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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gray, Samuel Frederick

​GRAY, SAMUEL FREDERICK (fl. 1780–1836), naturalist and pharmacologist, was the posthumous son of Samuel Frederick Gray, the anonymous translator of Linnæus's ‘Philosophia Botanica’ for James Lee's ‘Introduction to Botany.’ Born after his patrimony had been distributed, he was entirely dependent on his own industry, and from 1800 to his death suffered from disease of the lungs. He became a pharmaceutical chemist at Walsall in Staffordshire, where his second son, John Edward Gray [q. v.], was born; but soon after this removed to London, his son George Robert Gray [q. v.] having been born at Chelsea. In 1818 he published a ‘Supplement to the Pharmacopœia,’ which went through five later editions (1821, 1828, 1831, and 1836), and was rewritten by Professor Redwood in 1847. Having studied Ray's tentative natural system of classification of plants, and never adopted the artificial system of Linnæus, Gray was much fascinated by the method of Jussieu, and arranged the plants in his supplement to the ‘Pharmacopœia’ (London, 1818) in accordance with it, this being the first English work in which it was adopted. Having become a contributor to the ‘London Medical Repository,’ he was in 1819 invited to become joint editor, and acted as such until 1821. Besides unsigned articles he contributed to this journal papers on the metamorphoses of insects, on worms, on indigenous emetic plants, on generation in imperfect plants (cryptogamia), &c. About this time he gave lectures on botany, upon the Jussieuan system, partly in conjunction with his son J. E. Gray, at the Sloane Street Botanical Garden and at Mr. Taunton's medical schools at Hatton Garden and Maze Pond. In 1821 he published ‘A Natural Arrangement of British Plants,’ in two volumes, the introductory portions only being by him, the synoptical part being the work of his son J. E. Gray, though not bearing his name. This valuable work was much decried by Sir J. E. Smith, Dr. George Shaw, and other extreme votaries of the Linnæan system, the alleged reason being that ‘English Botany’ was quoted as ‘Sowerby's’ and not as ‘Smith's.’ In Lindley's ‘Synopsis,’ printed in 1829, Gray's work is deliberately ignored, so that it has seldom received its due credit as our first flora arranged on the natural system. In 1823 Gray published ‘The Elements of Pharmacy,’ and in 1828 ‘The Operative Chemist,’ both practical works of a high order of merit.
[Memoirs, by Dr. J. E. Gray, 1872–5; London Medical Repository, 1819–21; and other works above named.]
G. S. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gray, Peter

​GRAY, PETER (1807?–1887), writer on life contingencies, born at Aberdeen about 1807, was educated at Gordon's Hospital, now Gordon's College, in that city, from which he was sent on account of his promise and industry for two years to the university. Here he developed a taste for mathematics, and, with the sole desire to assist the studies of a friend, afterwards took a special interest in the study of life contingencies. He became an honorary member of the Institute of Actuaries, and his contributions to the ‘Journal’ of that society were numerous and valuable. He undertook, purely as a labour of love, the task of organising and preparing for publication the tables deduced from the mortality experience issued by the institute. Gray specially constructed for Part I. of the ‘Institute Text Book’ an extensive table of values of log 10 (1 + i), appending thereto an interesting note on the calculations. He was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical and Royal Microscopical Societies, and was distinguished by his knowledge of optics and of applied mechanics. Gray died on 17 Jan. 1887, in his eightieth year. With Henry Ambrose Smith and William Orchard he published ‘Assurance and Annuity Tables, according to the Carlisle Rate of Mortality, at three per cent.,’ 8vo, London, 1851, and contributed a preliminary notice to William Orchard's ‘Single and Annual Assurance Premiums for every value of Annuity,’ 8vo, London, 1856. His separate writings are: 1. ‘Tables and Formulæ for the Computation of Life Contingencies; with copious Examples of Annuity, Assurance, and Friendly Society Calculations,’ 8vo, London, 1849. 2. ‘Remarks on a Problem in Life Contingencies,’ 8vo, London, 1850. 3. ‘Tables for the Formation of Logarithms and Anti-Logarithms to twelve Places; with explanatory Introduction,’ 8vo, London, 1865; another edition, 8vo, London, 1876.
[Journal of the Institute of Actuaries, xxvi. pt. i. 301–2, 406; Monthly Notices of the Royal Astron. Soc. xlvii. 163.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gray, Stephen

