‘Birmingham Daily Post’ from 1882 until he retired to the country at Broadway in 1900. As a theatrical biographer, Pemberton made his widest reputation, writing memoirs of Edward Askew Sothern (1889); the Kendals (1891); T. W. Robertson (1892); John Hare (1895); Ellen Terry and her sisters (1902); and Sir Charles Wyndham (1905). He was personally familiar with most of his themes, but his biographic method had no literary distinction. An excellent amateur actor, Pemberton frequently lectured on theatrical subjects. In 1889 he was elected a governor of the Shakespeare Memorial theatre, Stratford-on-Avon, and showed much interest in its work. He died after a long illness at his residence, Pye Corner Broadway, Worcestershire, on 28 Sept. 1905, and was buried in the churchyard there.
Pemberton married on 11 March 1873, in the ‘Old Meeting House,’ Birmingham, Mary Elizabeth, second daughter of Edward Richard Patie Townley of Edgbaston, who survived him, with two sons and three daughters.
Besides the works cited, Pemberton published ‘Dickens's London’ (1875), ‘Charles Dickens and the Stage’ (1888), and ‘The Birmingham Theatres: a Local Retrospect’ (1889).
[Edgbastonia, vol. xxv. No. 293; Birmingham and Moseley Society Journal, vol. vii. No. 75 (with portrait); Birmingham Daily Mail, 28 Sept. 1905; Birmingham Daily Post, 29 Sept. 1905; private information; personal knowledge and research.]
PENNANT, GEORGE SHOLTO GORDON DOUGLAS-, second Baron Penehyn (1836–1907), colliery owner. [See Douglas-Pennant.]
PENRHYN, second Baron. [See Douglas-Pennant.]
PENROSE, FRANCIS CRANMER (1817–1903), architect, archæologist, and astronomer, born on 29 Oct. 1817 at Bracebridge near Lincoln, was youngest son of John Penrose, vicar of that place. Both his father and his mother, Elizabeth Penrose, writer for the young under the pseudonym of 'Mrs. Markham,' are noticed separately in this Dictionary. Penrose owed his second name to direct descent through his mother from the sister of Archbishop Cranmer. His aunt Mary Penrose became the wife of Dr. Thomas Arnold [q. v.] of Rugby.
Francis was the original of the 'Mary' in the 'History of England,' by his mother ('Mrs. Markham'). After a few years at Bedford grammar school (1825-9) he passed to the foundation at Winchester College. From early years he had shown a taste for drawing, and on leaving Winchester he went in 1835 to the office of the architect Edward Blore [q. v.], where he worked until 1839. Thereupon, instead of starting architectural practice, he entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, as an undergraduate, and came out tenth senior optime in 1842. With his artistic and mathematical bents he combined repute as an athlete. He thrice rowed in the race against Oxford, in 1840, 1841, and 1842. He was captain of his college boat, which he brought from a low place to nearly head of the river, and was the inventor of the system of charts still in use in both universities for registering the relative positions of crews in the bumping races. More than once he walked in the day from Cambridge to London, and skated from Ely to the Wash. Among his friends while an undergraduate were Charles Kingsley [q. v.], almost a contemporary at Magdalene, Charles Blachford Mansfield [q. v.], John Malcolm Ludlow [q. v. Suppl. II], and John Couch Adams[q. v. Suppl. I], who with George Peacock [q. v.] awakened an interest in astronomy. Through Kingsley he came to know Frederick Denison Maurice [q. v.], and as a young man he saw much of his first cousin Matthew Arnold [q. v. Suppl. I].
In 1842 Penrose was appointed travelling bachelor of the University of Cambridge, and at once set out on an important architectural tour (1842-5). To his skill as a draughtsman he had added command of the art of water-colour, in which he had taken lessons from Peter De Wint [q. v.]. He made his first prolonged halt at Paris, where he visited the observatory, as well as architectural scenes. At Paris, and subsequently at Chartres, Fontainebleau, Sens, Auxerre, Bourges, Avignon, Nismes, and Aries, he sketched and studied industriously. At Rome in 1843 his keen eye criticised the pitch of the pediment of the Pantheon as being 'steeper than I quite like,' a comment which subsequently received justification. Fifty-two years later M. Chedanne of Paris read a paper in London (at a meeting over which Penrose presided), and proved that the pitch of the pediment had been altered from the original design. Penrose stayed six months at Rome, and thence wrote the stipulated Latin letter as travelling bachelor to the University of Cambridge. He chose as his theme the Cathedral of Bourges.
