OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clifford, Thomas de (1414-1455)

1904 Errata appended.
​CLIFFORD, THOMAS de, eighth Baron Clifford (1414–1455), was the son of John, seventh baron Clifford, by his wife Elizabeth, who, according to Dugdale, was the daughter of Harry Hotspur (Baronage, i. 342; Nicolas's Acts of Privy Council, iii. 36). He was born on 25 March 1414, and succeeded to his father's estates on 13 March 1422 (10 Hen. V, sic), before he was quite eight years old (Dugdale). He appears to have been under the guardianship of his mother and grandmother, to whom the right of 'maritagium' was granted in 1423 (Privy Council Acts, iii. 36). His summons to par- liament dates from December 1436 (Report on Dignity of a Peer, iii. 896). In 13 Hen. VI (1334-5) he was joined in commission with the Earl of Northumberland to array the northern counties against the Scots, who then threatened Berwick, and next year had livery of his lands on making proof of his age (Dugdale). Some fifteen years later (1449) he appears as a conservator of the truce then being arranged between England and Scotland, and occupied a similar position in 1451 (Rymer, xi. 253, 299). In 1452 he was called upon to muster men and ships from ​the northern counties for the relief of Calais; and again in 1454. About the same time he was sheriff of Westmoreland, and in this capacity was bidden to lend assistance to the Duke of York (Privy Council Acts, vi. 119, 177). Several years previously (1435) his name occurs as being a member of the Duke of Bedford's retinue in France (William Worcester), and again (c. 1439) as defending Pontoise against the French king (Polydore Vergil). He was slain in the battle of St. Albans (1455), where his body was afterwards buried in the Virgin's chapel by the abbot (Register of J. Whethamstede, i. 176). His wife, according to Dugdale, was a daughter of Thomas, lord Dacres of Gillesland; by her he had four sons — John, his successor [q. v.]; Sir Roger Clifford; Sir Thomas Clifford (one of Henry VIII's councillors); and Robert Clifford, who was concerned in Perkin Warbeck's rebellion (Dugdale). He had also five daughters.
T. A. A.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.70 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| | | 11 f.e. | Clifford, Thomas de, 8th Baron Clifford: for 1334 read 1434 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Egan, James

​EGAN, JAMES (1799–1842), mezzotint engraver, of humble origin, was born in the county of Roscommon in Ireland in 1799. He was employed by S. W. Reynolds [q. v.], the well-known mezzotint engraver, at first as little more than an errand-boy, but later in laying his mezzotint grounds; it was thus that Egan first learnt his art. Gaining much experience in this, he set up a business of ground-laying for engravers, while he studied assiduously in order to become an engraver himself. Having neither money, friends, nor previous education as en artist, he was compelled to rely solely on his own industry and ability, and suffered many privations. Unfortunately, just as he was about to gain some substantial reward for his efforts, consumptive symptoms began to manifest themselves, and after eight years' struggle with declining health Egan died at Pentonville, 2 Oct,1842, aged 43. His best plate, and his last, executed under the most trying circumstances, ​was 'English Hospitality in the Olden Time,' after G. Cattermole. Among his other engravings were 'Love's Reverie,' after J. R. Herbert, R.A., 'Abbot Boniface,' after C. S. Newton, R. A., 'The Morning after the Wreck,' after C. Bentley, 'The Study,' after E. Stone, 'The Mourner,' after J. M. Moore, 'The Young Wife,' 'The Citation of Wycliffe,' 'The Tribunal of the Inquisition,' and other pictures after S. J. E. Jones, and a portrait of John Lodge, librarian at Cambridge, after Walmisley. Egan, who married young, left a family, for whom a subscription was raised by his friends.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Ottley's Dict. of Recent and Living Artists; Andresen's Handbuch fûr Kupferstichsämmler; Art Union, 1842, p. 256.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Eedes, Richard

