Author: Peter, William
Biography:
PETER, William (1788-1853: ODNB)
Pseudonym Ralph Ferrars
Peter belonged to the class of country gentry. He was born at Harlyn, St. Merryn, Cornwall, the son of Henry Peter and his wife Anna Maria Rous, who had married at St. Swithin’s, Walcot, Somerset, on 24 June 1782. He went up to Oxford, aged 18 (matric. Christ Church 1803, BA 1807, MA 1809) and then moved to London to study law at Lincoln’s Inn. He was called to the bar in 1813. On 12 Jan. 1811 he married Frances Isabella Thomas (1792-1836), an heiress, at Perranzabuloe, Truro, Cornwall; the couple had ten children. As Ralph Ferrars, he published a volume of Poems, of which only copies of the “new edition” of 1823 seem to have survived; and as “a layman,” a collection of Sacred Songs (1828). He also wrote a few political pamphlets. Peter was active in the cause of parliamentary Reform and was elected for Bodmin, Cornwall, in the first reformed House of Commons, but served only one term 1832-5. It was probably soon after the death of his wife on 21 Aug. 1836 that he retired to the Continent and produced some translations of German authors, including Schiller’s William Tell (1839) and Mary Stuart (1841). In 1840 he embarked on a second career in the US as the British Consul for Pennsylvania and New Jersey based in Philadelphia, where in 1844 he married a wealthy widow, Sarah Ann (Worthington) King. In Philadelphia he published an edition of Specimens of the Poets and Poetry of Greece and Rome (1847). He was highly respected as Consul and stayed in that post until his death at home, after a short illness, on 6 Feb. 1853. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. The papers described him as “ gentleman of fine education, a polished writer, a ripe scholar, and the author of several able literary productions.” (ODNB 23 Sept. 2023; ancestry.com 23 Sept. 2023; findmypast.com 23 Sept. 2023; Alumni Oxonienses; The Republic [Washington DC] 8 Feb. 1853) HJ
Other Names:
- Ralph Ferrars