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

​GUERSYE, BALTHASAR, M.D. (d. 1557), physician, an Italian, rose to high favour at the court of Henry VIII. On 7 Nov. 1519 'Thomas Roos of London, surgeon, was bound over in 100l. not to molest Baltazar de Guerciis, or pursue an information late put into the king's Exchequer, till he prove that surgery is an handicraft' (Letters and Papers of Reign of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, iii. pt. ii. 1562, where Roos's very curious 'proof' is given). As surgeon to Queen Catherine of Arragon, Guersye was naturalised on 16 March 1521-2 (ib. iii. pt. ii. 902). About 1530 he took the degree of M.B. at Cambridge. On 9 Nov. 1532 his services were rewarded by a grant of lands (ib., ed. Gairdner, v. 668). On 20 Aug. 1534 he obtained license to depart into Italy with three servants, five horses or geldings, and twenty crowns of the sun, baggage, &c. (ib. vii. 443). He was also surgeon to Henry VIII (ib. xi. 567), and in 1543 was engaged in collecting accusations against Archbishop Cranmer. He was by special grace admitted M.D. at Cambridge in 1546. He was excepted out of the act of general pardon 7 Edward VI, being therein described as 'Balthaser Guarsy, surgenn.' On 22 Dec. 1556 he was admitted a fellow of the College of Physicians. Guersye, who had long resided in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, was buried there on 10 Jan. 1556-7. His will, in which he describes himself as 'being aged and weake of body and diseased,' was dated on 7 Jan. 1556-1557, and proved with a codicil at London on the following 18 Jan. (registered in P.C.C. 2, Wrastley). He left issue two sons, Benedick, admitted B.C.L. on 17 Feb. 1537-8 at Oxford (Reg. of Univ. of Oxford, Oxford Hist. Soc. i. 190), and Richard, and two daughters, Frances, widow of Thomas Polsted, and Mary Polley. He left a sum of money to be distributed among the poor of Tadmarton, Oxfordshire, and St. Helen's, Bishopsgate. His wife died before him.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Guest, Thomas Douglas

​GUEST, THOMAS DOUGLAS (fl. 1803–1839), historical and portrait painter, studied in the schools of the Royal Academy, and in 1803 sent his first contribution to its exhibitions, a portrait of Joseph Wilton, R.A., the sculptor. Next year he was represented by a ‘Madonna and Child,’ and in 1805 gained the gold medal for historical painting, the subject being ‘Bearing the Dead Body of Patroclus to the Camp, Achilles's Grief.’ This work was exhibited at the British Institution in 1807. In 1806 he sent to the Royal Academy ‘Penelope unravelling the Web;’ in 1808 ‘Cupid wrestling with Pan: an allegory;’ in 1809 ‘Venus recumbent, and Cupids;’ and in 1811 ‘Clorinda’ and ‘Cupid and Psyche.’ In 1812 and 1817 he sent similar mythological subjects and a few portraits. In 1834 he sent ‘The Second Appearance of the Messiah’ and ‘The Judgment of Hercules.’ These were followed in 1838 by ‘The Prism’ and ‘Phaeton driving the Chariot of the Sun,’ which were his last contributions to the Royal Academy. Besides these he exhibited several pictures at the British Institution and a few at the Society of British Artists. He also painted in 1809 a large picture of ‘The Transfiguration,’ which he presented as an altar-piece to St. Thomas's Church, Salisbury; remains of it still exist in the vestry. Guest published in 1829 ‘An Inquiry into the Causes of the Decline of Historical Painting.’ In 1839 he sent two small works to the exhibition of the British Institution, and there is no further notice of him.
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gudwal