​EEDES, RICHARD (d. 1686), presbyterian divine, born at Feckenham, Worcestershire 'became either a either clerk or chorister' of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1626, graduated B.A. in February 1629, and took the curacy of Bishop's Cleeve, Gloucestershire, at Michelmas 1632. He proceeded M.A. 17 March 1634. He continued at Bishop's Cleeve 'in good esteem for his conformity' until the civil war broke out, when he subscribed to the covenant. About 1647 he became vicar of Beckford, near Bishop's Cleeve, where he remained until 1658. By the persuasion of 'a parliament captain,' who had a farm in Bishop's Cleeve, he then returned to his old cure there in the hope of succeeding; to the rectory. From his published sermons it is plainly evident that he had tired of presbyterianism and longed for the king's return. Immediately after the Restoration he delivered an ultra-loyal harangue on the text, 'As whatsoever the king did pleased all the people' (2 Sam. iii. 36), before the mayor and aldermen of Gloucester, but all his attempts to conciliate the court party proved unavailing. He remained at Bishop's Cleeve as minister until the Bartholomew Act of 1662, when 'he silenced himself,' but continued to attend the services of the church' as much as his age would give him leave.' Some few years before his death he removed to Gretton, in the parish of Winchcomb, Gloucestershire, where he died in the beginning of April 1686, and was buried on the 6th in the middle of the north side of Bishop's Cleeve Church in the presence of 'a vast crowd of those who knew and loved him.'
Eedes was the author of: 1. 'Great Salvation by Jesus Christ,' a sermon (on Heb, ii. 3), 8vo. London, 1656. 2. 'Christ exalted and Wisdom justified; or, the Saints' Esteem of Jesus Christ, as most precious, handled; and their wise Choice and Subjection to Him as their Lord and Saviour vindicated,' 8vo, London, 1659), 'commended to the world,' says Wood, 'by the epistle of Mr. Rich. Baxter.' 3. 'Great Britain's Resurrection; or, England's Complacencie in her Royal Soveraign King Charles the Second. A sermon [on 2 Sam. iii. 36] preached in the Lecture at Gloucester, 5 June 1660,' 4to, London, 1660. 4. Sermon (on 1 Pet. ii. 7).
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 187-8; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), i. 451, 474.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Edwardston, Thomas

​EDWARDSTON, THOMAS (d. 1396), Augustinian friar, is said to have been born at a place called Edwardston in Suffolk, whence he derived his name. He studied at Oxford, where he obtained the D.D. degree. He became a friar eremite of the order of St. Augustine at the monastery of Clare in his native county, and was eventually made prior. He was confessor to Lionel, duke of Clarence, and accompanied him to Italy on the occasion of his marriage with the daughter of the Duke of Milan. On his return to England, Edwardston took over the charge of archiepiscopal duties, but in what diocese is not known; it was probably in a temporary vacancy, for it does not appear that he was ever raised to ​the full dignity of an archbishop. He died at Clare 20 May 1396, and was buried in his monastery. He was the author of 'Sermones Solemnes,' 'Determinationes Theologicæ,' and 'Lecturæ Scholasticæ.'
A. V.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Edwin, John (1768-1805)

​EDWIN, JOHN, the younger (1768–1805), actor, son of John Edwin [q. v.] is first heard of in 1777, when his father, applying to George Colman for an advance of salary, offers to throw in Mrs. Edwin and Jack. The following year, 30 July 1778, young Edwin appeared at the Haymarket as Hengo in a revival of 'Bonduca' by Beaumont and Fletcher. From this period, at the Haymarket or at Bath, he frequently played with his father, his first recorded appearance in a manly part being at Covent Garden, 20 March 1788, as Dick in 'The Apprentice' of Murphy for his father's benefit. Taken up by Lord Barrymore, who made an inseparable companion of him, he directed during some years the amateur theatricals at Wargrave, Berkshire, the seat of that nobleman. After his marriage to Miss Richards in 1791 he took Mrs. Edwin [q. v.] to Wargrave, where she overstayed the limits allowed her by her manager, Tate Wilkinson, of the York circuit, with whom in consequence she quarrelled. With his wife Edwin went to the Haymarket, appearing 20 June 1792 in 'The Virgin Unmasked,' previously known as 'An Old Man taught Wisdom,' a ballad farce of Fielding, in which he played Blister to the Lucy of Mrs. Edwin. He accompanied his wife to Dublin and to Doncaster in 1794, and on most of her country tours, and died in Dublin, 22 Feb. 1805, a victim to degrading dissipation. Edwin ​was best known at Bath, where he was held in some parts equal or superior to his father. He was an excellent country actor, and would probably, but for his irregular life, have made a high reputation. Tate Wilkinson praises his Lenitive in 'The Prize' and his Nipperkin in 'The Sprigs of Laurel,' and says that as Mr. Tag in 'The Spoiled Child' he is better than any comedian he (Wilkinson) has hitherto seen. He adds that 'Mr. Edwin dresses his characters better and more characteristic than any comic actor I recollect on the York stage' (Wandering Patentee, iv. 204). A tombstone to his memory, erected by his wife in St. Werburgh's churchyard, Dublin, attributes his death to the acuteness of his sensibility. In a satirical poem, attributed to John Wilson Croker [q. v.], had appeared some stinging lines upon Edwin, the 'lubbard spouse' of Mrs. Edwin, and the degenerate son of a man 'high on the rolls of comic fame.' Upon reading these Edwin, it is said, wrote to a friend: 'Come and help me to destroy myself with some of the most splendid cogniac [sic] that I have ever exported to cheer a breaking heart.' From the debauch then begun Edwin did not recover, and he died uttering fearful imprecations upon his then unknown satirist.
[Genest's Account of the English Stage; Monthly Mirror, February and March 1810; Mrs. C. Baron Wilson's Our Actresses, 1844; Tate Wilkinson's Wandering Patentee; Thespian Dict. 1805.]
J. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Eedes, John

