PLIMER, ANDREW (c. 1763–1837), English miniature painter, was the son of a clock-maker at Wellington. Disliking his father’s business, he and his brother Nathaniel joined a party of gypsies and wandered about with them, eventually reaching London, where he presented himself to Mrs Cosway in 1781 and was engaged by her as a studio boy. His skill in painting was quickly detected by Cosway, who sent him to a friend to learn drawing, and then received him into his own studio, where he remained until 1785, when he set up for himself in Great Maddox Street. It was of this artist that Cosway said “Andrew will be my Elisha,” adding with characteristic vanity, “if I am not constrained to carry my mantle up to Paradise with me.” Plimer married Joanna Louisa Knight, whose sister, Mary Ann, was his pupil and a well-known artist. He had five children, only one of whom, Louisa, married. He exhibited many times in the Royal Academy, resided for a time in Exeter. travelled a good deal through England, and died at Brighton and was buried at Hove. His miniatures are of great brilliance and in considerable demand among collectors. They are to be distinguished by the peculiar wiry treatment of the hair, and by the large full expressive eyes Plimer invariably gave to his female sitters, eyes resembling those of his own wife and daughters.
See Andrew and Nathaniel Plimer, by G. C. Williamson (London, 1903). (G. C. W.)
PLIMER, NATHANIEL (1754–c. 1822), English miniature painter, was the brother of Andrew Plimer (q.v.). He worked for a while with Henry Bone the enameller, eventually entering Cosway’s studio. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1787 until 1815, when he is lost sight of, although he is said to have lived until 1822. He had four daughters, one of whom married the painter, Andrew Geddes, and left children. He exhibited twenty-six works, and many of his smaller portraits are of extreme beauty.
See Andrew and Nathaniel Plimer, by G. C. Williamson (London, 1903). (G. C. W.)
PLIMSOLL, SAMUEL (1824–1898), British politician and social reformer, was born at Bristol on the 10th of February 1824. Leaving school at an early age, he became a clerk, and rose to be manager of a brewery in Yorkshire. In 1853 he endeavoured to set up a business of his own in London as a coal merchant. The
venture proved a failure, and Plimsoll was reduced to destitution.
He has himself related how for a time he lived in a common lodging-house on 7s. 9½d. a week. Through this experience he learnt to sympathize with the struggles of the poor; and when the
success of his enterprise placed him in possession of a competence,
he resolved to devote his leisure to the amelioration of their
lot. His efforts were directed more especially against what were
known as “coffin-ships”—unseaworthy and overloaded vessels,
often heavily insured, in which unscrupulous owners were allowed
by the law to risk the lives of their crews. Plimsoll entered
parliament as Liberal member for Derby in 1868, and endeavoured
in vain to pass a bill dealing with the subject. In 1872 he
published a work entitled Our Seamen, which made a great impression
throughout the country. Accordingly, on Plimsoll’s
motion in 1873, a royal commission was appointed, and in 1875 a government bill was introduced, which Plimsoll, though regarding
it as inadequate, resolved to accept. On the 22nd of July, the premier, Disraeli, announced that the bill would be dropped.
Plimsoll lost his self-control, applied the term “villains” to
members of the house, and shook his fist in the Speaker’s face.
Disraeli moved that he be reprimanded, but on the suggestion
of Lord Hartington agreed to adjourn the matter for a week to
allow Plimsoll time for refection. Eventually Plimsoll made an
apology The country, however, shared his view that the bill had
been stifled by the pressure of the shipowners, and the popular
agitation forced the government to pass a bill, which in the
following year was amended into the Merchant Shipping Act.
This gave stringent powers of inspection to the Board of Trade.