​GUDWAL, Saint (fl. 650), bishop and confessor, is said to have been of noble parentage and a native of Wales. At an early age he entered the priesthood, and became a bishop. Afterwards he led a party of 188 monks across the sea to Cornuvia (Cornwall), where they were hospitably received by Mevor, a prince of the country, and Gudwal founded a monastery not far off (according to the Bollandists, in Devonshire). After his death his monks carried his body to Monstreuil in Picardy, and it eventually, in 955 or 959, found a resting-place in the monastery of Blandinberg at Ghent, where his festival was kept on 6 June. Relics of Gudwal were also preserved at Yevre-le-Chastel and Pluviers in the Gatinois. Such is briefly the legend as given by the Bollandists, but Surius and Malebrancq make Mevor a native of Picardy, reading Corminia (Cormon) for Cornuvia, and say that it was there that Gudwal established his monastery. The parish of Gulval, near Penzance, is dedicated to him, and there is a celebrated holy well there, but the old oratory has been destroyed. Gudwal's life and miracles were written by a monk of Blandinberg in the twelfth century (the writer refers to Abbot Gislebert, who died in 1138), but there seems to have been an older life which has perished. The full life is printed in the 'Acta Sanctorum,' and abbreviations of it are given by Capgrave and Surius.
Gudwal must be distinguished from St. Gudwal or Gurval, an Irish monk and disciple of St. Brendan (484-577) [q. v.], who became second bishop of St. Malo in the seventh century. This saint's festival was also kept on 6 June, though the day is sometimes given as 6 Jan.
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Guest, George

Contains subarticle on his father Ralph Guest (1742-1830).
​GUEST, GEORGE (1771–1831), organist, was son of Ralph Guest (1742-1830), who was born at Broseley in Shropshire, settled at Bury St. Edmunds in 1768, was organist of St. Mary's church there from 1805 to 1822, and he is said to have published some glees and songs. George Guest was born in 1771 at Bury St. Edmunds. He was chorister of the Chapels Royal, and may have been the Master Guest who was one of the principal singers (in the 'Messiah' and miscellaneous concerts) for the Hereford musical festival of 1783. Guest was organist at Eye, Suffolk, in 1787, and at St. Peter's, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, from 1789 to 1831. He died at Wisbech on 11 Sept. 1831, after a long and severe illness, aged 60. He was the composer of four fugues and sixteen voluntaries for the organ; the cantatas, the 'Afflicted African' and the 'Dying Christian;' three quartets for flute and strings; three duets for two violoncellos; pieces for military bands; hymns, glees, and songs. It is probable that John Guest (fl. 1795), music master of Bury, and Jane Mary Guest (fl. 1780), afterwards Mrs. Miles, pianist, composer, and instructress of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, were relatives.
L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kirkman, Jacob

​KIRKMAN, JACOB (fl. 1800), musical composer, was probably a nephew of Jacob Kirkman, who carried on the business of harpsichord-maker in Broad Street, Golden Square, London, about 1770. The younger Kirkman acquired some reputation as a pianist and composer of pianoforte works in London before the end of the eighteenth century. One Jacob Kirkman died in Upper Guilford Street, London, 29 April 1812, aged 67 (Gent. Mag. 1812, i. 596). Among his published works may be mentioned: 1. Duets for the pianoforte, Op. 5. 2. ‘Trois Sonates à quatre mains, et une à deux Temps’ (Amsterdam). 3. Three sonatas for harpsichord with violin, Op. 8. 4. A sonata for pianoforte. 5. Eight ballads dedicated to the Marchioness of Salisbury, Op. 10. 6. ‘Six Lessons for Harpsichord or Pianoforte,’ Op. 3 (London). 7. ‘A Collection of Six Voluntaries for the Organ, Harpsichord, and Pianoforte,’ Op. 9. Copies of the last two works are in Mr. Taphouse's library at Oxford. Kirkman and John Keeble [q. v.] together published ‘Forty Interludes to be played between the verses of the Psalms.’
[Dict. of Mus. 1824.]
R. H. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kirkton, James

