text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/405

Owen almshouses on the spot. The story appeared in this form within five years of her death, in the second edition of Stow's 'Survay,' published in 1618. Later on it received many embellishments.

Alice Wilkes was three times married : (1) to Henry Robinson, a member of the Brewers' Company, by whom she had six sons and five daughters ; (2) to William Elkin, an alderman of London, by whom she had one daughter, Ursula, married to Sir Roger Owen of Condover, Shropshire ; (3) to the judge Thomas Owen. It is as the widow of Mr. Justice Owen that she is often styled Dame Alice Owen, or even Lady Owen ; but Owen was never knighted ( and, History and Antiquities, &c, ii. 246).

By the death of her third husband, 21 Dec. 1598, Mistress Owen was left free to carry out her long-cherished plans. On 6 June 1608 she obtained license to purchase at Islington and Clerkenwell eleven acres of ground, whereon to erect a hospital for ten poor widows, and to vest the same and other lands, to the value of 40l. a year, in the Brewers' Company (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1603–10, p. 438). The site had previously been known as the 'Ermytage' field. Here she erected a school, free chapel, and almshouses, on the east side of St. John Street Road, which stood till 1841. In one of the gables three iron arrows were fixed, as a memorial of the event above described (, History of St. Mary, Islington, p. 418 ; Gent. Mag. vol. lxxxii. pt. ii. p. 130). By indentures dated in 1609, she gave to the Brewers' Company a yearly rent-charge of 25l., in support of her almshouses. On 20 Sept. 1613 she made rules and orders for her new school. She had previously, by her will, dated 10 June 1613, directed the purchase of land to the amount of 20l. a year for the maintenance of its master (Report of the . . . Livery Companies' Commission, 1884, v. 33). She made many other bequests, especially to Christ's Hospital and the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge (cf., Survay, ed. 1618, p. 212).

Alice Owen died 26 Oct. 1613, and was buried in the parish church of St. Mary, Islington, where a monument preserved her effigy and those of her children (Cole MSS. vol. xi. f. 175) till 1751, when, on the pulling down of the old fabric, part of the monument was removed to the school, and a fresh one erected to her memory in the new church (, History of Islington, p. 320).

By 1830 the value of the trust estates in Islington and Clerkenwell had grown to 900l. a year (Report, ubi supra). In 1841 the school and almshouses were rebuilt, at a cost of about 6,000l., on a new site in Owen Street, Islington, a little distance from the old (Literary World, 11 Jan. 1840). On 14 Aug. 1878 a new scheme obtained the royal assent, by which the school of Alice Owen was expanded into two—one for about three hundred boys, and the other for the like number of girls (City Press, 18 Sept. 1875 ; Livery Companies' Commission Report, v. 38).  OWEN, ANEURIN (1792–1851), Welsh historical scholar, born on 23 July 1792, was son, by his wife, Sarah Elizabeth, of William Owen [see Pughe, William Owen (DNB00)] (Adgof uwch Anghof, 1883, pp. 176–7). While he was still a child his father took the additional name of Pughe on inheriting some property at Nantglyn, Denbighshire. Thither the family accordingly moved from London. Young Owen was for a short time at Friar's School, Bangor, but was chiefly educated by his father, who took special pains to train his son in the Welsh historical and literary studies in which he was himself proficient. Arrived at manhood, Aneurin made his home at Tanygyrt, near Nantglyn, and in 1820 married Jane Lloyd, also of Nantglyn (Seren Gomer, June 1820). His occupations were mainly literary until the passing of the Tithe Commutation Act in 1836, when he was appointed one of the assistant tithe commissioners for England and Wales. On the death of Colonel Wade he was made an assistant poor-law commissioner ; but the duties of this position tried his weak constitution, and he resigned it. When the work of tithe commutation grew less urgent, he was appointed, under the Enclosures Act of 1815, a commissioner for the inclosure of commonable lands.

When the government resolved in 1822 to publish a uniform edition of the ancient historians of the country, the Welsh portion of the work was entrusted to John Humphreys Parry [q. v.] On Parry's death in 1825 his duties were transferred to Owen, who thus became the adviser of the Record Office upon all Welsh matters. His work falls mainly under two heads—the publication of the ancient Welsh laws, and the accumulation of material for an edition of the 'Chronicle of the v


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/264

 memoirs of John Owen (1820) made his name more widely known in nonconformist circles.

On 7 Oct. 1824 he became pastor of the congregational church at Camberwell Green, Surrey, and soon afterwards was elected foreign secretary of the London Missionary Society. In both positions he exhibited great ability, and acquired much influence. He died in his prime on 8 May 1830, and was buried on 17 May at Bunhill Fields. His portrait, engraved by Thomson from a painting by Wildman, was published in the ‘Evangelical Magazine’ for January 1830. He was twice married, and left a widow.

Orme's contributions to the biographical history of the later puritanism were able and timely, and rendered an important service, not to nonconformists alone, by reviving an interest in the religious problems of the seventeenth century. Dr. Andrew Thomson has superseded him in regard to the life of John Owen, and Ivimey in that of Kiffin. His two volumes on Baxter, characterised by Sir James Stephen as ‘learned, modest, and laborious,’ retain their place as the best modern biography.

He published, in addition to separate sermons and pamphlets: Posthumous was:
 * 1) ‘Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Religious Connections of John Owen, D.D.,’ &c., 1820, 8vo (portrait).
 * 2) ‘Remarkable Passages in the Life of William Kiffin,’ &c., 1823, 12mo (portrait).
 * 3) ‘Bibliotheca Biblica … List of Books on Sacred Literature, with Notices, Biographical, Critical,’ &c., Edinburgh, 1824, 8vo (a work of good erudition and judgment, still valuable).
 * 4) ‘Memoirs, including … Remains of John Urquhart,’ &c., 1827, 12mo, 2 vols.
 * 1) ‘Life and Times of Richard Baxter,’ &c., 1830, 8vo, 2 vols. (partly printed at the time of his death; edited by Thomas Russell. It accompanies an edition of Baxter's ‘Practical Works,’ begun by Orme in 1827. The second volume contains a detailed critique of Baxter's writings, digested under heads).

ORMEROD, EDWARD LATHAM (1819–1873), physician, sixth son of [q. v.], the historian of Cheshire, and his wife Sarah, eldest daughter of Dr. [q. v.], was born in London in 1819. He was sent to school first at Laleham, and afterwards at Rugby, which he left in 1838. He then became a student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and worked there till October 1841, when he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. At Caius he obtained a classical scholarship, and afterwards scholarships in anatomy and chemistry. In 1846 (Graduati Cantabr. 1800–84, p. 389) he graduated M.B., and in 1851 M.D. In 1867 and 1868 he was an examiner for the M.B. degree. At St. Bartholomew's Hospital he worked in the post-mortem room as a demonstrator during 1846 and 1847, but in the latter year his health broke down, and he left London and went to practise as a physician at Brighton. In 1848 he published ‘Clinical Observations on Continued Fever,’ and in 1853 he was elected physician to the Sussex County Hospital. He published two papers on ‘Degeneration of the Bones’ in the ‘St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports’ (vols. vi. and vii.), and one (vol. iv.) on ‘Fatty Degeneration,’ as well as several less important papers in the ‘Medico-Chirurgical Transactions’ and in medical journals. All contain evidence of his careful pathological work. In 1868 he published a natural history of ‘British Social Wasps,’ a work esteemed by entomologists, and was elected F.R.S. in 1872. At the time of his death he was working at the change of colour observable in gurnards, fish of brilliant hues. He died on 18 March 1873 of malignant disease of the bladder, the agony of which he bore patiently. He was a modest, shy, and sensitive man, whose personal character and pathological attainments were respected by the physicians of his time, and in the wide circle of the school of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He married, in 1853, Mary Olivia Porter, who died three months later; and, in 1856, Maria Millett, by whom he had six children.

ORMEROD, GEORGE (1785–1873), historian of Cheshire, born in High Street, Manchester, on 20 Oct. 1785, was only son of George Ormerod of Bury, Lancashire, by Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Johnson of Tyldesley in the same county (, Cheshire, 2nd edit. ii. 376–8; cf. Manchester School Register, Chetham Soc., i. 56). He was sent to the King's School, Chester, of which the Rev. Thomas Bancroft was then master (ib. i. 366 n.) On Bancroft's preferment to the vicarage of Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, Ormerod accompanied him thither as a private pupil. He matriculated from Brasenose College, Oxford, on 21 April 1803, and received the honorary degree of M.A. in 1807 and that of D.C.L. in 1818 (,

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/408

Owen John Ramsay, viscount Hadington, afterwards Earl of Holderness.

His works are: 1. ‘Herod and Pilate reconciled; or the Concord of Papist and Pvritan (against Scripture, Fathers, Councels, and other Orthodoxall Writers), for the Coercion, Deposition, and Killing of Kings, discovered,’ Cambridge, 1610, 4to, dedicated to John Ramsay, viscount Hadington. The original manuscript, entitled ‘The power of Princes and the dutie of Subjects,’ is in the King's collection in the British Museum, 18 B.v. This work was reprinted, without the dedication, under the title of ‘A Perswasion to Loyalty, or the Svbiects Dvtie. Wherein is proved that resisting or deposing of Kings (under what specious pretences soever couched) is utterly unlawfull. Collected by D.O.,’ London, 1642, 4to. A Dutch translation, entitled ‘Herodes ende Pilatus vereenight,’ by Johann Wtenbogaert or Utenbogaert, appeared in 1660. 2. ‘Anti-Paræus, sive Determinatio de Jure Regio, habita Cantabrigiæ in Scholis Theologicis 19 April. 1619, contra Davidem Paræum cæterosq. reformatæ et Romanæ Religionis Antimonarchas,’ Cambridge, 1622, 8vo, dedicated to James I. An English translation by Robert Mossom [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Derry, was published at York, 1642, 4to. David Paræus or Wängler was professor of divinity at Heidelberg, and his work, entitled ‘Commentarius in Epistolam ad Romanos,’ published at Frankfort in 1609, being regarded as an attack upon the royal authority, was publicly burnt in St. Paul's Churchyard, London, on 21 June 1622 (, Court and Times of James I, ii. 317). 3. ‘Detectio Calumniarum, Sophismatum, et Imposturarum Anonymi Papistæ, qui Dialogo sub ementito titulo, Deus et Rex, conatus est astruere Potestatem Populo-Papalem ad coercionem et depositionem Regum,’ manuscript in the Royal collection, British Museum, 10 B. xiii. The dedication, to the Earl of Holderness, is dated 21 July 1621.

OWEN, DAVID or DAFYDD Y GARREG WEN (1720–1749), Welsh harper, was the son of Owen Humphreys, by his wife Gwen Roberts of Isallt, a member of a family that was traditionally believed to be descended from the physicians of Myddvai. He was born in 1720, at a farmhouse called Y Garreg Wen, near Portmadoc, Carnarvonshire. There he died in 1749, and was buried in the churchyard of Ynyscynhaiarn, where in 1840 a monument, with a Welsh inscription and the figure of a harp, was erected by subscription over his grave.