​EEDES, JOHN (1609?–1667?), divine, son of Nicholas Eedes, born at Salisbury, Wiltshire, was entered at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1626, and proceeded B.A. 3 June 1630. He afterwards 'became a minister in the isle of Shepie, whence being ejected in the time of the rebellion suffer'd much by imprisonment in Ely House, and other miseries' (Wood, Athenæ Oxon.. ed. Bliss, iii. 802). On his release he took the curacy of Broad Chalk, Wiltshire, which he held 'with much ado' for about two years, and was then made vicar of Hale, Hampshire. After the Restoration he continued at Hale, where he was murdered in his house by thieves in or about 1667, and was buried in the church. He published 'The Orthodox Doctrine concerning Justification by Faith asserted and vindicated, wherein the Book of Mr. William Eyre ... is examined; and also the Doctrine of Mr. Baxter... discussed,' 4to, London, 1654. In dedicating it to his friend, Edward Dodington, Eedes states that he had written another and more elaborate treatise on justification, besides 'other things, both practical and polemical, which I have in readinesse for the presse.'
[Wood's Fasti Own. (Bliss), i. 453.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Griffith, Edmund

​GRIFFITH, EDMUND (1570–1637), bishop of Bangor, was born at Cevnamlwch in Lleyn, the promontory of Carnarvonshire, in 1570. He was the fourth son of Gruffydd ab Sion Gruffydd of Cevnamlwch, 'of an ancient house' (Wynne, Gwydir Family, p. 97). His mother was Catrin, the daughter of Sir Richard Bulkeley of Baron Hill. Among his brothers was Hugh Griffith, ‘a very proper man, of a comely tall personage,’ who became in Sir John Wynne's partial eyes ‘the worthiest most valiant captain of any nation that was at sea’ (ib. p. 102).
Griffith was admitted as an exhibitioner of Brasenose College, Oxford, on 8 April 1587, having been before, in Wood's opinion, of Jesus College. He proceeded M.A. in 1592. In 1599 he became rector of Llandwrog, in 1600 canon of Bangor, and in 1604 rector of Llanbedrog, both livings being in the diocese of Bangor. On 10 March 1605 he was instituted archdeacon of Bangor (Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, i. 113), and resigned in 1613, on 9 Sept. of which year he was instituted dean of Bangor (ib. i. 112). On the death of Bishop Dolben he was elected bishop of Bangor on 31 Dec. 1633, confirmed on 12 Feb. 1634, consecrated on 16 Feb. at Lambeth by Archbishop Laud, and enthroned on 14 April (ib. i. 106). He died on 26 May 1637, and was buried in the choir of his cathedral, where a half-obliterated inscription marked his remains. Sir John Wynne describes him as ‘a worthy gentleman in divinity.’
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 888; Sir John Wynne's History of the Gwydir Family, 1878, pp. 97, 102; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. vol. i.; Williams's Dict. of Eminent Welshmen, p. 181; Browne Willis's Survey of Bangor, pp. 26, 111, 128, 134, 169.]
T. F. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Griffith, Alexander