​KIRKTON, JAMES (1620?–1699), Scottish divine and historian, was born about 1620. He graduated at the university of Edinburgh in 1647, and was ordained and admitted to the second charge of Lanark in 1655. He was afterwards translated to Mertoun in Berwickshire, and was deprived in 1662 on the restoration of episcopacy. Under the indulgence granted in 1672 he was appointed as minister of Carstairs, but he refused the appointment and went to England. In 1674 he was denounced as a rebel for holding conventicles, and in June 1676 he was seized in Edinburgh by a Captain Carstairs, but was rescued by his brother-in-law, Robert Baillie of Jerviswood [q. v.] He declined an invitation to become one of the ministers of the Scottish church in Rotterdam, but during the height of the persecution he and his family took refuge in Holland, and remained there till the proclamation of the Toleration Act of 1687. He then returned to Scotland, was appointed at a meeting of presbyterian ministers to officiate in Edinburgh, and preached to a large congregation in a meeting-house on the Castle Hill till the revolution, when he was reinstated in his former parish of Mertoun, and was one of the ministers appointed to ‘purge’ the university of Edinburgh of professors disaffected to the ​new government. In 1691 he was admitted minister of the Tolbooth parish, Edinburgh, and remained there till his death, which took place in 1699. Wodrow describes him as a ‘minister of great zeal, knowledge, and learning, a most curious searcher into the natural, civil, and ecclesiastical history of Scotland,’ and as a ‘most successful and sententious preacher of the gospel;’ but, according to episcopal pamphlets of the time, he was ‘the comedian of his party,’ and his sermons were ‘the chat of the tavern’ and ‘the divertisment of the young people.’ Kirkton married Grissel, daughter of George Baillie of Jerviswood, and had three sons, and a daughter who married Dr. A. Skene, besides other children who died young. Kirkton published two separate sermons in 1698 and 1699, and wrote a ‘History of Mr. John Welsh, Minister of the Gospel at Ayr,’ with whom he was connected by marriage. He left in manuscript ‘The Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the year 1678,’ which was edited, with biographical sketch and notes, by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, and published in 1817, Edinburgh. The manuscript was of great service to Wodrow in compiling his ‘History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland,’ but he tones down Kirkton's stories, some of which are coarse and scurrilous. The book contains a panegyric on the church of Scotland during the commonwealth, which later historians have characterised as a ‘romance and an enthusiastic fable.’
[Scott's Fasti; Wodrow's Hist. of the Suff. of the Church of Scotland; Scots Presby. Eloq.; Pitcairn's Assembly; m'Crie's Knox, biog. sketch by Sharpe.]
G. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kirkland, Thomas

​KIRKLAND, THOMAS, M.D. (1721–1798), medical writer, a native of Scotland, was born in 1721. He practiced at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire. In January 1760 he was called in to attend the steward of Lord Ferrers after he had been shot by his master. Despite Ferrers's threats of violence, Kirkland contrived the arrest of the murderer (Gent. Mag. xxx. 44, 230). By 1774 Kirkland had graduated M.D. at Edinburgh, and subsequently became a member of the Royal Medical Societies of Edinburgh and London. He died at Ashby-de-la-Zouch on 17 Jan. 1798.
Kirkland's writings are: 1. 'A Treatise on Gangrenes,' 8vo, Nottingham, 1754. 2. 'An Essay on the Methods of Suppressing Hæmorrhages from Divided Arteries,' 8vo, London, 1763. 3. 'An Essay towards an Improvement in the Cure of those Diseases which are the cause of Fevers,' 8vo, London, 1767. 4. 'A Reply to Mr. Maxwell's Answer to his Essay on Fevers; wherein the Utility of the Practice of Suppressing them is further exemplified,' 8vo, London, 1769. 5. 'Observations on Mr. Pott's General Remarks on Fractures, etc.; with a Postscript concerning the Cure of Compound Dislocations,' 8vo, London, 1770 (Appendix, 1771). 6. 'A Treatise on Childbed Fevers... with two Dissertations, the one on the Brain and Nerves, the other on the Sympathy of the Nerves, etc.' (included in 'Essays on the Puerperal Fever,' published by the Sydenham Society in 1849), 8vo, London, 1774. 7. 'Animadversions on a late Treatise on the Kink-Cough [by Dr. William Butler]. To which is annexed an Essay on that Disorder,' 8vo, London, 1774, published anonymously. 8. 'Thoughts on Amputation; being a Supplement to the Letters on Compound Fractures, and a Comment on Dr. Bilguer's book on this operation; also, an Essay on the use of Opium in Mortifications,' 8vo, London, 1780. 9. 'An Essay on the Inseparability of the different Branches of Medicine,' 8vo (London, 1783). 10. 'An Inquiry into the Present State of Medical Surgery,' 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1783-6. (Appendix, edited by his son, James Kirkland, surgeon to the Tower, 1813). 11. 'A Commentary on Apoplectic and Paralytic Affections, and the Diseases connected with the Subject,' 8vo, London, 1792.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kirkpatrick, John

