1854 deaths

Jean-Antoine Auguste Metz (8 August 1812 – 22 June 1854) was a Luxembourgian entrepreneur, politician, and lawyer. He was a major player in the growing steel industry in Luxembourg during the nineteenth century, as well as a leading liberal member of the Chamber of Deputies, along with his brothers.
Born in Luxembourg City as the youngest of nine children of Jean Metz, Auguste Metz attended the Athénée de Luxembourg, before leaving to study law at the University of Paris in 1833. He gained his licence to practice law in France, but returned to Luxembourg, where he became involved in the steel industry. In 1837, Metz and his brothers Charles and Norbert, were given a ten-year lease of the steel mill at Berbourg. They formed a company, Auguste Metz & Cie, along with Théodore Pescatore, for the purpose of expanding and redeveloping the site. The company expanded, taking over foundries at Grundhof, in the Red Lands, at Eich, and at Fischbach.He first became involved in politics through his opposition to the Third Partition of Luxembourg in 1839. In 1848, Metz sat on Luxembourg's Constituent Assembly, and then the first Chamber of Deputies, elected in 1848 to represent Grevenmacher. He was targeted in the 1854 election by the Simons government. He would not live to see the assembly of the new Chamber of Deputies, however, as he died in Eich just eight days after the election, having fallen ill inspecting the foundry at Berbourg, exacerbated by tonsillitis.He married Petronille Laeis on 17 August 1841. They had four children, including Léon Metz, who became a member of the Chamber of Deputies for forty-three years and Mayor of Esch-sur-Alzette for three years.

Félix-Victor Mauvais (or Victor Mauvais; March 7, 1809 – March 22, 1854) was a French politician and astronomer. He was born in the small village of Maîche in the department of Doubs and died in Paris.
In 1836 he went to the Observatoire de Paris as a student astronomer. He worked at the Bureau des Longitudes from 1843 to 1854, working on meteorology. He was elected to the Académie des Sciences in 1843. He won the Lalande Prize in 1843 for the discovery of comet C/1843 J1. He also discovered comets C/1844 N1 and C/1847 N1.
In politics, he served as a leftist member of the National Assembly from 1848 to 1849.
On March 2, 1854, the Observatory and the Bureau des Longitudes were separated, which obliged Mauvais to leave this institution. Very affected by this, he fell ill and committed suicide a few weeks later.

Émile Souvestre (April 15, 1806 – July 5, 1854) was a Breton novelist who was a native of Morlaix, Brittany. Initially unsuccessful as a writer of drama, he fared better as a novelist (he wrote a sci-fi novel, Le Monde Tel Qu'il Sera) and as a researcher and writer of Breton folklore. He was posthumously awarded the Prix Lambert.

Henriette Sontag, born Gertrude Walpurgis Sontag, and, after her marriage, entitled Henriette, Countess Rossi (3 January 1806 – 17 June 1854), was a German operatic soprano of great international renown. She possessed a sweet-toned, lyrical voice and was a brilliant exponent of florid singing.

Émilie de Villeneuve (9 March 1811 – 2 October 1854) was a French Catholic nun and the founder of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception of Castres.After she died her cause of canonization was opened. She was beatified in 2009 after a miracle attributed to her intercession was ratified. She was approved for sainthood in 2014 and was canonized by Pope Francis on 17 May 2015.

Zoé Charlotte de Gamond (11 February 1806 – 28 February 1854) was a Belgian educator and feminist who sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Marie de G***.

Sir William Amcotts-Ingilby, 2nd Baronet (June 1783 – 14 May 1854) was a British politician.
The son of Sir John Ingilby, 1st Baronet and his wife Elizabeth Amcotts, he entered the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for East Retford in 1807. In the same year, he succeeded his maternal grandfather, Sir Wharton Amcotts, 1st Baronet, in his baronetcy by special remainder.
Ingilby left Parliament in 1812, and succeeded his father as baronet in 1815, inheriting Ripley Castle in Yorkshire and Kettlethorpe Hall in Lincolnshire. He served as High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1821, and assumed the surname of Amcotts-Ingilby in 1822. He returned to Parliament at an 1823 by-election, as MP for Lincolnshire. He held that seat until the abolition of the constituency in 1832, and he then sat for North Lincolnshire until defeated in the 1835 election.
Amcotts-Ingilby, a very eccentric character, was twice married, but left no children; his baronetcies became extinct upon his death on 14 May 1854, at 23 Abingdon St, Westminster. His second marriage was to Mary Anne Clementson, daughter of John Clementson, and Lady Ingilby died after almost 50 years his widow at Broxholme, Ripley, Yorkshire, in her 85th year, on 22 December 1902. His estates were left by devise to his first cousin, Henry John Ingilby. His sister, Augusta Amcotts-Ingilby, was the mother of Weston Cracroft Amcotts.

Carl Adolph von Basedow (28 March 1799 – 11 April 1854) was a German physician most famous for reporting the symptoms of what could later be dubbed Graves-Basedow disease, now technically known as exophthalmic goiter.

Angelo Mai (Latin Angelus Maius; 7 March 1782 – 8 September 1854) was an Italian Cardinal and philologist. He won a European reputation for publishing for the first time a series of previously unknown ancient texts. These he was able to discover and publish, first while in charge of the Ambrosian Library in Milan and then in the same role at the Vatican Library. The texts were often in parchment manuscripts that had been washed off and reused; he was able to read the lower text using chemicals. In particular he was able to locate a substantial portion of the much sought-after De republica of Cicero and the complete works of Virgilius Maro Grammaticus.