The mark that indicates the limit to which a ship may be loaded
is generally known as Plimsoll’s mark. Plimsoll was re-elected
for Derby at the general election of 1880 by a great majority, but
gave up his seat to Sir W. Harcourt, in the belief that the latter,
as home secretary, could advance the sailors' interests more
effectively than any private member. Though offered a seat by
some thirty constituencies, he did not re-enter the house, and
subsequently became estranged from the Liberal leaders by what
he regarded as their breach of faith in neglecting the question of
shipping reform. He held for some years the presidency of the
Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union, raised a further agitation, marred by obvious exaggeration, about the horrors of the cattle-ships. Later he visited the United States with the object, in which he did good service, of securing the adoption of a less bitter tone towards England in the historical textbooks used in American schools. He died at Folkestone on the 3rd of June 1898.
PLINLIMMON (Plynlimmon, Pumplumon, Pumlumon,
Penlumon: Pumlumon is the name used locally: pump
means five: lumon, chimney, flag or beacon; pen, head), a mountain of Wales of the height of 2463 ft., equidistant (about 10 m.) from Machynlleth and Llanidloes. Much inferior in elevation to Snowdon or Cader Idris, Plinlimmon is certainly the most dangerous of the Welsh hills because of its quaking bogs. The scenery is comparatively poor, consisting chiefly of sheep-downs (in Montgomeryshire) and barren turbaries (in Cardiganshire). If the name means “five beacons,”
only three of these are high, with a carnedd (stone-pile,
probably a military or other landmark, rather than the legendary
barrow or tomb) on each of the three. Plinlimmon is notable
as the source of five streams—three small: the Rheidol, the
Llyfnant and the Clywedog; and two larger and famous: the
Wye (Gwy) and the Severn (Hafren).
The morasses of Plinlimmon saw many a struggle, notably the war to the knife between Owen Cyfeilog (fl. c. 900), prince of Powys, and Hywel ab Cadogan. Here also Owen Glendower unfurled the banner of Welsh independence; from here, in 1401, he harassed the country, sacking Montgomery, burning Welshpool, and destroying Cwm Hir (long “combe,” or valley) abbey, of which some columns are said to be now in Llanidloes old church. On the side of Plinlimmon, some 2 m. from the Steddfagurig inn, is Blaen Gwy (the point of the Wye), the course of the streamlet being traceable up to Pont-rhyd-galed (the hard ford bridge), some 4 m. distant from the inn. Near this bridge are numerous barrows and cairns, on the right from Aberystwyth. There are slate quarries, with lead and copper mines. Machynlleth (perhaps Maglona in Roman times) has Owen Glendower’s “senate house” (1402), and is known as the scene of Glendower’s attempted assassination by Dafydd Gam. Llyn pen rhaiadr (the waterfall-head pool), or Pistyll y llyn (pool spout), is some 6 m. south of Machynlleth. Llanidloes has a trade in Plinlimmon slates and minerals besides flannel and wool manufactures.
PLINTH (Gr. πλίνθος, a square tile), the term in architecture given to the lower mouldings of a podium, pedestal or skirting, also to any rectangular block on which a statue or vase is placed, and in the Classic Orders to the square block of moderate height, under the base mouldings of the column or pedestal.
PLINY, THE ELDER. Gaius Plinius Secundus (c. A.D. 23–79), the author of the Naturalis historia, was the son of a Roman eques by the daughter of the senator Gaius Caecilius of Novum Comum. He was born at Comum, not (as is sometimes supposed) at Verona: it is only as a native of Gallia Transpadana that he calls Catullus of Verona his conterraneus, or fellow-countryman, not his municeps, or fellow-townsman (Praef. § 1). Before A.D. 35 (N. H. xxxvii. 81) his father took him to Rome, where he was educated under his father’s friend, the poet and military commander, P. Pomponius Secundus, who inspired him with a lifelong love of learning. Two centuries after the death of the Gracchi Pliny saw some of their autograph writings in his preceptor’s library (xiii. 83), and he afterwards wrote that preceptor’s Life. He makes mention of the grammarians and rhetoricians, Remmius Palaemon and Arellius Fuscus (xiv. 49, xxxiii. 152), and he may have been instructed by them. In Rome he studied botany in the garden of the aged Antonius Castor (xxv. 9), and saw the fine old lotus-trees in the grounds that had once belonged to Crassus (xvii. 5). He also viewed the
