Powell, BADEN

Powell, BADEN, physicist and theologian, was born in London in 1796, was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1821 became vicar of Plumstead, and in 1824 was made F.R.S. From 1827 till his death, 11th June 1860, he was Savilian professor of Geometry at Oxford. He published a history of natural philosophy (1834), treatises on the calculus (1830), optics (1833), and the undulatory theory of light (1841); but he is best known by his contribution to the Essays and Reviews (q.v.), and by other theological works, then regarded as dangerously 'liberal'—such as Essays on the Plurality of Worlds (1856), Christianity without Judaism (1857), Natural and Divine Truth (1857), and The Order of Nature (1859).—His son, ROBERT STEPHENSON SMYTH BADEN-POWELL, was born 22d February 1857, and went to the Charterhouse. He joined the 13th Hussars in 1876, and served in India, Afghanistan, South Africa, Ashanti, and Matabeleland, and was promoted in 1897 to the command of the 5th Dragoon Guards. In the Transvaal war he held the town of Mafeking successfully against the Boers from 12th October 1899 to 18th May 1900; and in quite an exceptional degree was himself the guiding and inspiring main-spring of the defence. Besides being ranked amongst national and popular heroes, he was created a major-general, and became chief of the Transvaal police. His forte is scouting, on which he has published several brilliant pamphlets, as well as on his campaigns, cavalry instruction, and pig-sticking.