Owen was a competent player on the harp. Tradition attributes to him the authorship of the well-known air which, in all Welsh collections of national songs, bears his own name of ‘Dafydd y Garreg Wen’ as its title, though it is known in Scotland by the name of ‘July Jott.’ Some account for this by saying that it was sent by Dafydd to a cousin of his (or, according to others, a brother named Rhys), who was then a gardener at Roslin Castle in Scotland, where the air soon became popular under a new name; but others, who accept its Scottish origin, assert that it was simply a favourite one of Dafydd's. The air, however, possesses a distinctly Welsh character. According to the Welsh tradition, Dafydd when on his death-bed had fallen in a trance, and was believed to be dead, but, suddenly reviving, told his mother that he had just heard one of the sweetest songs of heaven, which, on his harp being handed him, he then played; but as the last note was dying away Dafydd, too, died. The air was preserved from memory by his mother, who was herself a good harpist and a fair poetess. Sir Walter Scott wrote words for the air, entitled ‘The Dying Bard.’ Scott adds that the bard ‘requested that the air might be performed at his funeral,’ and that, according to the ‘Welsh Harper’ (ed. John Parry, p. 110), was done. At least two other airs are ascribed to Dafydd, namely, ‘Codiad yr Ehedydd’ (‘Rising of the Lark’) and ‘Difyrrwch Gwyr Criccieth,’ which is also known as ‘Roslin Castle’ in Scotland, where tradition says it was popularised by the same cousin to whom Dafydd also sent it. Evan Evans (Ieuan Glan Geirionydd) wrote words (in Welsh) for this air. The English and Welsh words for the other two airs, in Brinley Richards's ‘Songs of Wales’ (pp. 58, 79), are by John Oxenford and J. Ceiriog Hughes respectively.

OWEN, DAVID (1784–1841), Welsh poet, best known by his bardic title of ‘Dewi Wyn o Eifion,’ was the son of Owen Dafydd and Catherine, his second wife, who lived on the farm of Gaerwen, in the parish of Llanystumdwy, Carnarvonshire. He was baptised


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/409

Owen on 18 June 1784. He attended school at neighbouring villages until an improvement in his parents' circumstances enabled them to send him and his younger brother, Owen (the only other child), to a boarding school at Bangor Iscoed, Flintshire. Owen established himself as a shopkeeper at Pwllheli; but his brother David was less ambitious, and returned to the farm at Gaerwen, where he assisted his father until the latter's death in 1816, and afterwards managed the place himself, contriving to amass before his death a considerable sum of money. He joined his brother at Pwllheli in 1827, without, however, ceasing to hold Gaerwen, whither he returned in 1837, upon Owen's death. He died on 17 Jan. 1841, and was buried at Llangybi.

While still a schoolboy in Carnarvonshire Dewi Wyn showed an aptitude for composing in the alliterative ‘strict’ metres of Welsh poetry. The most prominent Welsh poets of the day were, with one or two exceptions, Carnarvonshire men, and Robert Williams of Bettws Fawr (Robert ap Gwilym Ddu) tilled a farm in the same parish as Dewi's parents. Thus the young poet lived in a congenial atmosphere, and was already a skilful composer at the age of eighteen. Robert ap Gwilym Ddu was probably his chief bardic instructor; they continued close friends until Dewi's death. Dewi Wyn first became known to the Welsh public as a poet of promise in 1804. The Gwyneddigion Society of London, under the leadership of Dr. William Owen Pughe [q. v.] and Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), was endeavouring to revive the old bardic customs, and, among other enterprises, offered for several years an annual medal for the best poem on a given subject in the strict metres. The subject for 1803 was ‘The Memory of Goronwy Owain.’ Dewi Wyn competed, and was assigned the second place, Griffith Williams (Gutyn Peris) being declared the winner of the medal. The next subject announced was ‘The Isle of Britain and its Defence against an Alien Race.’ In 1805 Dewi Wyn sent in his ‘Awdl Molawd Ynys Prydain,’ but the society, after much discussion, gave him again the second place, and declared the poem bearing the pseudonym ‘Bardd Cwsg’ to be the best. ‘Bardd Cwsg’ was Hugh Maurice, a nephew of Owain Myfyr, the autocrat of the Gwyneddigion; but, yielding to the force of public opinion, he declined to reveal his real name, whereupon the society declared him to have forfeited the medal, and awarded it to Dewi Wyn.

In September 1811 at the Eisteddfod held at Tremandoc a silver cup was offered for the best poem upon ‘Agriculture,’ and Dewi Wyn was awarded the prize. But it was withheld owing to the action of influential members of the Gwyneddigion Society (cf. Seren Gomer, March, 1820; Blodau Arfon, 1869, appendix). The quarrel between the poet and the society finally came to a head in 1819. In connection with the Denbigh Eisteddfod of that year the society's medal was offered for the best poem upon ‘Charity’ (Elusengarwch); no announcement was made as to the result at the Eisteddfod itself, but some three weeks later ‘Y Dryw,’ viz., the Rev. Edward Hughes of Bodfari, was declared the winner. The injustice of this award, from the poetic point of view, was manifest, for the poem sent in by Dewi Wyn is one of the noblest in Welsh literature.

These disappointments so mortified Dewi that, after one or two fierce onslaughts in verse upon his foes, he gave up poetry altogether, writing scarcely anything from 1823 until his death. Once, in 1832, he broke the silence with ‘Stanzas to the Menai Bridge.’ His power and genius as a poet are now generally recognised, but in his own day he received less than his due from those who only saw in him an assertive self-esteem, impatience of criticism, and asperity of temper. Towards the end of his life he suffered much from religious melancholy; always attached to the baptist denomination, he did not enter its communion until the year before he died.

Dewi Wyn's published works are: 1. A volume containing the poem on ‘Agriculture,’ and a few others, 1812. 2. ‘Awdl Elusengarwch,’ with a prefatory letter to the poets of Wales, published early in 1820. 3. ‘Blodau Arfon,’ containing the bulk of the poet's writings, Chester, 1842, is illustrated by an engraving of Dewi Wyn, from a portrait by Roos, with a memoir compiled by Eben Fardd from the notes of John Thomas, Chwilog. 4. An appendix to ‘Blodau Arfon,’ Carnarvon, 1869, contains additional poems and further notes upon the poet's life and genius by Cynddelw (Rev. R. Ellis).

OWEN, DAVID (1794–1866), Welsh journalist, best known as ‘Brutus,’ was born in 1794 at Llanpumsaint, near Carmarthen, where his father, Benjamin Owen (a shoemaker), was parish clerk. His mother was a member of a baptist church. Though he was not sent from the district to school, he received a good education, including the elements of Latin. After a brief experience of


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/410

Owen medical studies he resolved to enter the baptist ministry. He joined the Baptist College at Bristol, but in a year the petty persecutions of his fellow-students, debt, and a roving spirit drove him back to Wales. After keeping school for a short time at Gilfach, near Aber, Carnarvonshire, he was invited to take charge of the small baptist churches of Talygraig, Galltraeth, Ty'ndomen, and Rhos Hirwaen, in the Lleyn district of Carnarvonshire. He was accordingly ordained, and settled at Llangïan, shortly afterwards marrying Anne, the daughter of Thomas Jones of Rhandir, a farmer of the locality. Owen's stipend was small, and he was still compelled to eke out a livelihood by keeping school and by giving medical advice to his neighbours. In 1824 he made his first appearance in literature. Being out of humour with the ‘Cymreigyddion’ or Welsh Language Society of Lleyn, he sent to ‘Seren Gomer,’ the leading Welsh magazine of the day, an article on ‘The Poverty of the Welsh Language,’ signed ‘Brutus, Lleyn.’ The ability of the article, which went to show that the Welsh had no literature worthy of mention, was at once recognised; it was answered by Gwallter Mechain and Carnhuanawc, and when Owen revealed himself as its author his reputation as a Welsh writer was established. Fame, however, did not bring him bread, and, under pressure of poverty, he falsely told Dr. Lant Carpenter of Bristol that the congregations under his charge were leaning towards unitarianism, and asked, since he, as their minister, shared their views, for help from the presbyterian fund. The inquiries set on foot by Dr. Carpenter soon exposed the deception; the facts came to the knowledge of the baptists of North Wales, and at the Pwllheli Association ‘Brutus’ was expelled from the baptist denomination. His father-in-law was an independent, and this, with his fame as a writer, secured his admission as a member of the church of that denomination at Capel Newydd. He marked his change of allegiance by writing a book against adult baptism, but, though allowed to preach in the independent churches, won no great popularity among them. His next step was to move to Tyddyn Sweep, Maen addfwyn, near Llanerchymedd, Anglesey, where there was an independent church. Here he met with no better success, and in a short time moved again to Bontnewydd, near Carnarvon. At both places he kept school.

Towards the end of 1827 he became editor of ‘Lleuad yr Oes,’ an undenominational monthly magazine, published at Aberystwith; and early in 1828 he established himself at Llanbadarn Fawr, within easy reach of the printing office. In 1830 the printer, who was on the eve of bankruptcy, sold the goodwill of the ‘Lleuad’ to Jeffrey Jones of Llandovery, whither accordingly ‘Brutus’ followed it as editor. Here it was as unprofitable as at Aberystwith, and in October 1830 the goodwill was sold to William Rees, a Llandovery printer, and a number of independent ministers who wished to start a similar magazine in connection with their denomination. The result was the appearance of the ‘Efengylydd’ in 1831, with ‘Brutus’ as editor; but in 1835 differences arose on political questions between the publisher, a churchman, and the independent ministers, who were the chief contributors, and the ‘Efengylydd’ ceased to appear. The independents started the ‘Diwygiwr’ at Llanelly; Rees established the ‘Haul,’ with ‘Brutus’ as editor, for the defence of the church. This involved a fresh change of creed on the part of ‘Brutus,’ who now became a churchman.

He continued to edit the ‘Haul’ until his death, making it the vehicle of merciless satire of the nonconformists, whom he had deserted. His home for the earlier part of this period was a cottage in Cwm dwr, on the road from Llandovery to Brecon. Later on he moved to Bron Arthen in the same district. He died on 16 Jan. 1866, and was buried in Llywel churchyard.

‘Brutus’ was the author of the following Welsh works: 1. ‘A Treatise in Defence of Infant Baptism,’ Aberystwith, 1828. 2. ‘Proceedings of the Established Church,’ 1841. 3. ‘Eliasia,’ notes on the career of John Elias of Anglesey (d. 1841), written under the pseudonym of ‘Bleddyn,’ 1844. 4. ‘Christmasia,’ a similar account of Christmas Evans (d. 1838). 5. ‘A Geography of the Bible,’ Llangollen, n.d. 6. ‘Brutusiana,’ a selection of his non-controversial writings, published for him (free of cost, it is said) by Mr. Rees of Llandovery in 1855. Since his death ‘Wil Brydydd y Coed’ has been reprinted from the ‘Haul’ (Carmarthen, 1876), and a second edition has appeared of ‘Christmasia’ (Liverpool, 1887).

OWEN, EDWARD (1728–1807), translator of Juvenal and Persius, third son of David Owen of Llangurig, Montgomeryshire,


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/411

 was born in 1728, and matriculated at Jesus College, Oxford, on 22 March 1745–6, graduating B.A. on 1 Dec. 1749, and M.A. on 1 June 1752. He was appointed headmaster of the grammar school at Warrington on 4 June 1757, incumbent of Sankey Chapel in 1763, and rector of Warrington on 14 Sept. 1767. The first and third of these offices he retained until his death. The dilapidated fabrics of school and church each received extensive repairs under his guidance, and both as master and clergyman he acquired a high local reputation. Among his pupils were George Tierney, president of the board of control; Dr. John Wright, fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford; John Almon, Dr. Thomas Barnes, and John Fitchett. He was president of the Warrington Library, which was established in 1760, and took a prominent part in the promotion of the literary and social interests of the town. Owen died unmarried in April 1807, and was buried in the chancel of Warrington parish church. His portrait is preserved in the Warrington Museum, and a silhouette portrait is given in Kendrick's ‘Warrington Worthies.’

