Edith Sophia Hooper

“ In 1859 he published a volume of 'Poems,' no copy of which seems extant (cf. pref. to Miscellaneous Lyrics, 1878) . The book attracted the attention of James Clephan, editor of the 'Gateshead Observer,' who obtained for him the post of under storekeeper at the Gateshead works of Hawks, Crawshay, and Sons. In 1863, after a fatal accident to one of his children in the works, he removed to Newcastle-on-Tyne, to become assistant librarian to the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society. ”

“ Having settled in Liverpool in 1866, she visited women in the workhouse and helped to establish homes and refuges for the drifting population of workgirls and fallen women. Many of the latter were with her husband's assent received into their home. At the end of 1869 she engaged in the agitation then just begun for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869, which gave a legal sanction to vice by placing women living immoral lives under police supervision while exposing them to cruel injustice. ”

“ In 'Modern Spiritualism' (1902) and 'The Newer Spiritualism' (posthumously issued, 1910) he critically studied the history of spiritualist manifestations from the seventeenth century onwards, and incidentally contested Myers' doctrine of the subliminal self in relation to human personality and its survival after death. ”

“ While at Dresden he sent articles to ‘The Times’ and ‘Spectator,’ and moving to Geneva in 1874 acted as foreign correspondent both to ‘The Times’ and the ‘Daily News,’ besides editing the ‘Swiss Times,’ of which he became part proprietor. ”

“ Butler had extended the agitation to the continent, where her zeal evoked much active sympathy. After urging continental action at a meeting at York on 25 June 1874, she visited France, Italy, and Switzerland (1874-5) . At Brussels in 1880 she exposed in the newspaper 'Le National' the treatment of English girls, under age, who were detained, it was alleged, in licensed houses with the connivance of the 'police des mœurs,' of whom the chief and his subordinate were in consequence dismissed. ”

“ Through life Podmore was keenly interested in psychical research. At Oxford he had studied spiritualistic phenomena, had contributed papers to 'Human Nature' (the spiritualist organ) in 1875 and 1876, and had placed unqualified confidence in a slate-writing performance of the medium Slade. ”

“ From 1882 to 1885 he and his wife were caretakers of the Bentinck board schools in Mill Lane, Newcastle. From September 1888 to June 1889 he was janitor at the Armstrong College (Durham University College of Science) .
Meanwhile his poetic and intellectual faculty steadily developed, and his literary ambitions were encouraged by his friend Thomas Dixon, the working-man of Sunderland to whom Ruskin addressed the twenty-five letters published as 'Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne.' Skipsey published 'Poems, Songs, and Ballads ' (1862) ; 'The Collier Lad, and other Lyrics ' (1864) ; 'Poems' (1871) ”

“ In 1854 he married Sara Ann (daughter of Benjamin and Susan Hendley) , the proprietress of the boarding-house at which he was staying in London. His wife died in August 1902. Two out of five sons and the eldest of three daughters survived him. ”

“ PRYNNE, GEORGE RUNDLE (1818–1903) , hymn-writer, born at West Looe, Cornwall, on 23 Aug. 1818, was younger son in a family of eight children of John Allen Prynn (a form of the surname abandoned later by his son) by his wife Susanna, daughter of John and Mary Rundle of Looe, Cornwall. The father, who claimed descent from William Prynne [q. v.] the puritan, was a native of Newlyn, Cornwall. After education first at a school kept by his sister at Looe, then at the (private) Devonport Classical and Mathematical School, Prynne matriculated at St. ”

“ At Clifton he first came in contact with Dr. Pusey [q. v.] , whose views he adopted and publicly defended, but he declined Pusey's suggestion to join St. Saviour's, Leeds, on account of an implied obligation of celibacy. ”

“ Bees theological college (closed in 1896) . Ordained deacon in 1848 and priest in 1849 by the bishop of Manchester, he first served as curate at St. Stephen's, Salford. In 1850 he removed to Wigan, where his work among the Lancashire coUiers came to the notice of the earl of Crawford and Balcarres, who made him his domestic chaplain. ”

“ Huntington married on 26 April 1849 Charlotte Elizabeth, daughter of John Henry Garton of Hull, who survived him. He had issue five daughters and two sons.
[The Times, 14 April 1905; Church Times, 14 April 1905; obituary by J. Leach in Tenby and County News, 12 April 1905; Crockford's Clerical Directory; St. Bees College Calendar, 1848; Brit. Mus. Cat.; private information.] ”