Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/40

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Lemprière
34
Lendy

of election by nominating twelve gentlemen, including two Lemprières, ‘with an earnest desire that they should be forthwith sworn jurats of the Isle,’ but the bailiff was allowed discretion in the choice of the smaller civil officers. He was also given the control of the militia, in which ‘malignants’ were replaced by his own adherents. In his capacity of commissioner for compounding with delinquents, to which post he was appointed by Cromwell on 14 March 1655, he is generally allowed to have been lenient. As a judge his decisions were remarkable for fairness and ability, and perfect order reigned during his tenure of office from 1652 to 1660. Lemprière seems to have stood high in the esteem of the Protector, though the latter lent a cold ear to his proposal for excluding the clergy from the island's state assembly (Pegot-Ogier, p. 364).

On the Restoration Lemprière's estates were granted to a royalist, John Nicolls; but this grant was afterwards rescinded, ‘Michael Lemprière, late pretended bailiff of Jersey, though guilty of great offences, being restored to his estates’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660, p. 442). Though removed from the bench of jurats, his retirement was probably unmolested. The exact date of his death is not known.

By his wife Sarah, daughter of Francis Carteret of La Hague, Lemprière left two sons and two daughters. The present seigneur of Rozel is a direct descendant.

[Information most kindly supplied by E. T. Nicolle, esq., of Jersey; Payne's Armorial of Jersey, p. 245, which is somewhat untrustworthy, and Monograph on Family of Lemprière, pp. 8, 9, 17; Burke's Landed Gentry, p. 778; Falle's Hist. of Jersey, ed. Durell, pp. 298–344; Le Geyt, Œuvres, vol. i. p. v; Ahier's Tableaux Historiques de la Civilisation à Jersey, pp. 320–6; Pegot-Ogier's Hist. des Iles de la Manche, pp. 364 sq., 430; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1652–60, passim; Prynne's Lyar Confounded, pp. 33–43; Hoskins's Charles II in the Channel Islands, 1854, pp. 37 sq., and pp. 107 sq., in which the best account of the history of Jersey at this period will be found; Shebbeare's Hist. of the Oppression of the Islanders, 1771, i. 250; Chevalier's Chronicle (manuscript); Société Jersiaise, thirteenth Annual Bulletin, 1888, in which appears the Pseudo-Mastix; Le Quesne's Constitutional Hist. 1856, chap. ix.; La Croix's Ville de St. Hélier, 1845, pp. 72–92.]

T. S.

LEMPRIÈRE, WILLIAM (d. 1834), traveller and medical writer, was third son of Thomas Lemprière of Jersey. He entered the army medical service when young, and by 1789 was attached to the garrison of Gibraltar. In the September of that year Sidi Mahommed, emperor of Morocco, sent a message to General O'Hara, the commandant at Gibraltar, asking that an English doctor might be sent to attend his son, Muley Absolom, who was suffering from cataract. Lemprière accepted the commission, and left Gibraltar on 14 Sept. 1789; on 28 Oct. he reached Tarudant, where he attended the prince with great success. His only rewards, however, were ‘a gold watch, an indifferent horse, and a few hard dollars.’ He was then summoned to Morocco itself, which he reached on 4 Dec., to attend some ladies of the sultan's harem. He was detained at Morocco a long time against his will, and was not allowed to leave till 12 Feb. 1790; here again he complains of the miserable remuneration awarded him. After his return from Morocco Lemprière published an account of his travels in ‘A Tour from Gibraltar to Tangier, Sallee, Mogadore, Santa Cruz, Tarudant, and thence over Mount Atlas to Morocco,’ London, 1791. The work supplies interesting details concerning the Moorish sultan's harem. A number of its minor inaccuracies were noticed in a ‘Corrective Supplement to Wm. Lemprière's Tour,’ by Francisco Sanchez, London, 1794. After his visit to Morocco Lemprière was appointed surgeon to the 20th or Jamaica regiment of light dragoons. He spent five years in Jamaica, and on his return to England published ‘Practical Observations on the Diseases of the Army in Jamaica,’ London, 1799. Lemprière left the army with the rank of inspector-general of hospitals, and resided for many years in the Isle of Wight. He died at Bath in 1834.

During his stay in the Isle of Wight he published two medical works: 1. ‘A Report on the Medicinal Effects of an Alumnious Chalybeate Water, lately discovered at Sandrocks, in the Isle of Wight,’ London, 1812. 2. ‘Popular Lectures on the Study of Natural History and the Sciences, as delivered before the Isle of Wight Philosophical Society,’ London, 1830.

[J. B. Payne's Monograph of the House of Lemprière; Watt's Bibl. Brit. vol. ii.; Gent. Mag. 1834, pt. ii.; Army Lists; Lemprière's own works passim.]

G. P. M-y.

LEMPUT, REMIGIUS VAN (d. 1675), painter. [See Van Leemput.]

LENDY, AUGUSTE FREDERICK (1826–1889), military tutor, and author, born in 1826, was at one time a captain of the French army staff, but came to England as military tutor to the Orleans princes. About the date of the Crimean war he set up a private military college at Sunbury House, Sunbury-on-Thames, where he was long known as one of the ablest and most success-