In 1610, on Sir William Fleetwood's disgrace as receiver-general of the court of wards, the office was vested in commissioners, of whom Perceval was one. On the death of his patron and ‘master,’ Robert Cecil, earl of Salisbury, on 24 May 1612, Perceval lost all his employments in England; but on a new settlement of the court of wards being projected in Ireland, he was made registrar or clerk of the court in 1616. He now sold a great part (1,200l. a year, according to Lodge) of his ancient patrimony, and invested the sum realised in purchases and mortgages in the county of Cork, thus laying the foundation of the prosperity and property of his family there. In 1618 he returned to England to secure his appointment against the claims of a competitor, and, though obliged to resign part of his salary, he saved his post and obtained a discharge of all his debts to the crown.
In 1609 his name appears in the list of members of the London or Virginian Company, incorporated on 23 May of that year, and in 1610 he appears as the donor of 37l. ‘towards the supply of the plantation begun in Virginia.’
Perceval died in Dublin on 4 Sept. 1620, in his sixty-ninth year, and was buried in St. Audoen's Church. By his first wife he had three sons and two daughters; by his second, Alice, daughter of John Sherman of Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, two sons and two daughters. The younger son, Sir Philip [q. v.], became his heir, and is separately noticed. The earls of Egmont descend from him.
Richard's portrait and that of his wife were engraved by J. Faber for the ‘History of the House of Yvery,’ 1742 (Bromley).
Richard Perceval was doubtless the author of the well-known Spanish-English dictionary, ‘Bibliotheca Hispanica, containing a Grammar with a Dictionarie in Spanish, English, and Latin,’ London, 1591, 4to. It is dedicated to Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex [q. v.] The name of the author is spelt Richard Percyvall. A copy is in the British Museum Library. A second edition, edited and enlarged by John Minsheu [q. v.], appeared in 1599 under the title ‘A Dictionarie in Spanish and English …’ fol.; this edition appeared in two parts, one containing the dictionary and the other the grammar. A third edition appeared in 1623.
[Cal. English State Papers, Dom. 1599–1607 (where several official letters from Perceval are noticed); Irish State Papers, 27 Sept. 1608, and 3 May 1611; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland ed. Archdall (which takes its facts from Anderson's History of the House of Yvery), ii. 233–238. The figures of income credited to Perceval's employments are contradicted by the sums assigned in the Issue Books, e.g. of 1610 and 1612. Brown's Genesis of U.S.A., pp. 214, 467, 963–4; Granger's Biogr. Dict. ii. 89.]
PERCEVAL, ROBERT, M.D. (1756–1839), physician and chemist, youngest son of William Perceval, by his second wife, Elizabeth Ward of Lisbane, co. Down, was born in Dublin on 30 Sept. 1756. He was descended from Sir Philip Perceval [q. v.], and hence related to the earls of Egmont. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1772, and graduated B.A. in 1777. He then proceeded to Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, and graduated M.D. on 24 June 1780, with a thesis on the physiology of the heart. After studying two years on the continent, he returned to Dublin in 1783, when he was appointed lecturer on chemistry in the university. On 24 Nov. of the same year he was elected licentiate of the King's and Queen's College of Physicians; he subsequently became fellow. In 1785 he was appointed first professor of chemistry in the university of Dublin, and remained in this post till 1805. In 1785 he took an active part in founding the Royal Irish Academy, his name appearing in the charter, and he was for a long period secretary of this body. In 1786 he was appointed inspector of apothecaries, and in the exercise of his functions incurred some temporary unpopularity. In 1785 he also helped to found the Dublin General Dispensary. He now gave much time, thought, and money to medical and other charities in Dublin. He was admitted M.B. and M.D. by Dublin University in 1793.
In April 1799 a committee of the Irish House of Lords was appointed to inquire into the application of the funds left by Sir Patrick Dun [q. v.] Perceval was examined, and he declared that he did not think the King's and Queen's College of Physicians had faithfully discharged its trust in this matter. On the report of the committee, the ‘School of Physic Act’ was passed, the royal assent being given on 1 Aug. 1800. In accordance with this act a hospital, called Sir Patrick Dun's hospital, was built from the surplus funds of Dun's bequest, and it was opened on 25 Oct. 1808. Although Perceval had been censured by the College of Physicians for his share in the promotion of the bill, he was elected president of the college on 4 Nov. 1799. A special clause was, however, inserted in the bill by his own desire, according to which no university or King's professor could remain a fellow of the college. He therefore vacated his presidency
