of England and Wales. He repeatedly visited Switzerland and Italy, and also made an extended tour in Norway; but his preference was for the scenery of the Scottish Highlands and the banks of the Tweed and Teviot. In 1841 he was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy, and in 1868 he became an academician. He painted also in water-colours, and exhibited occasionally at the Royal Academy and other London exhibitions. He was a keen and skilful angler. He died suddenly at 7 Oxford Terrace, Edinburgh, on 5 June 1884, and was buried in the Dean Cemetery. ‘Moorland, near Kinlochewe, Ross-shire,’ by him, is in the National Gallery of Scotland.
[Edinburgh Evening Courant, 20 Sept. 1847; Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1810–1821; British Institution Exhibition Catalogues (Living Artists), 1810–28; Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1833–47; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School, 1878. For the son, see Scotsman, 6 June 1884; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves and Armstrong, 1886–9, ii. 273; Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1838–1884; Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1861–84.]
PERKINS. [See also Parkins.]
PERKINS, ANGIER MARCH (1799?–1881), engineer and inventor, second son of Jacob Perkins, was born at Newbury Port, Massachusetts, at the end of the last century. He came to England in 1827, and was for some time associated with his father in perfecting his method of engraving bank-notes, and of using steam under very high pressure. Following up the latter subject, Perkins introduced a method of warming buildings by means of hot water circulating through small closed pipes, which came into extensive use, and was the foundation of a large business carried on first in Harpur Street, and subsequently in Francis Street, now Seaford Street, Gray's Inn Road, London. The method was improved from time to time, the various modifications being embodied in patents granted in 1831 (No. 6146), 1839 (No. 8311), and 1841 (No. 9664). In 1843 he took out a patent (No. 9664) for the manufacture of iron by the use of superheated steam, which contained the germ of subsequent discoveries relating to the conversion of iron into steel and the elimination of phosphorus and sulphur from iron. The patent includes also a number of applications of superheated steam.
In later years the system of circulating water in closed pipes of small diameter, heated up to two thousand pounds per square inch of steam pressure, was applied to the heating of bakers' ovens. This has been extensively adopted: it possesses the advantage that the heat may be easily regulated. It was patented in 1851 (No. 13509), and subsequently much improved. He also took out a patent in 1851 (No. 13942) for railway axles and boxes.
He was elected an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in May 1840, but, begin of a somewhat retiring disposition, he seldom took part in the discussions. He died on 22 April 1881, at the age of eighty-one. His son Loftus is noticed separately.
[Memoir in Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. lxvii. pt. i.]
PERKINS or PARKINS, Sir CHRISTOPHER (1547?–1622), diplomatist, master of requests and dean of Carlisle, is said by Colonel Chester to have been closely related to the ancestors of Sir Thomas Parkyns [q. v.] of Bunny, Nottinghamshire, though the precise relationship has not been ascertained, and his name does not appear in the visitations of Nottinghamshire in 1569 and 1611 (Chester, Westminster Abbey Register, p. 120). He was born apparently in 1547, and is probably distinct from the Christopher Perkins who was elected scholar at Winchester in 1555, aged 12, and subsequently became rector of Eaton, Berkshire (Kirby, p. 133). He was educated at Oxford, and graduated B.A. on 7 April 1565; but on 21 Oct. next year he entered the Society of Jesus at Rome, aged 19. According to Dodd, he was an eminent professor among the jesuits for many years; but gradually he became estranged from them, and while at Venice, perhaps about 1585, he wrote a book on the society which, in spite of a generally favourable view, seems to have been subsequently thought by the English government likely to damage the society's cause (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1594-7, pp. 125-6). The book does not appear to have been published. About the same time Burghley's grandson, William Cecil (afterwards second Earl of Exeter), visited Rome; an indiscreet expression of protestant opinions here exposed him to risks from which he was saved by Perkins's interposition. Perkins is said to have returned with young Cecil, who recommended him to his grandfather's favour; but in 1587 he was resident at Prague, being described in the government's list of recusants abroad as a Jesuit (Strype, Annals, in. ii. 599). There he became acquainted with Edward Kelley [q. v.], the impostor; in June 1589 Kelley, either to curry favour with the English government or to discount any revelations Perkins might make about him,
