Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/276

 but he continued to write much on the same theme in both German and English. His last years were absorbed by a work never finished called ‘The Transmission,’ which he hoped would ultimately unite the catholic churches of east and west and the various branches of the Protestant church.

Bunsen, who had unusual musical talents, died at Abbey Lodge on 13 May 1903, and was buried at Leytonstone churchyard. He married on 5 August 1845, at West Ham church, Elizabeth (d. Jan. 1903), daughter of Samuel Gurney [q. v.] and niece of Elizabeth Fry [q. v.]. His eldest son, Fritz, died in 1870; a second son, Sir Maurice de Bunsen, who became British minister at Lisbon in 1905, survived him with two daughters.

A water-colour drawing of Bunsen as a child by his grandmother is in the possession of his daughter, Baroness Deichmann, and an oil painting of him as a German officer is in the possession of the second daughter, Miss Marie de Bunsen.

Besides the works mentioned, Bunsen published: 1. ‘Hidden Wisdom of Christ,’ 1865. 2. ‘The Keys of St. Peter,’ 1867. 3. ‘Die Einheit der Religionen in Zusammanhange mit den Völkerwanderungen der Urzeit und der Geheimlehre,’ Berlin, 1870. 4. ‘Das Symbol des Kreuzes bei Allen Nationen,’ Berlin, 1876. 5. ‘Die Plejaden und der Thierkreis,’ Berlin, 1879. 6. ‘The Angel-Messiah of the Buddhists, Essenes, and Christians,’ 1880. 7. ‘Die Ueberlieferung. Ihre Entstehung und Entwicklung,’ 2 vols., Leipzig, 1889. 8. ‘Essays on Church History,’ 1889. 9. ‘Dic Rekonstruktion der Kirchlichen Autorität,’ Leipzig, 1892.

 BUNTING, PERCY WILLIAM (1836–1911), social reformer and editor of the 'Contemporary Review,' born at Ratcliffe, near Manchester, on 1 February 1836, was only son of Thomas Percival Bunting by his wife Eliza Bealey, whose mother carried on the family business of bleachers at Ratcliffe. Bunting's father, third son of Jabez Bunting [q. v.], was a solicitor in Manchester. His sister, Sarah Maclardie (d. 1908), who married Sheldon Amos [q. v. Suppl. I], joined Mrs. Josephine Butler [q. v. Suppl. II] in her strenuous agitation against the state regulation of vice.

After education at home he became in 1851 an original student at the newly founded Owens College, Manchester, and survived all of his companions save one, graduating there as an associate in 1859. Meanwhile he obtained a scholarship at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. as twenty-first wrangler in 1859, developing during his university career unusual musical gifts. Called to the bar in 1862 at Lincoln's Inn, he gradually acquired a large practice as a conveyancer and at the chancery bar. After 1882 he grew less active in his profession in the presence of new interests, and finally retired from practice about 1895.

From an early age Bunting devoted himself to social reform, political liberalism, and the welfare of modern methodism. He was an active promoter of the forward movement in methodism, and he aimed at the organisation of nonconformity as a national religious force. In 1891 the National Free Church Council was founded at his house, and he was long the lay secretary of the committee of privileges for methodism. He sought to stimulate the educational and social as well as the religious activity of the free churches, and was a founder in 1873 and thenceforth a governor of the Leys School at Cambridge. With Hugh Price Hughes [q. v. Suppl. II] he was a projector and founder in 1887 of the West London Mission, of which he acted as treasurer.

The promotion of moral purity was the social reform which engaged much of his adult energy. He frequently visited the Continent in the cause, becoming an apt French and a moderately good German scholar. The repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was finally achieved in 1886. From 1883 until his death Bunting was also chairman of the National Vigilance Association, which he helped to found, employing his continental influence to extend its operations to every capital in Europe. In politics Bunting was a zealous liberal and admirer of Gladstone, serving on the executive committee of the National Liberal Federation from about 1880 till his death, and interesting himself in the National Liberal Club ; in 1892 he unsuccessfully contested East Islington as a Gladstonian liberal.

Meanwhile in 1882 Bunting became editor of the 'Contemporary Review,' founded in 1862 by the publisher, Alexander Strahan, and first edited by Dean Alford 