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BAADER, Franz Xaver Von (1765-1841). German theologian. In his working life he was first a doctor, then became a mining engineer. He discovered the use of Glauber's salts for making glass for which he received a monetary prize and was enobled. Superintendent of Bavarian mines. In the second part of his life he studied philosophy. Published Fermenta Cognitionis, 1822 and Spekulataive Dogmatik 1827. Politically he believed in common obedience to the ruler as typified by the Christian state and advocated the abolition of the Papacy. Consequently was forbideen to lecture on the philosophy of religion.
BAASHA. Biblical character. Son of Ahijah, seized the throne of Israel after killing Nadab and all the family of Jeroboam I. Reigned 24 years always at war against Asa, King of Judah (I Kings, 15).
BABAR (C.1483-1530). Mahomedan conqueror. Became khan of Ferghanah in 1495. He conquered many territories in Afghanistan and India. He made Delhi his capital and became the founder of the Mogul dynasty and the ruler of all Northern India.
BABBAGE, Charles (1792-1871). British mathematician. Became Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, was founder of Astronomical Society and the British Association. Publications - tables of mortality, a table of logarithms, The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, an autobiographical work, and Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, 1864. He was the inventor of a calculating machine.
BABBITT, Isaac (1799-1862). American inventor. A goldsmith who invented in 1839 a new anti-friction alloy, composed of copper, tin and antimony, which became known as "Babbitt's metal".
BABEUF, Francois Noel (1760-97). French social revolutionist. He was identified with the extremist Marat section of the Revolution in 1789. He was imprisoned for anarchist propaganda in 1794 which advocated communism. In 1796 he headed a group called La Societe des Egaux demanding a new Reign of Terror. He was arrested and executed.
BABINGTON Anthony (1561-86). English conspirator. A page to Mary Queen of Scots during her imprisonment, in 1586 he took a leading part in a conspiracy for the assassination of Queen Elizabeth and the release of Mary. The plot was made known to Walsingham, and Babington was hanged, drawn and quartered on September 20.
BABINGTON, Benjamin Guy (1794-1866). British physician. Served in the navy and with Nelson at Copenhagen. Joined the Indian Civil Service. Studied medicine and was elected in 1861, president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. Physician at Guy's Hospital, 1840-55.
BABINGTON, Charles Cardale (1808-95). British botanist. His manual of British Botany, 1843 revolutionised that subject by substituting for the Linnaean system the arrangement of De Candolle. In 1861 made professor of botany at Cambridge.
BABINGTON, Churchill (1821-89). English scholar. Vicar at Cockfield Suffolk, Disney professor of archaeology at Cambridge. He edited the speeches of Hyperides which were discovered at Thebes in 1847, catalogued the classical MSS in the university library, and the Greek and English coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
BABINGTON, William (1756-1833). British physician. Studied medicine at Guy's Hospital, London. Spent 4 years at the Naval Hospital at Haslar, then returned to guy's Hospital where in 1795 he was appointed physician until he resigned in 1811. Apart from being esteemed in his profession, he had many other interests, the chief being mineralogy. A meeting he called in 1807 led to the foundation of the Geological Society. He was president of this society until 1822. He was also a founder of the Hunterian Society and was made F.R.S.
BABRIUS. Roman fabulist. Lived in the 3rd century A.D. and wrote fables in Greek. In the 18th century Richard Bentley discovered that many of the fables attributed to Aesop had been written by Babrius. An MS containing 123 fables, was found in a convent on Mount Athos in 1842, and later 6 others were discovered in a Vatican MS.
BABTIE, Sir William (1859-1920). British army sugeon. Studied medicine at Glasgow University, entering the army medical service in 1881. In 1901 he became assistant director-general. He won the V.C. in the Boer War at Colenso, Dec. 15, 1899. 1907 made inspector of medical services; 1910 deputy director-general of the army medical service; 1914 director of medical services in India. During World War I became director of medical services at the War Office. An enquiry was held in 1917 over his responsibility for the breakdown in arrangements for the care of the wounded in Mesopotamia. In 1918 he was promoted to be inspector of medical services; knighted in 1916.
