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

​DUNDAS, CHARLES, Baron Amesbury (1751–1832), born 5 Aug. 1751, was younger son of Thomas Dundas of Fingask, M. P. for Orkney and Shetland 1768-71, and a commissioner of police in Scotland 31 Jan. 1771, who died 16 April 1786. His mother was his father's second wife, Janet, daughter of Charles Maitland, sixth earl of Lauderdale. He was called to the bar, but devoted himself to a political life. He first sat for the borough of Richmond in 1774, then for Orkney and Shetland (1781-4), again for Richmond, and finally for Berkshire, which he represented in ten successive parliaments (1794-1832). He was finally the second eldest member in the house. Dundas was a liberal in politics. In 1802, on the resignation of Mitford (afterwards Lord Redesdale), the then speaker, he was nominated by Sheridan as his successor in opposition to Abbot. He, however, withdrew from the contest. Dundas was counsellor of state for Scotland to the Prince of Wales, and colonel of the White Horse volunteer cavalry.
Dundas was twice married. His first wife, Anne, daughter of Ralph Whitley of Aston Hall, Flintshire, by whom he had one daughter, Janet, wife of Sir James Whitley Deans Dundas [q. v.], brought him the considerable estate of Kentbury-Amesbury, Wiltshire, and other property. His second wife, whom he married on 25 Jan. 1822, was his cousin, Margaret, daughter of Charles Barclay, and widow of (1) Charles Ogilvy, and (2) Major Archibald Erskine. Dundas was made a peer as Lord Amesbury by letters patent 11 May 1832. He died 7 July 1832 at his residence in Pimlico, whereupon the title became extinct. Lady Amesbury died 14 April 1841.
[Gent. Mag. August 1832; Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerages (1883), pp. 183-4; Addit. MS. 2867, ff. 164, 166; Foster's Members of Parliament (Scotland).]
F. W-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dundas, Henry (1801-1876)

​DUNDAS, HENRY, third Viscount Melville (1801–1876), general, eldest son of Robert Saunders Dundas, second viscount Melville [q. v.], was born on 25 Feb. 1801. He entered the army as an ensign and lieutenant in the 3rd or Scots guards on 18 Nov. 1819, was promoted captain into the 83rd regiment in April 1824, and major and lieutenant-colonel on 11 July 1826 and 3 Dec. 1829. He was M.P. for Rochester from 1826 to 1830, and for Winchelsea in 1830–1. His regiment was in Canada when the rebellion of 1837 broke out, and Dundas showed such vigour in its suppression, and more particularly in repelling a body of American brigands who landed near Prescott in Upper Canada in 1838, that he was made a C.B. and promoted colonel and appointed an aide-de-camp to the queen on 28 Nov. 1841. He exchanged into the 60th Rifles in 1844, and accompanied his battalion to India, and was appointed a brigadier-general on the Bombay staff in 1847. He was chosen to command the column sent from Bombay to co-operate with Lord Gough's army in the second Sikh war, and was present at the siege and capture of Multán as second in command to General Whish, and joined the main army just before the battle of Goojerat. In that battle his division played a leading part; he was mentioned in despatches, received the thanks of parliament and of the directors of the East India Company, and was made a K.C.B. He returned to England in 1850, and succeeded his father as third viscount in 1851. He was promoted major-general on 20 June 1854, and commanded the forces in Scotland from 1856 to 1860, in which year he was made governor of Edinburgh Castle. He was promoted lieutenant-general on 5 May 1860, was colonel of the 100th foot 1858–62, of the 32nd foot 1862–3, and became colonel-commandant of the 60th rifles on 1 April 1863, general on 1 Jan. 1868, and G.C.B. in 1870. Lord Melville, who was vice-president of the council of the Royal Archers, the Royal Body Guard for Scotland, died unmarried at Melville Castle, near Edinburgh, on 1 Feb. 1876.
H. M. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Melvill, Thomas

