Author: Penn, Granville
Biography:
PENN, Granville (1761-1844: ODNB)
He was born at 10 New Street, Spring Gardens, off modern-day Whitehall, London, on 9 Dec. 1761 and baptised on 27 Dec. at St. Martin in the Fields, the second surviving son of Thomas Penn (1702-75) and Lady Juliana Fermor (1729-1801), fourth daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Pomfret. They had married at St. George’s, Hanover Square, Westminster, in 1751. Nothing is known of his early education. He went to Magdalen College, Oxford (matric. 1780) but took no degree. He entered government service as a clerk in the War Office and on retirement received a pension of £550 per annum. In addition, in 1834 he succeeded to the family estates at Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire, and Pennsylvania Castle, Isle of Portland, Dorset, after the death of his elder brother John. He married Isabella Forbes (1770-1847), eldest daughter of General Gordon Forbes, on 24 June 1791 at Kingston upon Thames, Surrey. They had three sons and four daughters. He died at Stoke Park on 28 Sept. 1844. Original Lines and Translations (1815) contains the war poem, “The Patriot-Briton, or Invasion. 1797” and an address to Byron, “Lines to Harold.” He also produced a number of translations from Greek and Latin and commentaries on the Iliadand the Aeneid, besides commentaries on parts of Scripture, and some historical studies. His Remarks on the Eastern Origination of Mankind, and of the Arts of Cultivated Life (1798) contributed to William Ouseley’s Oriental Collections, is still worth reading but his Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies (1822) in the Book of Genesis, an eccentric defence of prophecy, chronology, and geology, though and well regarded in conservative church circles, was eclipsed by Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830-33). (ODNB 20 July 2023; ancestry.co.uk 20 July 2023; findmypast.co.uk 20 July 2023; GM Nov. 1844, 545-6; Morning Post 4 Oct. 1844; William Ouseley, The Oriental Collections [1797-1800], 2.1: 65-83, 2: 135-48) AA