BACCELLI, Guido (1832-1916). Italian politician. Receiving a medical education he in turn became professor of medical jurisprudence, pathological anatomy and clinical medicine at the university of Rome. In 1874 he was elected to the chamber of deputies, and was 3 times minister of public instruction and also minister of agriculture.After 1903 he was made director of the medical clinic in Rome where he was to die. He did research into the causes of malaria, and had a practical interest in housing objects of classical art in Rome.
BACCIADAE. Family of Corinth. They overthrew the monarchy and formed an oligarchy which rulled the city from 747-657 B.C. One of the family was always chosen as President. Under their rule Corinth sent colonies to Corcyra and Syracuse, and became a naval power to be feared. Their rule came to an end when one of the family declared himself tyrant.
BACCHYLIDES. Greek poet. Circa 500 B.C. He spent some time at the court of Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, and lived in exile for many years in the Peloponesus. He was considered by Alexandrian scholars to be among the 9 great lyrists. Only 100 lines of his poems were known until 1896, when a papyrus which contained 20 nearly complete odes was found in Egypt.
BACCIOCHI, Marianne Elisa Bonaparte (1777-1820) Grand-duchess of Tuscany. The 3rd sister of the Emperor Napoleon I, she married Felix Bacciochi in 1797. Napoleon made her princess of Piombino and of Lucca in 1805 and grand-duchess of Tuscany in 1808. She managed the affairs of both her husband and the grand-duchy. She intrigued with Murat the king of Naples, against Napoleon in 1813-14, but after Napoleon's defeat Murat occupied tuscany and handed it over to the Austrians. Marianne Elisa retired first to Bologna and eventually to Trieste.
BACH, Alexander Anton Stephan Baron von (1813-93) Austrian politician. He was both a lawyer and public official.In 1848 he was active in promoting the revolutionary movement, but soon afterwards joined the party in power and was made minister of justice and then minister of the interior. His main aim was to centralise the system of government. Leaving office in 1859 he was then ambassador to Rome until 1867.
BACH, Johann Ambrosius (1645-95). German musician. The father of Johann Sebastian Bach. He studied the technique of violin and viola and was so good it procured his admission to the Compagnie of musicians at Erfurt in 1667. He became town musician at Eisenach in 1671 and lived there till he died.
BACH, Johann Christian (1735-82). German composer. The 11th and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. After studying at Berlin and in Italy he was made organist at Milan Cathedral in 1760. 2 years later he was appointed composer to the opera at the King's Theatre, London. His opera Orione was so appreciated that he was appointed music master to the queen in 1763. He remained in England until he died. His works included 20 operas and 2 oratorios. He was the first composer to introduce parts for clarinets into the score os an opera. His orchestral technique had a considerable influence on the later development of symphonic compositions.
BACH, Johann Christoph (1671-1721). German musician. The eldest brother of Johann Sebastian Bach. After the death of his parents he looked after Johann Sebastian for 5 years until the latter was 15, superintending his musical education. He was organist at Ohrdruf.
BACH, Johann Christoph Friedrich (1732-95). He was the 9th son of Johann Sebastian Bach. Studied jurisprudence at Leipzig university with a view to becoming an advocate, but early turned to music. In 1750 he was appointed kapellmeister to the count of Schaumburg at Buckeburg, where he spent the rest of his life. His numerous compositions are remarkable rather for purity than for vigour.
