Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/43

 comprehending the effect of all the Statutes that have been made and put in print, beginning with Magna Charta, enacted Anno 9 H. 3, and proceeding one by one until the end of the Session of Parliament 3 R. Jacobi. … Whereunto is annexed an Abridgment of all the Statutes whereof the whole or any part is general in force and use,’ 1606, 1608, 1618, 1632, 1640, fol.  ‘Collection of Statutes repealed and not repealed,’ 1608, fol.  ‘A Collection of sundry Statutes frequent in use, with notes in the margent, and references to the Book Cases, and Books of Entries and Registers, where they be treated of. Together with an Abridgment of the residue which be expired,’ &c., 1618, 1632, 1636.  ‘The Statutes at large concerning all such Acts which at any time heretofore have been extant in print from Magna Charta to the 16 of Jac. I, or divided into two volumes, with marginal notes,’ &c., 1618, fol.  Pulton was also author of ‘De Pace Regis et Regni—viz. A Treatise declaring which be the great and general offences of the realm, and the chief impediments of the peace of the King and the Kingdom,’ London, 1609, 1610, 1615, fol.



PUNSHON, WILLIAM MORLEY (1824–1881), Wesleyan preacher and lecturer, born at Doncaster on 29 May 1824, was only child of John and Elizabeth Punshon, who both died before their son reached manhood. His father was a member of the firm of Wilton & Punshon, mercers, at Doncaster. His mother was the eldest daughter of William Morley, a freeman of the same town. His maternal uncle Isaac received the dignity of knighthood in 1841, and twice filled the office of mayor. Morley Punshon was taught at the grammar school of Doncaster, and afterwards at a boarding-school at Tadcaster. In 1837 he entered his grandfather Morley's counting-house in Hull, and began to learn the business of a timber merchant. He employed his leisure time in reading, and laid up large stores of knowledge. His mother's death in 1838, and the influence of the Rev. S. R. Hall, led him to consider religious questions, and in November 1838 he joined the methodist society in Hull. At the age of seventeen he began to preach. With others like-minded he formed a society for mutual improvement, and soon displayed remarkable powers of elocution and oratory. Abandoning business pursuits, he prepared for the work of the Wesleyan methodist ministry under the Rev. Benjamin Clough, who had married his mother's sister. After spending four months at the theological institution at Richmond, he was received into the ranks of the ministry at the conference of 1845. Two years of probation were passed in Whitehaven and two more in Carlisle. His ordination took place at the Manchester conference of 1849. During the next nine years he laboured in Newcastle-on-Tyne, Sheffield, and Leeds. From 1858 to 1864 he lived in London (Hinde Street and Islington circuits); subsequently, until 1867, he was in Bristol.

The following five years Punshon spent in Canada, where he presided over the annual conferences, and exercised a supreme control of methodism throughout the dominion. By his powerful influence and unwearied labours the methodist churches of British North America were greatly strengthened. In June 1872 the Victoria University of Cobourg, Canada, conferred on him the degree of LL.D. He returned to England in 1873, and thenceforward lived in London, for two years as superintendent of Kensington circuit, and from 1875 as one of the general secretaries of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society.

Punshon's rare gifts and eloquence soon won for him a high place, not only among his own people, but with the general public. His public lectures, the first of which, on the Prophet of Horeb, he delivered in Exeter Hall in January 1854, greatly increased his popularity. He also developed great administrative talent. At the Manchester conference, July 1859, he was elected into the ‘legal hundred,’ a rare distinction for one so young. By his own exertions Punshon raised a fund of 10,000l. to extend methodism in watering-places, and grants were made from the fund to stimulate local effort. He also raised 1,000l. to relieve old Spitalfields chapel of debt, chiefly by means of his lecture on ‘The Huguenots,’ one of his most brilliant performances. To the mission cause Punshon devoted equal energy throughout life. His last years were spent in presenting and enforcing the claims of the work of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, in superintending the society's missions, in administering its funds, and in directing its agents. He died at Tranby, Brixton Hill, London, on 14 April 1881.

Punshon wrote: ‘Sabbath Chimes, or Meditations in Verse,’ London, 1867. His sermons in two volumes and lectures in one volume were issued in a uniform edition, 1882