Gilbert Wakefield speaks of Owen as ‘a man of most elegant learning, unimpeachable veracity, and peculiar benevolence of heart;’ he was, however, lampooned in Thomas Seddons's ‘Characteristic Strictures,’ 1779. His chief work is his ‘Satires of Juvenal and Persius, translated into English Verse,’ London, 1785, 2 vols. 12mo; later editions dated 1786 and 1810. He wrote also ‘A New Latin Accidence, or a Complete Introduction to … Latin Grammar,’ 1770; 5th edit., 1779; other editions, entitled ‘The Common Accidence Improved,’ 1800, 1804, 1819; and ‘Elementa Latina Metrica,’ 1796.

OWEN, EDWARD CAMPBELL RICH [sic] (1771–1849), admiral, born in 1771, son of Captain William Owen of the navy (d. 1778), and first cousin of David Owen, senior wrangler in 1777, was borne on the books of the Enterprize in the Mediterranean when he was barely four years old, and 1780–2 he was similarly borne on the books of ships in the West Indies. His actual entry into the navy seems to have been 1786, on board the Culloden, guardship at Plymouth. He afterwards served on the home, Mediterranean, North American, and West Indian stations; and on 6 Nov. 1793 was promoted to be lieutenant of the Fortunée. Afterwards, on the home station, in the summer of 1796, he was acting-captain of the Impregnable with Rear-admiral Sir Thomas Rich, his godfather, and of the Queen Charlotte with Sir John Colpoys; and on 19 Sept. was promoted commander. In May 1797 he had charge of a division of gun-brigs at the Nore, under the command of Sir Erasmus Gower. On 23 April 1798 he was posted to the Northumberland, from which he was moved to the Irresistible, in the Medway. In 1801 he commanded the Nemesis in the North Sea and off Dunkirk or Boulogne. In May 1802 he was appointed to the Immortalité, in which, on the renewal of the war, he was actively employed on the coast of France, capturing or destroying a very great number of the enemy's gunboats or privateers, more especially, on 20 July 1804, when, in conjunction with four brigs and a northerly gale, he insured the destruction of many gunboats and several hundred soldiers between Boulogne and Étaples (, iii. 227–8;, iii. 107). In October 1806 he was moved to the Clyde and ordered to hoist a broad pennant. In 1809 he was attached to the Walcheren expedition. He afterwards commanded the Inconstant in the North Sea, and in 1813 the Cornwall. In 1814 he commanded the Dorset yacht, and on 2 Jan. 1815 was nominated a K.C.B. In 1816 he was appointed to the Royal Sovereign yacht, which he commanded for the next six years; and from 1822 to 1825 was commander-in-chief in the West Indies, with a broad pennant in the Gloucester. On 27 May 1825 he was promoted to be rear-admiral; in 1827 he was surveyor-general of the ordnance; in March 1828 was appointed on the council of the lord high-admiral; and from December 1828 to 1832 was commander-in-chief in the East Indies. On his return he was nominated a G.C.H. on 24 Oct. 1832. He became a vice-admiral on 10 Jan. 1837, and from 1841 to 1845 was commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, with his flag in the Queen and afterwards in the Formidable. He was nominated a G.C.B. on 8 May 1845; became admiral on 11 Dec. 1846, and died on 8 Oct. 1849. He married, in 1829, Selina, daughter of John Baker Hay, captain in the navy.

OWEN, EDWARD PRYCE (1788–1863), artist, born in March 1788, was the only son of Archdeacon (1761–1827)


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/261

Rh rejected both metrical devices, and chose the regular septenarius, an iambic line of seven and a half feet, divided into two half-lines of eight and seven syllables respectively. The metre, with the additional adornment of rhyme, had already been employed about 1170 in the south-western poetical homily called ‘Poema Morale’ (Old English Homilies, Early English Text Society, No. 34, ed. R. Morris). Little can be said for Orm's poetical talent. Conscious of his deficiencies, he seems to have aimed at a sort of dignified monotony. He has, indeed, a certain sense of art in suiting word to thought, and thought and word to rhythm. His only merit is simplicity. Linguistically, the poem is remarkable for its Scandinavian elements. There are perhaps some half-dozen words of French origin in the whole of Orm's work, and these are contestable (, Paul-Braune's Beiträge, x. 1–80;, Guy of Warwick, referred to above, &c.).

Orm was a purist in orthography, as well as in vocabulary, and may fittingly be described as the first of English phoneticians. The ‘Ormulum’ is perhaps the most valuable document we possess for the history of English sounds. Among its more striking peculiarities is the doubling of consonants to show either that a preceding vowel in a closed syllable was short, or to mark an Old English gemination or long consonant; or to indicate, when it is introduced between two vowels, the length of the first vowel. Furthermore, there are no less than three forms of the letter g: one to express the hard strong sound, another the soft sound, and a third the sound dzh. The last point was discovered by Professor A. S. Napier (Academy, 15 March 1890).

The unique manuscript of the ‘Ormulum,’ consisting of a single folio volume, preserved among the Junian Collection in the Bodleian Library, is in all probability the author's own copy, or rather a fragment of it; the twenty thousand and odd half-lines preserved therein represent merely about one-eighth of the complete work. The earliest notice of the manuscript is to be found in the sale-catalogue of the library of the Dutch philologist, Van Vliet, the friend of Junius, ‘greffier’ or registrar at Breda (1610–1666). Under the head of ‘Libri Miscellani in folio’ the following entry occurs: ‘107. Een oudt Sweeds of Gottisch in Parquement geschreven Boeck over de Evangelium,’ i.e. ‘An old Swedish or Gothic book on the Gospel, written on parchment’ (Catalogus variorum ac insignium librorum in quavis facultate et lingua Doctiss. Viri D.D. Jani Ulitii, J.C., Urbis Bredanæ Graphiarij … Quorum Auctio habebitur … die 12 Julii 1666. Hagæ Comitis, 1666, p. 11). Junius, who was then in the Netherlands, must have attended the sale at the Hague and secured the volume for his collection. An entry on the second flyleaf states that it was purchased by Vliet in 1659. The earlier history of the manuscript is not known. It may have been carried over to Holland a few years before by ‘one of those English exiles who had sought in Breda a refuge from the political excitement then prevailing in this country.’ Junius seems to have used the volume for lexicographical purposes. Early printed notices of the ‘Ormulum’ are found in the works of Hickes, in Wanley's ‘Catalogue,’ and in Lye's ‘Etymologicon Anglicanum.’ Tyrwhitt was the first to recognise its metrical properties (cf. The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer: to which are added An Essay upon his Language and Versification, an Introductory Discourse and Notes, London, 1775, iv. 64 and n. 62, p. 98, n. 69). Subsequently Conybeare in his ‘Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry,’ and Guest in his ‘History of English Rhythms,’ emphasised the importance of the work, which was first printed at Oxford in 1852, ‘with Notes and a Glossary by Robert Meadows White, D.D., late Fellow of St. Mary Magdalen College, and formerly professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Oxford.’ In 1878 a new and revised edition by the Rev. Robert Holt, M.A., Christ Church, Oxford, was issued by the Clarendon Press.

[Holt's Ormulum, Oxford, 1878; Ten Brink's Early English Literature; Kölbing, Collation of Text (Englische Studien, i. 1–30); Braune's Middle-English Literature (Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, ed. H. Paul); Erik Brate's Nordische Lehnwörter in Ormulum (Paul-Braune's Beiträge, x. 1–80, 580–6); Sarrazin, Ueber die Quellen des Ormulum (Englische Studien, vi. 1–26); Trautman on Orm's Doppelkonsonanten (Anglia, vii. 94–9, 208–10, cf. 166–199); Sachse, Das unorganische E in Ormulum (Halle, 1881); Blackburn on The Change of þ to t in the Ormulum (American Journal of Philology, ii. 9, 46–58); Napier's Notes on the Orthography of the Ormulum (Academy, 15 March 1890; Early English Text Society, vol. 103); Zupitza's Old and Middle English Reader, ed. MacLean (1893), &c.]  ORME, DANIEL (1766?–1832?), portrait-painter, son of John Orme, merchant, was born at Manchester about 1766, and he received his art education at the schools of the Royal Academy, where in 1788 he competed for the gold medal. He continued to reside in London, where he practised as a portrait-painter in oil and miniature, and had


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/412

 [q. v.] He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1810, M.A. 1816. After officiating for some time at Park Street Chapel, Grosvenor Square, London, he became vicar of Wellington, and rector of Eyton-upon-the-Wildmoors, Shropshire, holding these livings from 27 Feb. 1823 (, Index Eccles.) till 1840. While travelling in France and Belgium, and (in 1840) in Italy, the Levant, Germany, and Switzerland, he made numerous drawings, from which he afterwards produced etchings and pictures in oils. He contributed several plates to the ‘History of Shrewsbury,’ 1825, by Hugh Owen (his father) and J. B. Blakeway, and issued the following:
 * 1) ‘Etchings of Ancient Buildings in Shrewsbury’ (with letterpress), Nos. 1 and 2 only, London, 1820–1, fol.
 * 2) ‘Etchings’ (portrait and forty-five plates), London, 1826, royal fol.; privately printed.
 * 3) ‘The Book of Etchings,’ vol. i. 1842; vol. ii. 1855.

In the latter part of his life Owen lived at Bettws Hall, Montgomeryshire. He died at Cheltenham on 15 July 1863.

OWEN, ELLIS (1789–1868), Welsh antiquary and poet, son of Owen Ellis and Ann Thomas his wife, of Cefnymeusydd, in the parish of Ynys Cynhaiarn, Carnarvonshire, was born on 31 March 1789. He went to school at Penmorfa, and was afterwards sent to Shrewsbury; on returning home he settled at Cefynmeusydd, and on his father's death took charge of the farm. He spent the rest of his life at Cefnymeusydd as a prosperous farmer of much local influence, and died there on 27 Jan. 1868. He was chiefly remarkable as a writer of ‘englynion’ (stanzas), as a local antiquary and genealogist, and as the friend and tutor of the young poets of the district. The ‘Literary Society of Cefnymeusydd,’ the precursor of many a society of the kind in Wales, met fortnightly at his house and under his presidency for eleven years (1846–57). His poetical and prose writings were published, with a biographical notice, under the title of ‘Cell Meudwy’ (‘The Hermit's Cell’) in 1877 (Tremadog). Four days before his death he had been elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

OWEN, FRANCIS PHILIP CUNLIFFE- (1828–1894), director of South Kensington Museum and organiser of exhibitions, born on 8 June 1828, was third son of Captain Charles Cunliffe-Owen, R.N., and Mary, only daughter of Sir Henry Blosset, formerly chief justice of Bengal. He was originally intended for the sea, and at the age of twelve entered the navy, but he was obliged by weak health to abandon the profession after five years' service in the Mediterranean and the West Indies. In 1854 the influence of an elder brother, Lieutenant-colonel [q. v.], obtained him a post in the Science and Art Department, then recently established through the initiative of Sir [q. v.] This able administrator perceived in Owen talents not unlike his own, and in 1855 appointed him as one of the superintendents, under himself, of the British section of the International exhibition held at Paris in that year. Thus commenced the work for which Owen showed a special capacity, and in the execution of which he obtained for himself a unique reputation. To Cole and Owen must be largely attributed the success which attended the establishment of international exhibitions; for, if the original idea was due to Cole, its successful development was largely the work of Owen. With less original power than Cole, Owen had an equal capacity for organisation, and an even greater facility for taking up new ideas and carrying them to a successful issue. Both had singular personal influence. Cole's masterful individuality overpowered opposition; Owen's charm of manner and natural geniality prevented it.

