OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sheridan, Caroline Henrietta

​SHERIDAN, Mrs. CAROLINE HENRIETTA (1779–1851), novelist, wife of Tom Sheridan, and daughter-in-law of Richard Brinsley Sheridan [q. v.], was second daughter of Colonel James Callander (afterwards Sir James Campbell, 1745–1832 [q. v.]), by his third wife, Lady Elizabeth Helena (d. 1851), youngest daughter of Alexander Macdonnell, fifth earl of Antrim. Miss Callander, one of the beauties of her day, was married in 1805 to Tom Sheridan, the younger son of R. B. Sheridan, and by him she was mother of ‘the three beauties,’ the Hon. Mrs. Norton, Lady Dufferin, and the Duchess of Somerset. The ​only extant account of Mrs. Tom Sheridan's character is contained in a letter written from Inverary Castle by Matthew Gregory Lewis [q. v.] to his mother: ‘Mrs. T. Sheridan is very pretty, very sensible, amiable, and gentle; indeed so gentle that Tom insists upon it, that her extreme quietness and tranquillity is a defect in her character. Above all, he accuses her of such an extreme apprehension of giving trouble (he says) it amounts to absolute affectation’ (Life of M. G. Lewis, ii. 5–6). She accompanied her husband in 1813 to the Cape of Good Hope, where, while serving the office of colonial treasurer, he died of consumption on 12 Sept. 1817. She received a small pension, and rooms at Hampton Court Palace were given to her by the prince regent. There she reared and educated her four sons and three daughters. After her children were grown up, Frances Kemble wrote in ‘Records of a Girlhood:’ ‘Mrs. Sheridan, the mother of the Graces, [is] more beautiful than anybody but her daughters.’ She published three novels which pleased the public. The first was ‘Carwell, or Crime and Sorrow’ (London, 1830, 12mo), which was designed to expose the inequitable sentences pronounced upon those who had been guilty of forgery. The second was ‘Aims and Ends,’ 1833; and the third, ‘Oonagh Lynch,’ 1833. Soon after publication ‘Carwell’ was turned into French and published in Paris. She died on 9 June 1851, at 39 Grosvenor Place, in the house of her daughter, Lady Dufferin.
[Gent. Mag, 1851, xxxvi. 207; Memoir of Lady Dufferin; Memoirs of Sir James Campbell, written by himself.]
F. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stephens, John

​STEPHENS, JOHN (fl. 1615), satirist, son and heir of John Stephens of Gloucester, came of a numerous Gloucester family, which took an active part in municipal politics during the seventeenth century, James Stephens being its mayor in 1650–1, and member of parliament 1659–60 (Fosbrooke, Gloucester, pp. 200, 205, 209; Washbourne, Bibliotheca Gloucestrensis, passim). He must be distinguished from John Stephens (d. 1613), who was attorney-general to Henry, prince of Wales, an ancestor of the Stephens of Over Lypiat, Gloucestershire (Visit. Gloucestershire; Atkyns, Gloucestershire; Burke, Landed Gentry), and also from John Stephens of Minsterley, Herefordshire (Visit. Herefordshire, 1623). On 11 Nov. 1611 he was admitted member of Lincoln's Inn, where he practised common law; but he held no office there (Dugdale, Origines Jurid. and Chronica Ser.), and attained to no eminence in his profession (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom.). His sole claim to remembrance is his authorship of ‘Satyrical Essayes, Characters, and Others, or accurate and quick descriptions fitted to the life of their subjects,’ London 1615, 8vo. A second edition, entitled ‘Essayes and Characters … with a new Satyre in defence of Common Law and Lawyers,’ appeared in the same year, and in 1631 appeared a third, which is a reprint of the second edition with the exception of the title ‘New Essayes and Characters’ (Brydges, Restituta, iv. 503 et seq.). Some of these were reprinted by Halliwell-Phillipps in his ‘Books of Characters,’ 1857, 4to, and the ‘Essay on a Worthy Poet’ has been considered, on no very conclusive grounds, to be a sketch of Shakespeare (Notes and Queries, 4th ser. iii. 550). Stephens was also author of ‘Cynthia's Revenge, or Menander's Extasy,’ London, 1613, which was not entered in the ‘Stationers' Register,’ but was published surreptitiously, with commendatory verses by Jon​son. It is a long and tedious play, founded on Lucan's ‘Pharsalia’ and Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses’ (Fleay, Biogr. Hist. ii. 252–3). Stephens has three copies of commendatory verses in ‘Certaine Elegies,’ 1617, by Henry Fitzgeffrey [q. v.], also a member of Lincoln's Inn.
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stephens, Philip

