Modern English biography

MELVILLE, GEORGE JOHN WHYTE (only son of John Whyte Melville 1797–1883). _b._ near St. Andrews 19 July 1821; ed. at Eton to 1839; ensign 93 highlanders 19 July 1839; ensign Coldstream guards 11 Sep. 1840, lieut. 29 Dec. 1846, sold out 28 Jany. 1848; joined cavalry of Turkish contingent as major 27 March 1855 and resigned at close of Crimean war 1856; rode with the Pytchley hounds twenty years; author of Digby Grand, an autobiography 2 vols. 1853; Tilbury Nogo or passages in the life of an unsuccessful man 1854, 4 ed. 1866; General Bounce or the lady and the locusts 2 vols. 1855; Kate Coventry, an autobiography 1856; The Interpreter, a tale of the war 1858; The queen’s Maries, a romance of Holyrood 2 vols. 1862; Holmby house, a tale of Old Northamptonshire 2 vols. 1860; Good for nothing or all down hill 2 vols. 1861; Market Harborough 1861, 6 ed. 1864; The gladiators, a tale of Rome and Judea 3 vols. 1863, 2 ed. 1864; The true cross, a legend of the church 1873, new ed. 1879; Riding recollections 1878, new ed. 1880; Black but comely 3 vols. 1879 and 20 other books; _killed_ while hunting near Charlton pond near Malmesbury 5 Dec. 1878. _Babington’s Records of the Fife foxhounds_ (1883) 114, _portrait_; _Fores’s Sporting Notes_, _Oct. 1884 p._ 110, _portrait_; _Land and water_, _xxvi_ 472, 486 (1878); _Baily’s Mag. xiii_ 55–67 (1867), _portrait_; _Illust. sporting news_, _vi_ 569 (1867), _portrait_; _Graphic_, _xix_ 52 (1879), _portrait_. MELVILLE, HENRY SAXELBY. _b_. 1801; formerly printer and publisher of Australian papers; author of Narrow guage, speedier than broad guage railways, as well as cheaper 1846. _d_. Ladbroke crescent, London 23 Dec. 1873. MELVILLE, SIR JOHN (eld. son of George Melville of Newington, Edinburgh). _b_. Kirkcaldy 1802; ed. at Edinb. univ.; a writer to the signet 6 Dec. 1827; lord provost of Edinb. 1854–9; crown agent for Scotland 1860; knighted by the queen at Holyrood palace 15 Oct. 1859. _d_. 15 Heriot row, Edinburgh 5 May 1860. _The Scotsman 7 May 1860 p._ 2. MELVILLE, JOHN WHYTE (younger son of John Whyte of Bennochry, Fifeshire 1755–1813, who assumed surname of Melville 1809). _b._ 21 June 1797; cornet 9 lancers 4 Dec. 1817, placed on h.p. 18 Feb. 1819; succeeded his brother 26 Feb. 1818; joint master of the Fife fox hounds 1827, master 1838–48 when the hounds were sold to sir R. Sutton; a golf player for 67 years, captain of the St. Andrew’s club 1823. _d._ Mount Melville near St. Andrews 16 July 1883. _Babington’s Records of Fife fox hounds_ (1883) 30, _portrait_; _H. G. Hutchinson’s Golf. Badminton library_ (1890) _pp._ 437–40, _portrait_. MELVILLE, MICHAEL LINNING (son of Robert Melville, M.D.) _b._ 1804; registrar to British and foreign courts of commission at Sierra Leone for suppression of slave trade 7 April 1835 and sec. to mixed British and Spanish courts of justice 9 April 1836; commissioner of arbitration in slave trade courts 20 Feb. 1841; commissary judge at Sierra Leone 12 April 1842, superannuated on an allowance 1 Jany. 1849; barrister L.I. 23 Nov. 1843. _d._ 22 June 1878. MELVILLE, ROBERT (only son of the preceding). _b._ 1842; ed. at Magd. coll. Oxf., B.A. 1861, M.A. 1864; barrister L.I. 17 Nov. 1864; judge of county courts, circuit 27, comprising Herefordshire and Shropshire, Oct. 1889 to death; gave evidence in a case at county police court, Ludlow 31 Aug. 1891. _d._ suddenly at Ashford hall near Ludlow at 5 a.m. 1 Sep. 1891. MELVIN, JAMES. _b._ Aberdeen 21 April 1795; ed. at Aberdeen gr. sch. and Marischal college, M.A. 1816, LL.D. 1834; a master at Aberdeen gr. sch. 1822–6, rector 1826 to death; lecturer on humanity (_i.e._ Latin) at Marischal college, contested professorship of Latin 1839 and 1852; probably most accomplished Scottish Latinist of his day; a testimonial of £300 in a silver snuff-box was presented to him by old pupils 18 June 1853; author of Latin exercises as dictated by the late James Melvin 1857, a supplementary volume or key appeared in 1858, and a third ed. revised by rev. J. Pirie 1873; his books numbering 6984 were presented to Marischal college in Sep. 1856 by his sister Agnes Melvin; there is a stained-glass memorial window in univ. library, Aberdeen. _d._ Belmont st. Aberdeen 29 June 1853. _Macmillan’s Mag. Jany. 1864 pp._ 225–39; _Anderson’s Fasti academiæ Mariscallanæ_ (1889) 527–9. MENDEL, SAMUEL. _b._ Liverpool 1814; employed in a Manchester warehouse; became one of the leading merchants and shippers in Manchester and known as the Merchant Prince; suffered reverses and retired from business 1875; built a magnificent residence Manley hall, Whalley Range, sold his furniture etc. there for £18,000 on 15–18 March 1875; sold his pictures for £98,000 at Christies 1875. _d._ Nightingale lane, Clapham common, Surrey 17 Sep. 1884. NOTE.