Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/50

 1837. By his lordship's direction a reference was made to one of the masters of the court, who approved a scheme for the administration of the property and application of the income on 31 July 1841. Under this scheme new buildings were erected, and the school became a flourishing place of education. In 1873 a new scheme was approved by the endowed schools commission, in virtue of which, among other changes, a school for girls was established. In 1888, on the removal of the school to a more convenient position on the Hills Road, the old site and buildings were bought by the university for 12,500l. (3 May). The buildings, which at first were only adapted to the purposes of an engineering laboratory, have since been in great part pulled down; but the fine Jacobean roof, part of the original structure, has been carefully preserved. Perse also founded almshouses, which have also been rebuilt; they are now situated in Newnham.

[Information kindly supplied by Dr. Venn and J. W. Clark, esq.; the Perse School, Cambridge (notes by J. Venn and S. C. Venn); Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, iii. 93, &c.; Bass Mullinger's Hist. of the Univ. of Cambridge, ii. 551; Blomefield's Norfolk, iii. 302–3; Willis and Clark's Architect. Hist. of the University of Cambridge, iii. 36, 199, 202.] 

PERSONS, ROBERT (1546–1610), Jesuit. [See .] PERTH, and. [See, fourth and first titular, 1648–1716; , fifth and second titular , 1675–1720; , sixth  and third titular, 1713–1747.]

PERTRICH, PETER (d. 1451), chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral. [See .]

PERUSINUS, PETRUS (1530?–1586?), historian and poet. [See .]

PERY, EDMOND SEXTON, (1719–1806), eldest son of the Rev. Stackpole Pery, and grandson of Edmond Pery, esq., of Stackpole Court in co. Clare, was born in Limerick in April 1719. His family came originally from Lower Brittany, and rose into prominence in the reign of Henry VIII. Educated to be a lawyer, Edmond was called to the Irish bar in Hilary term 1745, and speedily attained a high position in his profession. In 1751 he was elected M.P. for the borough of Wicklow. He at first acted with government, but gradually adopted a more independent attitude, and was teller for the rejection of the altered money bill on 17 Dec. 1753. The journals of the Irish House of Commons bear witness to his activity in promoting the interests of Ireland, and particularly of the city of Dublin, of which he was a common councillor. On 7 Jan. 1756 he presented heads of a bill for the encouragement of tillage; on 28 Feb. heads of a bill for the better supplying the city of Dublin with corn and flour; and on 2 March heads of a bill to prevent unlawful combination to raise the price of coals in the city of Dublin. Most of his measures gradually found their way into the statute-book, but at the time he experienced considerable opposition from government, and at the close of the session 1756 he thought himself justified in opposing the usual address of thanks to the lord lieutenant, the Duke of Devonshire.

In the following session he took part in the attack on the pension list (cf., Memoirs of the Reign of George II, iii. 70), and, in order to secure proper parliamentary control of the revenue of the country, he supported a proposal to limit supply to one year, with the object of insuring the annual meeting of parliament. In consequence of a rumour of an intended union with England, a serious riot took place in Dublin in September 1759, and Pery thought it right to co-operate with government. There, however, appears to be no foundation for Walpole's statement (ib. p. 254) that he allowed himself to be ‘bought off,’ though it is probable he was offered the post of solicitor-general, which was afterwards conferred on John Gore, lord Annaly [q. v.] He displayed great interest in the prosperity of his native city; and when Limerick was in 1760 declared to be no longer a fortress, he was instrumental in causing the walls to be levelled, new roads to be made, and a new bridge and spacious quays to be built. At the general election of 1760 he was returned without opposition for the city of Limerick, which he continued to represent in successive parliaments till his retirement in 1785.

In 1761 he had a serious illness. On his return to parliament he recommenced his onslaught on the pension list. An amendment to the address, moved by him at the opening of the session in October 1763, opposing the view that the ‘ordinary establishment’ included pensions, was adopted by the house, and was the means of wresting a promise from government that no new pension should be granted on the civil list ‘except upon very extraordinary occasions.’ But all his efforts to obtain an unqualified condemnation of the system (Hib. Mag. vii. 668, 800; Commons'