 he bore a commission for the king. On 1 Nov. 1642, when more than seventy persons were created M.A. by command of Charles, Leighton adroitly contrived to obtain the degree by presenting himself at dusk, although his name was not on the list. When the king's cause declined, he settled at Oxford as a teacher of French. He died by falling downstairs in St. John's College, where he had a room allowed him, on 28 Jan. 1668–9, and was buried the next day in St. Giles's Church, Oxford. According to Wood he was a man of debauched character.
He published for the use of his pupils ‘Linguæ Gallicæ addiscendæ Regulæ,’ 8vo, Oxford, 1659; another edition, 1662.
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 29–30; Wood's Life and Times, ed. Clark (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), ii. 150; Griffiths's Index to Wills at Oxford, p. 38.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leighton, Robert (1822-1869)

​LEIGHTON, ROBERT (1822–1869), Scottish poet, born in Dundee 20 Feb. 1822, was son of David L. Leighton, who died in 1828. In 1834 his mother was married to a farmer named Fleming, of East Friarton, Fifeshire, where Leighton acquired the knowledge afterwards utilised in his ‘Wee Herd Loon.’ On his mother's death in 1835 he settled with his brother William, a shipowner, in Dundee, attending the academy there till 1837, when he entered his brother's office. In 1842–3 he went round the world as a supercargo in one of William Leighton's ships, visiting Sydney and returning by Valparaiso. He then entered the service of the London and North-Western Railway at Preston, where he married in 1850 Miss Jane Campbell, daughter of a retired Scottish schoolmaster resident in Liverpool. His wife is the ‘Eliza’ of his dramatic and reflective poems. From 1854 to 1858 he managed at Ayr a branch business of a firm of Liverpool seed merchants. In 1858 he visited his brother William, who had settled in America, and subsequently travelled for the Liverpool firm in the agricultural districts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In March 1867 he met with an accident near Youghal, and became a helpless invalid. He died at Liverpool, 10 May 1869.
Before 1843 Leighton had contributed ‘Ye Three Voyces’ to Jerrold's ‘Shilling Magazine.’ In 1849 he wrote for a Dundee pamphlet several poems and songs, one of which, ‘Jenny Marshall's Candy, O,’ was so generally sung that it vastly improved the business it celebrated. In 1855 appeared ‘Poems by Robin,’ and in 1861 and 1866 ‘Poems by Robert Leighton,’ the second issue being an enlargement of its predecessor. ‘Scotch Words’ and ‘The Bapteesement o' the Bairn’ were published in a pamphlet in 1870. Both are clever vernacular poems, and the second is not only a droll tale but also a shrewd criticism of Scottish Calvinistic narrowness. In 1872 a pamphlet appeared, containing a number of pieces, of which the chief were ‘The Laddie's Lamentation on the Loss o' his Whittle,’ an early composition which Leighton was famous for reciting, and ‘The Centenary of Robert Burns,’ which Leighton recited at the Ayr gathering in 1859. Leighton's complete works are included in the two volumes, ‘Reuben and other Poems,’ 1875, and ‘Records and other Poems,’ 1880. ‘Reuben’ is a closet drama, bright and vigorous in characterisation, and lighted with melodious lyrics. Writing to William Leighton in 1871, Emerson paid a high compliment to Leighton's ‘purity and manliness of thought, and the deep moral tone which dictated every verse.’
[Information from Leighton's son, Mr. R. Leighton, Lowestoft; Biography prefixed to Scotch Words, &c.; Christian Leader, 20 Aug. 1885; Grant Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leighton, Alexander (1800-1874)