​GRIFFITH, ALEXANDER (d. 1690), divine, a Welshman, was educated at Hart Hall, Oxford, matriculating 27 Jan. 1614-15 (Oxford Univ. Reg., Oxford Hist. Soc. ii. 335). After proceeding B.A. on 12 June 1618 he returned to Wales, and there kept a school or held a small cure. On 10 Dec. 1631, being then beneficed in South Wales, he graduated M.A. (Wood, Fasti Oxon., ed. Bliss, i. 379, 460). During the civil war he was deprived of his livings on account of his loyalty. During this period he wrote ‘Strena Vavasoriensis; or, a New Year's Gift for the Welsh Itinerants. Or an Hue and Cry after Mr. Vavasor Powell, Metropolitan of the Itinerants, and one of the Executioners of the Gospel by Colour of the late Act for the Propagation thereof in Wales,’ 4to, London, 1654. In the same year there also appeared his ‘True and Perfect Relation of the whole Transaction concerning the Petition of the Six Counties of South Wales, and the County of Monmouth, formerly presented to the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England for a supply of Godly Ministers, and an Account of Ecclesiastical Revenues therein,’ 4to, London, 1654. He is supposed, too, to be the author, or part author, of a pamphlet entitled ‘Mercurius Cambro-Britannicus; or, News from Wales, touching the miraculous Propagation of the Gospel in those parts,’ 4to, London, 1652 (Wood, Athenæ Oxon., ed. Bliss, iii. 393). Upon the Restoration Griffith regained possession of his benefices, and was presented to the vicarage of Glasbury, Brecknockshire, in 1661 (Jones, Brecknockshire, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 389). He died in 1690.
[Authorities quoted; Robert Williams's Eminent Welshmen, 1852, p. 180.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Griffith

​GRIFFITH. [See also Griffin, Griffiths, and Gruffydd.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Griffith, Edward

​GRIFFITH, EDWARD (1790–1858), naturalist, son of William Griffith of Stanwell, Middlesex, was born in 1790. He entered St. Paul's School in 1800 and left it in 1806, entering the common pleas office as a clerk. He afterwards became a solicitor and a master in the court of common pleas. He was one of the original members of the Zoological Society, and a fellow of the Linnean (1822), Antiquaries, and Royal Societies. In 1821 he published the first part of what was designed to be an extensive work, ‘General and Particular Descriptions of the Vertebrated Animals,’ with excellent coloured plates. This first part deals only with the monkeys and lemurs. It may have been abandoned in favour of another work, which he was able to complete, viz. a translation of Cuvier's ‘Animal Kingdom,’ with considerable additions, in fifteen volumes. This work, which is described as containing ‘descriptions of all the species hitherto named and ​of many not before noticed,’ was published between 1827 and 1834, Griffith being the chief editor, assisted by Major Charles Hamilton Smith and Edward Pidgeon in the part dealing with the mammalia, by the lastnamed in that dealing with the mollusca, and by John Edward Gray [q. v.] in that dealing with birds. The work is extensively illustrated with coloured plates. In addition to these scientific works, Griffith published two others of a professional character. The first was ‘A Collection of Ancient Records relating to the Borough of Huntingdon, with Observations illustrative of the History of Parliamentary Boroughs in General,’ London, 1827 [misprinted 1727], arising out of an election petition, and urging that the borough franchise rightly belonged to all burgesses or resident householders paying scot and lot, and not, as held by a parliamentary committee, to the corporation. The other, published in 1831, is entitled ‘Cases of supposed Exemption from Poor Rates claimed on the ground of Extraparochiality, with a … Sketch of the Ancient History of the Parish of St. Andrew, Holborn.’ Griffith died on 8 Jan. 1858.
[Gardiner's Admission Registers of St. Paul's School, 1884, and the books above enumerated.]
G. S. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Griffin, Thomas (1706?-1771)

