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Thomas Birch
Thomas Birch (23 November 17059 January 1766) was an English historian. Life He was the son of Joseph Birch, a coffee-mill maker, and was born at Clerkenwell. He preferred study to business but, as his parents were Quakers, he did not go to the university. Notwithstanding this circumstance, he was ordained deacon in the Church of England in 1730 and priest in 1731. As a strong supporter of the Whigs, he gained the favour of Philip Yorke, afterwards Lord Chancellor and first Earl of Hardwicke, and his subsequent preferments were largely due to this friendship. He held successively a number of benefices in different counties, and finally in London. He was noted as a keen fisherman during the course of his lifetime, and devised an unusual method of disguising his intentions. Dressed as a tree, he stood by the side of a stream in an outfit designed to make his arms seem like branches and the rod and line a spray of blossom. Any movement, he argued, would be taken by a fish to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global co-operation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as The Royal Society and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Society's President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the President are elected from and by its Fellows, the basic members of the society, who are themselves elected by existing Fellows. , there are about 1,700 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS (Fellow of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 (New Style, N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the English writer Samuel Johnson, which is commonly said to be the greatest biography written in the English language. A great mass of Boswell's diaries, letters and private papers were recovered from the 1920s to the 1950s, and their ongoing publication by Yale University has transformed his reputation. Early life Boswell was born in Blair's Land on the east side of Parliament Close behind St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh on 29 October 1740 (New Style, N.S.). He was the eldest son of a judge, Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, and his wife Euphemia Erskine. As the eldest son, he was heir to his family's estate of Auchinleck in Ayrshire. Boswell's mother was a strict Calvinist, and he felt that his father was cold to him. As a child, he was delica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Braddock
Major-General Edward Braddock (January 1695 – 13 July 1755) was a British officer and commander-in-chief for the Thirteen Colonies during the start of the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the North American front of what is known in Europe and Canada as the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). He is generally best remembered for his command of a disastrous expedition against the French-occupied Ohio River Valley in 1755; he was killed in the effort. Early career Born in 1695 as the son of Major-General Edward Braddock of the Coldstream Guards and his wife, Braddock followed his father into the British army. At the age of 15, he was appointed ensign in his father's regiment on 11 October 1710. He was promoted to lieutenant of the grenadier company in 1716. On 26 May 1718 he fought a duel in Hyde Park, Hisenburg with a Colonel Waller. Braddock was promoted to captain in 1736, at the age of 41. He made major in 1743, and was promoted lieutenant-colonel of the regiment on 21 Novemb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The British Library is a major research library, with items in many languages and in many formats, both print and digital: books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, videos, play-scripts, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings. The Library's collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial holdings of manuscripts and items dating as far back as 2000 BC. The library maintains a programme for content acquis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Vertue
George Vertue (1684 – 24 July 1756) was an English engraver and antiquary, whose notebooks on British art of the first half of the 18th century are a valuable source for the period. Life Vertue was born in 1684 in St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, his father, perhaps a tailor, and mother are noted as 'Roman Catholic'. At the age of 13, he was apprenticed to a prominent heraldic engraver of French origin who became bankrupt and returned to France. Vertue worked seven years under Michael Vandergucht, before operating independently. He was amongst the first members of Godfrey Kneller's London Academy of Painting, who had employed him to engrave portraits. citing: Walpole's ''Anecdotes of Painting''; Nichols's ''Literary Anecdotes'', ii. 246; Chester's ''Westminster Abbey Reg.''; Dodd's manuscript ''Hist. of English Engravers'' in Brit. Mus. (Addit. MS. 33406). It was there that he became a pupil of Thomas Gibson, a leading portrait painter. Vertue had a deep interest in antiqu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacob Houbraken
Jacobus Houbraken (25 December 1698 – 14 November 1780) was a Dutch engraver and the son of the artist and biographer Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719), whom he assisted in producing a published record of the lives of artists from the Dutch Golden Age. Biography Jacobus was born in Dordrecht, and learned the art of engraving from his father. In 1707 he moved to Amsterdam, where for years he helped his father with his ''magnum opus'', his art historical work ''The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters'' (1718–1721). When his father died he assisted his mother with the last proofs of the manuscript before publishing. With this project he started his portraits of Netherlandish celebrities, that are today in many cases the ''only'' likenesses left of these people. He was influenced by studying the works of Cornelis Cort, Jonas Suyderhoef, Gerard Edelinck and the Visschers. He died, aged 81, in Amsterdam. Works Houbraken devoted himself almost entirely to portraiture. His work b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Tillotson
