Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/287

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Pelling
275
Pelly

autumn of 1678 Pelling was vicar of St. Helen's, London; from 1 Oct. 1678 till the close of 1691 vicar of St. Martin's, Ludgate; from 3 May 1683 till his resignation on 4 July 1691 prebendary of Westminster; and from 1691 rector of Petworth, Sussex. Before October 1679 he was chaplain to Charles, duke of Somerset. He was also chaplain in ordinary to William and Mary, and to Queen Anne. Pelling died on 19 March 1718 (Historical Register, 1718, Chronological Diary, p. 13). His son Thomas was elected from Westminster to Christ Church in 1689.

Pelling was a stout defender of the Anglican church against both Roman catholics and dissenters. He printed numerous sermons which he preached on public occasions, many before the king or the House of Lords at Westminster Abbey. Besides sermons, and a series of ‘practical discourses,’ Pelling published: 1. ‘Ancient and Modern Delusions discoursed of in Three Sermons upon 2 Thess. ii. 11, concerning some Errors now prevailing in the Church of Rome,’ London, 1679. 2. ‘The Good Old Way …’ London, 1680; a treatise aimed against concessions to dissenters for sake of unity. 3. ‘The Apostate Protestant. A Letter to a Friend occasioned by the late reprinting of a Jesuit's Book about Succession to the Crown of England, pretended to have been written by R. Doleman [i.e Robert Parsons (1546–1610) [q. v.],’ London, 1682; 2nd edition, 1685—an attack on the exclusion bill. 4. ‘The Antiquity of the Protestant Religion. … In a Letter to a Person of Quality,’ London, 1687, 2 parts. In the British Museum copy there follows a manuscript tract attacking Pelling's arguments concerning the ‘use of images,’ with ‘Third and Fourth Letters to a Person of Quality’ vindicating them. 5. ‘A Discourse concerning the Existence of God,’ London, 1696; reissued in 1704, when the title-page describes it as an exposition of ‘the principles of the Epicureans and Hobbists of our age.’ It is dedicated to Queen Anne. Part ii., issued separately, with same title-page, London, 1755.

Pelling also edited in 1688 the ‘Dialecticon’ of John Poynet [q. v.]

[Welch's Alumni Westmon.; Addit. MS. 5846, f. 123; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 72, iv. 83, 369, and Fasti, ii. 216; Wedmore's Westminster Abbey, App. pp. 224–5; Dallaway's Rape of Arundel, p. 335; Le Neve, iii. 362; Sussex Archæol. Collections, ix. 86; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Newcourt's Repertorium; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 189, and 12th Rep. p. vii; documents in Westminster Abbey kindly furnished by the Very Rev. Dean Bradley; information kindly sent from the Rev. R. Sinker, D.D., librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Rev. Thomas Holland, rector of Petworth.]

W. A. S.

PELLY, Sir JOHN HENRY (1777–1852), governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, born on 31 March 1777, was eldest son of Henry Hinde Pelly of Upton House, Essex, a captain in the service of the East India Company. His grandfather, John Pelly, was also a captain in the company's service. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Henry Hinde of Upton. John is said to have been in his youth in the navy. If so, he quitted it without obtaining a commission. It is more probable that he was with his father in the company's service; that he had nautical experience of some sort appears certain. Having settled in business in London, he became in 1806 a director of the Hudson's Bay Company, of which he was afterwards successively deputy governor and governor. In 1823 he was elected elder brother of the Trinity House, and, some years later, deputy master. In 1840 he was a director of the Bank of England, and in 1841 governor. As governor of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1835 he was mainly instrumental in sending out the exploring parties which, under Dease and Thomas Simpson (1808–1840) [q. v.], two of the company's agents, did so much for the discovery of the north-west passage and of the coast-line of North America. His share in this work is commemorated on the map, where Cape Pelly marks the eastern extremity of Dease and Simpson Strait. On 6 July 1840 he was created a baronet, on the recommendation of Lord Melbourne. The Duke of Wellington was on friendly terms with him. He died at Upton on 13 Aug. 1852. He married, in 1807, Emma, daughter of Henry Boulton of Thorncroft, Surrey, governor of the Corporation for Working Mines and Metals in Scotland, and a director of the Sun Fire Office, and had by her a large family.

[Gent. Mag. 1852 ii. 527; Ann. Reg. 1852, p. 300; Burke's Peerage and Baronetage; Simpson's Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America during the years 1836–9.]

J. K. L.

PELLY, Sir LEWIS (1825–1892), Indian official, born at Hyde House, Minchinhampton, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 14 Nov. 1825, was son of John Hinde Pelly, esq., by his wife, of the same county, whose maiden name was Lewis. Sir John Henry Pelly [q. v.] of Upton, Essex, was his uncle. Pelly was educated at Rugby, and appointed to the Bombay army of the East India Com-