Modern English biography

OWEN, JOHN (son of the captain of a small vessel). _b._ Crane st. Chester 14 Nov. 1821; apprenticed to Messrs. Powell and Edwards, cutlers; became a professional musician 1844; organist successively of Lady Huntingdon’s chapel, S. Paul’s, Boughton, St. Bridgets, St. Mary’s, and the Welsh church, all in Chester; known in Wales as Owain Alaw 1863; won the prize for the best anthem at the royal Eisteddfod of Rhuddlan 1850; edited Gems of Welsh melody, 2 series 1862, 4 series 1873; composed The prince of Wales cantata 1862; The festival of Wales cantata 1866; The Welsh harp, national songs 1880; wrote glees, songs, and anthems in Welsh musical magazines; his name is attached to upwards of 25 pieces of music. _d._ Lorne st. Chester 30 Jany. 1883. _Y Geninen_, _Carnarvon_ (1883) 124–30; _The musical world 3 Feb. 1883 p._ 74. OWEN, JOHN BLACKMAN. In the service of Great Eastern railway from 1836, secretary 1850 to death. _d._ 17 Upper Hornsey Rise, London 31 July 1873. _bur._ Great Northern cemetery, Southgate 7 Aug. OWEN, JOHN PICKARD. _b._ Goodge st. Tottenham court road, London 5 Feb. 1832; received baptism by immersion in a pond near Dorking; joined the church of Rome; became a Deist, but afterwards a believer in christianity; author of The fair haven, a work in defence of the miraculous element in our Lord’s ministry upon earth, by J. P. Owen, ed. by W. B. Owen 1873, memoir pp. 1–70. _d._ 15 March 1872. OWEN, JONATHAN. _b._ 3 April 1820; billiard player; teacher of billiards; marker in annual matches between Oxford and Cambridge many years; known as Oxford Jonathan; father of Fred Owen, the actor. _d._ Craven Buildings, Strand, London 26 March 1879. _Bell’s Life in London 29 March 1879 p._ 2. OWEN, JOSEPH BUTTERWORTH (5 son of Jacob Owen, architect, Dublin 1778–1870). _b._ Portsmouth 22 July 1809; educ. St. Paul’s gram. sch. near Portsmouth, and at St. John’s coll. Camb., B.A. 1829, M.A. 1832; C. of Walsall Wood, Staffs. 1835; in charge of Farthingstone, Northants. 1837; P.C. of St. Mary, Bilston, Staffs. 1838–54, also preacher at St. George’s ch. Wolverhampton, on leaving received a service of plate valued at £1,000; incumbent of St. John’s chapel, Bedford row, London 1854–7, when the chapel fell in and the ruins were taken down; preached in Store st. music hall 1857; preacher at St. Swithin’s, Cannon st. 1856; chairman of directors of Royal Polytechnic soc. 1857 to death; V. of St. Jude’s, Chelsea 1858 to death; lecturer St. John’s, Wapping 1858 to death; author of Six plain sermons on the Sabbath 1835; Six lectures on the rite of confirmation 1840; The pottery schoolmaster, a biographical sketch of Silas Even 1852; Diligent in business, a memoir of G. B. Thornycroft 1856; Business without christianity, with statistics and facts 1856, 2 ed. 1858; The mischief and miseries of temper 1857; Cliques, social, professional, and religious, with sketches of the Latch-Key and the Lock-out-the-Town’s libel 1864; The homes of scripture 1865; Men’s infirmities, natural and acquired 1865. _d._ 40 Cadogan place, London 18 May 1872. _bur._ Brompton cemetery 24 May. _Lectures and sermons by J. B. Owen_ (1873), _memoir pp._ 1–96; _R. Simms’s Bibliotheca Staffordiensis_ (1874) 339–40. OWEN, SIR RICHARD (younger son of Richard Owen, West India merchant 1754–1809). _b._ Brock st. Lancaster 20 July 1804; educ. Lancaster gr. sch. 1810–20; apprenticed to Leonard Dickson of Lancaster, surgeon 11 Aug. 1820; matric. at univ. of Edinb. Oct. 1824, where he founded with Gavin Milroy the Hunterian society; studied at St. Bartholomew’s hospital 1825–6; M.R.C.S. 18 Aug. 1826; surgeon at 11 Cook’s court, Carey st. Lincoln’s inn fields 1826; lecturer on comparative anatomy at St. Bartholomew’s 1829; assistant conservator to Hunterian museum at royal college of surgeons 1827, joint conservator 1842, sole conservator 1849; started the Zoological Magazine Jany. 1833, sold it in July; F.R.S. 13 Dec. 1834, royal medallist 1846, Copley medallist 1851; Hunterian professor of comparative anatomy and physiology at royal college of surgeons April 1836 to 1856; Wollaston gold medallist of Geological Society 1838; corresponding member of Institute of France 1839; helped to found Royal microscopical society 1839, president 1840–1; granted civil list pension of £200, 25 Nov. 1842; resided at Sheen lodge, Richmond park, lent to him by the queen 1852 to death; juror of Paris exhibition 1855, created a knight of the Legion of Honour; devised the exhibition of models of extinct animals at the Crystal palace 1855; superintendent of natural history department of British museum 26 May 1856 to 1883, with £800 a year; new Natural history museum at South Kensington opened 1881; Fullerian professor of physiology in the Royal institution 1859–61; president of British association at Leeds 1858; Rede lecturer at Cambridge 1859; awarded the prix Cuvier of the French academy 1857; went to Egypt 1869, 1871, 1872, and 1874; C.B. 3 June 1873, K.C.B. 5 Jany. 1884; granted another civil list pension of £100, 26 Feb. 1884; the first gold medallist