John Tillotson (October 1630 – 22 November 1694) was the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury from 1691 to 1694. Curate and rector Tillotson was the son of a Puritan clothier at Haughend, Sowerby, Yorkshire. Little is known of his early youth; he studied at Colne Grammar School, before entering as a pensioner of Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1647. His tutor was David Clarkson and he graduated in 1650, being made a fellow of his college in 1651. In 1656 Tillotson became tutor to the son of Edmund Prideaux, attorney-general to Oliver Cromwell. About 1661 he was ordained without subscription by Thomas Sydserf, a Scottish bishop. Tillotson was present at the Savoy Conference in 1661, and remained identified with the Presbyterians until the passing of the Act of Uniformity 1662. Shortly afterwards he became curate of Cheshunt, Herts, and in June 1663, rector of Kedington, Suffolk. He now devoted himself to an exact study of biblical and patristic writers, especially Basil and Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earl Of Glamorgan
Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form ''jarl'', and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. After the Norman Conquest, it became the equivalent of the continental count (in England in the earlier period, it was more akin to a duke; in Scotland, it assimilated the concept of mormaer). Alternative names for the rank equivalent to "earl" or "count" in the nobility structure are used in other countries, such as the ''hakushaku'' (伯爵) of the post-restoration Japanese Imperial era. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ''countess'' is used. Etymology The term ''earl'' has been compared to the name of the Heruli, and to runic ''erilaz''. Proto-Norse ''eri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles I Of England
Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until Execution of Charles I, his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1612 upon the death of his elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to the Spanish Habsburg princess Maria Anna of Spain, Maria Anna culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623 that demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiation. Two years later, he married the House of Bourbon, Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France. After his 1625 succession, Charles quarrelled with the Parliament of England, English Parliament, which sought to curb his royal prerogati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athenian Letters
The ''Athenian Letters'' was a collaborative work of Ancient Greek history and geography, published by a circle of authors around Charles Yorke and Philip Yorke, and taking the form of commentary in letter form on Thucidydes. It had a “considerable vogue”. While still college students, the brothers Yorke planned the work, which was begun in and appeared in two volumes (1741 and 1743), initially in a very small private edition. Others involved, anonymously, were Thomas Birch, Henry Coventry, John Green, Samuel Salter, Catherine Talbot, Daniel Wray, George Henry Rooke, John Heaton, John Lawry, and William Heberden William Heberden FRS (13 August 171017 May 1801) was an English physician. Life He was born in London, where he received the early part of his education at St Saviour's Grammar School. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org) At the end of .... The authorship was for a long time a well-guarded secret. A one-volume edition in 1781 ran to 100 copies, the fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Dictionary, Historical And Critical
The ''General Dictionary, Historical and Critical'' was a biographical dictionary published from 1734 to 1741 in London in 10 volumes. It derived from the '' Dictionnaire historique et critique'' of Pierre Bayle, already translated into English in 1710 by Pierre des Maizeaux as ''An Historical and Critical Dictionary'', but expanded the material with many biographies of English figures, this work being assigned largely to Thomas Birch. The other two main editors were John Peter Bernard, whose efforts led to his admission as a Fellow of the Royal Society, and John Lockman, who undertook a fresh translation of Bayle's work. The work has been described as the "first important ancestor" of the ''Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...''. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Miles
Henry Miles, FRS (2 Jun 1698 – 10 Feb 1763) was an English Dissenting minister and scientific writer; a Fellow of the Royal Society known for experiments on electricity. Life He was born at Stroud, Gloucestershire, on 2 June 1698. He was educated for the dissenting ministry, probably in London. His first settlement was at Lower Tooting, Surrey, where he succeeded Francis Freeman (died 17 November 1726), a Presbyterian. Miles was at this time an Independent (congregationalist). He was ordained in 1731. In 1737, still retaining his Tooting charge, he became assistant to Samuel Chandler, at the Old Jewry meeting-house. From this time he was counted as a Presbyterian. He held the double appointment till 1744, and for the rest of his life was minister at Tooting only, having John Beesley as his assistant from 1756. In 1743 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1744 he received the degree of D.D. from the University of Aberdeen. To his pulpit work, for thirty years, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