​GRIFFIN, THOMAS (1706?–1771), organ-builder and Gresham professor of music, was the son of a wharfinger. He was apprenticed on 5 July 1720 to George Dennis, a barber, for seven years; was admitted ‘by servitude’ on 4 Feb. 1729 to the freedom, and on 6 March 1733 to the livery of the Barber-Surgeons' Company. He was entered at that date in the company's books as a ‘barber’ of Fenchurch Street (cf. Hawkins, History of Music, iii. 907). After 1751 he is described as an organ-builder, still of Fenchurch Street. Among the organs for city churches said to have been erected by Griffin is that of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, built in 1741. Griffin was one of the Gresham committee, and succeeded Gardner, on 11 June 1763, as professor of music to the college. The performance of his duties, however, was too severe a tax upon his musical learning, and the newspapers of the time report his repeated failures as a lecturer (see also Grove, i. 631). He died on 29 April 1771, leaving property to his two sisters.
[Gent. Mag. 1771, p. 239; Registers of Wills, P.C.C. 206, Trevor; authorities quoted above; valuable information kindly supplied by Mr. Sidney Young, clerk to the Barber-Surgeons' Company.]
L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cole, Humfray

​COLE, HUMFRAY (fl. 1570–1580), engraver, was, according to his own description, a native of the north of England, and the specimens we have of his work show him to have been a careful and ingenious workman. He was employed in engraving mathematical and similar instruments in brass, of which there are some specimens in the British Museum. One of these is an astrolabe, most ingeniously constructed and beautifully engraved, at one time in the possession of Henry, prince of Wales. For the second edition of Archbishop Parker's, or the 'Bishops' Bible,' published in 1572, he engraved a map of the Holy Land, on which he describes himself as 'Humfray Cole, goldsmith, a Englishman born in ye north and pertayning to y$^e$ Mint in the Tower, 1572.'
On the strength of his having engraved this map he has been credited with the portraits of Queen Elizabeth, Leicester, and Burghley, which appear in the same book; but the execution of these does not resemble his work, and they occur in the first edition of the bible published in 1568, from which Cole's map is absent. From his employment at the mint and the general character of his work he appears to have been only a mechanician and not an artist.
[Redgrave's Dict. of English Artists; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Dallaway and Wornum; Chatto and Jackson's Hist. of Wood Engraving.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cole, George

​COLE, GEORGE (1810–1883), portrait, landscape, and animal painter, was born in 1810. He was self-taught, and began his artistic career at Portsmouth as a portrait-painter. Some of his early studies were made in a travelling menagerie belonging to Wombwell, who, on application, allowed the youth to work from living animals, and afterwards commissioned him to execute a large canvas of twenty feet square illustrating a tiger hunt in the jungle with elephants. This composition was exhibited first at Weyhill Fair, but on the following day a terrific storm almost destroyed it ; the pieces were, however, collected, sent to London, and carefully put together, which enabled its proprietor to show it again at the 'Great Barthelemy Fair.' These show-cloths were far beyond the ordinary in artistic quality, and were very masterly in execution. Cole now felt that he was deceiving the public by representing animals of unnatural sizes, and decided to leave the showman. He went to Holland to study animal painting with the best Dutch masters. Among his patrons on his return home were Sir J. B. Mill, bart., General Yates, Mr. Edmund Peel, and Admiral Codrington. Cole first exhibited at the British Institution in 1840. One picture, about 1845, representing ' Don Quixote and Sancho Panza with Rosinante in Don Pedro's hut,' attracted much attention there. He was elected a member of the Society of British Artists in 1850, and took to landscape finally. In 1864 the Society for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts awarded him a medal for a landscape. Cole died on 7 Sept. 1883. He exhibited between 1838 and 1880 sixteen pictures at the Royal Academy, thirty-five at the British Institution, and 209 at the Suffolk Street Gallery. The following pictures are among his principal works: 'Llandago on the Wye,' 'Ebenberg Castle on the Nobe,' 'Loch Lubnoig, and the Braes of Balquhiddar,' 'Loch Katrine,' 'Homeshall in Carnarvonshire,' 'A Welsh Interior,' 'Pride and Humility' (engraved), 'Evening,' and 'Harvesting in Surrey.' His son is the well-known Royal Academician, Mr. Vicat Cole.
[Art Journal, 1883, p. 343; Athenæum, September 1883, p. 345; private information.]
L. F.