Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/63

 Apsley  at the age of twenty-two, he introduced into it so many scientific improvements that he soon amassed a considerable fortune and was able to devote his time and attention to his favourite mechanical pursuits. His inventions, though numerous and evincing very great ingenuity, were not of the very highest class. Perhaps the most important of them was his centrifugal pump. This procured him a 'council medal' at the [[w:The Great Exhibition principle having been known and acted upon many years before. Another invention of considerable value was a break, employed in laying deep-sea telegraph cables. This apparatus was used in laying the first Atlantic cable. Appold was very liberal in communicating his ideas to others. He was on terms of friendship with many of the chief engineers of his time, and was consulted by them frequently with advantage. He patented but few of his ideas, preferring generally to give them freely to the public. His house was a museum of mechanical contrivances, such as doors which opened at a person's approach, and shutters which closed at the touch of a spring, while the same movement turned on and lighted the gas. Probably, had he been compelled to rely for his support on his mechanical talents, his inventions would have been further developed, and have been brought more prominently into notice than they were. As it was, he was a man of high reputation among his contemporaries, who left behind him but little to keep his name from forgetfulness.
 * 1851 exhibition]], and it is highly commended in the report of the juries on that exhibition. It should be mentioned that the medal was for the special form of pump, the

[Full accounts of Appold and his inventions will be found in the Proceedings Roy. Soc. xv. i., and in the Proceedings Inst. C. E. xxv. 523.]  APSLEY, ALLEN (1569?–1630), lieutenant of the Tower, was youngest son of John Apsley, Esq., of Pulborough, Sussex, and was born about 1569. Coming up to court to seek his fortune, he lost his all at play, and sailed for Cadiz with Essex 1596. Passing, on his return, into Ireland, he became of Munster, married a rich widow, and was knighted at Dublin 5 June 1605 (Carew Papers, 619, p. 160). He next married a daughter of Sir Peter Carew, and was made victualler to the navy about 1610. Having married, thirdly, Lucy, daughter of Sir John St. John (by whom he was father of the celebrated Mrs. Hutchinson), he obtained in addition the lieutenancy of the Tower, 3 March 1617. 'Here,' says Mrs. Hutchinson, 'he was a father to all his prisoners.' Many eminent prisoners were under his charge, including Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir John Eliot, and his wife is said to have provided Raleigh with the means for continuing his experiments. But he was the friend and political ally of the Duke of Buckingham (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv. 310), and Mrs. Hutchinson's statement must be compared with Mr. Forster's detailed description of his rigorous treatment of Sir John Eliot and other enemies of Buckingham ( Sir John Eliot, ii. 469-78, 521). Apsley witnessed Buckingham's will drawn up 25 June 1627, just before the duke sailed for the island of Rhé (Wills (Camden Soc.), p. 91). Apsley himself served with that expedition (1628) and caught a fever, followed by a consumption, of which he died 24 May 1630, aged 61. He was buried in the Tower chapel, where a tablet was erected to his memory. He died deeply involved in debt. As victualler of the navy he set forth in a petition that he had spent 100,000l., which was unpaid at the date of his death. The 'State Papers' throughout the seventeenth century are full of references to this and other of Apsley's debts (cf. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. viii. 148; Cal. Treasury Papers, i. 166).

[Mrs. Hutchinson's Introduction to her Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson; Bell's Memorials of Persons buried in the Tower, pp. 35-36; Cal. State Papers (Dom. 1627-8), p. 499.]  APSLEY, ALLEN (1616–1683), royalist leader, holder of minor offices of state under Charles II, and poetical writer, was the eldest son of Sir Allen Apsley, lieutenant of the Tower, by his third wife Lucy, youngest daughter of Sir John St. John of Lydiard Tregooz, Wiltshire, and was baptised at the church of All Hallows, Barking, on 6 Sept. 1616. His sister, Lucy, married, in 1638, John Hutchinson, afterwards a well-known colonel of the parliamentary army. Apsley was educated firstly at Merchant Taylors' School, Where he and a younger brother, William, were entered as pupils in 1626 ( Merchant Taylors' School Register, p. 115). He afterwards went to Trinity College, Oxford, but did not take his degree of M.A. till 28 Sept. 1663. His father had left his affairs at his death in the utmost confusion, and during Apsley's youth the resources of his family seemed to have been very precarious. His mother married again in the early years of her widowhood, against the wishes of her first husband's relatives, and Apsley played a part in the domestic quarrel that followed. Numerous petitions concerning the financial position of Apsley and his brothers and sisters were presented to the