​LEIGHTON, ALEXANDER (1800–1874), editor of ‘Tales of the Borders,’ was born at Dundee in 1800. After distinguishing himself at Dundee academy he studied medicine at Edinburgh and settled there, first working as a lawyer's clerk and then as a man of letters. The ‘Tales of the Borders,’ a series of short stories, still popular among the Scottish peasantry, was projected at Berwick-on-Tweed in 1834 by John Mackay Wilson [q. v.], on whose death in 1835 his brother continued the work for a time. Shortly afterwards an Edinburgh publisher named Sutherland became proprietor, and Leighton was appointed editor and chief story writer; the series was completed in 1840. He received assistance from Hugh Miller [q. v.], Thomas Gillespie (1777–1844) [q. v.], and others. Reading widely he had an extensive, if not very accurate, knowledge of many subjects, including metaphysics and especially Hume's philosophy. He died 24 Dec. 1874.
In 1857 Leighton re-edited the complete ‘Tales of the Borders,’ and this was reissued in 1863–4, 1869 (with additions), and in 1888. In 1860–1 he published two series of ‘Curious Storied Traditions of Scottish Life,’ in 1864 ‘Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh,’ in 1865 ‘Shellburn,’ a novel, and in 1867 his interesting ‘Romance of the Old Town of Edinburgh.’ Other of his works are: ‘Men and Women of History,’ ‘Jephthah's Daughter,’ ‘A Dictionary of Religions,’ and a Latin metrical version of Burns's songs, which Carlyle praised. Various writers submitted their books to his editing, and he probably wrote whole volumes to which others prefixed their names.
[Daily Scotsman, 26 Dec. 1874; Irving's Eminent Scotsmen.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leighton, William (1841-1869)

​LEIGHTON, WILLIAM (1841–1869), Scottish poet, born at Dundee 3 Feb. 1841, was son of David Leighton and the nephew of Robert Leighton (1822–1869) [q. v.] His mother was Elizabeth Inglis, and his mother's sister, Helen Inglis, is the subject of a memoir by Bishop Forbes of Brechin. When he was in his seventh year the family settled in Liverpool, where he received a fair education and became a clerk with a Spanish merchant. From 1864 till his death he was engaged in a Brazilian house. He died of typhoid fever, 22 April 1869, and was buried in Anfield cemetery, Liverpool. There is a window to his memory in St. Ann's Church, Brookfield, Highgate Rise, London.
Leighton wrote verses at an early age. During his last five years he was an active member of literary and debating societies, and contributed poems to the ‘Compass,’ a local literary paper, and to the ‘Liverpool Mercury.’ Thackeray somewhat tardily accepted for the ‘Cornhill Magazine’ his ‘Leaf of Woodruff,’ which Leighton meanwhile, impatient of editorial delay, had published in the ‘Compass.’ He gradually mastered a fluent and energetic style. Both his sentimental lyrics and his occasional pieces are delicately and daintily finished, and such poems as ‘Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-two,’ ‘The Seasons,’ ‘Baby died to-day,’ and ‘Rose’ display very considerable versatility and promise. ‘Poems by the late William Leighton’ appeared in 1870; ‘Hymns’ in 1872; ‘Baby died to-day, and other Poems’ in 1875. A complete edition of ‘The Poems of William Leighton,’ 1890, has a biographical preface and several illustrations.
[Information from Mr. Robert Leighton, Lowestoft; Memoir prefixed to Poems, ed. 1890.]
T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leighton, Charles Blair

​LEIGHTON, CHARLES BLAIR (1823–1855), artist, born on 6 March 1823, was son of Stephen Leighton and Helen Blair, his wife. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a silver-engraver for seven years, but abandoned engraving at the end of his apprenticeship. He always devoted his spare time to drawing and the study of anatomy, and became a student of the Royal Academy. He painted portraits and figure-pieces, and was an occasional exhibitor at the Royal Academy. Leighton also practised for a time in lithography, and worked with his brother, George Cargill Leighton, in the chromolithographic business of Leighton Brothers. Leighton died on 6 Feb. 1855, aged 31. He married, in April 1849, Caroline, daughter of Thomas Boosey, music publisher, by whom he left two daughters, and a son, Edmund Blair Leighton, who has obtained some distinction as an artist.
[Private information.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oudoceus