​STEPHENS, Sir PHILIP (1725–1809), secretary of the admiralty, one of a family settled for many generations at Eastington in Gloucestershire, was the youngest son of Nathaniel Stephens, rector of Alphamstone in Essex, and was born there. He was educated at the free school at Harwich (Gent. Mag. 1810, i. 128), and at an early age obtained an appointment as clerk in the navy victualling office, as his eldest brother, Tyringham Stephens, had previously done. After his return from his voyage round the world, Rear-admiral George Anson (afterwards Lord Anson) [q. v.] took notice of young Stephens, and had him moved to the admiralty. Stephens afterwards served as Anson's secretary, and was appointed assistant secretary of the admiralty. In 1763 he became secretary, and so continued for upwards of thirty years. He was elected ​F.R.S. on 6 June 1771, and from 1768 to 1806 he represented Sandwich in the House of Commons. In 1795 he applied for permission to resign his office at the admiralty, and was then, 17 March, created a baronet and appointed one of the lords of the admiralty. By a special recommendation on 15 Oct. 1806 (Orders in Council, vol. lxvi.) Stephens, at the age of eighty-one, was granted a pension of 1,600l., which he enjoyed till his death on 20 Nov. 1809. He was buried in Fulham church. His only son, Captain Thomas Stephens, was killed in a duel at Margate in 1790; and his nephew, Colonel Stephens Howe, who was included in the patent of baronetcy, predeceased him. The baronetcy thus became extinct. An elder brother, Nathaniel Stephens, died a captain in the navy in 1747; and two nephews, also captains in the navy, William and Tyringham Howe, died in 1760 and 1783 respectively.
[Burke's Extinct Baronetcies and Landed Gentry: Gent. Mag. 1809, ii. 1180, 1234; Faulkner's Fulham. pp. 272-3; Thomson's Royal Society; Official Returns of Members of Parliament. Stephens's name is very prominent in the admiralty correspondence of the last half of the eighteenth century.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leverton, Thomas

1904 Errata appended.
​LEVERTON, THOMAS (1743–1824), architect, born at Woodford in Essex and baptised at Waltham Abbey on 11 June 1743, was son of Lancelot Leverton, a builder. After learning his father's business, he became an architect, and was extensively employed in the erection of dwelling-houses in London and the country. He exhibited thirty-four designs in the Royal Academy between 1771 and 1803. His executed works include Woodford Hall, Essex, in 1771, now Mrs. Gladstone's Convalescent Home; Boyles, Essex, in 1776; Watton Wood Hall, Hertfordshire, in 1777; the Phœnix Fire Office, London, in 1787; Engine House, Charing Cross, about 1792; Riddlesworth Hall, Norfolk, in 1792; bank for Messrs. Robarts in Lombard Street in 1796 (since rebuilt); hall for the Grocers' Company in the Poultry, London, of which the first stone was laid on 30 Aug. 1798, and the work completed on 21 July 1802 (it was afterwards altered by Joseph Gwilt, [q. v.]); Scampston House, Yorkshire, in 1803; Marine Villa, at Lislee, co. Cork, in 1803. He also erected large premises for sugar-boilers in London and New York. In 1783 he received a government premium for designs for improved penitentiary houses. He and his pupil, Thomas Chawner, were architects in the department of land revenue of the office of works, and in that capacity submitted, in July 1811, a plan for the improvement of the crown property of Marylebone Park Farm (now Regent's Park); but the design of John Nash [q. v.] was preferred and executed.
Leverton was surveyor to the Phœnix Fire Insurance Company and to the theatres royal in London, and was justice of the peace for Surrey, Kent, Middlesex, and Westminster. He was twice married, first, in 1766, and afterwards, in 1803, to Mrs. Rebecca Craven of Blackheath. He died at 13 Bedford Square, London (a house he had erected for himself) on 23 Sept. 1824, and was buried in Waltham Abbey, where a monument by ​Kendrick is erected to his memory. In the same abbey were buried his brother Lancelot and his son Henry. A bust of the son by Flaxman is now in the Flaxman Hall, University College. The sculptor, when a young man, had been largely employed by Leverton to model for him.
B. P.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.181 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leveson-Gower, Francis

​LEVESON-GOWER, Lord FRANCIS. [See Egerton, Francis, Earl of Ellesmere, 1800–1857.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lever, Christopher

