Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/69

 was in intimate social relations with the leading thinkers and public men of the time. He breakfasted with Samuel Rogers and Monckton Milnes. He entertained Lord Spencer, Sir Robert Peel, Gladstone, Carlyle, Whewell, Grote, Galley Knight, Bishop Wilberforce, and Lord Stanhope the historian. His friend Bunsen, who came to England in 1838, was a frequent guest (cf., Memoirs, i. 504 sq.) He attended the meetings of learned societies; he became a F.R.S. on 27 May 1830; was a member of the original committee of the London Library in 1840, and belonged to the Athenæum, Travellers', and Grillion's clubs. He wrote on philosophy for the ‘Quarterly Review,’ on current topics for the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ and on farming for the ‘Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society.’ He was interested in hymnology, and desired to substitute Milman's hymns for those of Sternhold and Hopkins in the church services, a change to which his brother Edward was strongly opposed. He wrote several hymns, the best known of which is ‘Lord of our life and God of our salvation’ (, i. 299). He was a connoisseur of art, and collected prints and engravings as well as autographs.

The whole estate at Pusey was about 5,000 acres in extent, and on the home farm, consisting of between three and four hundred acres of large open level fields, Pusey showed himself a very practical agriculturist. The breeding and feeding of sheep were the points upon which everything on the farm was made to hinge, and the great feature of the management was a system of water-meadows, introduced from Devonshire (Journal R. A. S. E. 1849, x. 462–79;, English Agriculture in 1850–1, pp. 107 sq.). When in the country Pusey was up at six in the morning, superintending all the operations of the farm. He was an excellent landlord. He improved or rebuilt the labourers' cottages, obtaining the assistance of George Edmund Street, R.A. [q. v.], in the designs; he provided them with allotments, and he organised works to keep them in constant employ. He tried innumerable agricultural experiments, and frequently arranged for trials of implements on the estate. At a trial held at Pusey in August 1851, M'Cormick's reaping machine was first introduced into this country. Pusey was fond of sport, and was one of the best whips in England, once driving a four-in-hand over the Alps.

In 1851 Pusey was chairman of the agricultural implement department of the Great Exhibition, and, as a royal commissioner, came much into contact with Prince Albert. He wrote a masterly report on the implement section of the exhibition (printed in the reports of the royal commission, and reproduced in the ‘Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society,’ vol. xii.) On midsummer day 1851 he brought some five hundred of his labourers to London to see the great show. A silver snuff-box was presented to Pusey in memory of this visit, and there is still in almost every cottage in Pusey an engraving with his portrait and autograph, and a representation of the snuff-box beneath. In 1853 the honorary degree of D.C.L. was conferred on him by Oxford University. But from the autumn of 1852 the long illness of his wife withdrew him from public affairs. On her death, 13 Nov. 1854, he removed to his brother's house at Christ-Church, Oxford, where within a week a stroke of paralysis disabled him. He died after a second stroke, at the age of 56, on 9 July 1855.

According to Disraeli, ‘Pusey was, both by his lineage, his estate, his rare accomplishments and fine abilities, one of the most distinguished country gentlemen who ever sat in the House of Commons’ (, ccxxv. 450–7). Bunsen said of him, ‘Pusey is a most unique union of a practical Englishman and an intellectual German, so that when speaking in one capacity, one might think he had lost sight of the other’ (Memoirs, i. 522); while Sir Thomas Acland, one of Pusey's executors, replying on behalf of the family to a resolution of sympathy from the Royal Agricultural Society, wrote that ‘by a rare union of endowments he did much to win for agriculture a worthy place among the intellectual pursuits of the present day’ (Journal R. A. S. E. xvi. 608). In addition to the pamphlets already referred to, with one of 1851 entitled ‘The Improvement of Farming: what ought Landlords and Farmers to do?’ and unsigned articles in the ‘Quarterly Review’ and ‘Morning Chronicle,’ Pusey contributed forty-seven signed articles to the ‘Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society.’ Many of these were on minor questions, like the application of particular kinds of manure, different systems of cultivation and drainage, agricultural implements and crops, and the breeding and feeding of sheep. His more important papers were on ‘The State of Agriculture in 1839’ and ‘An Experimental Inquiry on Draught in Ploughing’ (1839, vol. i.); ‘Progress of Agricultural Knowledge during the last Four Years’ (1842, vol. iii.); ‘Agricultural Improvements of Lincolnshire’ (1843, vol. iv.); ‘Theory and Practice of Water Meadows’ (1849, vol. x.); ‘Progress of Agricultural Knowledge during last Eight Years’ (1850, vol. xi.); ‘Report on the Agricultural Implements at the Great