--He published between 1870–74 twenty single sheets, giving the exports of cotton goods from London, Liverpool etc. to foreign countries, the first of these is entitled S. Mendel’s Table of exports of plain, coloured and printed cottons from Liverpool and Southampton to river Plate from 1860 to 1869 inclusive. 1870. MENDHAM, JOSEPH (eld. son of Robert Mendham of Walbrook, London, merchant, _d._ 1810 aged 77). _b._ 1769; ed. at St. Edmund hall, Oxf., B.A. 1792, M.A. 1795; C. of Sutton, Coldfield, Warwickshire 1795; Incumbent of Hill Chapel in Arden, Warws. 22 Aug. 1836; part of his library of controversial theology, liturgies, breviaries, missals, &c. was presented by the widow of his nephew rev. John Mendham to the Incorporated law society Chancery lane, London in 1869; author of An exposition of the Lord’s prayer 1803; Clavis Apostolica, or a key to the apostolic writings 1821; An account of indexes, both prohibitory and expurgatory of the Church of Rome 1826, 2 ed. as The literary policy of the church of Rome exhibited in her indexes 1830, Supplement 1836, Additional supplement 1843, 3 ed. of whole work 1844; Memoirs of council of Trent 1834, Supplement 1836. _d._ Sutton Coldfield 1 Nov. 1856. _W. K. Bedford’s Three hundred years of a family living_ (1889) 123–30, 166. MENDS, HERBERT. Lieut. royal African colonial corps 25 April 1822, captain 19 March 1829, placed on h.p. 25 Dec. 1830; captain 2 West India regt. 25 May 1832, lieut.-col. 14 Feb. 1853, placed on retired full pay 6 Jany. 1854; colonel in army 28 Nov. 1854. _d._ Shepherd’s Bush near London 6 Sep. 1888 aged 87. MENDS, WILLIAM BOWEN. _b._ Pembrokeshire 27 Jany. 1781; entered navy Nov. 1794; served in cutting out service in Vigo bay 29 Aug. 1800; captain 26 May 1814; in command of the Blanche 46 guns, senior officer off coast of Peru 1827; commander of Talavera 74 guns, and senior officer in the Greek waters 1839; pensioned 17 Oct. 1856; admiral on h.p. 11 Feb. 1861. _d._ Somerset place, Stoke, Devonport 7 Feb. 1864. MENELAUS, WILLIAM. _b._ Edinburgh 10 March 1818; apprentice to an engineer; engineer and millwright under Rowland Fothergill at Taff Vale and Abernant ironworks; engineer of the ironworks at Dowlais 1851 and manager 1856 to death; one of the first to use coal extensively; the first to commence making steel under the Bessemer process 1874; founder and president of South Wales institute of engineers; president of the Iron and steel institute 1875–6, awarded the Bessemer medal 1881; M.I.M.E. 1857, on the council 1868, afterwards vice president; presented a free library and a collection of pictures worth £10,000 to Cardiff 1881–82. _d._ Tenby 30 March 1882. _Proc. of Instit. of M.E._ (1883) _pp._ 20–2; _Red Dragon, June 1882 pp._ 387–92, _portrait_. MENKEN, ADAH ISAACS, formerly Adelaide McCord (dau. of James McCord a merchant _d._ 1842). _b._ Chartrain, afterwards called Milneburg in Louisiana 15 June 1835; she and her younger sister were engaged as the Theodore Sisters, dancers at Opera house, New Orleans 1849; danced at the Tacon theatre in Havana; played at Port Zavaca, Texas; worked as a journalist in New Orleans and Cincinnati; taught French, Greek and Latin at a ladies’ school in New Orleans; _m._ 3 Aug. 1856 Alexander Isaacs Menken musician, a Jew, whose religion she adopted, divorced from him in Nashville; acted in Milman’s Fazio at Varieties theatre, New Orleans 1858; played in the southern states; studied sculpture; _m._ near New York 3 April 1859 John Camel Heenan the pugilist, he obtained a divorce in Indiana 1862; first appeared in New York, June 1859; played leading business in the southern states; first played Mazeppa at Green st. theatre Albany 7 June 1861; went through a form of marriage with Robert Henry Newell known as Orpheus C. Kerr, Oct. 1861, divorced from him Oct. 1865; _m._ 21 Aug. 1866 James Barclay; acted in California 1863–4; played Mazeppa at Astley’s amphitheatre, London 3 Oct. 1864, where she cleared £200 a week for four months; played Leon in Brougham’s Child of the Sun, at Astley’s 9 Oct. 1865; became intimate with Charles Dickens, A. C. Swinburne and Charles Reade in London, and with Alexandre Dumas and Théophile Gautier in Paris; appeared at the Gaité, Paris in Les Pirates de la Savane 30 Dec. 1866; played as Mazeppa at Astley’s, London 19 Oct. 1867 and in Black Eyed Susan, Jany. 1868; at the Pavilion theatre, April 1868; directress of Sadler’s Wells, May 1868; author of Memories. By Indigena, about 1856, a vol. of poems not in British Museum library; Infelicia 1868, a vol. of poems dedicated by permission to Charles Dickens, new illustrated ed.