Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/302

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Lindsay (the twenty-sixth Earl of Crawford), experiments on photographic irradiation (Monthly Notices Royal Astr. Soc. xxxii. 313), and in 1886 he investigated the relation between brightness of object, time of exposure, and intensity of photographic action (ib. xlvi. 305).

Ranyard, who was unmarried, lived a somewhat retired life of laborious industry. He was a man of generous spirit, extremely conscientious, and completely devoted to duty. He died of cancer, at his house in Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, on 14 Dec. 1894. A portrait is given in ‘Knowledge’ for February 1895.

[Men of the Time; Life of A. De Morgan, p. 281; Knowledge, vols. xii.–xvii.; Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers, vol. viii.]

W. H. W.

RANYARD, ELLEN HENRIETTA (1810–1879), founder of the female bible mission, born in the district of Nine Elms, London, on 9 Jan. 1810, was eldest daughter of John Bazley White, cement maker. At the age of sixteen she and a friend, Elizabeth Saunders, caught a fever while visiting the sick poor. Her friend died, and from that time Miss White regularly visited the poor, collected pence for supplying them with bibles, and interested herself in the bible society. After her family removed to Swanscombe in Kent, she married there, on 10 Jan. 1839, Benjamin Ranyard. In 1852 she wrote ‘The Book and its Story, a Narrative for the Young, on occasion of the Jubilee of the British and Foreign Bible Society. By L. N. R., with an Introductory Preface by the Rev. Thomas Phillips, Jubilee Secretary.’ The book proved extraordinarily popular. In 1857, with her husband and family, she took up her residence at 13 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, London. Soon afterwards she founded, in Seven Dials, a missionary society for the supply of bibles, and described her labours in a periodical, which she supported, called ‘The Book and its Missions, past and present’ (vols. i. to ix. 1856–64). From 1865 the magazine was wholly devoted to furthering her mission, and was renamed ‘The Missing Link Magazine, or Bible Work at Home and Abroad’ (1865–79). In 1879 upwards of 170 bible women were employed in the work of the mission. In 1868 Mrs. Ranyard commenced training nurses, and eighty were ultimately engaged in attending on sick poor in the poorest districts of London. She died, of bronchitis, at 13 Hunter Street, London, on 11 Feb. 1879. Mrs. Ranyard's work was continued as the London Bible and Domestic Female Mission, whose doings are chronicled in ‘Bible Work at Home and Abroad,’ vol. i. 1884. Her husband died a month later, on 10 March 1879, aged 86. Both were buried in Norwood cemetery. Her son, Arthur Cowper Ranyard [q. v.], is noticed separately.

Under the signature of L. N. R., besides tracts and short stories, Mrs. Ranyard wrote: 1. ‘Nineveh and its Relics in the British Museum,’ 1852. 2. ‘The Bible Collectors, or Principles in Practice,’ 1854. 3. ‘Leaves from Life,’ 1855. 4. ‘The Missing Link, or Bible Women in the Homes of the London Poor,’ 1859. 5. ‘Life Work, or the Link and the Rivet,’ 1861. 6. ‘The True Institution of Sisterhood, or a Message and its Messengers,’ 1862. 7. ‘Stones crying out and Rock-Witness to the Narratives of the Bible concerning the Times of the Jews,’ 1865; 2nd edit. 1865. 8. ‘London and Ten Years Work in it,’ 1868. 9. ‘The Missing Link Tracts Series,’ 1871, a set of seven tracts. 10. ‘The Border Land, and other Poems,’ 1876.

[The World's Workers, 1885, memoir of E. H. Ranyard, pp. 99–128, with portrait; Woman's Work, 1879, viii. 103–7; Watchman, 19 Feb. 1879, p. 60; Hamst's Fictit. Names, p. 85; information from the late Arthur Cowper Ranyard, esq., barrister-at-law.]

G. C. B.

RAPER, HENRY (1767–1845), admiral, born in 1767, entered the navy in February 1780, on board the Berwick, which in July joined the flag of Sir George Rodney in the West Indies. Returning in 1781, he took part in the battle on the Doggerbank on 5 Aug. Raper afterwards served in the Cambridge, and in her was at the relief of Gibraltar by Lord Howe in October 1782. He then joined the Marquis de Seignelay, with Commander John Hunter (1738–1821) [q. v.], his former shipmate in the Berwick, and remained in her till 1785. From 1785 to 1788 he was in the Salisbury, the flagship of Rear-admiral John Elliot [q. v.], at Newfoundland, and afterwards in the Impregnable and Queen Charlotte in the Channel till 22 Nov. 1790, when he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. Through 1791 he served in the Vesuvius bomb, and in October 1793 was appointed to the Queen Charlotte, flagship of Earl Howe, to whom he acted as signal lieutenant in May and on 1 June 1794. On 4 July he was promoted to be commander, and in September, on the recommendation of Howe, was appointed signal officer on the staff of Vice-admiral de Valle, of the Portuguese squadron acting in conjunction with Howe. On resigning this post in December, he was presented with a diamond-hilted sword. In November 1795 he commanded the Racoon