Baden Powell II was born at Stamford Hill, HackneyinLondon.[2] His father, Baden Powell I (1767-1841), of Langton and Speldhurst in Kent, was a wine merchant,[2] who served as High SheriffofKent in 1831, and as Master of the Worshipful Company of Mercers in 1822.[3] The mother of Baden Powell II was Hester Powell (1776-1848), his father's paternal first cousin,[2][4] a daughter of James Powell (1737-1824) of Clapton, Hackney, Middlesex, Master of the Worshipful Company of Salters in 1818.[5]
The Powell family can be traced back to the early 16th century, where they were yeomen farmers at Mildenhall in Suffolk.[5] Baden Powell II's great-grandfather, David Powell (1725-1810) of Homerton, Middlesex,[5] a second son, migrated to the City of London aged 17 in 1712, subsequently going into business as a merchant at Old Broad Street and buying the manor of Wattisfield in Suffolk.[6][4] In 1740 a branch of the family bought the Whitefriars Glass works.[7]
The name Baden originated in Susanna Baden (1663-1737), the maternal grandmother of David Powell (1725-1810) of Homerton, Middlesex,[5] and one of the ten children of Andrew Baden (1637-1716), a Mercer who served as Mayor of Salisbury in 1682.[8]
Powell was admitted as an undergraduate at Oriel College, Oxford in 1814,[9] and graduated with a first-class honours degree in mathematics in 1817.[2]
Powell was ordained as a priest of the Church of England in 1821, having served as curate of Midhurst, Sussex.[2] His first living was as Vicar of Plumstead, Kent, of which the advowson was owned by his family.[2] He immediately began his scientific work there, starting with experiments on radiant heat.[2]
Powell married three times, and had fourteen children in total. His widow changed the last name of the surviving children of his third marriage to "Baden-Powell".[10]
Powell's first marriage on 21 July 1821 to Eliza Rivaz (died 13 March 1836) was childless.
His second marriage on 27 September 1837 to Charlotte Pope (died 14 October 1844) produced one son and three daughters:
Charlotte Elizabeth Powell, (14 September 1838–20 October 1917)
Laetitia Mary Powell, (4 June 1844–2 September 1865)
Survivors of Baden Powell's third family: Back row, standing (left to right): Major B. F. S. Baden-Powell; Miss Agnes D. S. Baden-Powell; Mr. Frank Baden-Powell; Colonel R. S. S. Baden-Powell. Front row, seated: Sir George Baden-Powell; Mrs. Henrietta Grace Baden-Powell with one of Powell's grandchildren; and Mr. Warington Baden-Powell
His third marriage on 10 March 1846 (atSt Luke's Church, Chelsea) to Henrietta Grace Smyth (3 September 1824–13 October 1914), a daughter of Admiral Smyth, produced seven sons and three daughters:
Shortly after Powell's death in 1860, his wife renamed the remaining children of his third marriage 'Baden-Powell'; the name was eventually legally changed by royal licence on 30 April 1902.[12] Baden Henry Powell is often also referred to as Baden Henry Baden-Powell,[13] and was using this name by the 1891 census.
Powell was an outspoken advocate of the constant uniformity of the laws of the material world. His views were liberal, and he was sympathetic to evolutionary theory long before Charles Darwin had revealed his ideas. He argued that science should not be placed next to scripture or the two approaches would conflict, and in his own version of Francis Bacon's dictum, contended that the book of God's works was separate from the book of God's word, claiming that moral and physical phenomena were completely independent.[14]
His faith in the uniformity of nature (except man's mind) was set out in a theological argument; if God is a lawgiver, then a "miracle" would break the lawful edicts that had been issued at Creation. Therefore, a belief in miracles would be entirely atheistic.[15] Powell's most significant works defended, in succession, the uniformitarian geology set out by Charles Lyell and the evolutionary ideas in Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation published anonymously by Robert Chambers which applied uniform laws to the history of life in contrast to more respectable ideas such as catastrophism involving a series of divine creations.[14] "He insisted that no tortured interpretation of Genesis would ever suffice; we had to let go of the Days of Creation and base Christianity on the moral laws of the New Testament."[16]
The boldness of Powell and other theologians in dealing with science led Joseph Dalton Hooker to comment in a letter to Asa Gray dated 29 March 1857: "These parsons are so in the habit of dealing with the abstractions of doctrines as if there was no difficulty about them whatever, so confident, from the practice of having the talk all to themselves for an hour at least every week with no one to gainsay a syllable they utter, be it ever so loose or bad, that they gallop over the course when their field is Botany or Geology as if we were in the pews and they in the pulpit. Witness the self-confident style of Whewell and Baden Powell, Sedgwick and Buckland." William Whewell, Adam Sedgwick and William Buckland opposed evolutionary ideas.[17]
The 'Philosophy of Creation' has been treated in a masterly manner by the Rev. Baden Powell, in his 'Essays on the Unity of Worlds,' 1855. Nothing can be more striking than the manner in which he shows that the introduction of new species is "a regular, not a casual phenomenon," or, as Sir John Herschel expresses it, "a natural in contra-distinction to a miraculous process."[20]