​KIRKPATRICK, JOHN (1686?–1728), antiquary, born about 1686, was son of a native of Closeburn, Dumfriesshire, who had settled in the parish of St. Stephen, Norwich. He was apprenticed in the parish of St. Clement, and subsequently established himself in business as a linen merchant in St. Andrew, in partnership with John Custance. In 1726 Kirkpatrick was appointed treasurer of the Great Hospital in St. Helen's. He died without issue on 20 Aug. 1728, aged 42, and was buried in St. Helen's Church, Norwich (mon. inscr. in Blomefield, Norfolk, 8vo ed. iv. 379). He married the youngest daughter of John Harvey, great-grandfather of Lieutenant-colonel Harvey of Thorpe Lodge, Norwich, where his portrait was preserved. It has been engraved by W. C. Edwards (Evans, Cat. of Engraved Portraits, ii. 234). On 18 Feb. 1719 Kirkpatrick was elected F.S.A. (Gough, Chron. List of Soc. Antiq. 1798, p. 3).
Kirkpatrick accumulated copious materials for the history of Norwich. These he bequeathed, after the death of his brother Thomas, to the corporation of Norwich, together with his coins and many of his printed books. Of the manuscripts, which Kirkpatrick fondly hoped would be completed and published, eleven were safe in the custody of the corporation about 1815, but all are now dispersed, except some notes on the tenure of houses in Norwich. A thick quarto volume, devoted to the ‘History of the Religious Orders and Communities, and of the Hospitals and Castle, of Norwich,’ compiled by Kirkpatrick about 1725, was published at the expense of Hudson Gurney, under the editorship of Dawson Turner, in 1845. Turner, in an interesting preface, gives a list of the missing manuscripts. Extracts from Kirkpatrick's papers are cited in Robert Fitch's historical introduction to John Ninham's ‘Views of the Gates of Norwich,’ published by the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society in 1861.
Peter Le Neve was Kirkpatrick's intimate friend, and they mutually exchanged their collections for Norwich. Blomefield acknowledged the great assistance which he derived from their labours.
Kirkpatrick was a good draughtsman. In 1723 he published a large north-east prospect of Norwich, in two sheets, engraved by E. Kirkall, which he exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries, together with a plan and Saxon coins found at Norwich. In the previous year his friend Le Neve had shown the society a draft and description of Burgh Castle, Suffolk, by him. His north-east view of Norwich Cathedral was engraved by J. Harris in 1742, and his three views and a ground-plot of the gatehouse of St. Bennet in the Holm Abbey were published by the Society of Antiquaries in ‘Vetusta Monumenta.’ A list of his drawings is given in Gough's ‘British Topography’ (ii. 10, 14, 30, 34, 252).
[Dawson Turner's Preface referred to above; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. iii. 418, 421, 433, 434; Norfolk Archæology, v. 233; Blomefield's Norfolk, 8vo ed. iv. 379–80; (John Chambers's) Norfolk, ii. 1181, 1208.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kirkpatrick, William Baillie