​GRAY, STEPHEN (d. 1736), electrician, was a pensioner of the Charterhouse in London. Thomson, the historian of the Royal Society, observes that the absence of any further biographical details is remarkable; but Desaguliers intimates that Gray's ‘character was very particular, and by no means amiable.’ Priestley, in his ‘History of Electricity,’ avers that no student of electricity ever ‘had his heart more entirely in the work.’ His passionate fondness for new discoveries exposed him to many self-deceptions; but his researches led to very valuable results bearing upon the communication, the conduction, and the insulation of electricity. He was the first to divide all material substances into electrics and non-electrics, according as they were or were not subject to electric excitation by friction. He also discovered that non-electrics could be transformed into the electric state by contact with disturbed and active electrics. Gray's manifold experiments led to the division of substances into conductors and non-conductors. Du Fay recognised the value of Gray's discoveries, and was one of the earliest men of science to apply them. Gray was led from experiments made with a glass tube and a down-feather tied to the end of a small stick to try the effect of drawing the feather through his fingers. He found that the small downy fibres of the feather were attracted by his finger. The success of this experiment depended upon principles not then in Gray's mind; but he was encouraged to proceed, and found that many other substances were electric. He discovered that light was emitted in the dark by silk and linen, and in greater degree by a piece of white pressing paper. He thus gradually mastered the principle of the communication of electric power from ​native-electrics to other bodies. In 1729 Gray, after many fruitless attempts to make metals attractive by heating, rubbing, and hammering, recollected an earlier suspicion of his own, that as a tube communicated its light to various bodies when rubbed in the dark, it might possibly at the same time convey an electricity to them. He tried experiments with an ivory ball and a feather, and, by studying their attraction, ultimately discovered that electricity could be carried any distance perpendicularly by a thread or other communicator, and (in conjunction with Mr. Wheeler) that a silken line carried at right angles horizontally would continue to conduct the generated electricity to great lengths from the perpendicular course. Gray pursued his investigations alone and with Wheeler, and paved the way for Musschenbroeck's invention of the Leyden phial, the formation of electric batteries, &c. He was the author of several practical papers in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ having been elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1732. He died on 25 Feb. 1736.
[Thomson's Hist. of Royal Soc.; Priestley's Hist. of Electricity; Phil. Trans.]
J. B-y.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pendlebury, James

​ PENDLEBURY, JAMES (d. 1758?), colonel and last master-gunner of England, first appears as comptroller of the first permanent train of artillery on 1 May 1698. He embarked for Holland in 1702 as comptroller of the train then sent out, which consisted of thirty-four pieces, with two companies of gunners, one of pioneers, and one of pioneers. The staff included a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, a major, a comptroller, a paymaster, adjutant, &c. In 1706 he was appointed chief fire-master; in 1708 second colonel and comptroller in Holland; in November 1709 master-gunner of England; in the following month colonel of royal artillery in the Low Countries. He was second colonel and comptroller in Flanders in 1711, and in 1715 he was placed on half-pay of 1l. 12s. 6d. a day. The date of his death is not quite certain. He was the last officer who bore the title of master-gunner of England, which goes back to the time of Henry VIII.
E. M. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pembrooke, Thomas

​PEMBROOKE, THOMAS (1662?–1690?), painter, was perhaps a member of a family of the name residing near Canterbury. He was a pupil of Marcellus Laroon the elder [q. v.], and painted, like him, small domestic or mythological pictures. He executed several for Charles Granville, earl of Bath. A picture by Pembrooke of ‘Hagar and Ishmael’ was engraved in mezzotint by John Smith. Pembrooke died about 1690.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pembridge, Christopher