Owen's successful administration in Paris in 1855 led to his appointment in 1857 as deputy general superintendent of the South Kensington Museum, and in 1860 he was promoted to the post of assistant director, Cole being director of the museum and secretary of the Science and Art Department. In 1862 the second great London exhibition was held, and Owen acted as director of the foreign sections, a post for which his knowledge of foreign languages specially qualified him. In 1867 another exhibition was held in Paris, and Owen was second in command to Cole as assistant executive commissioner. So much credit did he obtain by his assiduous labours that when a commission was appointed to provide for the representation of England at the Vienna exhibition in 1873 Owen was made its secretary, and successfully coped with the special difficulties of the post. In the same year Cole retired from the two posts he held at South Kensington, and one of them, the directorship of the museum, was conferred upon Owen.

The next international exhibition was that held at Philadelphia in 1876. Owen was


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/413

Owen appointed executive commissioner for Great Britain, and visited America for the purpose of making the preliminary arrangements. Circumstances, however, led to his resignation of the appointment, which was afterwards filled by Sir Herbert Sandford. In 1878, however, he again had charge of the British section at the exhibition held in Paris. There he was extremely popular, alike with his own countrymen, the French officials, and the representatives of other countries. At the close of the exhibition he was created a K.C.M.G. and C.I.E. (he had received the C.B. after Vienna), and was also the recipient of many foreign decorations, including that of grand officer of the Legion of Honour.

Owen subsequently turned his foreign experiences to useful account in his own country. When a scheme was put forward for a fisheries exhibition in 1883, its promoters were glad to secure his assistance. The proposal, as it came to him, was no more attractive than the scheme for annual exhibitions which had collapsed in Sir Henry Cole's hands in 1874. Owen introduced an element of amusement and popularity, and the Fisheries exhibition became the fashionable lounge of London for the summer of 1883. He followed this up with the Health (1884) and Inventions (1885) exhibitions on a similar scale, and completed the series with the Colonial and Indian exhibition of 1886. For this a royal commission was appointed, with the Prince of Wales as president and Owen as its executive officer. The plan was well received in the colonies, and the exhibition proved in every way, pecuniarily, socially, and politically, a great success. Owen was made a K.C.B., but a serious disappointment followed. The Colonial and Indian exhibition developed into the Imperial Institute, founded in 1887, on the occasion of her Majesty's jubilee, and it was anticipated that its management would have been given to Owen. The direction of the institute was, however, placed in other hands.

In 1893 Owen retired, after some years of failing health, from his post at the South Kensington Museum. Though he made no pretence to expert knowledge, and never professed any special enthusiasm for art, he took great interest in his official work, and found in it abundant scope for his administrative powers. It was, however, in the more public life connected with exhibitions that Owen's real happiness lay. The popularity he deservedly obtained was a keen pleasure to him, and he always seemed restless when, in the intervals between one exhibition and another, his energies were confined to the routine work of the museum. He died at Lowestoft on 23 March 1894.

He married, in 1854, Tenny, daughter of Baron Fritz von Reitzenstare, of the royal Prussian horse-guards, and had a family of two sons and six daughters.

Lady Cunliffe-Owen died at Kirkley Cliff, Lowestoft, on 24 Oct. 1894, aged 63.

OWEN, GEORGE (d. 1558), physician, was born in the diocese of Worcester, and was educated at Oxford. He became probationer-fellow of Merton College in 1519 (, Memorials of Merton College, p. 251), and graduated M.A. in 1521, M.B. in 1525, and M.D. in 1528 (Oxford Univ. Register, Oxford Hist. Soc. i. 20). In 1525 he received a license to practise his profession, and apparently at first settled at Oxford; but soon after his graduation he was appointed physician to Henry VIII, and frequently visited the court. He, together with John Chambre and William Butts, attended the birth of Prince Edward, afterwards Edward VI, in 1537, and signed the letter to the council announcing the serious condition of the child's mother, Jane Seymour. The statement that he performed the Cæsarian operation upon her is untrue. Through 1537 and 1538 he was often summoned to prescribe for the prince (cf., Lit. Remains of Edward VI, pp. xxv, xxxv). The king proved a generous client, and made him many grants of lands and houses in Oxford and its neighbourhood, to which Owen added by extensive purchases. In 1537 he was given the manor of Yarnton, Oxfordshire. In 1541 he received the site of Rewley Abbey, which soon passed to Christ Church; and he acquired Inn Hall and St. Alban Hall, which had formed part of Cardinal Wolsey's property. These buildings were subsequently sold to Merton College. In 1546 he acquired Cumnor Place. Godstow Abbey also fell into Owen's hands, and there he often resided. He was one of the subscribing witnesses to the will of Henry VIII, who left him a legacy of 100l. (cf., Orig. Letters, 3rd ser. iii. 233).

Edward VI continued him in his office of royal physician, and treated him with as much liberality as his father. In 1550 he bought the rectory and chapel of St. Giles, Oxford (, City of Oxford, ii. 70). By letters patent, dated 4 Feb. 1552–3, Edward gave to him, jointly with Henry Martin of Oxford, Durham College, which they sold


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/414

Owen a year later to Sir Thomas Pope for the site of his projected Trinity College (ib. p. 274). On 25 Oct. 1552 he received a royal grant of land of the value of 20l. a year.

Meanwhile he was taking a prominent place in his profession, and was held in esteem by the public. Leland addressed an ‘Encomium,’ ‘Ad D. Audoenum Medicum Regium;’ and, according to his friend Thomas Caius [q. v.], he and Queen Catharine Parr joined in inducing Caius to translate into English Erasmus's paraphrase of St. Mark's Gospel. He was admitted a fellow of the College of Physicians on 25 June 1545; an elect in 1552, in place of Dr. John Chambre, deceased; and on 2 Oct. 1553 was elected president, to which office he was reappointed in the following year. At the same time he was nominated royal physician on Mary's accession, and in the first year of the new reign he was instrumental in obtaining an act for the confirmation and enlargement of the powers of the College of Physicians. Two years later, when a difference arose between the College of Physicians and the university of Oxford concerning the admission by the latter of Simon Ludford and David Laughton to the degree of bachelor of medicine, Cardinal Pole, then chancellor of the university, directed that body to consult Dr. Owen and Dr. Thomas Huys, the queen's physicians, ‘de instituendis rationibus quibus Oxoniensis academia in admittendis medicis niteretur.’ Owen and his colleague suggested an agreement which the chancellor approved and ratified. Owen remained till his death on friendly terms with Queen Mary. In the spring of 1555 she sent him to Woodstock to report on the health of the Princess Elizabeth. At the new year of 1556 he presented the queen with ‘two pottles of preserves’ (, Privy Purse Expenses of Princess Mary). He died of an epidemic intermittent fever on 18 Oct. 1558, and was buried on 24 Oct. at St. Stephen's Church, Walbrook (, Diary, p. 177). He was the author of a treatise named ‘A meet Diet for the New Ague, set forth by Mr. Dr. Owen,’ fol. London, 1558.

Owen left two sons, and two daughters, Lettice and Elizabeth. The elder son, Richard Owen of Godstow, married Mary, daughter of Sir Leonard Chamberlaine of Sherborne, Oxfordshire, and had issue. William, the second son, was, with his wife Anne, daughter of John Rawley of Billesby, Northamptonshire, residing at Cumnor Place when Amy Robsart met her death there in 1560 [see under ]. William Owen sold Cumnor to Anthony Forster in 1572, and in the same year was elected M.P. for Oxford (, Records of Oxford, pp. 338–9). He seems to have retained his father's property at Godstow, and resided there.

John Owen, described in 1615 as a Roman catholic, of Godstow, was Richard Owen's grandson, and great-grandson of the physician. He achieved some notoriety in 1615 by being charged with using the treasonable expression that it was lawful to kill the king, since he was excommunicate. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and sentence of death was passed; but, after remaining in prison in the king's bench for three years, Owen was liberated and pardoned on 24 July 1618, at the request of the Spanish ambassador, on condition of his leaving the country within twenty days (State Trials, ii. 879;, Hist. ii. 304–5; Cal. State Papers, 1611–18, pp. 548, 558).

OWEN, GEORGE (fl. 1604), author. [See .]

OWEN, GEORGE (1552–1613), county historian, born in 1552 at Henllys, near Newport, Pembrokeshire, was the eldest son of William Owen (1469–1574) [q. v.], by Elizabeth Herbert, a descendant of William, first earl of Pembroke of the Herbert line. On the attainment of his majority, Newport Castle and the baronial rights of the lordship of Kemes were delivered to him by his father, and for twenty years of his life he was in conflict with the council of the marches as to his possession of ‘jura regalia’ within the barony. Commissions sat at Newport in 1588 and 1589 to take evidence on the point, and it appears that Owen was at one time placed under arrest in his own castle of Newport. In 1573 he was admitted member of Barnard's Inn, but appears to have always resided in Pembrokeshire, where he held the office of vice-admiral for the counties of Pembroke and Cardigan, and was sheriff for the former county in 1587 and in 1602. In his capacity as magistrate of a maritime county he was active in the time of the Spanish scare, and letters addressed by him and some colleagues to the council are still preserved (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 30 July and 28 Oct. 1599; cf., Carmarthen, p. 115). In 1592, on the attainder of Sir John Perrott [q. v.], Owen was one of the commissioners appointed by the crown to survey Perrott's property (, Pembrokeshire, pp. 136 n. 2, 191). He died in 1613.


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/415

Owen Owen's chief literary work was the ‘Description of Pembrokeshire,’ dated 18 May 1603, which was indifferently edited, with some important omissions, for the ‘Cambrian Register’ (vols. i. and ii.) in 1795–6 by Richard Fenton. The copy used by Fenton subsequently belonged to Sir Thomas Phillipps [q. v.] (Phillipps MS. 13474). The original manuscript in the British Museum (Harleian MS. 6250) has been faithfully reproduced by a descendant of the author, Mr. Henry Owen of Withybush, under the title of Owen's ‘Pembrokeshire’ (Cymmrodorion Record Ser., No. 1, London, 1892, 8vo). Another autograph manuscript has since been discovered in the Marquis of Bute's collection (Arch. Cambr. 5th ser. ix. 330); and a transcript of Harleian MS. 6250, made by Bishop Burgess, is now in the library of St. David's College, Lampeter. In design the work is similar to Carew's ‘Survey of Cornwall,’ and presents a valuable picture of country life in the Elizabethan age. But it also contains so remarkably accurate an account of the geology of South Wales that Owen has been styled ‘the patriarch of English geologists’ (see Edinburgh Review, April 1841, lxxiii. 3; cf., Outlines of Geology, ed. Phillips, 1822, Introduction, p. xl).

