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Granville Penn

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Granville Penn (9 December 1761 - 28 September 1844) was an English poet, translator, and writer on geology.

Lines to Harold

Granville Penn (1761-1844), Lines to Harold: Written under the first impression produced by the perusal of the poem 'Childe Harold' (1812). Nabu Press, 2012. Courtesy Amazon.com.

Life[]

Youth and education[]

Penn was born at 10 New Street, Spring Gardens, the 2nd (surviving) son of Thomas Penn by his wife Lady Juliana (Fermor), 4th daughter of Thomas, 1st earl Pomfret.[1] His grandfather, William Penn, was the founder of Pennsylvania.[2]

Granville Penn enrolled at Magdalen College, Oxford, on 11 November 1780, but took no degree.[1]

Career[]

Subsequently Penn became an assistant clerk in the war department, and received a pension on retirement. On 24 June 1791 he married Isabella, eldest daughter of General Gordon Forbes, colonel of the 29th regiment of foot, and settled in London.[1]

Penn is considered the founding father of the veterinary profession. In 1789 he became a member of the Odiham Agricultural Society, a Hampshire group of landowners and men of learning, who advocated that farriers be given a “scientific education”. In the same year he met French veterinarian Charles Benoit Vial de St. Bel who had a proposal to establish a veterinary school. Penn drew He drew up plans for the creation of a veterinary profession, bginning with a dedicated school, and acted to convince livestock owners, medical professionals and scientists to give their backing to the idea. His plans were received with enthusiasm by the medical profession, scientists and members of the nobility. As a result the Veterinary College (now the Royal Veterinary College) was established in Camden Town in 1791.[3]

In 1812 Penn composed Lines to Harold, a poem in Spenserian stanzas written in reply to the 1st part of Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and left a copy of the poem with John Murray, Byron's publisher. Byron read the poem, which he described to Murray as "evidently the composition of some one in the habit of writing, and of writing well;" sought out their author, and requested an interview. This began a friendship between Byron and Penn that lasted until Byron left England.[4]

In 1834 Penn succeeded his brother, John Penn (1760–1834), in the estates of Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire, and Pennsylvania Castle, Portland. He was a member of the Outinian Society, founded by his brother John. He was in the commission of the peace for Buckinghamshire.[1]

Penn died at Stoke Park.[1]

Family[]

By his wife he had 3 sons: Granville John (1802–1867); Thomas Gordon (1803–1869), who took holy orders; William, of Lincoln's Inn and Sennowe Hall, Norfolk (b. 1811); and 4 daughters, of whom Sophia, the eldest, married Colonel Sir William Gomm, K.C.B., and died in 1827.[1]

Writing[]

Penn published a number of competent translations from the Greek, and many theological and semi-scientific works. A comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies, London, 1822, was received with some approval in religious circles, but was severely censured elsewhere as an unscientific attempt to treat the book of Genesis as a manual of geology. A 2nd edition, enlarged, and with answers to critics, appeared in 2 vols. London, 1825.[1]

The Book of the New Covenant of Our Lord; being a Critical Revision of the Text and Translation of the English Version of the New Testament, with the aid of most ancient Manuscripts, &c., appeared at London in 1836. Annotations to “The Book of the New Covenant,” with an expository Preface, with which is reprinted J. L. Hug's “De Antiquitate Codicis Vaticani Commentatio,” followed in 1837. These two were republished together, London, 1887, and are still valued. The revision is based on the ‘Codex Vaticanus,’ marked B by Wetstein.[1]

More useful in a different direction is Penn's life of his great-grandfather, Admiral Sir William Penn, 2 vols. London, 1833.[1]

His other works were: ‘Critical Remarks on Isaiah vii. 18,’ 1799. ‘Remarks on the Eastern Origination of Mankind and of the Arts of Cultivated Life,’ 1799. ‘A Greek Version of the Inscription on the Rosetta Stone, containing a decree of the priests in honour of Ptolemy the Fifth,’ 1802. ‘A Christian's Survey of all the Primary Events and Periods of the World, from the Commencement of History to the Conclusion of Prophecy’ (1811); 2nd edit. 1812; 3rd edit., corrected and improved, London, 1814. This work, dealing with the millennium, was attacked in an anonymous ‘Dissertation on the Seals and Trumpets of the Apocalypse,’ and was defended by Penn in ‘The Prophecy of Ezekiel concerning Gogue, the last Tyrant of the Church, his Invasion of Ros, his Discomfiture and final Fall; examined and in part illustrated,’ London, 1814.[1] ‘The Bioscope, or Dial of Life, explained; to which is added a Translation of St. Paulinus's Epistle to Celantia on the Rule of Christian Life, and an Elementary View of General Chronology, with a perpetual Solar and Lunar Calendar, by the Author of “The Christian's Survey,”’ London, 1812; 2nd edit. 1814. ‘The Epistle to Celantia, translated from the Latin,’ 1813. This was republished with ‘Institutes of Christian Perfection of Macarius the Egyptian, called the Great; translated from the Greek,’ London, 1816; 2nd edit. 1828. ‘Moral Odes from Horace,’ London, 1816. ‘An Examination of the Primary Argument of the Iliad,’ London, 1821. ‘Conversations on Geology, comprising a familiar Explanation of the Huttonian and Wernerian Systems,’ &c., London, 1828; reprinted 1840. [Works; Berry's Genealogies, ‘Buckinghamshire,’ p. 74; Gent. Mag. 1844, ii. 545; Crabb Robinson's Diary, 1869, i. 486, ii. 273; an autograph letter is Addit. MS. 27952, f. 157.][5]

Recognition[]

A life-size portrait is at Pennsylvania Castle.[1]

Publications[]

Poetry[]

Non-fiction[]

Translated[]

  • Macarius, Institutes of Christian perfection, of Macarius the Egyptian, called the Great. London: J. Moyes, for John Murray, 1816.
  • Horace, Moral Odes. London: John Murray, 1816.
  • The Book of the New Covenant of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ: Being a critical revision of the text and translation of the English version of the New Testament. London: James Duncan, 1836-37.


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[6]

See also[]

References[]

  •  Smith, Charlotte Fell (1895) "Penn, Granville" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 44 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 303-304  . Wikisource, Sep. 2, 2016.

Notes[]

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Smith, 303.
  2. ↑ Charlotte Fell Smith, "Penn, Thomas," Dictionary of National Biography 44, 307. Web, Sep. 2, 2016.
  3. ↑ The Granville Penn Press, Veterinary History Society. Web, Sep. 2, 2016.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Notes, "Lines to Harold". English Poetry, 1579-1830, Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities. Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. Web, Sep. 2, 2016.
  5. ↑ Smith, 304.
  6. ↑ Search results = au:Granville Penn, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Sep. 2, 2016.

External links[]

Poems
Books
About

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Penn, Granville

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