William Powell (Archdeacon of Colchester)
William Powell | |
---|---|
Archdeacon of Colchester | |
Church | Church of England |
Personal details | |
Nationality | British |
William Samuel Powell,
Life
He was born on 27 September 1717 in Colchester, the elder son of the Rev. Francis Powell and his wife Susan Reynolds, daughter of Samuel Reynolds (died 1694), Member of Parliament for Colchester.[3][4] He was educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School, under Palmer Smythies. He was admitted in 1734, and matriculated 1738, at St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1739, M.A. in 1742, B.D. in 1749, and D.D in 1749.[5]
Academic career
Powell was successively Fellow, tutor,
In 1741 Powell became private tutor to
On 3 November 1760 Powell became a senior Fellow of his college, and in 1761, when he had inherited the property of his cousin, he left Cambridge and took a house in London. He resigned his fellowship in 1763.[4]
On 25 January 1765 Powell was unanimously elected Master of St John's College, Cambridge, where he spent the rest of his life; there were numerous competitors for the post, but he was backed by the influence of Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle. The following November, he succeeded to the vice-chancellorship of the university, and in December 1766 he was appointed by the crown to the archdeaconry of Colchester.[4]
In 1768 Powell claimed the college rectory of Freshwater, Isle of Wight, worth £500 per annum, which was in the option of the master, and resigned the benefices of Colkirk and Stibbard; the Fellows disliked this act.[4][5] He gave money to the college when it was intended to rebuild the first court and to lay out the gardens under the care of Capability Brown. He guarded the college revenues. In his first year he established college examinations, drawing up the papers himself, and attending the examinations; but he opposed John Jebb's proposal for annual examinations of the whole university. He helped several undergraduates financially and gave prizes at his own expense; he did not allow any student to pass without examination in one of the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles. He himself attended chapel without a break through the whole year, at six o'clock in the morning. His manners, however, were "rigid and unbending."[4]
About 1770 Powell suffered a stroke of apoplexy, and he died in his chair, from a fit of the palsy, on 19 January 1775. He was buried in the college chapel on 25 January. Over his vault was placed a flat blue stone, with an epitaph by Balguy. He was unmarried.[4]
Works
While at Cambridge, Powell twice provoked serious controversy.
- There was printed in 1757, and reprinted in 1758, 1759, and 1772, a sermon, entitled A Defence of the Subscriptions required in the Church of England, which he had preached before the university on Commencement Sunday. He contended that the 39 Articles were general and indeterminate, and "left room for improvements in theology". These views were widely criticised, with Powell's major public opponent being Francis Blackburne, who published his severe Remarks on the sermon in 1758.[4]
- The Magdalene College and William Ludlam of St John's College. Waring distributed a portion of his Miscellanea Analytica, and to support Ludlam of his own college, Powell attacked it anonymously in Observations on the First Chapter of a Book called "Miscellanea Analytica", 1760. To a reply by Waring, Powell retorted in an anonymous Defence of the Observations, which Waring answered in a Letter.[4]
Powell also wrote:[4]
- The Heads of a Course of Lectures on Experimental Philosophy (anon.), 1746 and 1753.
- (Attributed) An anonymous pamphlet, An Observation on the Design of establishing Annual Examinations at Cambridge, 1774, answered by Ann Jebb in A Letter to the Author.
- Discourses on Various Subjects, 1776; edited by Thomas Balguy, who supplied an outline of his life. They were said by Richard Watson to have been "written with great acuteness and knowledge." Thomas Smart Hughes reprinted them in 1832, with the discourses of James Fawcett and an account of Powell's career. [4][7]
Family
Powell's fortune came to him through the death of a childless cousin.[4]
Powell's mother's eldest brother was Samuel Reynolds the younger, who married Frances, daughter of Charles Pelham of
Those Essex estates, with other property in Little Bentley and Wix, in the same county, came to Powell when Charles Reynolds died in 1760, his two children having predeceased him.[4][12][13] He left his property to Miss Jolland, granddaughter of Susan Reynolds his mother through a marriage to George Jolland that preceded her marriage to the Rev. Francis Powell.[4]
Notes
- ^ University of Cambridge (1)
- ^ Horn, Joyce M. (1974), Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541–1857, vol. 3, p. 59
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/22664. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 46. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ^ a b c d "William Samuel Powell (PWL734WS)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66654 A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 3 (1959; Editor J. P. C. Roach)
- ^ Powell, William Samuel (1832). Discourses by William Samuel Powell ... and James Fawcett, with some account of their lives &c., by T.S. Hughes. London: A. J. Valpy.
- ^ "Samuel Reynolds (RNLS683S)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ "Charles Reynolds (RNLS718C)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ Maddison, Arthur Roland; Larken, Arthur Staunton (1902). Lincolnshire Pedigrees. Vol. I. London. p. 22.
- ^ "Anderson Pelham, Charles (1749-1823), of Brocklesby, Lincs., History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
- ^ Morant, Philip (1768). The history and antiquities of the County of Essex. Compiled from the best and most ancient historians; from Domesday-book, Inquisitiones post mortem, and other the most valuable records and mss. &c., the whole digested, improved, perfected, and brought down to the present time. Vol. I. London: Printed for T. Osborne [etc.] p. 119.
- ^ Morant, Philip (1768). The history and antiquities of the County of Essex. Compiled from the best and most ancient historians; from Domesday-book, Inquisitiones post mortem, and other the most valuable records and mss. &c., the whole digested, improved, perfected, and brought down to the present time. Vol. I. London: Printed for T. Osborne [etc.] p. 419.
Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). "Powell, William Samuel". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 46. London: Smith, Elder & Co.