as a serial in the ‘Cornhill Magazine’ (September–December 1878), then under the editorship of Mr. Leslie Stephen. It was immediately published in book form, and was well received. Written in a clear and pointed style, it showed a strong sense of humour and keen perception of character. Melancholy consequent on the deaths of two of Miss Veley's married sisters in 1877 and 1885 and of her father in 1879, strongly affected her later writings. In 1880 she removed to London. The stories ‘Mrs. Austin’ and ‘Damocles’ appeared serially in the ‘Cornhill’ in 1880 and 1882 respectively. ‘Mitchelhurst Place’ appeared serially in ‘Macmillan's Magazine’ in 1884, and there was a two-volume edition in that year, and an edition in one volume in 1885. ‘A Garden of Memories’ ran through the ‘English Illustrated Magazine’ from July to September 1886, and was published in two volumes in 1887.
Miss Veley died on 7 Dec. 1887, after a short illness. She was buried on 10 Dec. in Braintree cemetery.
Miss Veley, who took interest in many things besides literature, was very shy and completely free from vanity. A volume of her poems, ‘A Marriage of Shadows,’ published after her death in 1888, was prefaced by a biographical introduction by (Sir) Leslie Stephen.
[Allibone's Dict. Suppl. ii. 1466; Leslie Stephen's introduction to ‘A Marriage of Shadows,’ 1888.]
VELLEY, THOMAS (1748?–1806), botanist, born at Chipping Ongar, Essex, in 1748 or 1749, was son of the Rev. Thomas Velley of that town. He matriculated from St. John's College, Oxford, on 19 March 1766, and graduated B.C.L. in 1772. He became lieutenant-colonel of the Oxford militia, and was made D.C.L. of the university in 1787. He resided for many years at Bath, and devoted himself to botany, and especially to the study of algæ, collecting chiefly along the south coast. He was the friend and correspondent of Sir James Edward Smith [q. v.], Dawson Turner [q. v.], John Stackhouse [q. v.], Sir Thomas Gery Cullum [q. v.], Sir William Watson [q. v.], and Richard Relhan [q. v.], and became a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1792. Jumping from a runaway stage-coach at Reading on 6 June 1806, he fell and suffered a concussion of the brain, from which he died on 8 June. His extensive and annotated herbarium, illustrated by numerous dissections and microscopic drawings of grasses and other flowering plants, and especially of algæ, which occupy eight folio volumes, was purchased from his widow by William Roscoe [q. v.] for the Liverpool Botanical Garden. Sir James Edward Smith in 1798 gave the name Velleia, in his honour, to an Australasian genus of flowering plants. Velley's only independent work was ‘Coloured Figures of Marine Plants found on the Southern Coast of England, illustrated with Descriptions …,’ London, 1795, folio, pp. 38, with five coloured plates. He is credited with four papers in the Royal Society's ‘Catalogue’ (vi. 131), of which the last is, however, the work of Sir J. E. Smith.
[Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, 1715–1886; Gentleman's Magazine, 1806, i. 588; Naturalist, 1839, iv. 398.]
VENABLES, EDMUND (1819–1895), antiquary and divine, born at 17 Queenhithe, London on 5 July 1819, was third son of William Venables (d. 1840), paper-maker and stationer at 17 Queenhithe, alderman of London, who was lord mayor in 1826, and M.P. for London 1831–2. His mother, Ann Ruth Fromow, was of Huguenot descent. Edmund was educated at Merchant Taylors' school from July 1830, and became the captain of the school. In 1838 he matriculated from Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he was Stuart's exhibitioner and scholar (29 May 1839). In 1842 he graduated B.A., being third wrangler and fifth in the second class in the classical tripos. In 1845 he proceeded M.A., and he was admitted ad eundem at Oxford on 17 Dec. 1856.
Venables was ordained by the bishop of Chichester in 1844 as curate to Archdeacon Julius Hare, rector of Hurstmonceux in Sussex, and remained there until 1853. In 1846 he was ordained priest by the bishop of Norwich. From 1853 to 1855 he was curate at Bonchurch in the Isle of Wight, and for some years after 1855 he remained there, taking pupils. His love of antiquarian research induced him, when an undergraduate, to share in the foundation of the Cambridge Camden Society; in 1845 he became a member of the Royal Archæological Institute, and he contributed many papers to its journal (Archæol. Journ. lii. 198). While in the Isle of Wight he compiled, with the assistance of some ‘eminent local naturalists,’ a guide to the island, which was published in 1860. In 1867 he brought out, mainly from the contents of this volume, a smaller work entitled ‘A Guide to the Undercliff of the Isle of Wight.’
Venables was appointed by Bishop Jackson as his examining chaplain at Lincoln, and continued in that position when his diocesan was translated to London. In 1865 Jackson appointed him to the prebendal stall of Carlton with Thurlby in Lincoln Cathe-