Among Owen's other works are the following: 1. ‘The Description of Wales,’ written in 1602, and printed in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1823, pt. ii.) from an inaccurate transcript (Phillipps MS. 6359) of the original autograph manuscript now preserved at the Bodleian Library (Gough MS. Wales, No. 3; see its history in, British Topography, 2nd ed. 1780, ii. 495). [See, to whom it is ascribed in error.] 2. ‘The Description of Milford Havon,’ written in 1595, probably with the view of inducing the government to fortify the haven. There is an autograph copy in the Phillipps Library, MS. 14445 (see, Tour through Wales, 1781 edit. p. 70), and a transcript among the Additional MSS. in the British Museum (No. 22623). 3. ‘A Cataloge and Genelogie of the Lordes of Kemes,’ being Rawlinson MS. B. 469 in the Bodleian. The foregoing three works are printed (from the originals) in the appendix to Owen's ‘Pembrokeshire.’ 4. ‘Baronia de Kemes,’ being a treatise on the position of Kemes as a lordship-marcher, together with charters and documents relating to the barony, collected by Owen, and preserved at Bronwydd, near Cardigan. These, with some other shorter tracts, were published by the Cambrian Archæological Association in 1861–2 (London, 8vo). Seven of the charters, with Owen's notes, had been previously published in 1841 by Sir Thomas Phillipps at the Middlehill Press under the title of ‘Cartæ Baroniæ de Kemes ex MSS. Georgii de Carewe arm. de Crowcombe in Com. Somerset.’ 5. ‘A Treatise of the Government of Wales,’ printed in Clive's ‘History of Ludlow’ (pp. 97–146) from Lansdowne MS. No. 215, art. 1, in the British Museum, which appears to be in part a copy of the Harleian MS. 141, art. 1, which is given in the appendix to Owen's ‘Pembrokeshire,’ and was previously printed incorrectly in Lloyd's ‘History of Powys Fadog,’ ii. 1. A summary of this tract is also given in Pennant's ‘Tours in Wales’ (ed. Rhys, iii. 265).

Besides the above, Owen left a considerable quantity of short treatises, many of which fell into the hands of Fenton, who at one time intended publishing them (see his Pembrokeshire, p. 403), but several of them were subsequently sold by his son in 1858 to Sir Thomas Phillipps. Among those not already enumerated are Owen's commonplace book, called ‘The Taylor's Cushion’ (Phillipps MS. 14427), which is referred to in Rees's ‘Beauties of England and Wales’ (vol. xviii. under ‘South Wales,’ sub fine), and a collection of Welsh pedigrees is attributed to him. Another volume of pedigrees, written mostly in Owen's hand, and in part printed in Lewis Dwnn's ‘Heraldic Visitations’ (ii. 293–364), where Owen is erroneously identified by the editor with his son, George Owen, York herald (cf. also i. 7, 8, and Introduction, p. xxvii, where an englyn by Dwnn in honour of Owen is printed), is preserved in the British Museum (Egerton MS. 2586), while Harleian MS. 6068 also contains some legal tracts by him. An extensive manuscript, known as the ‘Vairdre Book,’ containing inter alia a survey of the barony of Kemes, made in 1594, is preserved at Bronwydd. Another topographical work in Owen's hand, entitled ‘Pembrock and Kemes,’ came into the possession of Mr. Henry Owen of Withybush. A similar manuscript (now lost) is summarised in Browne Willis's ‘Survey of the Cathedral Church of St. Davids’ (pp. 38–73), London, 1717, 8vo, and is there assumed (cf., British Topography, ii. 515) to have been written by Owen for the use of Camden in preparing probably the sixth edition of the ‘Britannia’ (1607, fol.). To that work Owen also supplied a map of Pembrokeshire (pp. 508–9), a facsimile of which is prefixed to Owen's ‘Pembrokeshire’ (ed. 1892). Other short pieces by Owen have been printed in ‘Archæologia Cambrensis’ (3rd ser. viii. 14–


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/416

Owen 18, 226–7, xiii. 132–5; see also Philosophical Transactions, No. 208, p. 48). Camden acknowledges Owen's assistance, and speaks of him as ‘venerandæ antiquitatis cultor eximius,’ and Dineley, in the ‘Beaufort Progress,’ ed. 1888 (p. 256), where a drawing of Owen's arms is exhibited, refers to him as ‘a singular lover and industrious collector of antiquities.’

Owen was twice married: first, about 1573, to Elizabeth, daughter and coheiress of William Philipps of Picton, in Pembrokeshire, by whom he had ten children, the eldest son being Alban Owen, who succeeded his father as lord of Kemes in 1608, and took a prominent part in county affairs during the civil wars (, Little England beyond Wales, pp. 321–3;, Civil Wars in Wales and the Marches, ii. 4, 85). A collection of the arms of the London City companies, by Alban Owen, with his signature attached, is preserved in the Phillipps Library at Cheltenham (MS. 13140, No. 106).

Owen's second wife, according to a manuscript alleged to be by himself, and printed by Fenton (Pembrokeshire, p. 563), was Ann, daughter of John Gwillim, ‘a French gentleman of antient descent in Normandy.’ But, according to a pedigree signed by Owen himself (see a facsimile of this signature, No. 5 on frontispiece to, Heraldic Visitations, vol. ii.; cf. i. 151), she was ‘Ankred [i.e. Angharad], daughter of William Obiled of Caermarthen, gent.’ Obiled is, however, described as ‘a tinker’ in a pedigree of the Henllys family by David Edwardes of Rhyd y Gors, near Carmarthen (1677), preserved at the College of Arms (Prothero MSS. v. 86). According to Edwardes's pedigree, Owen had by his second wife seven children (according to Dwnn twelve). Among the sons were George Owen (d. 1665) [q. v.], York herald, and Evan (1599–1662). The latter matriculated from Jesus College, Oxford, 9 Nov. 1622, and proceeded B.A. same day, M.A. 21 June 1625, B.D. 31 Aug. 1636, and D.D. 12 April 1643; he was appointed rector of Newport 1622, of Llanychllwydog 1626, and of Walwyn's Castle (all in Pembrokeshire) 1638, and was chancellor of St. David's from 1644 until his death, 30 Dec. 1662 (, Alumni Oxon.); a mural tablet was placed to his memory in the chancel of Llawhaden Church (see copy of inscription in, op. cit. p. 318).

OWEN, GEORGE (d. 1665), York herald, son of George Owen (1552–1613) [q. v.], by his second wife, was ‘gott before marriage,’ and was born at Henllys in Pembrokeshire. He was appointed rouge croix in the place of John Bradshaw on 28 Feb. 1626 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. His patent as rouge croix is given in Fœdera, ed. Hayne, vol. viii. pt. i. p. 214), and was promoted to the post of York herald by signet in December 1633, and by patent 3 Jan. following. He is probably to be identified with the George Owen who was admitted at Gray's Inn 4 Aug. 1633 (Gray's Inn Register). He attended the Earl of Arundel in his expedition against the Scottish covenanters in 1639, and, according to Wood (Fasti Oxon. ii. 61 n.), was despatched on a mission in the king's service to Wales in the following year. He was with the retinue of Charles I at Oxford in 1643, where, on 12 April, he was created D.C.L., and he subsequently accompanied the king when he proceeded to invest Gloucester on 10 Aug. in the same year (, Civil Wars in Wales and the Marches, i. 168), but afterwards, according to Wood (l. c.), ‘he miserably swerved from his loyalty (and attended at the funeral of the Earl of Essex, solemnised 22 Oct. 1646), and, by a scandalous agreement, got himself to be made Norroy king of arms by the usurper Cromwell’ in 1658, on which account ‘late writers on heraldic matters call him “the usurping Norroy”’ (, Pembrokeshire, p. 563). In 1660 he was reappointed York herald, and held the office until he resigned it in 1663, when he was succeeded by his son-in-law, John Wingfield (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 12 April 1663; cf. also 25 July). With Elias Ashmole [q. v.], he directed the funeral in London of Bryan Walton, bishop of Chester, on 5 Dec. 1661 (, Fasti, ii. 84 n.) He married Rebecca, daughter of Sir Thomas Dayrell of Lillingstone, Buckinghamshire, by whom he had two sons, who both died without issue, and a daughter, who was married to his successor, Wingfield. He died in Pembrokeshire 13 May 1665 (, Desiderata Curiosa, ed. 1732, xiv. 37).

He has been very generally confounded with his father, especially by heraldic writers (, l.c.), while both have also been confounded with George ap Owen ap Harry (, Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry, p. 78), commonly called George Owen Harry [q. v.], who was a contemporary and near neighbour. In the Lambeth Library (MS. No. 263) there is an English translation of Giraldus's ‘Itinerarium Cambriæ’ and the first book of the ‘Cambriæ Descriptio’ (with the two prefaces


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/417

Owen addressed to Langton), from Dr. David Powel's edition (London, 1585, 8vo), by ‘George Owen, gent., 1602,’ and dedicated to George Owen the elder, that is, son and father respectively. Owen is also said (, ''Bibl. Her''. p. 606) to have ‘compiled a history of Pembrokeshire, the original MS. of which was in the possession of Howel Vaughan, esq. of Hengwrt;’ but this is only another instance of the confusion of names, as this refers to his father's work on Pembrokeshire.

Among undoubted specimens of Owen's own heraldic work are his grant of a coat-of-arms in 1654 to Colonel Philip Jones [q. v.], now preserved at Fonmon Castle, Glamorganshire (, Charters of Swansea, p. 183), and the ‘Golden Grove Pedigree Parchment Roll,’ dated 1641, being the pedigree of the Vaughans, earls of Carbery, which is ‘splendidly illuminated and fully emblazoned in the most sumptuous manner’ (Arch. Cambr. 5th ser. x. 168–9). There are also at the British Museum pedigrees of Worcestershire families dated 1634 (Add. MS. 19816, ff. 100–24), and a short tract, dated 1638, ‘touching the precedency of a baronet's daughter’ (ib. 14410, f. 35).

OWEN, GORONWY or GRONOW (1723–1769?), Welsh poet, son of Owen Goronwy, a tinker, and Jane Parry, his wife, was born on 1 Jan. 1723 in a small cottage at Rhos Fawr, in the parish of Llanfair Mathafarn Eithaf, Anglesey. His father, though not without talent, was idle and drunken, and it was only through the strenuous efforts of his mother, a woman of energy and character, that Owen obtained his early education. He first attended a school at Llanallgo, near his home, which has been supposed to be one of the many circulating schools established by Griffith Jones (1683–1761) [q. v.] of Llanddowror. Showing decided aptitude for study, he was next sent to Friars School, Bangor, where he remained from 1737 until 1741. After an unsuccessful application in 1741 to Owen Meyrick of Bodorgan for assistance wherewith to proceed to Oxford (Life and Works of Goronwy Owain, ed. Jones, 1876, ii. 10–11), and a brief experience as under-master in a school at Pwllheli, Owen in 1742 went to Oxford, probably with the aid of Edward Wynne of Bodewryd. He entered Jesus College, matriculating on 3 June 1742; after three years' residence he was ordained deacon in 1745, but left the university without a degree. He obtained a curacy at Selattyn, near Oswestry, adding to his clerical duties some work at the grammar school. He was admitted to priest's orders, and in August 1747 married a young widow, Ellen, daughter of Owen Hughes, ironmonger and alderman of Oswestry. In September 1748 the young couple removed to Donnington, Shropshire, where Owen took the mastership of a small endowed school, and with it the curacy of the neighbouring church of Uppington.

