Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/191

  from the Wynsstay and Hengwrt libraries (Myvyrian Arch. 2nd ed. p. xii). Panton's collection was deposited in the library of his residence, Plâs Gwyn, in the parish of Llan Edwen, Anglesey, North Wales (, Topogr. Dict. of Wales, ‘Llan Edwen’), and was opened freely to antiquaries. Panton died in 1797. The manuscripts were left to his son, Paul Panton of Plâs Gwyn, who allowed the editors of ‘The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales’ to make free use of them for that work (Preface, dated 1801). In 1852 the manuscripts were described (, Dict. of Eminent Welshmen, s.v. ‘Panton’) as still in the library at Plâs Gwyn. In 1875 many of the manuscripts were said to be in the possession of Paul Panton, R.N., of Garreglwyd, Holyhead, Anglesey, a descendant of the original owner (, County Families of Wales, 1875, i. 47).

[Authorities cited above.]  PANTON, THOMAS (d. 1685), gambler, was youngest son of John Panton, the representative of an old Leicestershire family, living at Ashby-de-la-Zouch. When the nucleus of a regular army was formed by Charles II in 1661, Panton, who appears to have attended the king abroad and already enjoyed a titular colonelcy, obtained a commission in his majesty's life-guards, and also held a captaincy in the foot-guards. He drew his pay from both regiments till 1667, when, having become a Roman catholic, he resigned his commissions into the king's hands during a review in St. James's Park. He won the favour of several of the ladies about the court, and relieved them of considerable sums at the card-table. Some of his gallantries are recorded by Lucas, but it was as a card-player that Panton really excelled. ‘There was no game,’ says Lucas, ‘but what he was an absolute artist at it, either upon the Square or Foul play. … His chief game was Hazard, and in one night at this play he won as many thousand pounds as purchased him an estate of above 1,500l. a year.’ After this coup, Panton married, bought the manor of Cuxhall in Bucknall, and other estates in Herefordshire, and entirely abjured all games of chance. He speculated, however, in property about London, bought from Mrs. Baker, about 1670, the well-known seventeenth-century gaming-house known as ‘Piccadilly Hall,’ improved this property, and in 1671 began building a ‘fair street of good houses,’ now known as Panton Street, between the Haymarket and Hedge Lane (Dorset Street). He died in 1685, and was buried on 26 Oct. of that year in Westminster Abbey. His widow Dorothy resided in ‘a capital mansion on the east side of the Haymarket’ until her death on 1 April 1725, at the age of eighty-four; she was buried by the side of her husband on 5 April. Her will, dated 1 June 1722, was proved on 8 April 1725 by her eldest son, Brigadier-general Thomas Panton. The latter carried intelligence of the battle of Blenheim to the States-General (, Anne, p. 154), was severely wounded at Malplaquet on 11 Sept. 1709 (, Mem. Milit. ix. 370), took the news of the capture of Douay to the court of St. James's in 1710, and returned to the camp at Bouchain in September 1711, bearing the queen's inquiries as to Marlborough's health (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. App. p. 143). He became major-general 1 May 1730, lieutenant-general 5 Nov. 1735, and died 20 July 1753, the oldest general in the army (, Political Index, ii. 130; Gent. Mag. 1753, p. 344). Panton's eldest daughter, Elizabeth (d. 1700), married about 1679 Henry, fifth lord Arundell of Wardour. Another daughter, Dorothy, married, in 1675, William Stanley of Chelsea, and predeceased her husband, who died of delirium tremens, under strange circumstances, in 1691 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 13th Rep. App. v. 347).

[Lucas's Memoirs of Celebrated Gamesters, pp. 59–67; Chester's Westminster Abbey Registers, pp. 214, 313; Remembrancia City of London, 1878, p. 19 n.; D'Alton's Army Lists, pt. i. pp. 1, 27; Letter-books of John Hervey, first earl of Bristol, 1895; Wheatley and Cunningham's London, iii. 26–7; Thornbury's London, Old and New, vol. iv.; G.E.C.'s Peerage, i. 158; Luttrell's Brief Hist. Relation, vi. 393; Timbs's Century of Anecdote, i. 37.]  PANTON, THOMAS (1731–1808), sportsman, born in 1731, was son of Thomas Panton, who was master of the king's running-horses at Newmarket. A sister, Mary, married in 1750 Peregrine Bertie, fourth duke of Ancaster. Thomas Panton the younger lived as a country gentleman at Fen Ditton in Cambridgeshire, and was high sheriff for that county in 1789. He kept foxhounds, and is said once to have killed a fox close to the Rubbing House at Newmarket, after a twenty-five mile run without a check. The time, unhappily, is not recorded. His chief reputation was gained as an owner of racehorses; he was a member of the Jockey Club in 1753, within a few years of its foundation, and figured conspicuously on the turf until his death. That he enjoyed a good character may be assumed from the fact that the author of that scurrilous book ‘The Jockey Club’ (1792) could find no harm to say of him. ‘Tommy