He was one of seven liberal theologians who produced a manifesto titled Essays and Reviews around February 1860, which amongst other things joined in the debate over On the Origin of Species. These Anglicans included Oxford professors, country clergymen, the headmaster of Rugby school and a layman. Their declaration that miracles were irrational stirred up unprecedented anger, drawing much of the fire away from Charles Darwin. Essays sold 22,000 copies in two years, more than the Origin sold in twenty years, and sparked five years of increasingly polarised debate with books and pamphlets furiously contesting the issues.[15]
Referring to "Mr Darwin's masterly volume" and restating his argument that belief in miracles is atheistic, Baden Powell wrote that the book "must soon bring about an entire revolution in opinion in favour of the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature.":
Just a similar scepticism has been evinced by nearly all the first physiologists of the day, who have joined in rejecting the development theories of Lamarck and the Vestiges; and while they have strenuously maintained successive creations, have denied strenuously maintained successive creations, have denied and denounced the alleged production of organic life by Messrs. Crosse and Weekes, and stoutly maintained the impossibility of spontaneious generation, on the alleged ground of contradiction to experience. Yet it is now acknowledged under the high sanction of the name of Owen (British Association Address 1858), that 'creation' is only another name for our ignorance of the mode of production; and it has been the unanswered and unanswerable argument of another reasoner that new species must have originated either out of their inorganic elements, or out of previously organized forms; either development or spontaneous generation must be true: while a work has now appeared by a naturalist of the most acknowledged authority, Mr. Darwin's masterly volume on The Origin of Species by the law of 'natural selection' – which now substantiates on undeniable grounds the very principle so long denounced by the first naturalist – the origination of new species by natural causes: a work which must soon bring about an entire revolution of opinion in favour of the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature.[21]
Papers to the Royal Society, the Ashmolean Society and others[edit]
1828 "The elements of curves: comprising, I. The geometrical principles of the conic sections; II. An introduction to the algebraic theory of curves; designed for the use of students in the University."
1829 "A short treatise on the principles of the differential and integral calculus"
1830 "An elementary treatise on the geometry of curves and curved surfaces, investigated by the application of the differential and integral calculus."
1832 "The present state and future prospects of mathematical and physical studies in the University of Oxford."
1833 "A short elementary treatise on experimental and mathematical optics."
1834 "On the achromatism of the eye "
1836 "On the theory of ratio and proportion, as treated by EUCLID, including an inquiry into the nature of quantity "
1836 "Observations for determining the refractive indices for the standard rays of the solar spectrum in various media "
1837 "An historical view of the progress of the physical and mathematical sciences from the earliest ages to the present times "
1837 "On the nature and evidence of the primary laws of motion "
1838 "Additional observations for determining the refractive indices for definite rays of the solar spectrum in several media "
1839 "A second supplement to observations for determining the refractive indices for definite rays of the solar spectrum in several media "
1841 "A general and elementary view of the undulatory theory, as applied to the dispersion of light and some other subjects... "
1842 "History of natural philosophy, from the earliest periods to the present time "
1842 "On the theory of parallel lines "
1842 "On necessary and contingent truth, considered in regard to some primary principles of mathematical and mechanical science... "
1849 "An essay on the relation of the several parts of a mathematical science to the fundamental idea therein contained... "
1850 "On irradiation"
1854 "Lectures on polarized light, together with a lecture on the microscope ... " with Jonathan Pereira
1855 "Essays on the spirit of the inductive philosophy, the unity of worlds, and the philosophy of creation "
1857 "Biographies of distinguished scientific men", by Francois ARAGO; translated (from the French) by William Henry SMYTH, Baden POWELL, and Robert GRANT
1829: A Short Treatise On the Principles of the Differential and Integral Calculus
1837: On the Nature and Evidence of the Primary Laws of Motion
1839: Tradition Unveiled: Or, an Exposition of the Pretensions and Tendency of Authoritative Teaching in the Church
1841: The Protestant's Warning and Safeguard in the Present Times
1841: A General and Elementary View of the Undulatory Theory, As Applied to the Dispersion of Light, and Some Other Subjects, Including the substance of several papers, printed in the Philosophical Transactions, and other journals.
1855: The Unity of Worlds and of Nature: Three Essays On the Spirit of Inductive Philosophy; the Plurality of Worlds; and the Philosophy of Creation
In 1970, 170 volumes from Powell's library were presented to the Bodleian Libraries by his grandson, D. F. W. Baden Powell.[24] See Rare Books Named Collections for more information on the contents of this collection.
