Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/151

 type Proctor caused to be printed at the Chiswick Press an edition of Æschylus's 'Oresteia,' which (Sir) Frederic Kenyon completed for publication in 1904. In the same type there subsequently appeared Homer's 'Odyssey' (1909).

Interest in the work of William Morris's Kelmscott Press led to a personal acquaintance with Morris, with whose socialistic views Proctor was in sympathy. On F. S. Ellis's death in 1901 Proctor became one of the trustees under Morris's will. Morris's influence developed in Proctor an enthusiasm for Icelandic literature. His first rendering of an Icelandic saga, 'A Tale of the Weapon Firthers.' was printed privately in 1902 as a wedding gift for his friend Mr. Francis Jenkinson, librarian at Cambridge University. He subsequently published a version of the Laxdæla saga (1903).

From boyhood Proctor was in the habit of making long walking tours, usually with his mother. The practice familiarised him not only with England and Scotland but with France, Smtzerland, Belgium and Norway. On 29 Aug. 1903 he left London for a solitary walking tour in Tyrol. He reached the Taschach hut in the Pitzthal on 5 Sept. and left to cross a glacier pass without a guide. Nothing more was heard of him. He doubtless perished in a crevasse. At the end of the month, when his disappearance was realised in England, the weather had broken and no search was possible.

A memorial fund was formed for the purpose of issuing his scattered 'Bibliographical Essays,' including his privately printed tracts. The collection appeared in 1905, with a memoir by Mr. A. W. Pollard. The memorial fund also provided for the compilation and publication of the three remaining parts of Proctor's 'Index of Early Printed Books from 1501 to 1520.'

 PROPERT, JOHN LUMSDEN (1834–1902), physician and art critic, born on 9 April 1834, was the son of John Propert (1792-1867), surgeon, by his wife Juliana Ross. His father founded in 1855 the Royal Medical Benevolent College, Epsom, of which he was long treasurer. Propert was educated at Marlborough College (Aug. 1843–Dec. 1847), and at King's College Hospital. He obtained the diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the licence of the Society of Apothecaries in 1855, and in 1857 he graduated M.B. with honours in medicine at the University of London. He then joined his father in general practice in New Cavendish Street, London, and became highly successful.

Propert was widely known in artistic circles as a good etcher and a connoisseur of art. His house, 112 Gloucester Place, Portman Square, was filled with beautiful specimens of Wedgwood, bronzes, and jewelled work. He was credited with being one of the first to revive the taste for miniature painting in England. His very fine collection of miniatures was dispersed by sale in 1897. He published in 1887 'A History of Miniature Art, Notes on Collectors and Collections,' and compiled in 1889, with introduction, the illustrated catalogue of the exhibition of portrait miniatures at the Burlington Fine Arts Club.

Propert died at his house in Gloucester Place on 7 March 1902, and was buried at Brookwood cemetery. He married in 1864 Mary Jessica, daughter of William Hughes of Worcester, and had three sons and three daughters, of whom a son and three daughters survived him.

 PROUT, EBENEZER (1835–1909), musical composer, organist, and theorist, the son of a dissenting minister, was born at Oundle, Northamptonshire, on 1 March 1835, He studied at London University, graduating B.A. in 1854, and showing a gift for languages; but music was his passion from an early period. After acting as school-master for some years he devoted himself to the musical profession, in spite of strong opposition from his father. Though he had some pianoforte lessons from Charles Kensington Salaman, he was almost entirely self-taught. He acted as organist in non-conformist chapels, and he contributed anthems to a volmne (1872) for Dr. Allon's chapel at Islington, where he officiated (1861–73). In 1862 he won the first prize in a competition for a new string quartet, instituted by the Society of British Musicians, and in 1865 their prize for a pianoforte quartet; this work was occasionally played for several decades. A pianoforte quintet was still more successful. From 1861 to 1885 Prout was professor of the pianoforte at the Crystal Palace School of Art.

In 1871 the 'Monthly Musical Record’