John Pembridge, a Dominican, according to the DNB.
​PEMBRIDGE, CHRISTOPHER (fl. 1370?), conjectured by Ware to have been a native of Dublin, and to have lived about the middle of the fourteenth century, was apparently the author of ‘Annales Hiberniæ ​ab anno Christi 1162 usque ad annum 1370,’ printed for the first time by Camden in 1607, at the end of his ‘Britannia,’ and again in 1884 by J. T. Gilbert in ‘Chartularies of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin.’ The chief, and indeed the only, authority for ascribing the authorship of these annals to Pembridge, unless we include Archbishop Ussher, who once in his ‘Ecclesiastical Antiquities’ (p. 425) refers to ‘Pembrigii Annal. Hib. apud Camden,’ is Sir James Ware (Writers of Ireland, ed. Harris, p. 83). The original manuscript used by Camden is preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Laud 526). A note on the last page, written by the same hand as the body of the volume, states that it belonged to William Preston, viscount Gormanston, who died in 1532. It was probably given by him to Thomas Howard, second earl of Surrey, viceroy of Ireland in 1520, whose grandson, William, lord Howard of Naworth, gave it to Camden, from whom it passed to Sir George Carew, and afterwards to Archbishop Laud, who bequeathed it to the Bodleian Library. Other copies, but apparently of a later date, are preserved in Trinity College, Dublin (cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 597). It is supposed that Pembridge is identical with the certain ‘nameless author’ to whom Philip Flattisbury [q. v.], and through him Richard Stanihurst (Holinshed, Chronicles, ed. 1587, ii. 59), and also probably Edmund Campion (‘Address to the Reader’ prefixed to his ‘History of Ireland’), were indebted for their information regarding Ireland between 1162 and 1370.
The Latin ‘Annales Hiberniæ,’ which are attributed to James Grace of Kilkenny, and were published in an English translation by the Irish Archæological Society, under the care of Richard Butler, in 1842, from a manuscript at Trinity College, Dublin, ‘agree in substance’ with those ascribed to Pembridge. But Grace's editor, Butler, thinks that ‘the occasional difference of their contents and the constant difference in their language’ render it unlikely that the ‘Annales’ of Grace were merely abridged from those of Pembridge; and he suggests that both were probably ‘translated from some common original composed in some other language than Latin.’ However this may be, the work attributed to Pembridge is by far the more valuable.
R. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neale, John Preston

​NEALE, JOHN PRESTON (1780–1847), architectural draughtsman, was born in 1780. Neale's earliest works were drawings of insects, and the statement that his father was a painter of insects seems due to a misinterpretation of this fact. While in search of specimens in Hornsey Wood in the spring of 1796, Neale met John Varley [q. v.] the water-colour painter, and commenced a friendship which lasted through life. Together they projected a work to be entitled ‘The Picturesque Cabinet of Nature,’ for which Varley was to make the landscape drawings, and Neale was to etch and colour the plates. No. 1 was published on 1 Sept. 1796, but no more appeared. In 1797 Neale exhibited at the Royal Academy two drawings of insects, and sent others in 1799, 1801, and 1803. Meanwhile he was discharging the duties of a clerk in the General Post Office, but eventually resigned his appointment in order to devote his whole time to art. In 1804 he sent to the Royal Academy a drawing of the ‘Custom House, Dover,’ and continued to exhibit topographical drawings and landscapes until 1844. He contributed also to the exhibitions of the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours in 1817 and 1818, and from time to time to those of the British Institution and of the Society of British Artists. Some of his works were in oil-colours; but his reputation rests on his architectural drawings, which are executed carefully with the pen and tinted with water-colours. In 1816 he commenced the publication of the ‘History and Antiquities of the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster,’ which was completed in 1823, in two quarto volumes, with descriptive text by Edward W. Brayley. He next began, in 1818, his ‘Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland,’ of which the first series, in six volumes, was completed in 1824. The second series, in five volumes, was published between 1824 and 1829, and the entire work comprised no less than seven hundred and thirty-two plates. He likewise in 1824–5 undertook, in collaboration with John Le Keux [q. v.], the ​engraver, the publication of ‘Views of the most interesting Collegiate and Parochial Churches in Great Britain,’ but the work was discontinued after the issue of the second volume. Besides these works he published ‘Six Views of Blenheim, Oxfordshire,’ 1823; ‘Graphical Illustrations of Fonthill Abbey,’ 1824; and ‘An Account of the Deep-Dene in Surrey, the seat of Thomas Hope, Esq.,’ 1826. Many other works contain illustrations from his pen and pencil.
Neale died at Tattingstone, near Ipswich, on 14 Nov. 1847, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. The South Kensington Museum has a drawing by him of ‘Staplehurst, Kent,’ made in 1830.
[Ipswich Express, 23 Nov. 1847; Gent. Mag. 1847, ii. 667; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves and Armstrong, 1886–9, ii. 202; Roget's History of the Old Water-Colour Society, 1891, i. 168–70; Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1797–1844.]
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neale, James