​KIRKPATRICK, WILLIAM BAILLIE (1802–1882), Irish presbyterian divine, was born near Ballynahinch, co. Down, in 1802. After spending some time at a classical school conducted by the Rev. Arthur Neilson of Rademon, he went to Glasgow College, where he proceeded to the degree of M.A. He studied theology at the old Belfast College, under the divinity professor of the synod ​of Ulster. In 1827 he was licensed by the presbytery of Armagh, and on 29 July 1829 ordained one of the ministers of Mary's Abbey Church, Dublin, by the presbytery of Dublin. He at once took high rank as a preacher and pastor. In 1850 he was moderator of the general assembly, and for many years convener of the home mission scheme and of the committee on the state of religion. He was appointed by government a commissioner of charitable donations and bequests, and a commissioner of endowed schools. During his ministry in Dublin a splendid new church was built in Rutland Square, at a cost of 13,000l., for the Mary's Abbey congregation, by Mr. Alexander Findlater, J.P. He died 23 Sept. 1882, at Bray, co. Wicklow, and was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery, Dublin, leaving a widow, two sons, and six daughters. Besides many fugitive publications, he wrote ‘Chapters in Irish History,’ Dublin, n.d. [1875], which reached a second edition.
[Obituary notice in Belfast Witness; personal knowledge.]
T. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kirkstall, Hugh of

​KIRKSTALL, HUGH of (fl. 1200), historian, was received as a Cistercian monk at Kirkstall, Yorkshire, by Ralph Haget, who was abbot there from 1181 to 1190. He was certainly living at Kirkstall in 1207, when he determined to write the history of Fountains Abbey, and sought information from an aged monk named Serlo. Serlo had, by his own account, entered Fountains about 1138, and was afterwards sent in succession to Barcnoldswic and Kirkstall, and was in the sixty-ninth year of his profession when he supplied Hugh with material for his history. For the literary form of the work Hugh would seem to be entirely responsible. The ‘Narracio de Fundatione Monasterii de Fontibus’ in its oldest extant form ends with Haget's translation to Fountains in 1190; the continuation down to 1219 may be by Hugh or by some other person. Leland saw and used a copy of the history, which contains matter not found in extant copies, and additions probably made after Hugh's death; his extracts are printed in the ‘Collectanea,’ vol. iv. Leland thus cites a reference to Stephen de Eston, abbot of Fountains from 1247 to 1252 (Coll. iv. 108). Tanner regarded this as proof that Hugh survived till that period, which, though possible, is not very likely. The only extant mediæval copy of the ‘Narracio’ is among the Gale MSS. at Trinity College, Cambridge. Bernard mentions a manuscript, ‘De Fontanensis Monasterii Origine,’ in the library of Sir Henry Langley, which cannot now be traced (Cat. MSS. Angliæ, ii. 216). There are, however, three late copies which differ somewhat from the Gale MS., and are apparently due to a common abbreviation of the original. These are Lansdowne MS. 404 and Arundel MS. 51 in the British Museum, and Dodsworth MS. 26 in the Bodleian. From the second Dugdale printed the chronicle in his ‘Monasticon Anglicanum’ (v. 292–303). The fuller text has been printed in ‘Memorials of Fountains Abbey’ (i. 1–128), edited by Mr. J. R. Walbran for the Surtees Society in 1863. Hugh is also credited with a work, ‘De Rebus a Cisterciensibus Monachis in Anglia Gestis,’ which is probably identical with the ‘History of Fountains.’ Tanner suggests that he was the Hugh the monk whose verses, ‘De Gestis et Laudibus Thurstini Eboracensis Archiepiscopi, cum ahis notabilibus quæ concernant Ecclesiam Ebor.,’ were formerly preserved in the library of the monastery of Sion. The fact that Thurstan was a patron of the Cistercians is favourable to this conjecture. Bale inadvertently calls Hugh ‘Hugh of Kirkstede.’
[Leland, Commentarii de Scriptt. Brit. p. 245, and Collectanea, iv. 105–9; Bale, iii. 81; Pits, p. 297; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 419; Dugdale's Monasticon, v. 292–303, 530–2; Mr. Walbran's preface to Memorials of Fountains, vol. i. pp. vii–xxi.]
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Holland, Henry (d.1625)

