Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 46.djvu/276

 pointed to succeed him, demanding as a preliminary the payment of his own disbursements for the parliament and of the arrears of his soldiers (, i. 393–402, ii. 344; Tanner MSS. lviii. 721). Poyer defeated Colonel Fleming, raised forces, marched into Cardiganshire, and declared for the king. He was joined by Colonel Rowland Laugharne [q. v.], who had been the chief commander for the parliament in South Wales. Both confidently expected help from the fleet under the command of the Prince of Wales (, Rebellion, xi. 40). When Poyer heard that Cromwell was to march against him, he boasted that he would ‘give him a field and show him fair play, and that he will be the first man that will charge against Ironsides; saying that if he had a back of steel and breast of iron he durst and would encounter him’ (, ii. 359). On 8 May Laugharne's forces were defeated by Colonel Horton at St. Fagan's, and in June Cromwell laid siege to Pembroke. The town and castle were given up on 11 July, and by the articles of capitulation Colonel Poyer and four others surrendered themselves ‘to the mercy of the parliament’ (ib. ii. 397). ‘The persons excepted,’ wrote Cromwell to the speaker, ‘are such as have formerly served you in a very good cause; but, being now apostatised, I did rather make election of them than of those who had always been for the king; judging their iniquity double; because they have sinned against so much light, and against so many evidences of divine providence’ (, Cromwell, letter lxii.). On 14 Aug. 1648 the House of Commons desired Fairfax to ‘take course for the speedy trying by martial law’ of these prisoners, and on 14 March 1649 it passed a second vote of the same nature (Commons' Journals, v. 670, vi. 164). Poyer, with Laugharne and Colonel Powell, were accordingly tried by court-martial in April 1649, and sentenced to death. Fairfax resolved to execute one only, and Poyer was selected by lot to be the sufferer. He petitioned for pardon, recapitulating his services to the parliament, but was executed in Covent Garden on April 25 (The Moderate, 17–24 April, 24 April to 1 May 1649). Rushworth describes him as ‘a man of two dispositions every day, in the morning sober and penitent, in the evening drunk and full of plots’ (Hist. Coll. vii. 1033 sq.).

At the Restoration Elizabeth Poyer, his widow, petitioned Charles II for a grant to her family, stating that her husband had lost 8,000l. in the royal cause. On 25 Aug. 1663 she was given 100l., and obtained finally a grant of 3,000l. more, payable in instalments of 300l. a year (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1 p. 51, 1663–4 pp. 254, 665, 1664–5 pp. 49, 448).

[Authorities given in the article. Several letters of Poyer are among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library.] 

POYNDER, JOHN (1779–1849), theological writer, born in 1779, was eldest son of a tradesman in the city of London. His mother belonged to the evangelical school in the church of England, and from her he inherited his religious tendencies. For some time he attended a school at Newington Butts, kept by Joseph Forsyth [q. v.] He desired in early life to be ordained in the English church, but circumstances forced him to enter a solicitor's office. For nearly forty years he was clerk and solicitor to the royal hospitals of Bridewell and Bethlehem, and for three years he was under-sheriff of London and Middlesex. The Rev. William Jay [q. v.] of Bath was his friend for over fifty years, and moved by a sermon of Jay and another by Claudius Buchanan [q. v.], the Indian missionary, Poynder set himself to rouse proprietors of East India stock to a sense of the iniquity of the company's policy in encouraging idolatry. For many years he contended almost singlehanded in the court of proprietors at the East India House for the prohibition of the custom which permitted nearly six hundred widows to be immolated every year at the suttee, and the practice was at last stopped by the action of Lord William Bentinck. He investigated the amount of the profits made by the company from the worshippers and pilgrims at the temples of Juggernaut, Gya, and Allahabad, and succeeded in abolishing the pilgrim tax. He never desisted from the crusade until his death, at Montpelier House, South Lambeth, on 10 March 1849. He married at Clapham church, on 15 Sept. 1807, Elizabeth Brown, who died at South Lambeth on 22 Sept. 1845, aged 60. They had several sons and daughters. One of the sons, Frederick, graduated B.A. of Wadham College, Oxford, in 1838, and was afterwards chaplain of Bridewell Hospital, and second master of Charterhouse School (, Wadham Coll. Reg. ii. 358). Poynder's library was sold by Sotheby & Co. on 10 Jan. 1850 and two following days. The collection comprised ‘the first four editions of Shakespeare’ and many volumes with autograph letters and memoranda, including the ‘Phænomena et Diosemeia’ of Aratus Solensis, with autograph and annotations of Milton.

Poynder is best known by his ‘Literary Extracts from English and other Works, collected during Half a Century,’ 1844, 2 vols.;