It was after several years' residence at Donnington that he attracted the attention of lovers of Welsh literature as a Welsh poet. As a boy he had learnt to use the strict Welsh metres, having composed ‘Calendr y Carwr’ (‘The Lover's Calendar’) at Pwllheli; but he had written nothing for years, and had indeed lost sight of his Welsh friends, when, towards the end of 1751, he opened a correspondence with Lewis Morris [q. v.]; this led to the composition of ‘Cywydd y Farn Fawr’ (‘Lay of the Last Judgment’) and other odes in the same metre, which were at once recognised as of high merit. Some fruitless efforts were made by Lewis Morris and his family to find him a place in Wales. His next move was, in 1753, to a curacy at Walton, near Liverpool, worth 35l. per annum, to which were soon added a house in the churchyard and 6l. for the superintendence of the school. Owen was now in fairly good circumstances, but he was in ill-health, and visited Liverpool taverns more frequently than was desirable. In May 1755 he accepted the post of secretary to the newly established Cymmrodorion Society of London, with the prospect of becoming minister of a Welsh church in the metropolis. He removed to London, only to find that it was not possible to establish the proposed church; a curacy worth 50l. was found for him at Northolt, Middlesex, whence he was able to attend without much difficulty the periodical meetings of the Cymmrodorion. Here he remained for two years and a half, yielding more and more to habits of intemperance, to which his wife was also addicted, and quite wearing out the patience of his friends the Morrises. Towards the end of 1757 he was offered, probably as a means of extricating him from his difficulties, the mastership of the school attached to William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia. Having obtained some assistance from the Cymmrodorion, he sailed in December, and early in 1758 entered upon his duties. His wife died during the voyage, and he married within a year Mrs. Clayton, who was sister to the president of the college, but within a twelvemonth he was again left a widower.


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/418

Owen It appears that in 1760 he lost his mastership through riotous conduct, afterwards became minister of St. Andrew's, Brunswick County, Virginia, and died in this position about 1769. A letter he sent in July 1767 to Richard Morris, enclosing an elegy upon Lewis Morris, gives some particulars of his life at this period, and from this it seems that he had married a third time, and had then three children besides Robert (born at Donnington in 1749).

Few Welsh poets have shown a greater mastery of the language than Owen, whose classical training is reflected in the purity and suppleness of his Welsh style. He wrote entirely in the strict metres, favouring especially the ‘cywydd’ form. His letters are models of racy, idiomatic Welsh prose. The following editions of his works have appeared: 1. ‘Diddanwch Teuluaidd’ (1st edit. London, 1763; 2nd edit. Carnarvon, 1817), containing the bulk of his poetry. 2. ‘Gronoviana,’ Llanrwst, 1860, containing the poetry and correspondence, preceded by a life and critical notices. 3. ‘Poetical Works of Rev. Goronwy Owen,’ edited by the Rev. Robert Jones, 2 vols. London, 1876, a similar compilation on a somewhat larger scale.

OWEN, GRIFFITH (d. 1717), colonist and doctor, was son of Robert Owen (d. 1684) of Dolsereau, Dolgelly, by Jane, his wife, born in Merionethshire. Having been educated for the medical profession, he emigrated in 1684, with his parents, to Pennsylvania, where he was one of the first doctors in the new colony founded by William Penn [q. v.] He settled in Philadelphia, and became a member of the executive council, a justice of the peace, and a commissioner for the disposal of land. In the autumn of 1699, Philadelphia being visited by a malignant disease called by Isaac Norris ‘the Barbadoes distemper,’ which carried off 220 persons between August and 22 Oct., Owen and a son, who commenced practice at that time, distinguished themselves by their devotion and skill.

Owen undertook long journeys, both alone and with English ministers, to distant meetings of the quakers in America, and worked among the Indians. He was much esteemed in the colony, and Penn, when troubled about his son William, expressed his wish that the young man's confidence might be gained by ‘tender Griffith Owen, for he feels and sees’ (Private Life of W. Penn, Pennsylvania Hist. Soc. iii. 98). Owen died at Philadelphia in 1717. His son the physician died on 7 March 1731–2. Owen wrote, with some others, ‘Our Antient Testimony renewed,’ &c., against George Keith (1639?–1716) [q. v.], London: printed and sold by T. Sowle, 1695; reprinted in the appendix (pp. 31–40) to Gerard Croese's ‘History of Quakers,’ 1696.

OWEN, HENRY (1716–1795), divine and scholar, was son of William Owen, a gentleman of good estate, whose house was situated at the foot of Cader Idris, near Dolgelly, Merionethshire, where the son was born in 1716. He was educated at Ruthin school, Denbigh, and entered Jesus College, Oxford, on 10 April 1736. He graduated B.A. 1739, M.A. 1743, M.B. 1746, and M.D. 1753. In 1746 he was ordained deacon and priest, and was appointed to a curacy in Gloucestershire, where he at the same time practised medicine for three years; ‘but neither his feelings nor his health would suffer him to continue that profession.’ He subsequently became chaplain to Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh, to whom he dedicated, in 1755, ‘The Intent and Propriety of the Scripture Miracles,’ and by whom he was presented in 1752 to the vicarage of Terling in Essex. Contemporaneously he acted as curate to Sir Ralph Thoresby, rector of Stoke Newington (cf. Parish Reg. August 1757 to April 1760). In April 1760 he resigned Terling in Essex on being presented to the rectory of St. Olave, Hart Street, London. Shortly after he became chaplain to Dr. Shute Barrington, then bishop of Llandaff, to whom he dedicated many of his works, and from whom he received, in 1775, the vicarage of Edmonton, Middlesex, which he held by a special dispensation with the rectory of St. Olave's. He was Boyle lecturer from 1769 to 1771, and published his sermons, which again dealt with the scripture miracles. In April 1794 he resigned St. Olave's in favour of his son.

Owen's reputation for learning is amply attested by contemporaries. Bowyer acknowledged his indebtedness to Owen in his edition of the New Testament, and left him


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/256

 university of Notre Dame, Indiana, conferred on him the honorary degree of doctor of laws.

O'Reilly died on 10 Aug. 1890, at Boston, from an overdose of chloral, administered by himself as a cure for insomnia. He was interred at Holyhood Cemetery, Brookline, Massachusetts.

O'Reilly's poetical works are: ‘Songs from the Southern Seas,’ Boston, Massachusetts, 1873; ‘Songs, Legends, and Ballads,’ Boston, 1878; ‘The Statues in the Block, and other Poems,’ 1881; ‘In Bohemia,’ 1886. As a novelist, O'Reilly will be remembered as the author of ‘Moondyne,’ a powerful and dramatic story of convict life in Western Australia, which was published at Boston, Massachusetts (1880), and ran through twelve editions. He also wrote, in collaboration with Robert Grant, Frederick J. Stimson, and J. T. Wheelwright, a satirical novel entitled ‘The King's Man: a Tale of To-morrow’ (Boston, 1884). An athlete himself, and a keen lover of sport of all kinds, he prepared a volume entitled ‘Ethics of Boxing and Manly Sports’ (Boston, Massachusetts, 1888); and also edited ‘The Poetry and Songs of Ireland,’ New York, 1889. In 1891, the year after his death, a complete edition of his ‘Poems and Speeches’ was published by his widow, with a ‘Life’ by James Jeffrey Roche, and an introduction by Cardinal Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore. His poetry as a rule is rugged in form, but shows considerable power.

O'REILLY, MILES, pseudonym. [See, 1829–1868, miscellaneous writer.]

O'REILLY, MYLES WILLIAM PATRICK (1825–1880), Irish politician, son of William O'Reilly, esq., of Knock Abbey, co. Louth, by Margaret, daughter of Dowell O'Reilly, esq., of the Heath, Queen's County, was born in Dublin in 1825. He was educated at St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, Durham, and at the university of London, where he graduated B.A. in 1845 (London Univ. Calendar, 1870, p. 203). Subsequently he took the degree of LL.D. at Rome. He joined the Louth rifles militia, in which he held a captain's commission. Being invited to Rome by Pius IX, he entered the pontifical service, with the rank of major, and was appointed to the command of the Irish brigade. In September 1860 the battalion of St. Patrick gallantly defended Spoleto against the Piedmontese troops, who were repeatedly repulsed, and O'Reilly surrendered only when the place had become untenable (, Making of Italy, pp. 193–5). After his return to Ireland he was elected M.P. for the county of Longford in March 1862, and for many years he occupied a conspicuous place in the House of Commons among the debaters on Irish and military subjects. He was a member of the home-rule party, and was loyal to the leadership of Isaac Butt. He was a magistrate for the counties of Louth and Dublin. On at least one occasion he acted as examiner in classics at the Catholic University of Ireland, at the time when Dr. Newman was at its head. He vacated his seat in parliament in April 1879, when he accepted the post of assistant commissioner of intermediate education in Ireland. He died in Dublin on 6 Feb. 1880, and was interred in the family burial-place at Philipstown, near Knock Abbey.

He married, in 1859, Ida, daughter of Edward Jerningham, esq. She died in 1878. Besides occasional pamphlets and articles, he was the author of ‘Memorials of those who suffered for the Catholic Faith in Ireland in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Collected and edited from the Original Authorities,’ London, 1868, 8vo; reprinted under the title of ‘Lives of the Irish Martyrs and Confessors, with Additions, including a History of the Penal Laws, by [the] Rev. Richard Brennan, A.M.,’ New York, 1878, 8vo.

O'REILLY, PHILIP (d. 1657?), Irish rebel, was the second son of the chief of the O'Reillys of Cavan, by his wife, a sister of Hugh MacMahon [q. v.] One of the father's brothers was Hugh O'Reilly, Roman catholic archbishop of Armagh [see under ], and another, Philip, also took part in the rebellion. His elder brother, Edmund MacMulmore O'Reilly, was father of Mulmore MacEdmund O'Reilly, sheriff of Cavan, who played a part in the rebellion in Cavan second only to that of Philip MacHugh; and there was yet another contemporary, Philip MacMulmore O'Reilly, who was apparently trained in the Spanish service in the Netherlands, and took an active share in the rebellion.

Philip MacHugh is called a lawyer by Froude, and in March 1639 was elected knight of the shire for Cavan. He soon took a prominent part in the proceedings of the Irish House of Commons. He was placed on the committee of privileges and various


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/419

Owen 100l. in his will and such of his Hebrew books as he cared to take. Nichols dedicated to Owen ‘Bowyer's Greek Testament,’ 1783, 4to, and Owen helped to complete many of Bowyer's works. Owen died at Edmonton on 14 Oct. 1795. He married, on 30 Sept. 1760, Mary, daughter of Dr. Butts, bishop of Norwich, who survived him, dying at Bromley College on 18 June 1804. By her he had a son, Henry Butts Owen, and five daughters. The son was elected, in 1791, afternoon lecturer of All Hallows, Barking.

Owen's chief works, not already noticed, were: 1. ‘Harmonica Trigonometrica; or a short Treatise of Trigonometry,’ 1748, 8vo (anonymous). 2. ‘Observations on the Four Gospels; tending chiefly to ascertain the time of their Publication, and to illustrate the form and manner of their Composition,’ 1764, 8vo. 3. ‘Directions for young Students in Divinity, with regard to those Attainments which are necessary to qualify them for Holy Orders,’ 1st edit. 1766, 2nd edit. 1773 8vo and 1773 12mo, 3rd edit. 1782, 4th edit. 1790, 5th edit. 1809, all London. 4. ‘An Enquiry into the present State of the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament,’ 1769, 8vo. 5. ‘Critica Sacra; or a short Introduction to Hebrew Criticism,’ 1774, 8vo; a supplement, in answer to some remarks by Raphael Baruh, appeared in the following year. 6. ‘Collatio codicis Cottoniani Geneseos cum editione Romana a Joanne Ernesto Grabe jam olim facta nunc demum summa cura edita ab Henrico Owen, M.D.,’ &c., London, 1778 ( Collation of the Cotton MS., with the Codex Vaticanus; see, Literary Anecdotes, ii. 433, iv. 198, and a long review of it in Gent. Mag. 1778, p. 594). 7. ‘A brief Account, historical and critical, of the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, to which is added a Dissertation on the comparative Excellency of the Hebrew and Samaritan Pentateuch,’ London, 1787, 8vo. 8. ‘The Modes of Quotation used by the Evangelical Writers, explained and vindicated,’ London, 1799, 4to, with a long and influential list of subscribers. 9. ‘Sixteen Sermons on various Subjects, by the Rev. Dr. Henry Owen,’ 2 vols. London, 1797; a posthumous publication by his son, for the benefit of two unprovided daughters.

