NAPIER, Robert D. (son of David Napier 1790–1869). b. Glasgow 1821; engineer with his father and his brother, Frank Napier, at Glasgow to 1837, then with them as engineers Millwall, London from 1837, where they built numerous steamships; went to New South Wales; dredged Sydney harbour; invented the self-holding brake; returned to Glasgow 1870, partner with his brother John D. Napier as Napier Brothers; manufactured self-holding brakes for ships’ windlasses, etc.; contributed to The Engineer and to Trans. of Institution of Engineers, Glasgow; author of On the velocity of steam and other gases 1866. d. Glasgow 8 May 1885. The Engineer 15 May 1885 p. 387.
NAPIER, Sir Robert John Milliken, 9 Baronet (eld. son of sir William John Milliken Napier, 8 baronet 1788–1852). b. Milliken house, near Johnstone, Renfrewshire 7 Nov. 1818; ensign 79 foot 7 Aug. 1835, captain 12 April 1844, sold out 9 June 1846; succeeded his father 4 Feb. 1852; deputy lieut. of Renfrewshire 1845, and convener 1859–65; lieut. col. commandant of Renfrewshire militia 31 March 1854, hon. col. 19 Jany. 1878 to death. d. 32 Moray place, Edinb. 4 Dec. 1884.
NAPIER, Sir Thomas Erskine (brother of sir Charles Napier 1786–1860). b. 10 May 1790; ensign 52 foot 3 July 1805; captain in the Chasseurs Britanniques 27 Oct. 1809, placed on h.p. 1814, when the corps was disbanded; served in Sicily and Spain 1812–3; A.D.C. to sir John Hope in the Peninsula 1813, lost his left arm at battle of the Nive 11 Dec. 1813; assistant adjutant general in Ireland to 1843, deputy adjutant general 1843–6; governor of Edinburgh castle and commander of the troops in Scotland May 1852 to 20 June 1854; colonel of 16 foot 28 Jany 1854 and of 71 foot 16 May 1857 to death; general 20 Sept. 1861; C.B. 19 July 1838, K.C.B. 18 May 1860; granted distinguished service reward 1 June 1849. d. Polton house, Lasswade, near Edinburgh 5 July 1863.
NAPIER, Sir William Francis Patrick (brother of sir George Thomas Napier 1784–1855). b. Celbridge, co. Kildare 17 Dec. 1785; ensign royal Irish artillery 14 June 1800; ensign 62 foot 1800, lieut. 1801, placed on h.p. 1802; captain 43 foot 11 Aug. 1804, major 14 May 1812, placed on h.p. 17 June 1819; served at siege of Copenhagen 1807, in Spain 1808–9, and in Portugal 1809–13; granted £150 per annum for his distinguished services 29 May 1841; lieutenant-governor of Guernsey Feb. 1842 to Dec. 1847; colonel of 27 foot 5 Feb. 1848, and of 22 foot 19 Sept. 1853 to death; general 17 Oct. 1859; C.B. 4 June 1815, K.C.B. 27 April 1848; author of History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France, from the year 1807 to the year 1814, 6 vols. 1828–40, 5 ed. 6 vols. 1851, upwards of 15 works appeared in reference to these volumes; The conquest of Scinde, 2 vols. 1845; The life and opinions of general sir C. J. Napier, 4 vols. 1857, 2 ed. 1857. d. Scinde house, King’s road, Clapham park, London 10 Feb. 1860. bur. Norwood; statue by G. G. Adams in north transept of St. Paul’s cathedral. H. A. Bruce’s Life of sir W. F. P. Napier, 2 vols. (1864) 2 portraits; H. Martineau’s Biog. Sketches, 4 ed. (1876) 199–212; I.L.N. xxxvi 172, 186 (1860) portrait.
NAPLETON, John Charles (9 son of rev. Timothy Napleton, R. of Powderham, Devon, d. 1816). b. 1811; ed. Worcester coll. Oxf., Bible clerk 1830–2; B.A. 1833; P.C. of Hatfield, Herefordshire 1844–58, and P.C. of Grendon Bishop 1849–58; P.C. of All Saints’, Lambeth 1858 to death; author of Daily services in the cottage 1848, new ed. 1877; The present condition of the working classes 1855; A letter to C. H. Spurgeon, touching his sermon on baptismal regeneration 1864. d. Bayswater, London 13 April 1867.