BACH, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750). Composer & Musician. At the age of 10 he lost his parents and was brought up by his brother Johann Christoph Bach from whom he received musicial tuition. In 1700 he became a chorister at Luneberg, and studied French and Italian music. 3 years later aged 18 he was appointed organist at Arnstadt. He was much influenced by Buxtchude, the organist at Lubeck. He was reprimanded for introducing into the chorales astonishing variations, and for permitting his cousin Maria Bach to sing in the church. He married her in 1707. He had by then managed to secure a new position as organist of St. Blasius at Mulhausen. His fame as an organist and composer was spreading. In 1708 he was invited to accept the post of hof-organist at weimar to the duke, Wilhelm Ernst. He remained there until 1717, and these years were the most productive musically of his life. In 1714 he was promoted to the post of donzertmeister, but he was not happy with his patron. In 1717 he acceptd the post of kapellmeister at the court of Prince Leipold of Anhalt-Cothen. Formally he had written mostly organ prices and religious music, but now he composed much of his orchestral music, including the celebrated Brandenburg concerti, which were finished in 1721, and the first book of his famous preludes and fugues, which he wrote for the instruction of his children. In 1717 he accepted the challenge by French organist J. Louis Marchand, to play any piece at sight before a large crowd, but the Frenchman decamped before the event. His wife died in 1720 and he remarried Anna Magdalena Wilcken, with a lovely soprano voice. This coupled with the necessity of educating his seven young children determined him to accept the post of tutor at the Thomasschule in Leipzig in 1723. Here he spent the rest of his life, and here he composed his most important pieces e.g. the Mass in B Minor and the second part of the 48 preludes and fugues. By his second wife he had 13 children. Anna helped him in his work by copying out many of his manuscripts. and he lived to see the success of his son Karl Philipp Emanuel. In 1747 he was summoned to visit Frederick the Great at Potsdam. He was received with great honour and it was on the theme given to him by the king that he wrote his Das musikalische Opfer. In 1749 his eyes failed him, and as the result of an unsuccessful operation he became permanently blind. He died of apoplexy a year later. For 100 years his music was forgotten until Mendelssohn and Schumann brought his music to light again.
BACH, Karl Phillipp Emanuel, [1714-88]. German musician and composer. The third son of Johann Sebastian, he studied law, but turned his attention to music, and settled in Berlin. Before 1740 he had become a musician in the household of Frederick the Great. In 1768 he moved to Hamburg, where he remained as kapellmeister until his death. His many compositions into 210 solo pieces for piano, 52 concerti, and many songs. He composed 22 passions and several oratorios, including the Israelites in the Desert. His work on the klavier, published in 2 parts in 1753 and 1762, was the first methodical study of that instrument and influenced Mozart. He was opposed to the contrapuntal style of his father, and in his compositions the later melodic development of the sonata may be traced.
BACHAUMONT, Louis Petit De (1690-1771] French aesthete. He was the chief figure in one of the many salons that flourished in Paris in the 18th century. He contributed to the first volumes of a register called Memoires secrets pour servir a l'histoire de la Republique des Lettres, which contained accounts of the daily scandals of Paris and of the books that had been suppressed by the censor.
BACHE, Alexander Dallas (1806-67). American physicist. A great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, he graduated from the military academy in 1825, where, for a short time he held an assistant professorship. After serving for a time in the army, Bache was professor of natural philosophy and chemistry in the university of Pennsylvania, 1828-41. In 1843 he became president of the U.S.A. coast survey, and under his supervision the whole of the coast was mapped.
BACHE, Francis Edward (1833-58). English violinist. He studied under Alfred Mellon and Sterndale Bennett, and in 1853 went to Leipzig, where he was a pupil of Plaidy and Hauptmann. When he died he left behind a few compositions, the best known of which was a trio for the piano and string instruments.
BACHMAN, John (1790-1874). American naturalist. He was an assistant to John James Audubon and collaborated with him in the publication Quadrupeds of North America, 1846-54. He was pastor of the Lutheran church at Charleston, South Carolina, 1815-74, and wrote A Defence of Luther and the reformation in 1853.