​MELVILL, THOMAS (1726–1753), experimental philosopher, was a student of divinity in 1748–9 at the university of Glasgow, where he became intimate with Dr. Alexander Wilson [q. v.] They discussed many philosophic schemes, and experimented together, by means of kites, on the temperature of the air at various altitudes. Melvill then studied optics with the view of verifying Newton's theories. His ‘Observations on Light and Colours,’ read before the Medical Society of Edinburgh on 3 Jan. and 7 Feb. 1752, showed him to be familiar with the use of the prism for examining coloured flames, and contained a remarkable notice of the peculiar yellow light of burning sodium (Edinburgh Physical and Literary Essays, ii. 34). These fundamental experiments in spectrum analysis were not repeated until after seventy years.
In a communication to Dr. Bradley on the ‘Cause of the different Refrangibility of the Rays of Light,’ dated from Geneva 2 Feb. 1753, and read before the Royal Society on 8 March, Melvill threw out the idea of employing the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites to test possible variations with colour in the velocity of light (Phil. Trans. xlviii. 261). A second letter to Bradley of 2 June suggested that the rate of light-travel concerned in aberration might be that in the humours of the eye itself. Melvill died at Geneva in December 1753, at the early age of twenty-seven.
[Edinburgh Phys. and Lit. Essays, ii. 12; Brewster's Edinburgh Journal of Science, x. 5, 1829; Chemical News, v. 251 (Jevons); Priestley's Hist. of Optics, i. 359; Clerke's Popular Hist. of Astronomy, p. 165, 2nd ed.]
A. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Melville, Andrew (1624-1706)

​MELVILLE, ANDREW (1624–1706), soldier of fortune, was born in Scotland in May 1624. His father, John Melville, sprang from a younger branch of the Melville family; his mother was Jane Kelley (Kellie?), her brother being chamberlain to Charles I. Sent to Königsberg university at thirteen to study the languages of northern Europe, Melville escaped to Poland, intending to enter the army, but, seeing no prospect of active employment, he returned to Scotland. There he learned that his parents, ruined by his uncle's debts, had died, and that creditors had seized the entire property. Lord Grey of Werke, who had already taken his brother into his service, promised Andrew a cornetcy, pending which, at the head of other young men also waiting for appointments, he lived by plunder, till captured by peasants and imprisoned for some months. On his release he joined in 1647 the presbyterian troops; but on Charles I being given up he went to France, served with the French army in Flanders, and after a variety of adventures waited on Charles II at Breda, and agreed to join him in Scotland. At the battle of Worcester he was shot in the arm, stripped, and left for dead, but was sheltered for three months by villagers until he recovered from his wounds. He then repaired in disguise to London, and was assisted by a roundhead kinsman (probably George, afterwards earl of Melville) in escaping to Holland. After further privations and perils he joined the Scottish bodyguard of Cardinal de Retz, and next served in the French army. Eventually he linked his fortunes with those of Count Josias Waldeck, with whom he fought for the elector of Brandenburg, the king of Sweden, the elector of Cologne, and the Duke of Celle (Brunswick-Luneburg). The duke sent him to London in 1660 to compliment Charles II on his restoration, and Melville paid a second visit on his own account; but the king, while very affable, professed inability to do anything for him. In 1680 Melville accompanied the Prince of Hanover (afterwards George I) to England, and received the degree of M.D. at Oxford, whither he went with the prince (WOOD, Fasti Oxon. ii. 379). In 1677, retiring from active service, Melville had been appointed drost (governor or commandant) of Gifhorn. Melville died at Gifhorn in 1706. The church, in which he was probably buried, was burnt down in 1744. He had married in Germany, and had a son who predeceased him, also a daughter, Charlotte Sophia Anna (1670–1724), who in 1690 became the wife of Alexander von Schulenburg-Blumberg, a Hanoverian general.
He was author of an autobiography published as ‘Mémoires de M. le Chevalier de Melvill,’ Amsterdam, 1704, with a preface eulogising his valour and protestantism.
[Melville's Mémoires; Hermann Schulze's Geschichtliches aus dem Lüneburgischen, Gifhorn, 1877; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Leipzig, 1885; Oettinger's Dict. des Dates, Leipzig, 1869.]
J. G. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Melton, William de (d.1528)

