Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 46.djvu/246

  p. 273; Hazlitt's Handbook and Collections; Seyer's Memorials of Bristol, ii. 216 et seq.; Latimer's Sermons, ed. 1824, p. xxvi; Foxe's Actes and Mon. vol. vii. passim; Strype's Works, Index; Burnet's Reformation, passim; Dixon's Church Hist. of England, i. 237, ii. 246, 250; Lingard's and Froude's Histories.]  POWELL, FOSTER (1734–1793), pedestrian, born at Horseforth, near Leeds, in 1734, came to London in 1762 as a clerk to an attorney in the Temple, whence he subsequently migrated to New Inn. Two years later he commenced his career as a pedestrian, by walking fifty miles in seven hours on the Bath road. In November 1773 he walked from London to York and back, a distance of four hundred miles, in 138 hours. His best achievements, however, were performed in three successive years, 1786–8. In the first of these he walked 100 miles in 231/4 hours, in 1787 he covered 112 miles in the 24 hours, while in 1788 he reduced his time for 100 miles to 21 hours 35 minutes. In 1792 he walked again from Shoreditch to York Minster and back in 5 days 151/4 hours (1351/4 hours), 23/4 hours better than his previous time. The 10l. he obtained for this feat is said to have been the largest sum he ever received. He was careless of money, and his great walks were undertaken for trifling wagers. He was very popular, and was often welcomed back to London by huge crowds. Powell died in straitened circumstances at his room in Clement's Inn on 15 April 1793, and was buried on 22 April in the church of St. Faith in St. Paul's Churchyard. The pedestrian was 5 ft. 9 in. in height, and of sallow complexion. Abstemious at other times, he took brandy to sustain him on his long expeditions. Powell was one of the earliest athletes of whom we possess any authentic records; and he was probably rightly regarded as the greatest pedestrian of his time, or indeed of the century. But most of his feats were eclipsed by Captain Barclay [see ] during the early years of the nineteenth century; and all his records have now long since been broken. Four hundred miles were travelled by G. Littlewood at Sheffield in 1882 in under ninety-seven hours; one hundred miles were walked in 18 hours 8¼ minutes by seconds by W. Howes in 1880.

[A Short Sketch of the Life of Foster Powell, London, 1793, with a portrait by Barlow, which was modified for Granger's Wonderful Museum and Wilson's Wonderful Characters; Chambers's Book of Days, ii. 633; Gent. Mag. 1793, i. 381; Thom's Pedestrianism, 1813; Particulars of the late Mr. Foster Powell's Journey on Foot from London to York and back again [1793], 8vo.]  POWELL or POWEL, GABRIEL (1576–1611), polemical divine, son of David Powell [q. v.], was born at Ruabon, Denbighshire, and baptised on 13 Jan. 1575–1576. He entered at Jesus College, Oxford, in Lent term 1592, and graduated B.A. on 13 Feb. 1595–6. On 2 March 1604–5, being then of St. Mary Hall, and having spent some time in foreign universities, he supplicated for the degree of B.D., but it is not known whether he obtained it. He is said to have been master of the grammar school at Ruthin, Denbighshire, founded by Gabriel Goodman [q. v.], but this seems an error. From 1601 to 1607 he held the sinecure rectory of Llansaintffraid-yn-Mechan, Montgomeryshire. Apparently in 1605 he left Oxford to be domestic chaplain to Richard Vaughan, D.D., bishop of London. In 1606 he became rector of Chellesworth, Suffolk, a crown living. As Vaughan died on 30 March 1607, Wood is in error in attributing Powell's next preferment to his patronage. He was collated on 14 Oct. 1609 to the prebend of Portpool in St. Paul's, by Thomas Ravis [q. v.], bishop of London, and on 15 Oct. 1610 he was admitted vicar of Northolt, Middlesex (then called Northall), by George Abbot, bishop of London. He died in 1611; the exact date is not known, but his successor was admitted to the living on 18 Dec. Wood erroneously supposed that he died in 1607.

Powell's death in his thirty-sixth year cut short a career of great promise and considerable achievement. ‘He was esteemed a prodigie of learning,’ says Wood, and his writings show that he could use it with effect. In power of argument and in command of clear terse expression he ranks high among the polemical divines of his time. It is not easy to account for Wood's blunder in styling him ‘a stiff puritan.’ This classification is adopted by Brook, evidently without examination of his works. Hanbury, going to the other extreme, accuses him of ‘infuriated bigotry’ against the puritans. Holding that ‘the church of England is Christ's true church,’ and that ‘there is no salvation out of the church,’ Powel was equally opposed to the toleration of ‘your Romish church’ as ‘antichrist,’ ‘not catholike,’ but consisting of ‘idolaters and heretikes,’ and to the toleration of the ‘fanatical conceits’ of such as scrupled at ‘the cross and surplice, and such other laudable ceremonies.’ He rejected the term protestant, ‘a name given to certaine Germaines, that protested against … matters certes, that touch us nothing, which never joined with them in protestation’ (see his Supplication, 1604). He was the trenchant antagonist of William Bradshaw (1571–1618)