Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 46.djvu/147

 ’ with the magistrates, and undue partisanship. Accordingly Pope-Hennessy returned to the colony and served out his time, retiring on pension on 16 Dec. 1889.

On his return home, Pope-Hennessy brought a successful action against the ‘Times’ for libel in connection with his administration at Mauritius. During 1890 he bought Rostellan Castle, the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, near Cork, and turned his attention once more to Irish politics. In a letter to Lord Beauchamp of 12 Jan. 1891, resigning the membership of the Carlton Club, he wrote: ‘Though a conservative in principle, I am still in favour of the policy of the Irish party.’ After the split occurred between Parnell and the bulk of the home rule party [see ], Pope-Hennessy contested North Kilkenny as an anti-Parnellite home ruler in December 1890, and, despite Parnell's personal efforts against him, carried the seat by a majority of 1171 votes after a violent contest. Pope-Hennessy's health suffered greatly from his electoral exertions, and he died at Rostellan on 7 Oct. 1891, within a few hours of Parnell himself. He married Catherine, daughter of Sir Hugh Low, resident at Perak.

Pope-Hennessy was ‘an able and typical Irishman, quick of wit and repartee,’ of humane and sympathetic but impulsive temperament. His failure as a colonial governor was due to his want of tact and judgment, and his faculty of ‘irritating where he might conciliate.’ Unhappily, too, his mind worked tortuously, and he never acquired the habit of making definite and accurate statements. Pope-Hennessy published in 1883 ‘Raleigh in Ireland;’ he wrote articles at different times in magazines, and contributed papers to the ‘Transactions’ of the British Association, of the mathematical section of which he was for a time secretary.



POPHAM, ALEXANDER (1729–1810), author of the bill for the prevention of the gaol distemper in 1774, the son of Alexander Popham, rector of West Monckton, Somerset, was born in 1729. His family was closely allied to the Pophams of Littlecote [see, 1531?–1607]. He matriculated at Oxford from Balliol College on 11 Nov. 1746, but migrated to All Souls', whence he graduated B.A. in 1751, and M.A. in 1755. He was called to the bar from the Middle Temple in 1755, becoming a bencher of his inn in 1785; he was a master of the court of chancery from 1786 to 1802, and was made an auditor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1802. Popham was elected M.P. for Taunton in 1768; in 1774 he was last upon the poll, but was returned upon a petition; he lost his seat in 1780, but was returned in 1784, and held the seat until 1796. As chairman of quarter sessions, Popham acquired an insight into the state of the county gaols, and during his first parliament an outbreak of gaol fever killed eight out of nineteen prisoners in Taunton gaol. In 1774 Popham brought forward a bill with a view to mitigating the evil. It was framed in accordance with the disclosures and recommendations of John Howard (1726?–1790) [q. v.], who, at Popham's instance, gave evidence before a committee of the House of Commons on 4 March 1774, and was afterwards called to the bar to receive the public thanks. Popham's bill was ultimately formed into two separate measures. The first of these abolished the fees demanded by gaolers from acquitted prisoners (14 Geo. III c. 20). The second provided for a more efficient control of the prisons by the magistrates; proper ventilation was to be provided; rooms were to be allotted for the immediate treatment and separation of the sick; arrangements were to be made for bathing; finally ‘an experienced surgeon or apothecary,’ at a stated salary, was to be appointed to each gaol, and to report to the justices at quarter sessions (14 Geo. III, c. 59).

The provisions of this last bill were very largely evaded, and little real progress was made until 1784, when the sale of alcoholic drinks in prisons by gaolers was prohibited, and gaolers were paid a fixed salary.

Popham died at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields on 13 Oct. 1810, and was buried in the Temple church.



POPHAM, EDWARD (1610?–1651), admiral and general at sea, fifth and youngest son of Sir Francis Popham [q. v.], was probably born about 1610, his brother Alexander, the second son, having been born in 1605. In 1627 Edward and Alexander Popham were outlawed for debt, their property being assigned to their creditors (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 23 March, 15 Aug. 1627); but the age of even the elder of the brothers suggests that the debtors must have been other men of the same name, the Edward being possibly the man who represented Bridgwater in parlia-