1904 Errata appended.
​MELTON, WILLIAM de (d. 1528), chancellor of York, a native of Yorkshire, was educated at Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. 1479, B.D. 1490, and D.D. 1496. In 1495 he was master of Michaelhouse, Cambridge, and on 13 Jan. 1495–6 became chancellor of the church of York. He died at the end of 1528, and his will is dated 28 Aug. of that year, from Acklam, Yorkshire. He is supposed to have been buried either there or in York minster. He was famed as a philosopher, divine, and preacher. Melton was author of a ‘Sermo Exhortatorius,’ published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1494, a copy of which is in the British Museum Library.
Melton has been constantly confused with his namesakes William de Melton (d. 1340) [q. v.], archbishop of York, and William of Meliton [q. v.] Misled by the identity of name, Wood (Athenæ Oxon. i. 49) claimed him for Oxford. Pits, Tanner, and others state that he was a Dominican (which is an additional mistake, because Meliton was a Franciscan, not a Dominican) and chancellor of the university of Paris, and attribute to him numerous works written by Meliton (cf. Sixtus Senensis, Bibliotheca Sancta, iv. 243; Echard, Scriptores Ord. Prædicatorum, i. 488; and Sbaralæus, Supplementum ad Scriptores Trium Ordinum, pp. 324–5).
There was yet another William de Melton, a Franciscan, who in 1426 preached at York on the subject of miracle plays, and in 1427 went about the country preaching against tithes. He was arrested and brought to Oxford, where he was compelled to recant (Cf. Little, Greyfriars in Oxford, pp. 86, 259).
[Authorities quoted; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 37; Tanner's Bibliotheca Brit., p. 521; Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 165; Pits's Scriptores, p. 696.]
A. F. P.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.198 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 229 | i | 12 f.e. | Melton, William de: after preacher insert and was for some time tutor to Fisher (cf. De Veritate Corporis, p. 327) |
| | | 8 f.e. | after Library, insert His wills and inventories are printed in 'Testamenta Eboracensia' (Surtees Soc.), pp. 251-63 |
| | ii | 20 | after p. 696 insert Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, viii. 291 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Milne, Joshua

​MILNE, JOSHUA (1776–1851), actuary, born in 1776, was appointed actuary to the Sun Life Assurance Society on 15 June 1810. His great knowledge of mathematics well qualified him for the reconstruction of the life tables then in use, which were based upon the table deduced by Dr. Richard Price from the burial registers (1735–80) of All Saints' Church, Northampton. Milne took as the basis of his calculations the Carlisle bills of mortality, which had been prepared by Dr. John Heysham, and after a long correspondence (12 Sept. 1812-14 June 1814) with Heysham he published his famous work, ‘A Treatise on the Valuation of Annuities and Assurances on Lives and Survivorships; on the Construction of Tables of Mortality; and on the Probabilities and Expectations of Life,’ &c., London, 1815, 2 vols. 8vo. The result was a revolution in actuarial science. Milne's table, which, considering the narrow data from which he had to work, was remarkably accurate, was very generally adopted by insurance societies, and subsequent writers have been greatly indebted to his investigations.
Milne was the first to compute with accuracy, though with unnecessary complexity, the value of fines, and his notation for the expression of life contingencies suggested that afterwards adopted by Augustus De Morgan in his ‘Essay on Probabilities.’ His book may still be read with profit. Milne could never be induced to revise his algebraical calculations, although they to some extent marred by their complexity the usefulness of his work. He gave evidence before the select committee on the laws respecting friendly societies (1825 and 1827), but long before his death he appears to have abandoned the subject with which his name is identified. ‘I am far from taking an interest now,’ he wrote to Augustus De Morgan (May 1839), ‘in investigations of the values of life contingencies. I have long since had too much of that, and been desirous of prosecuting inquiries into the phenomena of nature, which I have always regarded with intense interest.’ He had an ‘unusually minute’ knowledge of natural history, and is said to have possessed one of the best botanical libraries in London. He resigned his position in the Sun Life Office, owing to growing weakness, on 19 Dec. 1843, and died at Upper Clapton on 4 Jan. 1851.
In addition to the work mentioned above he contributed to the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ 4th edit., articles on ‘Annuities,’ ‘Bills of Mortality,’ and ‘Law of Mortality.’ The last was reprinted in 1827 (Report from the Select Committee on the Laws respecting Friendly Societies, 1827, App. G 3), together with a valuable statement on the Carlisle and Northampton tables of mortality (ib. App. B). The Carlisle table was largely superseded by that published by the Institute of Actuaries in 1870.
W. A. S. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Milner, James

