Powell, William Samuel

Person

Powell, William Samuel

1717-1775

Elder son of the Revd Francis Powell and his wife, Susan. He was born at Colchester on 27 September 1717, and was educated at Colchester grammar school. He was admitted pensioner at St John's College Cambridge in 1733, matriculating several years later in 1738. In November 1735 he was elected a foundation scholar, holding exhibitions from the College in November 1735, 1736, and 1738. He graduated BA (1738-9), MA (1742), BD (1749), and DD (1757). He was admitted as a fellow of St John's in 1740. In 1741 he became private tutor to Charles Townsend, who later became Chancellor of the Exchequer. In December 1741 he was ordained deacon and priest, and was presented to the rectory of Colkirk in Norfolk on 13 January 1742. He then returned to College, and was Assistant Tutor for two years; becoming Principal Tutor in 1744. In 1745 he acted as Senior Taxor of the University, and became a Senior Fellow of St John's in 1760. He resigned his fellowship in 1763, and was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1764. On 25 January 1765, he was unanimously elected Master of St John's College, and succeeded to the Vice-Chancellorship of the University for the period 1765-6. In December 1766 he was appointed to the archdeaconry of Colchester by the Crown, and then in 1768 he somewhat controversially claimed the rich College rectory of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight for himself, resigning the benefice of Colkirk as he did so.

During his first year as Master of St John's, Powell established College examinations, the success of which led him into an engagement with John Jebb and his wife about annual examinations for the University as a whole. He also provoked two further controversies during his time at Cambridge. The first, his sermon preached in 1757 and subsequent publication of A Defence of the Subscriptions Required in the Church of England inadvertently initiated the major controversy concerning the undergraduate and clerical subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles which led to the Feathers tavern petition in 1772. The second was his anonymous debate and attempted sabotage of Edward Waring's candidature for the Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics in 1760. Powell had a stroke of apoplexy in 1770 and died from paralysis on 19 January 1775. He was buried in St John's College Chapel on 25 January, the anniversary of his election as Master.

B. W. Young, Powell, William Samuel (1717-1775), college head, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
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