Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 01.djvu/202

Ailmer AILMER. [See .]

AILRED. [See Ethelred (1109?-1166) (DNB00).]

AINGER, THOMAS (1799–1863), clergyman, was born on 1 Aug. 1799 at Whittlesea and educated at the Norwich grammar school and St. John's College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1821, became curate at St. Giles's, Reading, in 1822, and afterwards assistant minister at St. Mary's, Greenwich. He married Frances Barnard in 1828, and left a family. In 1841 he was presented by Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson to the perpetual curacy of Hampstead, which he held till his death on 15 Nov. 1863. In 1861 he became honorary prebendary of St. Paul's. Mr. Ainger was energetic as a parish clergyman and poor-law guardian; he enlarged his church, and helped to found schools and a dispensary and to provide new churches in the rapidly developing district round Hampstead. His performance of the divine services is said to have been very impressive. His publications consisted of a few sermons.

[Last Sermons of Rev. T. Ainger, with Memoir, 1864.]  AINSLIE, GEORGE ROBERT (1776–1839), general, was the eldest son of Sir Philip Ainslie, knt., and was born near Edinburgh in 1776. He entered the army as ensign in the 19th regiment in 1793, and having political influence through his mother, a daughter of Lord Grey, was in the same year promoted lieutenant, and in the next captain in the 85th regiment. With his regiment he saw service in Flanders, and in 1799, when he was promoted major, was engaged in the short and disgraceful expedition to the Helder. He seems to have shown no particular capacity as a soldier or much ardour for a military life, and so was in 1800 promoted to a lieutenant-colonelcy in a fencible regiment. In 1802 he married a Miss Nevile, but did not again try for employment in his profession. He was, however, made lieutenant-colonel of the 25th regiment in 1807, and promoted colonel by brevet in 1810. His influential relatives now obtained him a colonial governorship, that of the island of Eustatius in 1812, from which he was removed to Dominica in 1813. He does not appear to have distinguished himself more as a colonial governor than as a soldier, and fell into the hands of a clique at whose bidding he subdued the maroons on the island with such thoroughness that it was called cruelty, and on an outcry being raised in parliament he was recalled from the West Indies in 1814. Major-general Ainslie, for he had been promoted previous to his recall, was now free from any active employment. Nature had designed him for a savant, not a soldier. His hobby was collecting coins. The taste for coin-collecting had much decreased in England since the days of Addison, and he found a clear field for his labours. He made a specialty of Anglo-Norman coins, and travelled all over England, and, what was then a more uncommon thing, all over the rural districts of Normandy and Brittany, in search of coins. He published in 1830 the result of his labours in a magnificent quarto entitled ‘Anglo-French Coinage,’ adorned with many illustrations. By his industry he had got together almost a unique collection of rare coins, and, absorbed in the pursuit, died peacefully in 1839.

[For General Ainslie's services see the Royal Military Calendar, vol. iii. 3rd edition, 1820; Gent. Mag. for Sept. 1839.]  AINSLIE, HENRY (1760–1834), senior wrangler and physician, was son of Dr. James Ainslie, a physician of Kendal. He entered at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, was senior wrangler and second Smith's prizeman in 1781, and became a fellow of his college. In 1787 he obtained the university license to practise physic, and was elected physician to Addenbrooke's Hospital. In 1793 he took his M.D. degree, and then left Cambridge for London, where he was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians in 1795, and in the same year physician to St. Thomas's Hospital. He delivered the Harveian oration in 1802, but it is not in print. He resigned his post at his hospital in 1800, and, while taking some part in the business of the College of Physicians, attained to no great fame or practice as a physician (, Harv. Or. 1835). He died on 26 Oct. 1834 at Grizedale, Northumberland. His portrait by F. Stewardson was engraved by W. Ward, R.A., and he is commemorated on a tablet in the church of Over Kellet, Lancashire.

[Munk's College of Physicians, ii. 377.]  AINSLIE, HEW (1792–1878), Scottish poet, was born in the parish of Dailly, in Ayrshire, 5 April 1792. After a fair education, he became in turn a clerk in Glasgow, a landscape gardener in his native district, and a clerk in the Register House, Edinburgh. For a short time he was amanuensis to Dugald Stewart. In 1822, being then ten years married to his cousin, Ainslie emigrated to America, where he continued to live with varied fortune for the rest of his days, paying a short visit to Scotland in 1864. He was 