​MILNER, JAMES (d. 1721), merchant of London, was extensively engaged in the trade with Portugal, and his commercial transactions with that country enabled him to render great service to the government in the remittance of money abroad. During the controversy on the eighth and ninth clauses of the commercial treaty with France (1713) he contributed to the ‘British Merchant’ several articles on the ‘Methuen Treaty and the Trade with Portugal,’ in which he combated the arguments advanced by Defoe in the ‘Mercator.’ He was returned to parliament for the borough of Minehead on 11 April 1717, and he voted for the repeal of the acts to prevent occasional conformity in January 1718-19. He died on 24 Nov. 1721.
Milner's articles on the trade with Portugal, which had first appeared in 1713-14, ​were republished, under the editorship of Charles King [q. v.], in the ‘British Merchant,’ London, 1721, 8vo (i. 206-22, iii. 3-92), but there is no evidence to show to what extent he was aided by other writers in the same work. He also published ‘Three Letters relating to the South Sea Company and the Bank,’ &c., London, 1720, 8vo, in which he foretold the disastrous results of the South Sea scheme.
[The British Merchant, 1721, i. xiv; Boyer's Political State of Great Britain, xx. 411, xxii. 548; Guide to the Electors of Great Britain, 1722, p. 12; Return of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. p. 43; Calendar of Treasury Papers, c. 104, cxii. 40, cxxi. 12, cxxx. 17, cxl. 16, cxlii. 23, clvi. 3, 9, clxx. 3.]
W. A. S. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Milne, Colin

​MILNE, COLIN (1743?–1815), divine and botanist, was born at Aberdeen about 1743. He was educated at the Marischal College under his uncle, Dr. Campbell, and afterwards received the degree of LL.D. from the university. He removed to Edinburgh, and became tutor to Lord Algernon Percy, second son of Hugh Smithson, afterwards Percy, duke of Northumberland. He took Anglican orders, and soon made his mark as a preacher. He was appointed evening preacher to the City of London Lying-in Hospital, lecturer to both the Old and the New Church at Deptford, and subsequently rector of North Chapel, near Petworth, Sussex. He continued, however, to reside at Deptford (Cottage Gardener, viii. 185; Nichols, Anecdotes, iii. 760), where in 1783 he founded the Kent Dispensary, now the Miller Hospital, Greenwich. He was a prominent promoter of the Royal Humane Society, and several times preached the anniversary sermon for the society (Nichols, Literary Illustrations, i. 165). As a botanist he was chosen to preach the Fairchild sermon, and sermons which he delivered before the Grand Lodge of Freemasons and at the Maidstone assizes were also printed (cf. Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, iii. 760). He died at Deptford on 2 Oct. 1815.
He published: 1. ‘A Botanical Dictionary, or Elements of Systematic and Philosophical Botany,’ 1770, 8vo, dedicated to the Duke of Northumberland, 2nd ed. 1778, 3rd ed. 1805. 2. ‘Institutes of Botany, a Translation of the Genera Plantarum of Linnæus,’ pt. i. 1771, 4to, pt. ii. 1772, not completed. 3. ‘Sermons,’ 1780, 8vo. 4. In conjunction with Alexander Gordon (M.D. of Aberdeen, ‘reader in botany in London,’ son of James Gordon, the nurseryman of Mile End, who corresponded with Linnæus), ‘Indigenous Botany … the result of several Botanical Excursions chiefly in Kent, Middlesex, and the adjacent Counties in 1790, 1791, and 1793,’ vol. i. (all issued), 1793, 8vo.
G. S. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Miln, James

