and ordered to go on ordinary regimental duty. This meant a reduction of his income to about one-fourth, besides the certainty of never being again employed in the political service, and the nominal cause of his disgrace was the disclosure of documents only known to him in his confidential, political capacity. The disgrace undoubtedly broke his heart, though he made no open or public complaint of his treatment. Cunningham had been promoted captain in the Bengal engineers on 13 Nov. 1849, and he had just been appointed to the Meerut division of public works when he died suddenly near Umballa on 28 Feb. 1851, before attaining his fortieth year.
[Sketch of his career written by himself as a preface to his History of the Sikhs; Gent. Mag. May 1851; Higginbotham's Men whom India has known.]
CUNNINGHAM, PETER (d. 1805), poet, son of a naval officer, was ordained by Dr. Drummond, archbishop of York, without a university education, in 1772. He first served the curacy of Almondbury, near Huddersfield, where he was favourably noticed by Lord Dartmouth, and in 1775 he became curate to the Rev. T. Seward, father of Anna Seward, at Eyam, near the Peak. He became very popular there, and is frequently mentioned in Anna Seward's correspondence. While at Eyam he published two poems, ‘Britannia's Naval Triumph’ and the ‘Russian Prophecy.’ These poems are not in the British Museum Library, but the first of them is noticed in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ lv. 212. When he left Eyam is not certain, possibly not till Mr. Seward's death in 1790. In a letter to the Rev. T. Wilson in 1788, published in Mr. Raine's ‘Memoirs and Correspondence of Rev. T. Wilson,’ he says that he has become reconciled to obscurity, and had refused Lord Rodney's offer of an introduction to the Duke of Rutland, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and also the chaplaincy at Smyrna. He may possibly have left Eyam in 1788 for Chertsey, his last curacy, for in 1789 he published a poem, ‘Leith Hill,’ in imitation of Denham's ‘Cooper's Hill,’ which shows an intimate acquaintance with the neighbourhood. In 1800 he published his best known descriptive poem, ‘St. Anne's Hill’ at Chertsey, which has been twice reprinted, and in July 1805 he died suddenly at the annual dinner of the Chertsey Friendly Society, to which he had been in the habit of preaching a sermon every year.
[Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, vi. 47–67, where are printed three letters of his and a sermon upon him by the Rev. T. Seward; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. viii. 259, where his letter to the Rev. T. Wilson is reprinted; Anna Seward's Correspondence.]
CUNNINGHAM, PETER (1816–1869), author and critic, third son of Allan Cunningham (1784–1842) [q. v.], was born at Pimlico on 1 April 1816. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, London, and in 1834, through Sir Robert Peel, obtained a position in the audit office, in which he rose to be chief clerk. He retired from the audit office in 1860, and died at St. Albans on 18 May 1869. The work by which he chiefly deserves to be remembered is his ‘Handbook of London,’ 2 vols., 1849; 2nd edition in one volume, 1850, containing in small compass an immense amount of original information about places of interest in London, illustrated by quotations from distinguished authors whose lives have been associated with them. All subsequent works on London have been more or less indebted to Cunningham's ‘Handbook.’ For the Shakespeare Society, of which he was treasurer, Cunningham edited ‘Extracts from the accounts of the Revels at Court in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I,’ 1842, and wrote a life of Inigo Jones, 1848. For the Percy Society he edited ‘The Honestie of this Age’ and ‘a poem to the memory of Congreve.’ Cunningham's collected edition of Horace Walpole's ‘Letters,’ 1857, is a valuable work. He was the author of ‘Handbook of Westminster Abbey,’ 1842; ‘Modern London,’ 1851, 3rd edition, 1854; and ‘Story of Nell Gwynn,’ 1852. He also edited the works of Drummond of Hawthornden, with a life, 1833; ‘Songs of England and Scotland,’ 1835; ‘Specimens of the British Poets,’ 1841; ‘Works of Oliver Goldsmith,’ 1854, and Johnson's ‘Lives of the Poets,’ 1854, for Murray's ‘Library of British Classics;’ and Pope's ‘Works.’ He was a contributor to ‘Fraser's Magazine,’ ‘Household Words,’ the ‘Athenæum,’ the ‘Illustrated London News,’ and the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ to which he contributed in 1851 some valuable notes for a new biographical dictionary.
[Men of the Time, 7th edition; Athenæum, May 1869; Additional MS. 28509; Egerton MS. 1787.]
CUNNINGHAM, PETER MILLER (1789–1864), navy surgeon, fifth son of John Cunningham, land steward and farmer (1743–1800), and brother of Thomas Mounsey Cunningham [q. v.] and of Allan Cunningham (1784–1842) [q. v.], was born at Dalswinton, near Dumfries, in November 1789, and was named after that Peter Miller who is generally recognised as the first person who used steam