of the Linnæan society 1888; author of Odontography, text and atlas, 2 vols. 1840–5; Lectures on the comparative anatomy and physiology of the invertebrate animals 1843, 2 ed. 1855; A history of British fossil mammals and birds 1846; A history of British fossil reptiles, 4 vols. 1849–84; On the anatomy of vertebrates 3 vols. 1866–8; his name is attached to upwards of 50 works. _d._ Sheen lodge, Richmond park 18 Dec. 1892. _bur._ Ham churchyard, portrait by Holman Hunt exhibited in Grosvenor gallery 1881. _Rev. R. Owen’s Life of Richard Owen_, 2 _vols._ (1884) 4 _portraits_; _British medical journal 19 Dec. 1892 special supplement_; _Maguire’s Portraits of distinguished naturalists_, _Ipswich_ (1852) _portrait_; _Walford’s Representative men_ (1868) _portrait_; _Nature xxii_ 577–79 (1892) _portrait_; _Modern thought March 1883 pp._ 97–101; _The coward conscience by Charles Adams_ (1882) _passim_; _Graphic xxviii_ 260 (1883) _portrait_; _Vanity Fair 1 March 1873 p._ 71 _portrait_; _Daily Graphic 19 Dec. 1892 p._ 8 _portrait_; _Strand Mag. ii_ 274 (1891) 3 _portraits_. OWEN, ROBERT (6 child of Robert Owen of Newtown, Montgomeryshire, saddler). _b._ Newtown 14 May 1771; employed by James Mc Guffog, draper, Stamford, Northants 1780–5; a machine maker at Manchester, then a yarn spinner; manager of Mr. Drinkwater’s spinning business, Manchester 1790–4; founded the Chorlton Twist company 1794–5; he and his partners purchased David Dale’s mills at New Lanark on the falls of the Clyde for £60,000, which he managed from about 1 Jany. 1800, in 1814 he and six others bought the business for £114,000; founded schools at his works for all children under twelve, claimed to be the founder of infant schools 1816; gave up the Lanark works 1823; at meeting at London tavern 14 Aug. 1817 declared that all the religions in the world were founded in error; contested the Lanark district of burghs 31 March 1820; retired from business 1819; started the Economist a paper explanatory of the new system of society, No. 1 27 Jany. 1821, No. 26 21 July 1821, succeeded by the Political economist 1823, and The advocate of the working classes 1827; bought the village of New Harmony in Illinois and Indiana with 20,000 acres for £30,000 April 1825, the scheme failed and he retired 1827; edited The Crisis, or the change from error and misery to truth and happiness, a penny paper, No. 1 14 April 1832, last issue No. 20, vol. iv 23 Aug. 1834; opened an Equitable labour exchange at The Bazaar in Gray’s Inn road, London 3 Sept. 1832, which was moved to Charlotte st. Fitzroy sq. 1 May 1833, and ultimately became bankrupt; took part in the seven cooperative congresses 1830–4, and in the 14 socialist congresses 1835–46; published The new moral world 1834–41; presented to the queen by lord Normanby 5 Jany. 1840; published the Rational quarterly June 1853; author of A statement regarding the New Lanark establishment 1812; A new view of society, or essays on the principle of the formation of the human character 1813–4, 3 ed. 1817; The addresses of R. Owen 1830; The book of the new moral world containing the rational system of society 1836; The catechism of the new moral world 1840; An outline of the rational system of society 1840, 9 ed. 1871; Manifesto of R. Owen, the discoverer of the rational system of society 1840, 8 ed. 1841; The signs of the times or the approach of the millenium 1841; The future of the human race 1853; R Owen’s Journal, No. 1, Nov. 2 1850, No. 104 Oct. 23,1852, 4 volumes. _d._ Bear’s head hotel, Newtown, Montgomeryshire 17 Nov. 1858. _The Life of R. Owen_, _written by himself_ 1857, _vol._ 1, _no more published_; _C. Bradlaugh’s Five dead men whom I knew when living_ (1877) 3–6; _J. Grants Portraits of public characters ii_ 163–91 (1841); _H. Martineau’s Biographical sketches_, _4 ed._ 1876 307–15; _Georgian Era iv_ 37–41 (1834); _The Times 9 Aug. 1817 p._ 4, _with A view of the Agricultural and manufacturing village of Unity and Mutual Co-operation_ _8 Jany. 1840 p._ 7, _11 Feb. p._ 7, _26 March p._ 4; _S. J. Hall’s Biographical Sketches_ (1873) 275–8; _Reynold’s Miscellany xviii_ 88 (1857) _portrait_; _G.M. v_ 643–5 (1858). OWEN, ROBERT DALE (eld. son of preceding). _b._ Glasgow 9 Nov. 1800; educ. at the Swiss college of Hofwyl, near Berne 1820–3; joined his father’s community at New Harmony 1825; became a citizen of U.S. of America 1827; published with Francis Wright at New York The free inquirer Nov. 1828 to 1832; member of the legislature of Indiana 1835, member of the house of representatives 1843; chairman of committee for promoting the Smithsonian institution 1846, one of the regents; United States chargé d’ affaires at Naples 1853, minister 1853–8; chairman of a committee to examine into condition of emancipated freedmen 1863; author of Moral physiology 1831, 12 ed. 1870; Darby and Susan, a tale of Old England 1840; Footfalls on the boundary of another world 1859; The wrong of slavery, the right of emancipation, and the future of the African race in the United States 1864; The debatable land between this world and the next