PROBERT, William. b. Painscastle, Radnorshire 11 Aug. 1790; Wesleyan local preacher at Bolton, Leeds, Liverpool, and in Staffordshire; stationed at Alnwick, Northumberland where he became a unitarian 1815; minister of unitarian chapel at Walmsley, near Bolton, Lancs. 1821 to death; Walmsley chapel is generally called ‘Old Probert’s chapel’; wrote A history of Walmsley chapel in the Christian Reformer 1834; author of Calvanism and Arminianism 1815; The Godolin and the odes of the month, being translations from the Welsh 1820; The ancient laws of Cambria 1823; The elements of Hebrew and Chaldee grammar 1832; Hebrew and English concordance 1838; Hebrew and English lexicon grammar 1850; Laws of Hebrew poetry 1860. d. Dimple, Turton 1 April 1870. bur. in graveyard attached to Walmsley chapel.
PROCTER, Adelaide Anne (eld. child of Bryan Waller Procter 1787–1874). b. 25 Bedford sq. London 30 Oct. 1825; contributed poems to the Book of beauty 1843; joined the Church of Rome about 1851; wrote poems in Household Words under name of Mary Berwick 1853–4; all her poems except two in Cornhill mag. and two in Good Words were first published in Household Words or All the year round; appointed by the council of National association for promotion of social science, member of a committee to consider fresh ways of providing employment for women 1859; edited a volume of miscellaneous verse and prose set up in type by women compositors and entitled Victoria Regia 1861; wrote eight hymns, the best known are I do not ask O Lord, that life may be, and I thank thee, O my God, who made 1858–62; Legends and lyrics, a book of verses, 2 vols. 1858–61, 10 ed. with an introduction by C. Dickens and a portrait 1866; A chaplet of verses 1862. d. 32 Weymouth st. Portland place, London 2 Feb. 1864. bur. Kensal Green cemet. C. J. Hamilton’s Women writers, 2 series (1893) 268–96 portrait; Bessie R. Belloe’s In a walled garden (1895) 164–78; C. Bruce’s Book of noble Englishwomen (1875) 445–52; Julian’s Dictionary of hymnology (1892) 913; A. H. Miles’ Poets of the century vii 359–64 (1891); Atlantic monthly Dec. 1865 pp. 739–43 by C. Dickens; Eclectic Mag. lxxxviii 759 (1877) portrait.
PROCTER, Anne Benson (dau. of Thomas Skepper, lawyer, York, by Miss Benson, a lady who afterwards married Basil Montagu). b. York 11 Sept. 1799; saw much of society in Basil Montagu’s house in Bedford square; m. 7 Oct. 1824 Bryan Waller Procter, who d. 1874, they lived for some years in Basil Montagu’s house; an acquaintance of Keats, Byron, Shelley, and Browning; very well known in London society, her Sunday receptions were crowded with visitors; befriended Mrs. Anna B. Jameson in 1854; edited Letters addressed to Mrs. Basil Montagu and B. W. Procter 1881. d. 19 Albert hall mansions, Kensington Gore, London 5 March 1888. W. Smith’s Old Yorkshire iii 249–51 (1891); Academy 17 March 1888 pp. 187–8; Times 7 March 1888 p. 9, 8 March p. 8.
PROCTER, Bryan Waller (son of Nicholas Procter, d. 1816). b. Leeds 21 Nov. 1787; educ. at Finchley and Harrow under the name of William Bryan Procter 1801 etc. in company with sir R. Peel and Byron; articled to Nathaniel Atherton of Calne, Wiltshire, a solicitor; in a conveyancer’s office in London; resided in London from 1807; solicitor in partnership with Wm. Henry Slaney 1817–23; contributed about 200 poems to the Literary Gazette under name of Barry Cornwall from 1815; a friend of Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb; his tragedy of Mirandola produced at Covent Garden theatre 9 Jany 1821, ran 16 nights; barrister G.I. 4 May 1831, had many pupils in conveyancing; a metropolitan comr. in lunacy 12 Sept. 1832, retired on pension Feb. 1861, honorary comr. Feb. 1861 to death; edited The works of Ben Jonson, with memoir 1838; The works of Shakespeare, with memoir and essay on his genius 1840; edited with John Forster Selections from the poetical works of R. Browning 1873; author under pseudonym of Barry Cornwall of Dramatic scenes and other poems 1819, 2 ed. 1820; Marcian Colonna, a tale 1820; A Sicilian story 1820, 3 ed. 1821; Poetical works, 3 vols. 1822; The flood of Thessaly 1823; Effigies poeticæ or the portraits of the British poets 1824; English songs 1832, 3 ed. 1851; The life of Edmund Kean 1835; Charles Lamb, a memoir 1866. d. 32 Weymouth st. London 4 Oct. 1874. bur. Finchley cemetery. Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall), an autobiographical fragment (1877) preface signed C. P.[atmore]; T. H. Wade’s English poets, 2 ed. iv 489–94 (1883); Wm. Howitt’s Homes and Haunts ii 447–51 (1847); The living poets of England (Paris 1827) ii 539–62; H. Martineau’s Biographical sketches (4 ed. 1876) 475–87; A. H. Miles’ Poets i 351–62 (1891); I.L.N. lxv 353 (1874) portrait; Graphic x 367 (1874) portrait.
Note. He is referred to by Lord Byron in Don Juan, canto xi, verse lix,
“Then there’s my gentle Euphues, who they say,
Sets up for being a sort of moral me,
He’ll find it rather difficult some day
To turn out both, or either, it may be.”
His only son Montagu Mitchell Procter, lieut. col. Bengal staff corps 31 Aug. 1878, retired with honorary rank of M.G. 24 Feb. 1885, d. Dinan, France 6 Oct. 1885.