BACK, Sir George (1796-1878). British explorer. He entered the navy in 1808, was captured by the French in 1809, and in 1818 went with Sir John Franklin to the Arctic. He saved the lives of his companions more than once, and also did good service during Franklin's exploration of the Mackenzie river. In 1833 Back volunteered to search for Captain Ross, and on hearing that the latter had returned in safety, continued his explorations, discovering the Great fish or Back river. Between his journeys he served in the navy, and in 1835 attained the rank of captain. His fourth and last expedition to the Arctic was made in 1836; the hardships he encountered made him an invalid for many years after his return. He was knighted in 1839, and became an admiral in 1857.
BACKHUYSEN, Ludolf (1631-1708). Dutch painter. He studied under Albert van Everdingen, and encouraged by the success of his drawings of ships in Amsterdam harbour, became a popular painter of seascapes. He was also an engraver and etcher.
BACKWELL, Edward (d. 1683). English goldsmith. He became a goldsmith in London before 1650. He was entrusted with money by his customers which he began lending out to merchants receiving a higher rate of interest than he paid, thus anticipating the modern system of banking. He had transactions with Charles II and Cromwell. He acted as a secret agent for the king in some of his dealings with Louis XIV of France. He was M.P. for Wendover in 1679 and 1681.
BACON. Delia Salter (1811-59). American author. She became a schoolmistress and lecturer in history and literature. One of the earliest to maintain that Bacon wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare, she came to England in 1853, visited Stratford, and launched the theory in Putnam's Monthly, Jan, 1856, and in the Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded, published in 1857, with a non-committal introduction by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Later her mind gave way and she died at Hartford, Connecticut.
BACON Francis Viscount St. Albans. His father was Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord-keeper of the Great Seal, and an able political lawyer, who had married the daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, remarkable for her learning. With his elder brother Anthony, Francis in 1573 went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1576 he accompanied Sir Amyas Paulet, ambassador to France, to Paris, where he remained until the death of his father in 1579. In 1582 he was called to the bar at Gray's Inn, of which he became a bencher in 1586, and in 1584 entered parliament as member for Melcombe Regis in Dorset, becoming in the years that followed the confidential adviser of the earl of Essex, favourite of Queen Elizabeth. In 1593 Bacon incurred the anger of the Queen by opposing in Parliament the levying of a double subsidy and was excluded from the court. He was however, befriended by Essex. In 1600 Bacon regained a measure of the royal favour by taking part in the accusation at Essex's first trial for treason and in 1601, after the latter's attempt to seize the queen, he appeared at the second trial as one of her majesty's counsel, speaking against his benefactor, whose execution followed the trial. On the accession of James I in 1603, Bacon through the influence of his cousin Lord Burghley, was knighted, and he was one of the commission appointed to settle the terms of the union of England and Scotland. He married the wealthy Alice Barnham in 1606, and a year later was made solicitor-general, becoming attorney-general in 1613. In both these offices his actions were governed entirely by the king's desires and, despite growing unpopularity with all but the court, he was made lord-keepr of the Great Seal in 1617, and lord chancellor and Baron Verulam in 1618. In 1621 he was created Viscount St. Albans. Bacon had tried to persuade the king to forgo the most unpopular of the patents which he had created, but James I rejected his advice, and in 1621 the storm burst upon Bacon's head, and he was accused of bribery and corruption in Chancery suits. Having no defence, he sent in a confession to the House of Lords, and was condemned to a fine of £40,000, imprisonment in the tower of London during the king's pleasure and perpetual exclusion from any office of state. This sentence was not carried out, the fine being remitted by the king and the imprisonment lasting only a week. A general pardon was made out in November, but Bacon's public career was ruined and he never again sat in Parliament. He continued, however to work; revised the Essays and wrote the New Atlantis. In this he sketches the system of government which he considers ideal, and gives a detailed picture of the application of his scientific views to the problems of human society. He was taken ill suddenly and died at Highgate 1626. His supreme achievement was his analysis and classification of knowledge, and his provision of a new technique for the process of reasoning. His method of discovery consisted in the gradual building up of small pieces of knowledge. His main work is the Great Instauration consisting of two parts, De Augmentis Scientiarum, 1623, an enlargement of his earlier work of 1605, The Advancement of Learning, and the second Novum Organum, 1620. His literary writings are famous, and his Essays appeared in 1625. Among his historical works was the History of Henry VII, 1622.