 OWEN, HENRY CHARLES CUNLIFFE- (1821–1867), lieutenant-colonel royal engineers and brevet-colonel, son of Captain Charles Cunliffe-Owen, R.N., and of his wife Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Blosset, knt., chief justice of Bengal, was born at Lausanne, Switzerland, on 16 Oct. 1821. Sir Francis Philip Cunliffe-Owen [q. v.] was his brother. He was educated privately, and, after passing through the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, obtained a commission as second lieutenant in the corps of royal engineers on 19 March 1839. He went to Chatham for the usual course of professional instruction, and thence to Devonport. In January 1841 Owen was sent to the Mauritius. On 30 Sept. he was promoted lieutenant. In January 1845 he was ordered to the Cape of Good Hope, where he took part in the campaign then going on against the insurgent Boers, and in the Kaffir war of 1846–7. He was thanked for his services in general orders by Sir P. Maitland and Sir G. Pechels, and he received the Kaffir war medal. On 28 Oct. 1847 he was promoted second captain. Owen returned to England in April 1848, and was first quartered at Devonport and then at Chatham, until, in November 1850, he was permitted by the commander-in-chief to accept an appointment under the royal commission for the exhibition of 1851 as computer of space for the United Kingdom, and later as superintendent of the foreign departments, and finally, after the exhibition was opened, as its general superintendent. Owen's courtesy, firmness, and business habits won him golden opinions. When the exhibition closed, Owen was appointed to another civil post—inspector of art schools in the department of practical art, then under the board of trade, with offices at Marlborough House. He was elected an associate-member of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 3 Feb. 1852.

On the outbreak of the Crimean war Owen resigned his civil appointment. In January 1855 he joined the army before Sebastopol. He was very severely wounded by a musket-ball when engaged in the trenches in directing his men to turn some rifle-pits in front of the Redan, which had just been captured from the Russians. He lost his leg, and was invalided home. Owen was mentioned in despatches by Lord Raglan. He was made a C.B., given a pension of 100l. per annum, received the war medal and clasp, was appointed officer of the Legion of Honour, and received the fifth class of the Medjidie and the Turkish war medal. On 17 July 1855 he was promoted brevet-major.

In October 1855 he was appointed assistant


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/420

Owen inspector-general of fortifications at the war office, and in April 1856 deputy inspector-general of fortifications under Sir John Fox Burgoyne [q. v.] The latter post he held until August 1860, when he was appointed commanding royal engineer of the western district. Owen had been promoted brevet lieutenant-colonel on 6 June 1856, and on 22 Nov. 1861 he was promoted brevet-colonel. On 1 April 1862 he became a regimental lieutenant-colonel. During his command in the western district the important land and sea fortifications for the protection of the dockyard and naval base at Devonport, converting the place into a first-class fortress, were commenced, as well as the defences of the Severn at Breandown and at Steep and Flat Holmes, which were also in his district. The Plymouth defences absorbed most of Owen's time and attention, and it was while engaged in inspecting the progress of some of these works that he caught a chill, from the effects of which he died on 7 March 1867. He was buried in Plymouth cemetery. A stained-glass window was erected to his memory in the chancel of St. James's Church, Plymouth.

Owen married in 1855, in London, Agnes, daughter of Lewis Cubitt, esq., by whom he left a son Edward, born 1 Jan. 1857. His widow married, in 1872, the Rev. Henry Edward Willington, M.A.

Owen was a man of charming manner, and a most pleasant companion. A hard worker and devoted to his profession, his sympathies were broad and many-sided. He was a good man, and generally loved. He was a high churchman, a friend of Edward Bouverie Pusey [q. v.], and one of the original founders of the English Church Union. There are in the possession of his son a sepia drawing of him as a child, and a life-sized medallion of him in later life done by Francis Adams. Owen contributed the following papers to the ‘Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers,’ in vol. ix. new ser., ‘Experiments in Breaching a Merlon of Masonry at Gibraltar in 1859;’ in vols. xii. and xiii., ‘Fortifications versus Forts;’ in vol. xiv., ‘Remarks on Expense Magazines.’

OWEN, HUGH, verè (1615–1686), jesuit, born in Anglesea in June 1615, was admitted a student of the English College at Rome on 25 Dec. 1636, was ordained priest in the church of St. John Lateran on 16 March 1640–1, and left Rome for England on 28 Sept. 1643. He entered the Society of Jesus at Watten, near St. Omer, in 1648, and returned to the English mission in 1650. In a catalogue of jesuits for 1655 he is mentioned as then serving the college or district of St. Francis Xavier, comprising South Wales, Monmouthshire, Herefordshire, and Gloucestershire. Subsequently he was stationed at Holywell, where he died on 28 Dec. 1686.

He was the author of: 1. A report, in Welsh, of Roger Whetstone's cure at St. Winefrid's well; manuscript at Stonyhurst College. 2. ‘On the Grievousness of Mortal Sin, especially of Heresy’ (anon.), London, 1668. 3. The prayer-book called ‘The Key of Heaven’ (anon.), London, 1670. 4. A catechism in Welsh, London, 1688.

OWEN, HUGH (1639–1700), of Bronclydwr, Merionethshire, nonconformist preacher, born in 1639, was the son of Humphrey Owen, the son of John Owen, the son of John Lewis Owen, member for Merioneth in the third parliament of Elizabeth, and son of Lewis Owen (d. 1555) [q. v.] Hugh was intended for the church, and entered Jesus College, Oxford, matriculating on 21 July 1660 (Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714); but the passing of the Act of Uniformity in 1662 and the ejection of such clergy as would not conform disturbed his plans, and, after a short residence in London, he returned to Bronclydwr to spend the rest of his days as a nonconformist preacher. There being no independent church in his district, he was ordained a teaching elder of the Wrexham church (, Older Nonconformity of Wrexham, p. 44), with authority to preach where he could in Wales. His preaching tours, which extended into the neighbouring counties of Carnarvon and Montgomery, often lasted for three months at a time, and laid the foundation of the later nonconformist churches of the district. On the issue of the declaration of indulgence in 1672 his house was licensed for independent preaching, and in a few years a church had been formed there, of which Owen retained the oversight until his death. During the reign of James II he was for a short time confined in Powis Castle, but on the whole he was not subjected to much persecution. Owen bore a high character for temperance of life, generosity to the poor, and charity towards those who differed from him. He died on


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/422

Owen Beresford and all other foreign officers summarily dismissed. Owen retired into private life, and resided on his estate at Villa Nova de Paraisa, near Oporto. During the subsequent civil wars Dom Pedro offered to appoint Owen his personal aide-de-camp, with the rank of general; but, not having the permission of his own sovereign, Owen declined the honour.

Owen was a knight commander of San Bento d'Aviz and knight of the Tower and Sword, and had the Peninsular gold cross, the Peninsular medal with clasps for Talavera, Albuera, Vittoria, and Pyrenees. He died at Garratt's Hall, Banstead, Surrey, 16 Dec. 1861, aged 76. Sir John Rennie, who met him in Oporto in 1855, described him as over six feet in height, with a determined countenance, and still full of fire and energy. At Rennie's request he wrote a memoir of Major the Hon. Somers Cocks (a relative of Rennie, killed at Burgos in 1812), which was printed for private circulation by Rennie. Owen published ‘The Civil War in Portugal and the Siege of Oporto’ (London, 1836, 8vo), being an English translation of his Portuguese work, ‘A Guerra Civil em Portugal, o Sitio do Porto e a Morte de Don Pedro. Por hum Estrangeiro’ (1836, 12mo).

OWEN, HUGH (1804–1881), promoter of Welsh education and philanthropist, born on 14 Jan. 1804, at Y Foel farm, near Talyfoel Ferry, in the parish of Llangeinwen, Anglesey, was the eldest son of Owen Owen, by Mary (d. 1862), daughter of Owen Jones, a prominent calvinistic methodist leader (Y Gestiana, 1892, p. 140). Owen Owen's father, Hugh, who was a currier at Carnarvon, afforded, in 1770, protection from an angry mob to the first nonconformist who preached after the methodist revival in that town (, Methodistiaeth Cymru, ii. 227).

Hugh the younger received his education at a private school at Carnarvon, and, after a brief stay on the farm at home, proceeded in March 1825 to London, where he became clerk to a barrister, and afterwards entered a solicitor's office. There he continued for about ten years, until he was appointed on 22 Feb. 1836 to a clerkship at the poor-law commission. After remaining for about six years in the ‘parish property’ department, where his practical knowledge of law proved of great service, he was promoted in 1853 to the post of chief clerk, an office which he retained after the reorganisation of the commission under the name of the local government board until his retirement in November 1872. During these twenty years he represented the department at all the parliamentary committees on poor-law subjects, notably the Andover inquiry in 1846.

Owen appears to have first interested himself in educational work in 1839 by acting as secretary of a movement for establishing a British school at Islington; but shortly afterwards he turned his attention to the wants of Wales, and on 26 Aug. 1843 he addressed and had widely distributed a ‘Letter to the Welsh People’ on the subject of day-schools. In November he was instrumental in inducing the British and Foreign School Society to appoint an agent to aid the movement in North Wales, where prior to that time there were only two British schools in existence. He also procured the appointment of another agent for South Wales a few years later. In August 1846, on the formation of the Cambrian Educational Society, which was practically a Welsh branch of the British and Foreign School Society, Owen became its honorary secretary, in which capacity he was in frequent communication with the committee of council on education, and rendered considerable assistance to the commissioners appointed by that department in October 1846 to inquire into the state of education in Wales (see their Report, 1847, pt. ii. p. 2). By means of a Welsh religious census, which he privately conducted in December 1846, he challenged the claims of the national schools, put forward on behalf of the Church of England, to enjoy a monopoly of government support in Wales (British Quarterly Review, January 1871). In his census schedules he obtained information about Welsh deaf mutes, and was thereby the means of forming in 1847 the Cambrian Association for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb, which established shortly after a training-school for them at Aberystwith, subsequently removed to Swansea. Owen also wrote numerous letters to the Welsh magazines and for general distribution, notably one dated 17 March 1847, in which he explained and popularised the aims and methods of British schools, and organised the opinions of Welsh nonconformists in favour of state-aided undenominational education, against which a large section of them were at that time opposed. By 1870–1 there were 271 such state-aided schools in Wales, with an average attendance of 32,455 children. In the meantime Owen had in 1855 been elected a member of the committee of the British


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/423

Owen and Foreign School Society, and in 1856 helped to establish a normal college for teachers which was opened at Bangor in 1858. He also took an active part in establishing a similar institution at Swansea for the training of schoolmistresses. Many years afterwards, in the autumn of 1879, he prepared a scheme for connecting elementary schools with higher grade schools by means of scholarships, and this resulted in the foundation of the North Wales Scholarship Association, which, until the recent establishment of intermediate schools and the consequent dissolution of the society in 1894, filled an important gap in the educational system of North Wales.