​LEVER, CHRISTOPHER (fl. 1627), protestant writer and poet, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, but did not graduate (Cooper, Memorials of Cambridge, ii. 39). From the dedications of his various works it appears that though he had taken orders he was unable to obtain a benefice. He wrote: 1. ‘Queene Elizabeth's Teares; or, her resolute bearing the Christian Crosse inflicted on her by the persecuting hands of Steuen Gardner, Bishop of Winchester, in the bloodie time of Queene Marie,’ 4to, London, 1607, a curious but long and dull poem. 2. ‘A Crucifixe; or, a Meditation upon Repentance and the Holie Passion,’ 4to, London, 1607, another poem of the same mediocre quality. Reprinted by the Rev. A. B. Grosart in the ‘Fuller Worthies Library,’ 1870. 3. ‘Heaven and Earth, Religion and Policy; or the maine difference betweene Religion and Policy,’ 8vo [London], 1608. 4. ‘The Holy Pilgrime, leading the way to heaven … In two bookes. Written by C. L.,’ 8vo, London, 1618. 5. ‘The Historie of the Defendors of the Catholique Faith. Discoursing the state of Religion in England,’ &c., 4to, London, 1627. Copies of all these works are in the British Museum.
[Corser's Collectanea (Chetham Soc.), viii. 355–62; Hunter's Chorus Vatum (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 24, 491), v. 182; Lever's Works.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lever, Darcy

Date of death 1839 in the ODNB.
​LEVER, DARCY (1760?–1837), writer on seamanship, born about 1760, was the eldest son of the Rev. John Lever of Buxton in Derbyshire, and nephew of Sir Ashton Lever [q. v.] In January 1770 he was entered in the Manchester school. He afterwards ​went out to India, where his life is vaguely described as ‘a somewhat eventful one.’ His adventures must have taken a nautical direction, and would seem too to have been profitable, as he returned to England at a comparatively early age and apparently in the enjoyment of a comfortable independence. In 1808 he published at Leeds ‘The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor, or a Key to the Leading of Rigging and to Practical Seamanship,’ 4to, dedicated by permission to the lords of the admiralty. He was then living at Leeds, and in the introduction says that the work was planned many years before and was then finished ‘for the advantage of a young gentleman whose inclinations led him to the choice of a sea-faring life.’ It had an immediate success and continued for nearly forty years the text-book both in the royal navy and in the mercantile marine. Lever afterwards settled in Pontefract, and towards the end of his life divided his time between Alkrington Hall, near Manchester, the original seat of his family, and Edinburgh, where he died, 22 Jan. 1837. He married Elizabeth, only child of the Rev. William Murgatroyd, and by her had eight children.
[Manchester School Register, edited by the Rev. J. F. Smith, i. 155 (Chetham Society's Publications, vol. lxix.); Baines's Hist. of Lancashire, ii. 566.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ward, John (1825-1896)

​WARD, JOHN (1825–1896), naval captain and surveyor, born in 1825, was son of Lieutenant Edward Willis Ward, R.N. (d. 1855). He entered the navy in 1840 on board the Spey brig, packet-boat to the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico. In November of the same year the Spey was wrecked on the Bahama bank, and young Ward was sent to the Thunder, then employed in surveying the Bahamas. He passed his examination in December 1848, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant on 2 Oct. 1850. During 1851–3 he was borne on the books of the Fisgard for surveying duties, and in March 1854 was appointed to the Alban steamer, then commanded by Captain Henry Charles Otter, and attached to the fleet in the Baltic, where she did good service in destroying telegraphs and in reconnoitring in the neighbourhood of Sveaborg and at Bomarsund. In 1855–6 he was with Otter in the Firefly, surveying on the coast of Scotland, and in February 1857 was appointed to command the Emperor, a steam-yacht going out as a present to the emperor of Japan. In this yacht he went with Lord Elgin to Yeddo, in August 1858, and, when the vessel had been handed over to the Japanese, returned to Shanghai in the Retribution.
On 24 Sept. he was promoted to command the Actæon, surveying ship, and in the Actæon's tender, the Dove gunboat, he accompanied Lord Elgin in his remarkable voyage up the Yang-tse [see Osborn, Sherard], rendering important assistance in examining the navigable channels of the river. For the next three years he commanded the Actæon, and in her surveyed the coast of the Gulf of Pe-che-li, including the harbours of Wei-hai-wei and Ta-lien-wan, till then unknown, as also the Yang-tse for two hundred miles above Han-kow. For two years after paying off the Actæon in the end of 1861, he was employed at the hydrographic office in reducing the work of the survey, and in March 1864 he was appointed to the Rifleman to continue the survey of the China Seas. In 1866 his health gave way, and he was obliged to return to England. He had no further service, and in 1870 accepted the new retirement scheme. On 24 Sept. 1873 he was promoted to be captain on the retired list, and died in London on 20 Jan. 1896, at the age of seventy. He married, in 1852, Mary Hope, daughter of John Bowie of Edinburgh, and left issue.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ward, John (fl.1613)