BACON, Henry. (1866-1924). American architect. He was educated at the University of Illinois, became an architect, and after winning a travelling scholarship, studied for 3 years in Europe. He began his practice in New York in 1891, and rose to be one of the leading architects in the country. Bacon was responsible wholly or in part for the Lincoln monument at Washington, the World War memorial at Yale, the Lafayette monument at Brooklyn, the Longfellow monument at Cambridge, as well as many others. He also designed a number of public buildings.
BACON, John (1740-99). English sculptor. he was apprenticed in 1754 to a porcelain factory in Lambeth, and in 1763 began to work in marble. He invented a new instrument for transferring the form of the model to the marble itself and in 1770 won the first gold medal for sculpture, awarded by the R.A., of which he became an associate. He left £60,000 to his children. His work can be seen in monuments in Westminster, S. Paul's Cathedral, the London Guildhall, Christ Church, Oxford and elsewhere.
BACON, John MacKenzie (1846-1904). British aeronaut. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was ordained in 1870, retiring from the church in 1889. From early life he was interested in astronomy and kindred sciences. In 1888 he first went up in a balloon, and in 1902 he was the second person to cross the Irish Channel in that manner, his journeys being used for experiments in acoustics and wireless telegraphy and photographing the bottom of the sea. He also made scientific expeditions to India, Lapland and America in connection with various eclipses. He was the author of By Land and Sky, 1900; and The Dominion of the Air, 1902.
BACON, Leonard (1802-81). American divine. He was a son of David Bacon (1771-1817), a missionary among the Indians. He was educated at Yale, and became in 1825 minister of the Congregational Church at New Haven, Connecticut. In 1866 he became assistant professor at Yale, where during 1871-81 he was lecturer on church polity and history. Bacon was a leading Congregationalist, and was prominent also as an editor and a writer. He edited The Christian Spectator, 1826-38, and helped to found The Independent, of which he was editor, 1848-63. He wrote The Genesis of the New England Churches, 1874, and other books
BACON (c.1647-76). English adventurer.he was educated at Cambridge, afterwards studying law in London. In 1674 he went to Virginia, where he was granted large estates. He became a member of the Council of State, and led a rebellion against the autocratic rule of the governor, Sir William Berkeley.
BACON, Sir Nicholas (1509-79). English statesman. Father of Francis Bacon, and educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, He was called to the Bar in 1533, and in 1537 nominated solicitor to the court of augmentations. In 1546 he was appointed attorney of the court of wards and liveries. After the accession of Elizabeth in 1558, he was made lord-keeper of the great seal and a privy councillor, and was knighted. Queen Elizabeth frequently visited him at his mansion at Gorhambury, near St. Albans. His son Nicholas was made a baronet in 1611, the premier baronet of England, and his grandson Nathaniel (1585-1627), youngest son of the premier baronet and distinguished as an amateur painter, was created K.B. by Charles I.
BACON, Phanuel (1700-83) English dramatist. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. He followed his father's profession as a clergymen, and held livings in Sussex and Oxfordshire. He is known as the author of five plays, The Taxes, The Insignificants, The Tryal of the Time-killers, The Moral Quack and The Oculist, which appeared in 1757. He also composed humorous verse of which the best-known is a poem, The Kite.
