Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/277

 and embodied his views in a pamphlet, published in 1826, entitled ‘A Brief Memoir of the Jews in relation to their Civil and Municipal Disabilities.’ In 1832 he gave evidence before the select committee of the House of Commons on Sunday observance, with reference to Farringdon Market. This was afterwards printed separately. He represented Southwark in parliament from July 1852 until the general election in March 1857, when he was rejected in favour of Admiral Sir Charles Napier, and he was again unsuccessful in 1859. He was a frequent speaker in the house, and he introduced a bill for facilitating dissenters' marriages in 1854, 1855, and 1856. In 1856 he brought in a bill to define the law as to crossed cheques, which was passed (19 & 20 Vict. cap. 25). He was a prominent member of the congregational body (cf. Nonconformist, 22 April 1863, p. 309).

Pellatt was twice married, first, in 1814, to Sophronia, daughter of George Kemp of Reading (she died in February 1815); secondly, in 1816, to Margaret Elizabeth, daughter of George Evans of Balham, who survived him. He left three daughters, his only son having died about 1839. His death took place at Balham on 17 April 1863.

[Authorities cited and obituary notices in Times, 20 April 1863, p. 12; Illustrated London News, 16 May 1863, p. 546; Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, xxiii. 511; information communicated by his daughter, Mrs. Rickman, of Addlestone.] 

PELLEGRINI, CARLO (1839–1889), caricaturist, was born at Capua in Italy in March 1839. His father was a landed proprietor there, and on his mother's side he was descended from the house of Medici. He received a liberal education, and while still a youth led the fashion in Naples, and was courted and flattered by Neapolitan society, which he in return caricatured good-humouredly in thumbnail sketches. He was not long in dissipating the fortune his father left him, and on the outbreak of the Italian war of independence he became a volunteer in the ranks of Garibaldi, and fought with him at the Volturno and at Capua. An unfortunate love affair and the death of a sister were the causes of his leaving Italy and coming to England in November 1864. He never saw his native land again. His slender funds were soon exhausted, and he then began to turn to account his talent for humorous portraiture. It was in a very early number of ‘Vanity Fair’ (30 Jan. 1869) that there appeared his first published English caricature, a portrait of Lord Beaconsfield (then Mr. Disraeli). This bore the signature ‘Singe,’ which he soon discarded for that of ‘Ape.’ Mr. Gladstone, one of his best sketches, followed a week later, and was succeeded by several hundred portraits of statesmen and men of the day, drawn almost entirely from memory. He sought his subjects wherever they were to be found—at the club, in the theatre, on the racecourse, in church, and in the lobby of the House of Commons. He himself considered Baron Brunnow and Lord Stanley (afterwards Earl of Derby) to be the best of his cartoons; but those of General Gordon and Sir Anthony Panizzi were equally good. His statuette in red plaster of Robert Lowe (afterwards Lord Sherbrooke) [q. v.] standing on a matchbox, executed in Count Gleichen's studio in 1871, was very successful, and increased his reputation. He had at one time an ambition to excel in oils, but did little beyond painting portraits of Sir Edward Watkin, Sir Algernon Borthwick (Lord Glenesk), R. W. Macbeth, A.R.A., and other friends. He exhibited once at the Royal Academy, and occasionally at the Grosvenor Gallery.

Pellegrini, who was known among his intimate friends by the sobriquet of ‘Pelican,’ was of a gay and genial temperament. He died of lung-disease at 53 Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square, London, on 22 Jan. 1889, and was buried in St. Mary's Roman catholic cemetery at Kensal Green.

His portrait, by Arthur J. Marks, appeared as a cartoon in ‘Vanity Fair’ for 27 April 1889, and one by Dégas belonged to Louis Fagan, esq.

[Vanity Fair, 26 Jan. and 27 April 1889; Pall Mall Gazette, 24 Jan. 1889, by Tighe Hopkins; Times, 23 Jan. 1889; Athenæum, 1889, i. 124; Bryan's Dict. ed. Graves and Armstrong, 1886–9, ii. 769.] 

PELLETT, THOMAS, M.D. (1671?–1744), physician, was born in Sussex about 1671, and was admitted at Queens' College, Cambridge, on 8 June 1689. He graduated M.B. in 1694, and in 1695 went to Italy with Dr. Richard Mead [q. v.], and resided in the university of Padua. In 1705 he was created M.D. at Cambridge, and on 22 Dec. 1707 was admitted a candidate at the College of Physicians in London, where he began practice, and resided in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden; he was elected a fellow on 9 April 1716, was censor in 1717, 1720, and 1727, and president 1735–9. He delivered the Harveian oration on 19 Oct. 1719, and it was finely printed in quarto by S. Buckley of Amen Corner. It is remarkable as the only one of the published Harveian orations which is partly in verse, and the only one in which a knight of the Garter, John, second duke of