​WARD, JOHN (fl. 1613), composer, was the author of ‘The First Set of English Madrigals to 3, 4, 5, and 6 parts, apt for both Viols and Voyces. With a Mourning Song in memory of Prince Henry,’ printed by T. Snodham, London, 1613, 4to. The book is in six parts, the words and music for each voice being printed separately. It is dedicated to Sir Henry Fanshawe [q. v.], remembrancer of the exchequer. One of the madrigals for five voices, ‘Hope of my Hart,’ was arranged by Thomas Oliphant, and ​republished in 1847; and another, ‘Upon a Banke of Roses,’ was republished by Novello & Co. in 1890. The best known of the collection, however, is ‘Dye not, fond Man,’ arranged for six voices, which has always remained popular among madrigal singers. One of the madrigals, also, was edited by Mr. W. Barclay Squire for Breitkopf and Haertel with English and German words. Ward contributed two pieces to Sir Thomas Leighton's ‘Tears or Lamentations of a Sorrowful Soule,’ 1614, and two anthems by him are included in Barnard's ‘First Book of Selected Church Musick’ (1641). One of them, ‘Let God arise,’ has a very elaborate organ part. As this collection only included the works of deceased musicians, Ward died before 1641. John Ravenscroft's ‘Psalter,’ published in 1621, contains a few settings by Ward, and there are several fancies for five and for six viols by him in the collection of music in British Museum Additional MSS. 17786–96. Three very elaborate anthems with verses, besides an unpublished madrigal, are in Addit. MSS. 29372–7. One of the ‘Songs’ by Thomas Tomkins (d. 1656) [q. v.] was dedicated to Ward.
[Grove's Dict. of Music; Davy's Hist. of Engl. Music. 1895, pp. 173, 190, 199, 237, 255; Rimbault's Bibliotheca Madrigaliana, 1847, p. 38.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ward, James Clifton

​WARD, JAMES CLIFTON (1843–1880), geologist, was born at Clapham Common on 13 April 1843. His father, James Ward, was a schoolmaster; his mother's maiden name was Mary Ann Morris. He entered the Royal School of Mines in 1861, where he gained the Edward Forbes medal in 1864. Next year he was appointed to the geological survey, and for some time worked in Yorkshire on the millstone, grit, and coal measures near Sheffield, Penistone, Leeds. In 1869 he was transferred to the Lake district, where he remained for the next eight years, engaged on the survey of the country around Keswick; that town, to which his parents had removed, being his headquarters. When his work here was finished he was transferred in 1877 to Bewcastle to examine the lower carboniferous rocks. Before the end of the next year he retired from the survey, being ordained, and licensed to the curacy of St. John's, Keswick, in December 1878. Early in 1880 he was appointed vicar of Rydal; but died on 15 April of the same year. He married in the beginning of 1877 Elizabeth Anne Benson of Cockermouth, who survived him. By her he had two children.
Ward was a man of a singularly attractive nature; wide in his sympathies and culture, fond of art, though even more happy among beautiful scenery, and an enthusiastic geologist. He was among the first to appreciate the importance of Clifton Sorby's method of using the microscope for the study of the composition and structures of rocks, and applied it to the old lavas and ash-beds of the Lake district. He advocated Ramsay's hypothesis of the glacial origin of lake basins, applying it to those in his own district, and put forward views in regard to metamorphism which at the present day would find few supporters [see Ramsay, Sir Andrew Crombie]. But his excellent work in surveying the northern part of the Lake district will always give him a high place among our field geologists.
He wrote a small manual on natural philosophy (1871), and another on geology (1872), and was the author of the valuable memoir published by the geological survey on the northern part of the Lake district (1876), the map of which was also his work. He was also part author of two survey memoirs on the Yorkshire coalfields. Twenty-three papers appear under his name in the Royal Society's catalogue, the most important of which were published in the ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society.’ Two of these, in the volumes for 1874 and 1876, deal with the glaciation of the Lake district, and three in 1875 and 1876 with the structure of its rocks and questions of metamorphism. His influence was distinctly stimulative; during his residence at Keswick he often lectured on geology, and took a leading part in founding the Cumberland Association for the Advancement of Literature and Science, together with local societies which were affiliated to it.
[Quarterly Journal Geol. Soc. 1881, vol. xxxvii., Proc. p. 41; Geological Mag. 1880, p. 334; information from the family through Professor W. A. Knight, and personal knowledge.]
T. G. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ward, John (fl.1642-1643)

