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 PLACE

PODMOEE

Macvey Napier, p. 334) that Wilberforce had his information from the Bishop of Winchester. These are Pitt s most intimate friends, and the story is thus shown to be merely one more pious fabrication about an &quot; infidel s death-bed.&quot; We do not know if Pitt even accepted Deism ; but he certainly lived and died outside Christianity. Walpole, Chatham, Pitt, and Fox, four of England s greatest statesmen, rejected Christianity. D. Jan. 23, 1806.

PLACE, Francis, reformer. B. Nov. 3, 1771. Ed. private schools. At the age of thirteen Place was apprenticed to a breeches-maker, and he became secretary of his trade club and other clubs. He took also an active part in the advanced political societies of the time. In 1795, when the excesses of the French Eevolution brought a blight upon English reform, he opened a tailor s shop at Charing Cross, and his business greatly prospered. In 1796 he co-operated with Williams in producing an edition of Paine s Age of Reason. Williams refused to share the profit with him ; yet, when Williams was afterwards imprisoned, Place helped to support his widow and children. With the return of better days Place s shop at Charing Cross became one of the best known meeting-places of reformers in the metropolis, even after Place retired from actual business in 1817. Godwin, Mill, Bentham, Owen, etc., all knew him. He revised Owen s first work, compiled Bentham s Not Paul, but Jesus, and was on the committee of the British and Foreign Schools Society. It was Place who inspired the run on gold in 1832 which did much to defeat Wellington and secure the Eeform Bill. His greatest service was, however, in the organization and defence of the early Trade Unions and Chartism. Graham Wallas, in the only complete biography of him (Life of Francis Place, 1918), says that after reading Hume s Essays and Paine s Age of Reason he became an Agnostic. Mr. Benn des cribes him as an Atheist, and Lord Morley 609

(Recollections, i, 150) says that he was &quot; regarded as an Atheist &quot; by his col leagues. We may remember that the word &quot; Agnostic &quot; was then unknown. He was, like Bentham and Grote, an Atheist in the sense of rejecting all shades of Theism as well as Christianity. D. Jan. 1, 1854.

PLATE, Professor Ludwig, Ph.D., German zoologist. B. Aug. 16, 1862. Ed. Jena, Bonn, and Munich Universities. In 1887 he was appointed official examiner in natural science for high schools. In the following year he began to teach zoology at Marburg University, and he then made a series of scientific expeditions. He visited the west coast of Europe and South America (1893-95), Greece and the Red Sea (1901-1902), the West Indies (1904- 1905), and Ceylon (1913-14). For a time he was Curator of the Institute of Marine Science at Berlin University, and since 1909 he has been professor of zoology and Director of the Phyletic Museum at Jena University. Professor Plate is a Monist, one of the founders of the Monist League; and he has publicly debated in defence of Monism against Christianity (Ultramontane Weltanschauung und Modern Lebenskunde, 1907).

PLUMER, William, American poli tician. B. June 25, 1759. Plumer was a Baptist minister, who abandoned his creed for Deism. He studied law and was ad mitted to the American Bar in 1787. For many years he was solicitor for Eocking- ham County, and he served eight terms in the State Legislature. He was President of the Senate of his State 1810-11, and was elected to the Senate of the United States. From 1812 to 1816 and in 1817-18 he was Governor of New Hampshire. After 1820 he devoted himself chiefly to literary work and journalism, generally using the pen- name &quot; Cincinnatus.&quot; His Address to the Clergy (1814) gives his Rationalist views. D. June 22, 1850.

PODMORE, Frank, writer. B. Feb. 5, 1855. Ed. Elstree High School, Hailey- 610 Y