​MILN, JAMES (1819–1881), archæologist, born in 1819, was the son of James Maud Miln of Woodhill, Barry, Forfarshire. He entered the navy, serving in the China war of 1842, and was afterwards a merchant in China and India. Returning to Scotland, where he inherited Murie, Perthshire, from his father, and Woodhill from his brother, he ​interested himself in small arms, astronomy, archæology, and photography, designed rifles, and made telescopic lenses. In order to compare Scottish with Breton antiquities, he went in 1873 to Carnac, intending to stay only a few days, but remained, with short intermissions, for seven years. In 1874–6 he excavated the hillocks of the Bossenno, bringing to light a Gallo-Roman villa of eleven rooms, the upper story of which had evidently been destroyed by fire, probably in the third century. He also found traces of a villa on the flank of the adjoining Mont St.-Michel. Of these discoveries he published an account, ‘Excavations at Carnac, Brittany,’ in French and English versions, published respectively at Paris and Edinburgh, 1877. He next explored three circular sepultures at Kermario, finding pre-Roman buildings and defences. In November 1880 he left for Paris and Edinburgh, to arrange for the publication of a second volume, but was attacked at Edinburgh by typhoid fever and died there 28 Jan. 1881. The volume was issued, also in English and French, by his brother, Mr. Robert Miln. The Miln Museum at Carnac contains his collections of antiquities. He was a F.S.A. Scotland, vice-president of the Morbihan Philomathic and French Archæological Societies, and a member of other learned bodies, British and foreign. His manuscripts were handed by his brother Robert to the Abbé Luco of Vannes.
J. G. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Miln, Walter

​MILN, WALTER (d. 1558), Scottish protestant martyr. [See Mylne.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Milne, William

​MILNE, WILLIAM (1785–1822), missionary, was born in 1785, in the parish of Kinnethmont, Aberdeenshire, and employed in his early years as a shepherd. At the age of twenty he resolved to become a missionary, and passing through the regular course of studies at the college of the London Missionary Society at Gosport, he was ordained there in 1812. In September he sailed for the east, arriving at Macao in July 1813. An order from the Portuguese governor compelled him to leave the settlement, and Milne proceeded in a small boat to Canton, where he was joined by his colleague, Robert Morrison [q. v.] Shortly afterwards Milne made a year's tour through the Malay Archipelago. Settling down at Malacca he mastered the Chinese language, opened a school for Chinese converts, and set up a printing-press, from which was issued the ‘Chinese Gleaner.’ He also translated portions of the Old Testament into Chinese, and became principal of an Anglo-Chinese College, which he was mainly instrumental in founding at Malacca. In 1818 he received the degree of D.D. from Glasgow University, and in 1822 his health failed, and he went on a visit to Singapore and Penang, but died on 27 May, four days after his return to Malacca. Milne married in 1812 a daughter of Charles Gowrie of Aberdeen, who predeceased him in 1819.
Milne was author of:
* ‘The Sacred Edict,’ London, 1817, 8vo.
* ‘A Retrospect of the First Ten Years of the Protestant Mission to China,’ Malacca, 1820, 8vo.
* ‘Some Account of a Secret Association,’ a paper read before the Royal Asiatic Society by the Rev. Robert Morrison, 5 Feb. 1825.
One of his sons, William Charles Milne (1815-1863), missionary to China, ordained 19 July, and appointed to Canton, sailed on 28 July 1837, arriving on 18 Dec. at Macao, where he assisted until 1842 in the Morrison Education Society's House. Proceeding via Chusan, Tinghae, Ningpo, and Canton, he arrived at Hongkong in August 1843, and was nominated with Dr. Medhurst [q. v.] to commence a station at Shanghai. In 1844 Milne visited England, but, returning to China in 1846, he served on the Translation Committee, part of whose work he subsequently attacked. In 1852 he again visited England, and terminated his connection with the London Missionary Society. He afterwards went back to China as an interpreter under the British government, became assistant Chinese secretary to the legation at Pekin, and died there on 15 May 1863. Milne married Frances Williamina, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Beaumont. He was author of:
* ‘Life in China,’ 1858.
* ‘Critical Remarks on Dr. Medhurst's Version of the First Chapter of St. John,’ and contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ of October 1855, an ‘Account of the Political Disturbances in China.’
[Works in Brit. Museum Library; Memoir by the Rev. Robert Morrison, D.D.; Life and Opinions of Rev. William Milne, by Robert Phillip; Memoir in the Christian Library, vol i.; Gent. Mag. 1822, ii. 649, 1863, ii. 381; Irving's Eminent Scotsmen; information supplied by the Rev. G. Cousins.]
A. F. P.