Euddogwy in the ODNB.
​OUDOCEUS (fl. 630?), bishop of Llandaff, is generally regarded as having succeeded Teilo in that see. There is a life of him in the 'Liber Landavensis' (ed. Evans, pp. 130–9), abridged by Capgrave (Nova Legenda Angliæ, p. 258) and by the compilers of 'Acta Sanctorum' (2 July, i. 318). According to this, he was the son of Budic, son of Cybrdan of Cornugallia (Cornouaille in Brittany), and Anauued, daughter of Ensic of Dyfed (West Wales). Budic is known to have been king of the Bretons about 500 (L'Art de verifier les Dates, vol. xiii.), and Ensic was Teilo's father. Oudoceus was trained, it is further said, by Teilo, and on his death was elected his successor, receiving consecration at Canterbury. As bishop he was contemporary with Cadwgan of Dyfed (fl. about 670) and Meurig of Glamorgan (fl. about 600). It was during his time the English seized the region between the Wye, the Dore, and the Worm (Herefordshire). At the close of his life he resigned his bishopric, and withdrew to the solitude of Lann Enniaun, or Lann Oudocui (Llandogo, Monmouthshire), where he died on 2 July.
The chronological inconsistencies of this life deprive it of nearly all value. It appears to have been written in part in Brittany, but the reference to Canterbury shows that it ​received its present form from a British hand, probably not long before 1150. Doubtless Oudoceus was a Breton, for in several of the Welsh catalogues of saints he is said to have come over with Cadfan (Iolo MSS. ff. 103, 112, 134; Myvyrian Archaioloyy, 2nd edit. p. 423), but the parentage of the life can hardly be accepted. In the 'Liber Landavensis' (pp. 140-60) is recorded a number of grants of land said to have been made to Oudoceus during his episcopate by various princes of South-east Wales. These documents, although they may not perhaps be authoritative as to the claims they were put forward to support, nevertheless appear to embody historical facts, and from them it would seem that Oudoceus was the contemporary of Meurig ap Tewdrig, king of Glamorgan, and his grandson Morgan Mwynfawr [q. v.], who flourished in the early part and the middle of the seventh century. This date, which is favoured by Haddan and Stubbs (Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, i. 160), is consistent with the statement in the life that it was during the episcopate of Oudoceus that the 'English conquered the region south-west of Hereford, for the advance in this direction is generally supposed to have been made under Penda.
Oudoceus is the latinised form of old Welsh Oudocui, which in modern Welsh would be Euddogwy. In the catalogues of saints the name appears as Docheu, Dochwy, and Dochdwy (Myvyrian Archaiology, 2nd edit. p. 423; Iolo MSS. 103, 112, 134). The church of Llandogo, near Tintern, is dedicated to Oudoceus.
[Liber Landavensis, ed. Gwenogfryn Evans; Rees's Welsh Saints.]
J. E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ould, Fielding

​OULD, Sir FIELDING (1710–1789), man-midwife, was son of a captain in the army, and was born at Galway in 1710. His mother was a Miss Shawe of Galway. He studied medicine in Paris (Preface to Midwifery, v. xvi), and about 1736 began practice in Golden Lane, Dublin, as a man-midwife. His practice became large, and in 1742 he published in Dublin 'A Treatise on Midwifery in three parts,' dedicated to the Dublin College of Physicians. The first part is on normal labour, the second on difficult labour of various kinds, and the third on obstetric operations. The book shows careful observation on a few points, but demonstrates that the author had not received a thorough medical education. It was attacked by Dr. Thomas Southwell in 'Remarks on some of the Errors, both in Anatomy and Practice, contained in a late Treatise on Midwifery,' Dublin, 1742, but was read by students of midwifery for many years, and gave a more exact account of the position of the child in natural labour than any work that had been published before. It added to Ould's reputation, and in 1759 he was appointed master of the lying-in hospital in Dublin. He was knighted by the lord-lieutenant, the Duke of Bedford, in the same year, and received the degree of M.B. from the university of Dublin. The College of Physicians in Dublin at first refused to grant him its license, as he was only a man-midwife, but afterwards yielded. He died in his house in Frederick Street, Dublin, 29 Nov. 1789, and was buried in St. Anne's Church.
[Dublin Journal of Medical Science, 1858; Cameron's History of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, 1886; Works.]
N. M.