Chester, lieutenant in the royal navy; secondly, in 1777, Anne (d. 1802), daughter of Sir Thomas Mostyn, bart., of Mostyn Hall, Whitford. By his first marriage he had a daughter Arabella, who married Edward Hanmer, son of Sir Walden Hanmer, bart., and a son David (d. 1841), who succeeded his father at Downing, and edited his posthumous publications. By the second marriage he had a daughter Sarah, who died when fourteen, and a son Thomas, who became rector of Weston Turville, Buckinghamshire, and died in 1846 without leaving children (on other descendants of Pennant, see Burke's Landed Gentry, 1894, vol. ii. under ‘Pennant of Bodfari’).
Pennant's name stands high among the naturalists of the eighteenth century, and he has been commended for making dry and technical matter interesting. His ‘British Zoology’ and ‘History of Quadrupeds,’ arranged according to the classification of John Ray, long remained classical works, though in point of style and method of presentment they are greatly inferior to the works of Buffon. Cuvier in his memoir of Pennant, written about 1823 for the ‘Biographie Universelle,’ says that Buffon profited by Pennant's ‘History of Quadrupeds,’ 1781, though in the third edition Pennant himself has drawn on Buffon. He describes the work as ‘encore indispensable,’ and praises the ‘Arctic Zoology’ as valuable to naturalists. ‘Pennant's works on natural history’ (says Sir William Jardine, 1833) ‘were much valued at the time of their publication, and contained the greater part of the knowledge of their times.’ Gilbert White published his ‘Selborne’ in the form of letters to Pennant and Daines Barrington.
Pennant's ‘Tour in Scotland’ was the cause of a violent dispute between Johnson and Bishop Percy, who had disparaged the traveller's accuracy. ‘A carrier,’ the bishop said, ‘who goes along the side of Loch Lomond would describe it better’ (Boswell, Life of Johnson, 12 April 1778). Johnson defended Pennant: ‘He's a whig, sir; a sad dog. But he's the best traveller I ever read; he observes more things than any one else does.’ And when in Scotland in 1773 (Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 17 Sept. 1773), Johnson declared that Pennant had ‘greater variety of inquiry than almost any man.’ Boswell thought the Scotch ‘Tour’ superficial, but praised the ‘London.’ Later critics have eulogised the accuracy and acute observation of the Scotch ‘Tour.’ The ‘Tour in Wales’ has less the character of a journal than Pennant's other ‘Tours,’ and his biographer, Mr. W. T. Parkins, considers it his ‘best performance.’ Horace Walpole, in letters to William Cole (Walpole, Letters, ed. P. Cunningham, vi. 86, vii. 464, viii. 2, &c.), sneers at Pennant as a smatterer in history and antiquities who ‘picks up his knowledge as he rides.’ Walpole found him ‘full of corporal spirits, too lively and impetuous,’ though ‘a very honest, good-natured man.’ Pennant's literary industry was immense, and he reckoned that his works contained 802 illustrations prepared under his superintendence. Yet he found time for the duties of a country gentleman. He was high sheriff of Flintshire in 1761, wrote on mail-coaches and the militia laws and headed a ‘Loyal Association’ (against the French) formed at Holywell in 1792. He describes himself as ‘a moderate tory.’ On his estate at Downing, to which he succeeded in 1763, he ‘enlarged,’ he says, ‘the fine scenery of the broken grounds, the woods, and the command of water,’ and discovered a rich mine of lead. In appearance Pennant was of fair complexion and slightly above the middle height. Two portraits of him are preserved at Downing: (1) a picture of him as a young man painted by Willis, a clergyman, and engraved in the 1810 edition of the ‘Tours in Wales;’ (2) a portrait of him at the age of fifty, painted by Gainsborough in 1776, and engraved in Pennant's ‘Literary Life’ and in Rhys's edition of the ‘Tours in Wales’ (cf. Bromley, Cat. Engraved Portraits).
Pennant's principal publications are as follows: 1. ‘The British Zoology,’ 1766, fol.; 4 vols., London, Chester, 1768–70, 8vo; 4th ed. 4 vols., London, 1776–77, 4to; new ed. 4 vols. London, 1812, 8vo. 2. ‘A Tour in Scotland, 1769,’ Chester, 1771, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1772, 8vo; 3rd edit. 1774; 4th edit. 1775; 5th edit. 1790; ‘Supplement to the Tour in Scotland,’ Chester, 1772, 8vo. 3. ‘Synopsis of Quadrupeds,’ Chester, 1771, 8vo. 4. ‘A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides, 1772,’ 2 pts., Chester and London, 1774–76, 4to, also 1790; printed in Pinkerton's ‘Voyages,’ &c., vol. iii. 1808, &c.; German translation, Leipzig, 1779. 5. ‘Genera of Birds,’ Edinburgh, 1773, 8vo; London, 1781. 6. ‘A Tour in Wales, 1770 [1773?],’ London, 1778–81, 4to; ‘Tours in Wales,’ 3 vols., London, 1810, 8vo; Carnarvon, 1883, 8vo, edited by T. Rhys. 7. ‘Indian Zoology,’ twelve coloured plates with letterpress, by T. P.; the plates were given to Dr. J. Rheinhold Forster, who published them in Germany in 1781, with the letterpress translated: ‘Indian Zoology, an Essay on India,’ &c.; 2nd edit. London, 1790, 4to. 8. ‘History of Quadrupeds’ (enlarged from the ‘Synopsis of Quadrupeds’), London, 1781,
