Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/121

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Langmead
115
Langrishe
parish registers; information from diocesan register. Lincoln, General Sir George Higginson, K.C.B., and Mr. H. W. Badger, Great Marlow.]

D. H-l.

LANGMEAD, afterwards TASWELL-LANGMEAD, THOMAS PITT (1840–1882), writer on constitutional law and history, born in 1840, was son of Thomas Langmead, by Elizabeth, daughter of Stephen Cock Taswell, a descendant of an old family formerly settled at Limington, Somerset. He was educated at King's College, London, the inns of court, and St. Mary Hall, Oxford. He entered on 9 May 1860 the Inner Temple, and 9 July 1862 Lincoln's Inn, where he took the Tancred studentship, and in Easter term 1863 was called to the bar. At Oxford he graduated B.A. in 1866, taking first class honours in law and modern history. The same year he was awarded the Stanhope prize for an essay on the reign of Richard II (printed Oxford 1868), and in 1887 the Vinerian scholarship.

Langmead practised as a conveyancer, and was appointed in 1873 tutor in constitutional law and legal history at the inns of court. He also held the post of revising barrister under the River Lea Conservancy Acts, and for seven years preceding his death was joint editor of the 'Law Magazine and Review.' In 1882 he was appointed professor of English constitutional law and legal history at University College, London, and died unmarried at Brighton on 8 Dec. the same year. He was buried at Nunhead cemetery. Langmead assumed in 1864 the name of Taswell as an additional surname, and was thenceforth known as Taswell-Langmead.

In 1858 Langmead edited for the Camden Society 'Sir Edward Lake's Account of his Interviews with Charles I, on being created a Baronet' (Camden Miscell. vol. iv.), and contributed to 'Notes and Queries,' 2nd ser. vi. 380, the outline of a scheme for the better preservation of parochial records, which he long afterwards developed in a pamphlet entitled 'Parish Registers: a Plea for their Preservation,' 1872. He contributed an article on the same topic to the 'Law Magazine and Review' in May 1878, and drafted Mr. W. C. Borlase's abortive Parish Registers Bill of 1882. His only other important contribution to the 'Law Magazine and Review' was an article on 'The Representative Peerage of Scotland and Ireland,' May 1876. In 1875 he published 'English Constitutional History: a Text-book for Students and others,' London, 8vo, a valuable manual, evincing some original research, of which a second edition appeared in 1880, a third in 1886 (revised by C. H. E. Carmichael), and a fourth in 1890.

[Solicitor's Journal, xxvii. 134; Law Journal, xvii. 700; Law Times, lxxiv. 218; Law Mag. and Review, 4th ser. viii. 141; Cal. Univ. Oxford, 1892, pp. 38, 59 175; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vi. 380, 6th ser. vi. 500; Misc. Gen. et Herald. new ser. i. 255; Inns of Court Cal. 1878.]

J. M. R.

LANGRISH, BROWNE, M.D. (d. 1759), physician, born in Hampshire, was educated as a surgeon. In 1733 he was in practice at Petersfield, Hampshire, and published 'A New Essay on Muscular Motion,' in which the structure of muscles and the phenomena of muscular contraction are discussed with much ingenuity, but with no more satisfactory conclusion than that muscular motion arises from the influence of the animal spirits over the muscular fibres. On 25 July 1734 he became an extra licentiate of the College of Physicians, and began practice as a physician. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 16 May 1734, and in 1735 published 'The Modern Theory and Practice of Physic,' in which he displays considerable originality in clinical research, and describes experiments in the analysis of excreta and the examination of the blood. A second edition appeared in 1764. He practised in Winchester, and in 1746 published 'Physical Experiments on Brutes, in order to discover a safe and easy Method of dissolving Stone in the Bladder.' Experiments on cherry laurel water are added, and he concludes that this poisonous liquid may be used in medicine with advantage. He delivered the Croonian lectures on muscular motion before the Royal Society in 1747, and they were published in 1748. In the same year he graduated M.D., and published also 'Plain Directions in regard to the Small-pox,' a sensible and interesting quarto of thirty-five pages, showing extensive reading as well as acute clinical observation. He died at Basingstoke, Hampshire, on 29 Nov. 1769.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 130; Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Soc. 1812; Works]

N. M.

LANGRISHE, Sir HERCULES (1738–1811), Irish politician, born in 1738, was the only son of Robert Langrishe, esq., of Knocktopher, co. Kilkenny, and Anne, daughter of Jonathan Whitby of Kilcregan in the same county. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1763. From 1761 until the union he represented the borough of Knocktopher, of which he was virtually sole proprietor, in the Irish parliament. He was a commissioner of barracks 1766–74, supervisor of accounts 1767–75, commissioner of revenue 1774–1801, and commissioner of excise 1780–1801. He was