​HOLLAND, HENRY (d. 1625), Roman catholic divine, a native of Daventry, Northamptonshire, was brought up at Worcester, and afterwards sent to Eton College, whence he proceeded to St. John's College, Oxford, of which he was nominated a scholar by the founder, Sir Thomas White, in 1565. He was admitted B.A. on 1 Dec. 1569 (Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc., i. 275). Having been converted to Roman catholicism, he withdrew to the English College at Douay in 1573. He applied himself to the study of theology, was ordained deacon on 6 April 1577, and graduated B.D. in the university of Douay in 1578. In the latter year the college was removed to Rheims, where Holland was engaged, with Gregory Martin and other scholars, in translating the Bible into English. He accompanied Dr. William Allen to Paris in April 1579, returned to the college in the following month, and on 19 March 1579–80 was ordained priest. In 1582 he was sent to the English mission, where he laboured for several years. On returning to Douay he resumed his studies, and was created by the university a licentiate of theology on 22 Sept. 1587 (Douay Diaries, p. 274). When Pits wrote his work, ‘De Angliæ Scriptoribus,’ he described Holland as being then (in 1611) very old, having for some years been divinity reader in the monastery at Marchiennes in Hainault. It would appear that he was afterwards appointed to a similar office in the monastery of Anchine (Aquicinctum), near Douay, where he remained till his death on 28 Sept. 1625. He was buried in the cloister of the monastery, and a monument was erected to his memory with a quaint Latin epitaph, which has been printed by Wood (Hist. et Antiq. Univ. Oxon. ii. 307).
He wrote: 1. ‘Urna Aurea, vel in Sacrosanctam Missam, maximeque in divinum Canonem Henrici Hollandi Expositio,’ Douay (Laurence Kellam), 1612, 12mo. 2. ‘Vita Thomæ Stapletoni,’ in ‘Opera quæ extant omnia Stapletonii,’ 4 vols., Paris, 1620, fol., a work probably edited by Holland. 3. ‘Carmina diversa,’ and also, says Wood, ‘other things printed beyond the sea which seldom or never come into these parts.’ A translation of a Latin letter by Holland, describing the perils to which priests were exposed in England, is printed in the appendix to part i. of Challoner's ‘Missionary Priests.’
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 385, Fasti, i. 183; Records of the English Catholics, i. 427; Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 382; Pits, De Angl. Script. p. 808; Gillow's Dict. Engl. Cath.; Duthillœul's Bibl. Douaisienne, p. 186.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Holland, Hezekiah

​HOLLAND, HEZEKIAH (fl. 1638–1661), puritan divine, was probably born in Ireland, as he styles himself ‘Anglo-Hibernus’ in his ‘Exposition,’ and is supposed to be the Ezekias Holland who graduated B.A. at Dublin in 1638. He became rector of Sutton Valence, Kent, in 1653 (Hasted, Kent, ii. 416), and as puritan minister there and by his writings exercised a considerable influence. The following is a list of his works: 1. ‘A Christian Looking-glass,’ 8vo, London, 1649. 2. ‘An Exposition, or a Short but full, plain, and perfect Epitome of the most choice Commentaries upon the Revelations of St. John,’ London, 1650, 4to. This was for the most part delivered by way of exposition in his parish church of Sutton Valence. 3. ‘Adam's Condition in Paradise discovered; also a Treatise of the Lawful Ministrie,’ &c., 1656, 4to. A portrait is prefixed to the ‘Exposition.’
[Information from the Rev. J. J. Dredge; Ware's Writers of Ireland, p. 158; Granger's Biog. Hist.; Bodleian Lib. Cat.; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
A. N.