Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/405

 2 vols. 13. ‘Suggestions for establishing an English Art Theatre,’ 1879. 14. ‘Extravaganzas,’ 1879, 5 vols. 15. ‘Songs and Poems,’ 1881. He also translated or edited: ‘King Nut Cracker, a fairy tale from the German of A. H. Hoffmann,’ 1853; ‘Fairy Tales by the Countess d'Aulnoy,’ translated 1855, 2nd edit. 1888; ‘Four-and-twenty Fairy Tales selected from those of Perrault and other popular writers,’ 1858; ‘An Introduction to Heraldry by H. Clark,’ 18th edit. 1866. For the stage he wrote in all seventy-two original pieces, ten of them in conjunction with Charles Dance, and one with M. B. Honan, besides ninety-six translations and adaptations from the French, Spanish, Italian, and German, and alterations of old English authors.

On 26 April 1821 he married Elizabeth St. George (1796–1846). She wrote several dramas. ‘The Welsh Girl,’ a vaudeville acted at the Olympic Theatre, 16 Dec. 1833; ‘The Sledge Driver,’ a drama, Haymarket, 19 June 1834; ‘A Handsome Husband,’ a farce, Olympic, 15 Feb. 1836; ‘The Ransom,’ a drama, Haymarket, 9 June 1836; ‘A Pleasant Neighbour,’ a farce, Olympic, 20 Oct. 1836; and ‘A Hasty Conclusion,’ a burletta, Olympic, 19 April 1838 (Literary Gazette, 3 Oct. 1846, p. 859). She left two daughters: Katherine Frances, who married, on 19 Nov. 1851, William Curteis Whelan of Heronden Hall, Tenterden, Kent; and Matilda Anne [see ].

[Planché's Recollections and Reflections and Extravaganzas, with two portraits; The Critic, 1859, xix. 444, with portrait; Illustrated News of the World, 1861, vii. 273, with portrait; Illustrated Review, 1870, ii. 353–5; Cartoon Portraits, 1873, pp. 102–3, with portrait; Journal of British Archæological Association, 1880, xxxvi. 261–5; Smith's Retrospections, 1883, i. 43, 94, 257–76; Morning Advertiser, 31 May 1880, p. 5; Athenæum, 5 June 1880, pp. 727–8; Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 1880, xiii. 281, 283, with portrait; Illustrated London News, 1880, lxxvi. 577, with portrait; Theatre, 1880, ii. 95–9.] 

PLANCHÉ, MATILDA ANNE (1826–1881), author. [See .]

PLANT, THOMAS LIVESLEY (1819–1883), meteorologist, the son of George Halewood Plant, iron merchant, by his wife Ann Livesley, was born at Low Moor, Bradford, Yorkshire, and educated at St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, near Durham. From 1849 to 1881 he represented Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son, advertising contractors, in Birmingham. He died suddenly on 31 Aug. 1883. He married, on 21 June 1845, Jane Horne.

His attention had early been turned to the study of meteorology, and for the last forty-six years of his life he kept systematic records. He was author of ‘Meteorology: its Study important for our Good,’ 8vo, Birmingham, 1862. He read a paper before the British Association in 1862 ‘On Meteorology, with a Description of Meteorological Instruments,’ which contained an account of Osler's anemometer, and another paper in 1865 ‘On the Anomalies of our Climate;’ but neither was printed in the ‘Report.’ Plant was a constant contributor to the local press on meteorological subjects, and furnished meteorological information to the ‘Times’ newspaper.

[Athenæum, September 1883, p. 310; information kindly supplied by his son, Mr. W. E. Plant; Brit. Mus. Cat.] 

PLANTA, JOSEPH (1744–1827), librarian, was born on 21 Feb. 1744, at Castegna in the Grisons, Switzerland. His father, the Rev. Andrew Planta, belonged to an old Swiss family, and was pastor of a reformed church at Castegna; he resided in England from 1752 as minister of the German reformed church in London, and from 1758 till his death in 1773 was an assistant-librarian at the British Museum. He was F.R.S. and a ‘reader’ to Queen Charlotte.

Joseph Planta was educated by his father, and afterwards studied at Utrecht and Göttingen. After visiting France and Italy he acted as secretary to the British minister at Brussels. In 1773 he returned to England, and was in that year appointed to succeed his father as an assistant-librarian at the British Museum. In 1776 he was promoted to the keepership of manuscripts. From 1799 till 1827 he was principal librarian of the museum. He granted additional facilities to the public, and during his administration there was a great increase in the number of visitors to the reading-room and the department of antiquities. He was a man of polished manners and catholic tastes, and did much to increase the collections and to stimulate the official publications. He wrote part of the published ‘Catalogue of the Printed Books,’ and much of the ‘Catalogue of the MSS. in the Cottonian Library’ (1802, fol.) From 1788 till 1811 he also held the post of paymaster of exchequer bills.

Planta died on 3 Dec. 1827, aged 83. He married, in June 1778, Elizabeth Atwood, by whom he had one child, Joseph [q. v.] A Miss Planta, probably a sister, who was teacher to George III's children, died on 2 Feb. 1778 (Gent. Mag. 1778, p. 94). Planta was elected F.R.S. in 1774, and secretary to the Royal