Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/87

 of yarn spun by Paul's machine, worked ‘by asses walking round its axis, in a large warehouse in the Upper Priory at Birmingham, about the year 1741.’

Paul patented in 1748 (No. 636) a machine for carding cotton, wool, and other fibres, which contains the first suggestion of a circular or continuous carding engine, and of a comb for stripping off the carding. His claim to this invention is not disputed by the friends of John Wyatt (see, Cotton Manufacture, p. 172). It was tried both in Birmingham and Northampton, and when the establishment at the last-named town was broken up, the carding-machine was bought by a hat manufacturer at Leominster, and was introduced into Lancashire about 1760 (Kennedy in Mem. Lit. and Phil. Soc. Manchester, v. 326, 2nd ser.)

In June 1758 Paul took out a third patent (No. 724) for a spinning-machine, which is described in great detail in the specification and with the aid of drawings. It appears from the patent that he was then living at ‘Kensington Gravel Pits.’ This machine is evidently the one referred to in Dyer's poem of the ‘Fleece,’ published in 1757, and the description corresponds so closely to the drawings in the specification that Dyer must have seen the machine at work. The discrepancy in the dates may be explained by the supposition that Paul had completed his machine before taking out a patent.

He endeavoured to get the machine introduced into the Foundling Hospital, and the letter which he addressed to the president, the Duke of Bedford, was drafted by Dr. Johnson. It is without date, and is printed in Brownlow's ‘History of the Foundling Hospital’ (p. 64).

A letter from Dr. Johnson to Paul, containing a suggestion for obtaining money from Cave, is preserved in the Patent Office Library, London. Others are in the possession of Mr. Samuel Timmins of Birmingham. There are two deeds between Paul and Cave, dated 1740, in the British Museum (Add. Ch. 5972–3).

Paul died in April 1759 at Brook Green, Kensington, and was buried at Paddington, 30 April. He left a will dated 1 May 1758, the probate of which is in the British Museum (Add. Ch. 5974).

[About 1850 Robert Cole, a well-known collector of autographs, purchased a quantity of papers that had been removed from a lawyer's office in Gray's Inn. Among them were several hundred letters addressed to Paul, including thirteen letters from Dr. Johnson, about twenty from Edward Cave, between thirty and forty from Dr. Robert James, besides a number of legal documents bearing upon the history of Paul's inventions. Mr. Cole made use of these materials in the preparation of a memoir of Paul, which he read at the meeting of the British Association at Leeds in 1858. It is published in full in the appendix to G. J. French's Life of Samuel Crompton, 1859, and it forms the sole source of information respecting Paul's career. At Mr. Cole's death nearly the whole of the papers were purchased by the Birmingham Free Library, but before they had been thoroughly examined and catalogued they were unfortunately destoyed in the fire which took place in 1879. A rough list of the papers was published in the Birmingham Weekly Post, 29 Sept. 1877. A number of Cave's letters to Paul were printed in the same newspaper for 22 and 29 Aug. 1891, and some of Thomas Warren's letters appeared in the numbers for 29 Dec. 1891, and following weeks. These letters were purchased by private owners, and so escaped the fire. See also Baines's History of the Cotton Manufacture, pp. 119–141, 172; Cole's Memoir in French's Life of Crompton, p. 249; articles in Centralblatt für die Textil-Industrie (Berlin), 22 and 29 Nov. and 6 Dec. 1892.] 

PAUL, ROBERT BATEMAN (1798–1877), miscellaneous writer, eldest son of the Rev. Richard Paull, rector of Mawgan in Pydar, Cornwall (d. 7 Dec. 1805), by Frances, daughter of the Rev. Robert Bateman, rector of Mawgan and St. Columb-Major, Cornwall, was born at St. Columb-Major on 21 March 1798. He was educated at Truro grammar school and at Exeter College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 10 Oct. 1815. In 1817 he obtained an Eliot exhibition from his school, and on 30 June 1817 he was elected a fellow of his college. He took a second class in classics in 1819, and graduated B.A. 1 July 1820, M.A. 16 Feb. 1822. After having been ordained in the English church, and holding to January 1824 the curacy of Probus in his native county, he returned to Oxford. In 1825 he was appointed bursar and tutor of his college, and during 1826–7 he served as public examiner in classics, but he vacated his fellowship on 11 Jan. 1827 by his marriage to Rosa Mira, daughter of the Rev. Richard Twopenny, rector of Little Casterton, near Stamford. From 30 June 1825 to 1 Aug. 1829 he held the college living of Long Wittenham, Berkshire, and from 1829 to 1835 he was vicar of Llantwit-Major with Llyswarney in Glamorganshire. Paul remained without preferment for some time, but in 1845 he was licensed to the incumbency of St. John, Kentish Town, London. This benefice he retained until 1848, and from that year to 1851 he held the vicarage of St. Augustine, Bristol. Early in 1851 he