​WARD, JOHN (fl. 1642–1643), poet, was a native of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. He was a man of strong puritan feeling, and on the outbreak of the civil war served as a trooper under the Earl of Bedford [see Russell, William, first Duke of Bedford]. On 13 Dec. 1642 he took part, under Sir William Waller [q. v.], in the action in which Lord Grandison was captured in Winchester. Ward celebrated the event in a poem entitled ‘The taking of Winchester by the Parliament's Forces. As also the surrendring up of the Castle. By I. W., an eye-witness’ (London, 1642, 4to), in which he gives a most detailed account of the whole skirmish, and laments over Grandison's subsequent escape from captivity. In the same year Ward also published another longer poem, entitled ‘An Encouragement to Warre, or Bellum Parliamentale; shewing the Unlawfulnesse of the late Bellum Episcopale’ (London, 4to), which bore on the title-page an elaborate engraving representing the prelates being borne away ‘as stuble before the wind.’ The poem consists of a long list of the moral and theological shortcomings of the cavaliers. The poem was reissued in 1643, with a fresh title-page, under the title ‘The Christian's Incouragement earnestly to contend
For Christ, His gospell, and for all Our Christian liberties in thrall, Which who refuseth let him bee For aye accursed.’
To this issue was added ‘The Humble Petition of the Protestant Inhabitants’ of part of Ireland, of which, however, Ward was not the author.
[Ward's Works; Corser's Collectanea (Chetham Soc.), v. 338–42.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walker, Robert (d.1658?)

​WALKER, ROBERT (d. 1658?), portrait-painter, was the chief painter of the parliamentary party during the Commonwealth. Nothing is known of his early life. His manner of painting, though strongly influenced by that of Van Dyck, is yet distinctive enough to forbid his being ranked among Van Dyck's immediate pupils. Walker is chiefly known by his portraits of Oliver Cromwell, and, with the exception of the portraits by Samuel Cooper [q. v.], it is to Walker that posterity is mainly indebted for its knowledge of the Protector's features. The two best known types—the earlier representing him in armour with a page tying on his sash; the later, full face to the waist in armour—have been frequently repeated and copied. The best example of the former is perhaps the painting now in the National Portrait Gallery, which was formerly in the possession of the Rich family. This likeness was considered by John Evelyn (1620–1706) [q. v.], the diarist, to be the truest representation of Cromwell which he knew (see Numismata, p. 339). There are repetitions of this portrait at Althorp, Hagley, and elsewhere. The most interesting example of the latter portrait is perhaps that in the Pitti Palace at Florence (under the name of Sir Peter Lely), which was acquired by the Grand Duke Ferdinand II of Tuscany shortly after Cromwell's death. In another portrait by Walker, Cromwell wears a gold chain and decoration sent to him by Queen Christina of Sweden. Walker painted Ireton, Lambert (examples of these two in the National Portrait Gallery), Fleetwood, Serjeant Keeble, and other prominent members of the parliamentary government. Evelyn himself sat to him, as stated in his ‘Diary’ for 1 July 1648: ‘I sate for my picture, in which there is a death's head, to Mr. Walker, that excellent painter;’ and again 6 July 1650: ‘To Mr. Walker's, a good painter, who shew'd me an excellent copie of Titian.’ This copy of Titian, however, does not appear, as sometimes stated, to have been painted by Walker himself. One of Walker's most excellent paintings is the portrait of William Faithorne the elder [q. v.], now in the National Portrait Gallery. In 1652, on the death of the Earl of Arundel, Walker was allotted apartments in Arundel House, which had been seized by the parliament. He is stated to have died in 1658. He painted his own portrait three times. Two similar portraits are in the National Portrait Gallery and at Hampton Court; and one of these portraits was finely engraved in his lifetime by Peter Lombart. A third example, with variations, is in the university galleries at Oxford.
L. C.