The great work of the later half of Owen's life was the organisation of higher education in Wales, and it is to him, above all others, that the University College of Wales at Aberystwith owes its existence. The idea was first mooted by him at a private meeting held in London in April 1854, when he was appointed one of a committee of three to prepare a ‘Proposal to establish Queen's Colleges’ in Wales similar to those in Ireland (the proposal and outlines of constitution are printed in the ‘Report of the Committee on Welsh Education, 1881,’ Appendix, Nos. 1, 2); but owing to the government being preoccupied by the Crimean war and other matters, very little progress was made until September 1863, when it was discussed by Owen, Thomas Nicholas [q. v.], and others at a sectional meeting of the Eisteddfod at Swansea. A few months later a London committee was formed, of which Owen became one of the honorary secretaries. Owing to the scant support afforded it by the landowning class and the church party generally, only about 12,000l. had been collected at the opening of the college in October 1872, and a debt of over 7,000l. had been incurred. Resigning his position at the local government board so as to devote his whole time to the cause of Welsh education, Owen, who from 1871 to 1877 was honorary secretary of the institution, organised, at the suggestion of a Welsh journalist, John Griffith, better known as Y Gohebydd, a house-to-house canvass of Wales, and addressed meetings in all parts of the country, resulting in the payment of the debt and in the collection of about 9,000l. for a sustentation fund, as well as in the creation of a strong public opinion in favour of higher education. Without government aid the college would, however, have collapsed. On Owen's initiative, a departmental committee was appointed on 25 Aug. 1880, with Lord Aberdare as chairman, to inquire ‘into the condition of intermediate and higher education in Wales and Monmouthshire.’ Subsequently, on 27 Jan. 1881, he laid before the committee a complete scheme for secondary education in Wales, which has since his death been carried into effect, with only a few modifications, by means of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889. His other educational aims have also been fulfilled by the establishment of two other university colleges in Wales, in addition to that at Aberystwith, which has been placed on a permanent footing; while all three in 1894 became constituents of a university for Wales incorporated by royal charter. ‘He may almost be said,’ according to Mr. Lewis Morris, ‘to have created, or at any rate to have discovered, the thirst for education which now plays a great part in the present of Wales, and will play a greater part still in its future.’

Owen was the chief instrument in bringing about a reform in the Eisteddfod, thereby renewing its usefulness and reviving the national interest in it. As the outcome of a scheme submitted by him at the Aberdare meeting in 1861, there were established, in connection with the usual competitive assemblies, sectional meetings for the consideration of papers dealing with Welsh movements. In 1866 he invited Matthew Arnold, who spoke of him as an ‘old acquaintance,’ to read a paper at the Eisteddfod held that year at Chester. Arnold sent him a sympathetic reply, but declined the invitation (, On the Study of Celtic Literature, Introduction, pp. v–xiv). At the Carnarvon meeting in 1880 Owen himself read a paper advocating a scheme for placing the control of the Eisteddfod in the hands of a permanent body, since called the National Eisteddfod Association, acting in conjunction with ‘Yr Orsedd,’ or congress of bards (see First Report of Eisteddfod Association, October 1881). With John Griffith (Y Gohebydd) Owen was also the means of reviving in November 1873 the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, extinct since 1843.

Throughout his life he was also closely identified with philanthropic work. With Griffith Davies [q. v.] and other members of the Welsh methodist chapel at Jewin Crescent, to which he then belonged, he founded in 1837 a Welsh provident society, and continued to take an active part in its management until 1862; and in July 1873 he was the chief means of establishing the London Welsh Charitable Aid Society. He was for twenty-three years honorary secretary, and subsequently vice-president, of the London Fever Hospital. He was also one of the vice-presidents of the National Thrift


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/424

Owen Society, and treasurer, and for many years chairman of the executive committee of the National Temperance League. That society had his portrait painted, in October 1881, for inclusion in a series of portraits of temperance advocates. For a short time he sat on the London School Board, being elected to succeed William McCullagh Torrens [q. v.] for the Finsbury division in 1872.

In recognition of his ‘services to the cause of education in Wales,’ he was knighted in August 1881; but by this time his health was failing, and on 20 Nov. he died at Mentone, and was buried on 26 Nov. in Abney Park cemetery.

A statue in bronze, by Mr. Milo Griffith, has been erected by public subscription to his memory at Carnarvon, where it was unveiled on 22 Oct. 1888; and there is a bust of him, by Mr. William Davies (Mynorydd), at the Royal Institution, Swansea.

By his wife Ann Wade, who predeceased him in 1879, he had several children, of whom two sons and four daughters survived him, his eldest son being Sir Hugh Owen, K.C.B., the present permanent secretary of the local government board.

OWEN, HUMPHREY (1712–1768), Bodley's librarian and principal of Jesus College, Oxford, son of Humphrey Owen, gentleman, was born at Meifod in Montgomeryshire in 1712. On 15 Nov. 1718 he was admitted batellar of Jesus College, elected scholar 23 Dec. 1723, and fellow 13 June 1726. He took the B.A. degree in 1722, M.A. in 1725, B.D. in 1733, and D.D. in 1763. In 1744 he became rector of Tredington (second portion), Worcestershire, which he held till 1763, though recalled to Oxford by his election unopposed to the Bodleian librarianship on 10 Nov. 1747. In 1762–3 he was curate-in-charge of Kingston-Bagpuze, Berkshire, and having been, on 10 May 1763, elected principal of his college, was presented on 13 Aug. to the rectory of Rotherfield-Peppard, Oxfordshire. He died on 26 March 1768 (Oxford Journal, 2 April 1768), and was buried in Jesus College Chapel (, Colleges and Halls, ed. Gutch, p. 589).

As Bodley's librarian, Owen is chiefly remarkable for his numerous appointments of Welshmen to subordinate posts. The best known of these was John Price [q. v.], who succeeded him, having been acting-librarian from 1765 to 1767. Owen superintended the removal of the Arundel marbles from the gallery to a special room in 1749, gave the rare St. Albans' ‘Fructus Temporum’ in 1750, and took over the valuable Clarendon and Carte papers, and the Walker, Ballard, Holman, and Rawlinson manuscripts; but the process of cataloguing, ‘generally inert’ in his time, was so completely paralysed by the last bequest, in 1755, that it is still in arrears (, Cataloguing of MSS. in the Bodl. Libr. 1890). Letters are extant to Owen from Browne Willis and Rawlinson, 1748–1756 (Rawl. MS. C. 989); and it is clear that he was, like his correspondents, a Jacobite. There are other letters and notes to or by him in various Bodleian books, and a letter to Ducarel is printed in Nichols's ‘Illustrations of Literature’ (iv. 666).

OWEN, JACOB (1778–1870), architect, was born on 28 July 1778 in North Wales. After being educated at Monmouth, he was apprenticed to William Underhill, an engineer, who was occupied on canal works in Staffordshire. In 1804 he was appointed clerk of the works to the royal engineer department at Portsmouth, and in 1832 was transferred to the Irish board of works in Dublin as principal engineer and architect, which appointment he held until 1856. His executed works were almost exclusively those connected with his public appointment. In 1848 he erected the criminal lunatic asylum at Dundrum, near Dublin (see 16th Report of the Board of Public Work, Ireland, 1848, p. 16), and in 1850 Mountjoy Prison, Dublin. He made many additions to the Four Courts and Queen's Inns in Dublin, and erected model schools and other government buildings in Ireland.

He died at Great Bridge, Tipton, Staffordshire, on 26 Oct. 1870, and was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery, Dublin.

He married the daughter of his master,


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/429

Owen second action took place at Llandegai. Owen was ultimately defeated, dragged from his horse, and made prisoner by one Captain Taylor, who was voted by the commons 200l. out of Owen's estate (Commons' Journals, v. 592, 10 June 1648). A few days before, on 3 June 1648, Sheriff Lloyd's family had been voted a sum of 1,000l. out of Owen's estate (Calendar of Committee for Compounding, p. 1842). Owen was committed close prisoner to Denbigh Castle (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 123), but was ordered by the commons to be sent for as a delinquent by the serjeant-at-arms on 14 June 1648, and on 26 July he was committed to Windsor Castle on a charge of high treason (Commons' Journals, v. 600, 648; see, Civil War, iv. 251, and , ii. 76, for an account of Cromwell's anger at the parliament's order for his removal to London).

The commons (10 Nov. 1648) and the lords (14 Nov.) passed, independently, an ordinance for the banishment of Owen along with James, earl of Cambridge, Henry, earl of Holland, Arthur, lord Capel, and George, lord Goring (Lords' Journals, x. 588), but it was subsequently determined to put them on their trial. On 3 Feb. 1648–9 they were ordered to appear for trial (see List of Judges of the Court, Brit. Mus. 669/83, f. 13), and on 6 March following all received sentence of death (, xi. 256). Clarendon (vii. 261) asserts that, preferring to be beheaded in such good company, Owen made no effort to save his life, and that his sentence was remitted owing to Ireton's contemptuous charity. As a matter of fact, Owen petitioned for his life (Commons' Journals, vi. 158) on 7 March 1648–9, and a petition was also presented on his behalf on 8 March, when the vote for his respite passed by 28 to 23 (ib. p. 159), and he acknowledged the parliament's grace in a very humble epistle (, Prince Rupert, iii. 409; Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 72). According to Sir Edward Nicholas, Owen was reprieved at the suit of the Spanish and Dutch ambassadors, and on the threat of his countrymen that they would slay a hundred of the parliamentary men in revenge if he were executed (, Original Letters, i. 247). When the Restoration took place, Owen interceded on behalf of Edmond, a son of the regicide, James Chaloner [q. v.], alleging that he had been the only instrument under God of the preservation of his life.

Owen returned to his native county. But in 1659 he attempted to raise Anglesey, Carnarvon, and Merioneth, at the same time that Sir George Booth raised Cheshire. He failed, and his estates were again ordered to be sequestered, as he was ‘known to be fled,’ unless he appeared within ten days (Calendar of Committee for Compounding, p. 3250, 30 Sept. 1659 and 26 Jan. 1659–60). At the Restoration he petitioned for redress and revenge, but with what result does not appear (cf. Commons' Journals, viii. 180, 200, November 1660). In March 1663 he received, along with others, a grant of the overplus of prizes taken by the privateer Richard Pettingall from the Dutch for 20,970l. (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1663).

Owen died in 1666, and was buried in the church of Penmorva, Carnarvonshire, where Pennant saw an inscription to him (Tour, p. 263). His estates still belong to his lineal descendant, Mrs. Ormesby Gore, by whom his portrait is preserved at Porkington (engraved in 4to edition of Pennant's ‘Tours,’ where is also a copy of his funeral inscription). An engraving of Owen by T. Caldwell is mentioned by Bromley.

Owen married, in 1617, Janet, daughter of Griffith Vaughan, sheriff of Merioneth (for whom see, Visitations, ii. 219.) His eldest son, William, suffered sequestration in the wars (, Memoirs, p. 569).

Owen's brother, Colonel William Owen, was governor of Harlech in Merionethshire, and was the contriver of the general insurrection in North Wales in 1648. He was captured at Nottingham in August of the same year, and suffered sequestration and banishment.


text: Page:First Voyage Round the World.djvu/72


text: Page:First Voyage Round the World.djvu/76


text: Page:First Voyage Round the World.djvu/78