​NEALE, JAMES (1722–1792), biblical scholar, baptised on 12 Nov. 1722, was son of Robert Neale, druggist, of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. On 14 May 1731 he was elected to Christ's Hospital (List of Exhibitioners, ed. Lockhart), whence he proceeded with an exhibition to Pembroke College (then Pembroke Hall) Cambridge, being admitted a sizar on 4 July 1739 (College Register). He graduated B.A. in 1742, M.A. in 1746. From 1747 until 1762 he was master of Henley-upon-Thames grammar school (Burn, Henley-upon-Thames, p. 97), which flourished greatly under his superintendence; he also served the curacy of Bix, in the neighbourhood, under Thomas Hunt (1696–1774) [q. v.], the rector, whom Neale describes as having been ​‘a father to me in a thousand instances’ (Præmonition to Funeral Sermon on John Sarney, 1760). He was subsequently curate of Aldbourne, Wiltshire. Neale died in 1792. He left a son, James Neale, who graduated B.A. in 1771 as a member of St. John's College, Cambridge, became perpetual curate of Allerton Malleverer, near York, and died on 10 Nov. 1828 at Botley, Hampshire (Gent. Mag. 1828, pt. ii. p. 571).
Neale was an excellent classical and oriental scholar, but want of means prevented him from publishing very much. In 1771 appeared his translation, in small octavo, of the ‘Prophecies of Hosea,’ strictly literal, without division of verses, accompanied by a scripture commentary, to which a few pertinent notes were appended.
His grandson, William Henry Neale (1785–1855), theological writer, baptised at Little Hampton, Sussex, on 12 May 1785, was third son of the Rev. James Neale (d. 1828) mentioned above. He was elected to Christ's Hospital in April 1793, where he gained an exhibition, was admitted sizar of Pembroke College, Cambridge, on 11 Feb. 1803, and graduated B.A. in 1808, M.A. in 1811. On 8 Feb. 1808 he was appointed to the mastership of Beverley grammar school, Yorkshire, but resigned it in December 1815 (Oliver, Beverley, p. 279). In November 1823 he became chaplain of the county bridewell in Gosport, Hampshire (Gent. Mag. 1823, pt. ii. p. 463), where he continued until 1850. On 5 March 1840 Neale was elected F.S.A. (Gent. Mag. 1840, pt. i. p. 416), but had withdrawn from the society by 1847. In 1853 he accepted nomination as a poor brother of the Charterhouse, and died on 20 Jan. 1855 (Charterhouse Register).
Besides re-editing his grandfather's translation of ‘Hosea,’ with much original matter, in 1850, Neale wrote:
* ‘The Mohammedan System of Theology; or, a compendious Survey of the history and doctrines of Islamism, contrasted with Christianity,’ 8vo, London, 1828.
* ‘The Different Dispensations of the true Religion, Patriarchal, Levitical, and Christian, considered,’ 8vo, London, 1843.
[Information from the master of Pembroke College, Cambridge; W. H. Neale's Preliminary Observations to J. Neale's Prophecies of Hosea, 2nd edit. pp. 5–6; Poulson's Beverlack, i. 467, and Holderness, ii. 286.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neale, Samuel

​NEALE, SAMUEL (1729–1792), quaker, born in Dublin on 9 Nov. 1729, was son of Thomas and Martha Neale. He succeeded to an estate in Kildare county at seventeen, and spent his youth in hunting, coursing, and ‘frequenting the playhouse.’ In his twenty-second year he was deeply impressed by the preaching of Catherine Peyton and Mary Peisley at Cork. He accompanied them on their mission to Bandon and Kinsale, and returned to Cork a changed man. Becoming a quaker minister, he started in March 1752, with an American Friend, on a journey through Ireland, attended the London yearly meeting, and travelled in Holland and Germany. He held many meetings on his own account. In 1756 he visited Scotland, and stayed at Ury, near Aberdeen, with the grandson of Robert Barclay (1648–1690) [q. v.] the apologist. He many times subsequently visited England, but his home was at Rathangan, near Edenderry, King's County.
In August 1770 he sailed for America on a ministerial visit, accompanied by Joseph Oxley [q. v.] He travelled on horseback to most of the meetings in Philadelphia, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, East and West Jersey, New England and New York, and returned to Cork on 16 Sept. 1772.
He died at Cork on 27 Feb. 1792, and was buried in the Friends' burial-ground there on 2 March, having been a minister forty years. Neale married Mary Peisley (b. 1717) on 17 May 1757. She had long been a minister, and in her youth had a similar experience to Neale's. She travelled in England and America, and exerted much influence. She died suddenly three days after the marriage. Three years later Neale married Sarah Beale (d. 7 March 1793). Before his death he prepared the journals and letters of Mary Peisley for publication, Dublin, 1795. His own journals were first published in Dublin in 1805.
[Some Account of the Lives and Religious Labours of Samuel and Mary Neale, forming vol. viii. of Barclay's Select Series, London, 1845. Reprinted in vol. xi. of The Friends' Library, Philadelphia, 1847; Leadbeater's Biog. Notices, pp. 291–306.]
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neale, Walter