BACON, Roger (C.1214-C.1294). English scientist. After studying science and theology at Oxford he went to Paris and continued his studies at the University there. Although he acquired a great reputation as a thinker and a scientist, he was bitterly opposed to contemporary pseudo-scientific methods and showed contempt for such thinkers of the day as Alexander of Hales, and Thomas Aquinas, who in his view substituted assumption for observation and argument for experiment. He saw clearly that when theories are inconsistent with facts the theories must be sacrificed. about 1250 he settled in Oxford and began seriously to undertake those researches them he is said to have discovered an explosive compound of charcoal, saltpetre and sulphur, the forerunner of gunpowder, and described a magnifying glass. As a teacher he soon became known but his repeated attacks on the leaders of the two great religious orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans proved dangerous. About 1252 he had entered the Franciscan order, and in 1257 the general of that order, Bonaventura, on the ground that Bacon was suspect of heresy and dealing in black magic, ordered him to Paris, where for the next 10 years he was placed under severe restraint. The enlightened Pope Clement IV had, however, heard of the English scientist, and wrote demanding a copy of his works. Bacon complied and braving the anger and jealousy of his superiors, produced under conditions of great difficulty his three works, Opus Majus, Opus Minus and Opus Tertium, which represented a collection of his major works, and in fact, together formed an encyclopedia of the then known sciences based not on Scholastic logic but on scientific study with experimental verification. These books were dispatched to the Pope in 1265, and although no record of his comment upon them is available, it is significant that Bacon was working again at Oxford three years later. About 1271, Bacon's Compendium Studii Philosophiae appeared, in which he bitterly attacked not only the vices but also the ignorance of the clergy. He continued his attacks in his lectures, and in 1278 was imprisoned by order of Jerome de Ascoli, the general of the Franciscans, afterwards Pope Nicholas IV. Bacon remained in captivity for 14 years, and during that time wrote amongst other works, the treatise on warding off the infirmities of old age, known as De retardandis senectutis accidentibus. He sent this work to the pope, and Nicholas IV ordered his release. In 1292 Bacon was again working at Oxford, where he began his Compendium Studii Theologiae, but he was already an old man and he died before it was completed.
BACONTHORPE, John (d.1346). English scholar. He entered the Carmelite order at Blakeney, later spending some time in Paris, and lived in Oxford. From 1329 to 1333 he was head of his order in England. In 1333 he visited Rome, probably to give an account of his opinions on the marriage law. Baconthorpe is known as a precursor of Wycliffe, for he taught that the clergy should be subservient to the king. He wrote an immense amount on the subjects that then agitated the minds of the school men and was known as the Resolute Doctor. Later ages knew him as the great scholar of his order. His chief work is Commentaries on the Master of the Sentences.
BACSANYI, Janos (1763-1845) Hungarian writer. He became a clerk in the treasury at Kaschau, and in 1785 he helped found the first Hungarian literary review, which in 1792 was suppressed because of its liberal tendency. In 1793 Bacsanyl was dismissed, on account of a patriotic song which he wrote, and in 1794 he was imprisoned for being concerned in a conspiracy. On his release two years later he wrote articles for the Hungarian review, Magyar Minerva. He then became a clerk in the Bank of Austria, in Vienna, and married a popular authoress Gabriele Baumgarten. In 1809 when Napoleon occuped Vienna, he was suspected of French sympathies and had to migrate to Paris, but after the downfall of the emperor he returned to his native land, and in 1843 was elected a member of the Hungarian Academy. His works were more remarkable for style than originality of thought, but exercised a marked influence on Hungarian literature.
BADALOCCHIO, Sisto (1581-1647). Italian painter. He became a pupil and friend of Annibal Caracci, whom he followed to Rome, and whom he assisted in many of his paintings. He also assisted Giovan Lanfranco, Guido, Domenichino and Albano. Although he produced only a few works entirely on his own account, these proved him to be an artist of no mean ability. They include Galatea, at Rome and S. Francis, at Parma. He was also an engraver of considerable merit and made some fine frescoes and plates.
BADBY, John (d. 1410). English martyr. Either a blacksmith or a tailor he became a follower of John Wycliffe. His denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation led to his arrest when Henry IV began to take measures against the Lollards. He was burned at Smithfield, London, refusing to recant, although promised freedom and a pension by the Prince of Wales, who witnessed his martyrdom.