upbraids those who ‘cannot travel without a tobacco-pipe at their mouth,’ and who smoke between the courses at meals. Venner died at Bath on 27 March 1660, and was buried in the south aisle of St. Peter's Church, where a ‘massie monument of free-stone,’ with an effigy, was erected to his memory (cf. Pepys, Diary, ed. Braybrooke, iv. 471). ‘He lived to see both his wives and all his children die before him, and left his estate to the relations by his second wife, now in Bath’ (Guidott, Lives and Characters of the Physicians of Bath, 1676, pp. 168–73). Two sons, John and Tobias, graduated in medicine at Oxford (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Gardiner, Reg. of Wadham. i. 62). A portrait, engraved by Faithorne, dated 1660, ‘ætat. suæ 85,’ is prefixed to the 1660 edition of the ‘Via Recta.’
[Authorities cited; Addit. MS. 5520, f. 260; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 491–2; Granger's Biogr. Hist. iii. 89; John Wood's Description of Bath, 1749; Joseph Hunter's Connection of Bath with the Literature and Science of England, 1853, pp. 45, 79; Fairholt's Tobacco and its Associations, 1859, p. 107; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714.]
VENNING, JOHN (1776–1858), philanthropist, born at Totnes, Devonshire, on 20 May 1776, was the son of Walter Venning, a merchant, by his wife Mary Ann. He was educated at Totnes grammar school, and at the age of fourteen was put into the counting-house of Messrs. Jackson & Co., a firm of Russia merchants in London. He went to St. Petersburg in 1793, and made for himself a high position there as a merchant. His interest in the condition of Russian prisons was aroused by his brother, Walter Venning [q. v.], and in 1819, on the foundation of the St. Petersburg Society for the Improvement of Prisons, he became treasurer. After his brother's death (1821) he threw himself with great energy into this branch of philanthropic work, visiting the prisons of Sweden, Germany, France, and England, and making reports and suggestions, which he laid, with some success, before the imperial government. He had much personal intercourse with the czars Alexander I and Nicholas I. In addition to prison reforms, he was able to introduce many needed improvements in lunatic asylums. In 1830 he settled in Norfolk, where he aided in benevolent and evangelical work. He died at Norwich on 11 April 1858. He was married on 13 Sept. 1805 to the daughter of James Meybohm, a merchant of St. Petersburg. She survived him and left issue.
[Miss Henderson's Memorials of John Venning, 1862, with portrait.]
VENNING, RALPH (1621?–1674), nonconformist divine, son of Francis and Joan Venning, was born in Devonshire, perhaps at King's Teignton, about 1621. He was the first convert of George Hughes [q. v.], the puritan vicar of Tavistock (dedication of Mysteries and Revelations, 2nd ed. 1649). He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was admitted as a sizar on 1 April 1643, graduated B.A. 1646, and proceeded M.A. 1650. He held a lectureship at St. Olave's, Southwark, where he had a great repute as a preacher of charity sermons. Ejected by the Uniformity Act (1662), he became a colleague to Robert Bragge (1627-1704), pastor of an independent congregation at Pewterers' Hall, Lime Street, Fenchurch Street, and held this charge till his death. He died on 10 March 1673-4, in his fifty-third year, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. He married Hannah, widow of John Cope of London, and left a son, and a daughter Hannah (d. 7 June 1691). His portrait was engraved by Hollar. Of his style, John Edwards (1637-1716) [q. v.] remarks in 'The Preacher ' (1705, i. 203): 'He turns sentences up and down, and delights in little cadences and chiming of words.' His works still retain popularity; cheap reprints of some of them were issued in 1891.
He published, besides single sermons preached at St. Paul's Cathedral in 1654 and 1656: 1. 'Orthodoxe Paradoxes,' 1647, 12mo; 7th ed. 1657, 16mo. 2. 'Mysteries and Revelations,' 1647, 16mo; 5th ed. 1657, 16mo. 3. 'The New Command Renew'd,' 1650, 16mo; 4th ed. 1657, 16mo. 4. 'Milke and Honey,' 1653, 16mo (added is a second part of No. 1); 3rd ed. 1656, 16mo. 5. 'Canaan's Flowings ' [1654], 16mo (a second part of No. 4); 3rd ed. 1658, 16mo. 6. 'Things worth thinking on,' 1665, 16mo. 7. 'The Beauty of Holiness,' 1665, 16mo. 8. 'Sin, the Plague of Plagues,' 1669. 8vo. Posthumous were 9. 'The Dead yet Speaking, or Mr. Venning's Living Sayings,' 1674, broadsheet. 10. 'Alarm to Unconverted Sinners,' 1675, broad sheet. 11. 'Venning's Remains,' 1675, 8vo (portrait). He was one of the editors of the 'English Greek Lexicon,' 1661 , 8vo (the first lexicon of New Testament Greek giving the meanings in English); his farewell sermon at St. Olave's is in 'A Compleat Collection of Farewell Sermons,' 1663, 8vo; his 'divine sentences' are included in 'Saints' Memorials,' 1674, 8vo (portrait). He prefaced books by William Strong [q. v.], Jonathan Hanmer [q. v.], Theophilus Polwhele [q. v.], and John Goodwin [q. v.]