NAPOLEON III, Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French (3 son of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte 1778–1847, king of Holland). b. Rue Cérutti, now Rue Lafitte, Paris 20 April 1808; became heir to the French empire 22 July 1832; arrived in London from America 10 July 1837; went to Arenenberg to attend his mother’s death bed 5 Oct. 1837; resided in London at Fenton’s hotel, 63 St. James’s st. from 24 Oct. 1838, at Waterloo place, at Carlton ter. to Dec. 1839, and at Carlton gardens to Aug. 1840; one of the ten knight visitors at the Eglinton tournament 28–30 Aug. 1839, tilted on foot with Charles Lamb in the ball room on 29 Aug.; attended on Wimbledon common 3 March 1840 to fight a duel with count Leon, a reputed son of Napoleon I, the police interfered and carried the parties to Bow st. where they were bound over to keep the peace; went from Margate to Boulogne and attempted to seize the government of France 6 Aug. 1840, condemned to perpetual imprisonment 6 Oct. 1840, sent to Ham, North France 10 Oct., escaped to England 25 May 1846; living at the Brunswick hotel, 52 Jermyn st. 27 May 1846; resided in Bath 1846; leased 3a King st. St. James, now 10 King st., from 1 Feb. 1847 at £300 a year, his furniture, etc. sold by auction 22 May 1849; charged Charles Pollard of Essex st. London with stealing two bills of exchange of £1,000 each, prisoner acquitted on technical grounds 3 July 1847; a special constable in London on day of Chartists’ procession 10 April 1848; author of Des Idées Napoleoniennes, London 1839, and of Canal of Nicaragua to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific, London 1846; president of the French republic 20 Dec. 1848; emperor of the French 2 Dec. 1852; m. 29 Jany. 1853 Eugénie Marie de Guzman, countess of Téba, b. 5 May 1826; with the empress visited the queen at Windsor and Buckingham palace 16–21 April 1855; K.G. 18 April 1855; entertained by city of London 19 April 1855; with the empress visited the queen at Osborne 6–9 Aug. 1857; hon. M.I.C.E. 23 May 1869; declared war against Prussia 15 July 1870, taken prisoner at Sedan 2 Sept., deposed at Paris 4 Sept., confined at Wilhelmshöhe near Cassel 5 Sept., released and landed at Dover 20 March 1871, resided at Camden place, Chislehurst, Kent to his death 9 Jany 1873. bur. St. Mary’s ch. Chislehurst 15 Jany., the remains removed to a mausoleum built by the empress at Farnborough, Surrey 9 Jany. 1888. Blanchard Jerrold’s Life of Napoleon III, 4 vols. (1874–82) seven portraits; Victor Hugo’s Napoleon le Petit (1852); Fagan’s Reform club (1887) 94 portrait: Passing Events 18 Jany. 1873 portrait and other plates; I.L.N. 6 June 1846 pp. 364–5 portrait, 23 Dec. 1848 p. 385 portrait, 21 April to 5 May 1855 pp. 371 et seq. portraits, 15 Aug. 1857 p. 154, 25 March 1871 p. 283, 18 and 25 Jany. 1873 p. 65 et seq. portraits; J. H. Nixon’s Eglinton tournament (1843) plates xviii, xx, and xxi; P. Larousse’s Grand Dictionnaire xi 819–33 (1874).
Note.—His real father was Charles Henri Verhuel a well-known Dutch admiral, his mother was Hortense de Beauharnais, dau. of the empress Josephine, by her first marriage. He is depicted under the name of Porphyro in the novel entitled Rumour, By the author of Charles Auchester, Counterparts, &c., &c. [Miss Elizabeth S. Sheppard] 3 vols. 1858. He was known in France under the sobriquets of Badinguet, Boustrapa, The Man of December, and The Man of Sedan.
NARRIEN, John (son of a stonemason). b. Chertsey, Surrey 1782; a very skilful optician at 70 St. James’s st. London 1811–7; taught at R.M. college at Sandhurst 1814; mathematical professor in the senior department 1820–58, presented with many testimonials, and his portrait in 1841, retired on account of failure of his sight Feb. 1858; F.R.A.S.; F.R.S. 18 June 1840: author of An historical account of the origin and progress of astronomy 1833; Elements of geometry 1842; Practical astronomy and geodesy 1845; Analytical geometry 1846; with G. Tappen, Explanatory remarks on a method of building groined arches in brickwork 1808 and 1819. d. 16 Clarendon road, Kensington 30 March 1860. Monthly notices of royal astronom. soc. vi 240 (1845), xviii 100 (1858), xxi 102 (1861); G.M. Aug. 1860 pp. 193–4; The Linesman, By Elers Napier ii 348, 369 (1856).
NASH, Charles. b. Bristol; a draper’s assistant; a commercial clerk in London; trained at the British and foreign school soc. Southwark; master of the Day ragged sch. Pye st. Westminster 1848–50; opened a reformatory institution for boys 28 St. Ann st. Westminster 1849, of which he became governor and corresponding secretary, when it was named The London colonial training institution and ragged dormitory 9 Great Smith st. Westminster; sec. to Hospital for diseases of the skin 25 New Bridge st. Blackfriars, London 1853–7. I.L.N. xxiv 76 (1854) portrait; Samuel Marten’s A place of repentance, the London colonial training institution (1852) 1 et seq.
NASH, Charles Barnes (son of Rowland Nash 1784–1859). b. 1815; extensively engaged in the affairs of public companies from 1836; honoured with a leading article in The Times 1 Nov. 1844 p. 4; strongly advocated the narrow gauge interest 1846; devoted much time and money to expositions of affairs and battles of shareholders in various courts meetings &c. to 1852; persecuted by railway officials in the law courts and house of lords; edited History of the war in Afghanistan 1843; author of Railway and land taxation 1844; Railway carrying 1846; The railway robberies 1846; Railway robberies, the summing up in Waream v. Prance 1847; Railways and shareholders by An Endinbro’ Reviewer 1849; Chancery time tables 1853; Appeals in criminal cases 1860; Merchant shipping laws and remedies 1860; Public companies tracts, No. 8 Railway management Hare versus the London and North Western, by A Journalist 1861; with Rowland Nash Nash’s marriage and divorce law, 2 ed. 1859. d. 23 Valmar road, Denmark Hill, Surrey 21 Nov. 1892. Law Times 17 Dec. 1892 p. 164.