​NEALE, WALTER (fl. 1639), New England explorer, was son of William Neale, one of the auditors to Queen Elizabeth, of Warnford, Hampshire, by his first wife, Agnes, daughter of Robert Bowyer of Chichester (Berry. In 1618 he fought under Count Ernest of Mansfeld on behalf of the elector palatine, both in Bohemia and in the Rhine country, and rose to be captain. His difficulties compelled him in February 1625 to petition for a grant of two thousand decayed trees in the New Forest in lieu of a month's pay (460l.) due to his company (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1623–5, p. 487), and in February 1629 he again prayed for relief (ib. 1628–9, p. 480). In 1630 he sailed for Piscataqua, or the lower settlement of New Hampshire, to act as governor of the infant colony at Portsmouth. He promised to discover a reported great lake towards the west, so as to secure to his employers a monopoly of the beaver trade (Winthrop, Hist. of New England, ed. Savage, 1825, i. 38). During a stay of three years he ‘exactly discovered,’ according to his own account, all the rivers and harbours in the habitable part of the country, reformed abuses, subdued the natives, and settled a staple trade of commodities, especially for building ships. On 15 Aug. 1633 Neale embarked for England, and in 1634, at the request of the king, was chosen captain of the company of the Artillery Garden in London (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1633–1634, pp. 230, 443). He applied soon afterwards for the place of muster master of the city (ib. 1611-18, p. 340). After carefully drilling the company for four years, Neale asked to be appointed sergeant-major of Virginia, but George Donne, second son of the dean of St. Paul's, obtained the post (ib. Col. Ser., American and West Indies, 1574–1660, pp. 134–5, 285). He was appointed in 1639 lieutenant-governor of Portsmouth (ib. Dom. 1639, pp. 32, 391).
[Fell's Eccl. Hist. of New England, i. 155, 165, 190–1; Neill's Virginia Carolorum, pp. 87, 132; Neill's Founders of Maryland, p. 184.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neale, William (1609-1691)

​NEALE, Sir WILLIAM (1609–1691), royalist, belonged to the Neales of Wollaston, Northamptonshire, who came originally from Staffordshire, and were the younger branch of the Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Warwickshire family (Noble, Memorials of Cromwell, pp. 11, 15 note, and 32). He was third son of John Neale, grandson of Richard Neale of Staffordshire, whose will was proved in 1610 (Northamptonshire and Rutland Wills, 1510–1652, Index Library). Sir Edmund Neale, knt., who had to compound for his estates as a royalist, and who died in 1671, aged 73, was his eldest brother (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1645, 1647, 1648; Bridges, Hist. of Northamptonshire).
William took an active part in the civil war as scoutmaster-general in Prince Rupert's army. On 3 Feb. 1643 he was knighted by the king at Oxford for bringing the news of the taking of Cirencester by the royalist army; at the relieving of Newark, which was besieged by Sir John Meldrum [q. v.] in March 1644, he fought close to Prince Rupert, who was attacked at once by three ‘sturdy souldiers,’ one of whom, ‘being ready to lay hand on the Prince's Coller, had it almost chopt off by Sir William Neal.’ At the end of the fight he was employed in a parley to draw up the terms upon which Meldrum's forces should retire. He was still in the army in 1659, in which year he seems to have been taken prisoner (Cal. State Papers, 1659, 25 Aug.–4 Sept.)
Presumably as a reward for his services a baronet's warrant was made out for him on 26 Feb. 1646, in which he was specially exempted from the 1,095l. ‘usually payd in respect of that dignity;’ but the grant was never completed. A second warrant of 8 Aug. 1667 (made out to William Neale of Wollaston, omitting the title of knight) seems equally to have failed to procure him the honour which he sought.
He died in Gray's Inn Lane on 24 March 1691, and was buried in St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden. His arms were the same as those of the Neales of Deane, Bedfordshire, and of Allesley, Warwickshire: per pale sable and gules, a lion passant guardant or.
E. G. P.