Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/395

 and attempts to characterise three classes of ‘natives’—the Cingalese of the coast, the Candians of the interior, and the Malays. The pearl fishery, the town and forts of Colombo, the salt works of the island, the staple commodity of cinnamon, above all, the inland capital of Candy, are noticed in other chapters. Sydney Smith declared the work to ‘abound with curious and important information.’ Percival died in 1826.



PERCIVAL, THOMAS (1719–1762), antiquary, son of Richard Percival of Royton Hall, near Oldham, Lancashire, was born there on 1 Sept. 1719. He was brought up a presbyterian, but joined the church of England; was a whig in politics, and a warm advocate of the Hanoverian succession. In 1748 he wrote two able pamphlets in opposition to the high-church clergy and the nonjurors of Manchester. Their titles are: ‘A Letter to the Reverend the Clergy of the Collegiate Church of Manchester,’ &c., and ‘Manchester Politics: a Dialogue between Mr. Trueblew and Mr. Whiglove,’ &c. In 1758 he generously took part with some operative weavers in a dispute with their masters about wages, and in connection with this matter published ‘A Letter to a Friend occasioned by the late Dispute betwixt the Check-Makers of Manchester and their Weavers; and the Check-Makers' Ill-usage of the Author,’ Halifax, 1759, 8vo. His ‘Observations on the Roman Colonies and Stations in Cheshire and Lancashire’ were read to the Royal Society on 13 June 1751 (Phil. Trans. xlvii. 216), on which occasion Stukeley mentions Percival as ‘a learned person who lives in the north, and has taken a good deal of pains by travelling to search out the Roman roads and stations mentioned thereabouts.’ Nine years later he sent a shorter paper on the same subject to the Society of Antiquaries (Archæologia, i. 62). He discovered that Kinderton was the site of Condate (, Roman Cheshire). In the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for 1752 (xlvii. 360) he has a curious ‘Account of a Double Child,’ a monstrosity born at Hebus (i.e. Hebers), near Middleton in Lancashire. Some of the plans of ancient remains given in Aikin's ‘Country round Manchester’ were drawn by him. He was elected F.R.S. on 25 Nov. 1756, and F.S.A. on 12 June 1760.

Percival died in December 1762, and was buried in St. Paul's Church, Royton. He married Martha, daughter of Major Benjamin Gregge of Chamber Hall, Oldham. She died in 1760, aged 45. Their only child and heir, Katherine, married Joseph Pickford of Alt Hill, Lancashire, afterwards known as Sir Joseph Radcliffe of Milnesbridge, Yorkshire, into whose possession Percival's collection of manuscript pedigrees and other papers passed.

The antiquary must be carefully distinguished from his namesake, Thomas Percival (1740–1804) [q. v.], the physician, with whom he is often confused.



PERCIVAL, THOMAS (1740–1804), physician and author, born at Warrington, Lancashire, 29 Sept. 1740, was son of Joseph Percival, who was engaged in business in Warrington and married Margaret Orred. His grandfather, Peter Percival, younger son of an old Cheshire yeoman family farming an estate they had long held near Latchford, practised physic in Warrington. Both his parents dying within a few days of one another, when Thomas, their only surviving son, was three, he was left to the care of an elder sister. His education was begun at the grammar school at Warrington, but in 1750, when he was ten, Thomas Percival, M.D., his father's eldest brother, a physician in the town and district round Warrington, died, and left him a valuable library and a moderate competency. Percival resolved to qualify himself for the profession of medicine. He was a dissenter, and was known in later life as a staunch unitarian. In 1757 he is said to have been the first student enrolled at the newly established Warrington academy which was founded to give a collegiate education to those who were debarred by the necessity of subscription to the Thirty-nine articles from entering the English universities. On the completion of his course at Warrington he proceeded to the university of Edinburgh, where he formed lasting friendships with Robertson the historian, David Hume, and other distinguished men. While still a student at Edinburgh he spent a year in London, where he became known to many scientific men, and through the influence of its vice-president, Lord Willoughby