Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/346

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Pennington
334
Pennington

which he took his title, greatly improved the park, and erected a series of memorials of the Pennington family in the chancel of Muncaster church, where there is an inscription to himself. He died at his seat on 8 Oct. 1813. By his wife Penelope, daughter and heiress of James Compton, esq. (she died by an accident while canvassing Westmoreland for her husband on 15 Nov. 1806), he had three children; a daughter, Maria Frances Margaret, who married, in 1811, James Lindsay, twenty-fourth earl of Crawford and Balcarres, and died in 1850, alone survived him. The title of Muncaster and the seat in parliament for Westmoreland passed to his younger brother,

Lowther Pennington, second Baron Muncaster (1745–1818). Lowther entered the army as an ensign in the Coldstream guards on 4 July 1764, became lieutenant and captain in 1772, captain and lieutenant-colonel in 1778, major-general in 1793, lieutenant-general on 26 June 1799, colonel of the 10th royal veteran battalion in 1806, and full general on 25 April 1808. While serving in America in 1777 he killed in a duel at New York Captain Tollemache, ‘on a foolish quarrel about humming a tune’ (H. Walpole to Countess of Ossory, 13 Nov. 1777). In June 1795 he was colonel of the 131st foot, called ‘Penington's regiment,’ and was soon after placed on half-pay. He lived for some time in Chelsea, and died at his house in Grosvenor Place on 29 July 1818, being buried in the vaults of St. George's, Hanover Square. By his wife Esther, second daughter of Thomas Barry, esq., of Clapham, and widow of James Morrison, esq., whom he married in 1802, he had an only son, Lowther Augustus John, third lord Muncaster (1802–1838). The latter's son, Gamel Augustus Pennington (1831–1862), was fourth lord Muncaster, and was succeeded by his younger brother, Josslyn Francis Pennington (b. 1834).

[Foster's Pedigree of Pennington, Baron Muncaster, privately printed, 1878; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland; Ferguson's Cumberland and Westmoreland M.P.'s, p. 428; Lysons's Magna Brit. iv. p. lxi.; Gent. Mag. 1813, ii. 405; Whellan's Cumberland and Westmoreland, p. 490, &c.; Nicolson and Burn's Cumberland, ii. 20; Jefferson's Cumberland, ii. 228; Ret. Memb. Parl.; Hart's Army Lists; Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; W. Wilberforce's Correspondence, passim; authorities cited.]

G. Le G. N.

PENNINGTON, MONTAGU (1762–1849), biographer and editor, born in December 1762, was youngest son of Thomas Pennington, D.D., rector of Tunstall, Kent (d. at Deal, 26 Nov. 1802), who married Margaret, youngest child of Nicholas Carter, D.D. (she died 16 Feb. 1798), and sister of the ‘learned’ Elizabeth Carter [q. v.] He was educated at home by his aunt. His baptismal name was derived from his aunt's friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu [q. v.], who showed him many acts of kindness, and he accompanied her on a four months' visit to Paris in 1776. On 23 Oct. 1777 he matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, graduating B.A. 1781, M.A. 1784. Having taken holy orders, he was appointed in 1789 to the living of Sutton, near Dover, and to that of Westwell, near Ashford, in December 1803; but for nearly twenty years, beginning about 1788, he resided at Deal with his aunt, in a house which she left to him, and was curate-in-charge of the adjoining parish of Walmer (Elvin, Records of Walmer, p. 111). He was fond of travel, and in 1791 was at Lille, whence the revolutionary troubles drove him to Holland. In 1806 he became vicar of Northbourne, near Deal, and in 1814 perpetual curate of St. George's Chapel, Deal; both preferments he held until his death at Deal on 15 April 1849. He married Mary, widow of Captain Watts, R.N. She died at Deal on 24 March 1830, aged 67, without issue by her second husband.

Pennington was the sole literary acquaintance of Sir Egerton Brydges in his own neighbourhood, and was described by him as a good classical scholar, with a ‘great memory’ and admirable judgment. A manuscript note (probably by Pennington himself, as the copy was that given to him by Brydges) in Brydges's ‘Censura Literaria’ (cf. vol. viii. pref. and vol. x. pref.) at the British Museum states that Pennington contributed all the articles in the section called ‘The Ruminator,’ which are marked ‡*‡, and P.M., and one signed ‘Londinensis.’ Two further essays by him, probably Nos. 77 and 85, which are both signed P.M., are included in Brydges's separate publication, which is also called ‘The Ruminator’ (cf. i. 202–8 and Censura Lit. viii. 82–7).

Pennington was executor and residuary legatee to his aunt, Elizabeth Carter, who left him all her papers. He prepared for press her translation of Epictetus, 4th edit. 1807, 2 vols.; ‘Memoirs of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, with a New Edition of her Poems, miscellaneous Essays in Prose,’ 1807, 2nd edit. 1808, 2 vols.; ‘A Series of Letters between Elizabeth Carter and Catherine Talbot, 1741–1770, with Letters from Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Vesey,’ 1808 2 vols., 1809 4 vols.; ‘Works of Miss Catherine Talbot, 7th edit., first published by Elizabeth Carter, and now republished,’ 1809, 8th edit. 1812, 9th edit. 1819; and ‘Letters