'Times' as the most wonderful ever put before the public. In September 1858 Henry Dircks [q. v.] of Blackheath had communicated to the British Association the details of an apparatus for producing 'spectral optical illusions' (see Mech. Mag. 7 Oct. 1858; Engineer, 1 Oct. 1858). The idea was rejected by several entertainers, but Dircks had sufficient faith in it to have the necessary apparatus made. Pepper no sooner saw this than he cordially welcomed the invention, and, after some not very important modifications in the machinery, exhibited the 'ghost' for the first time on 24 Dec. 1862, an illustration of Dickens's 'Haunted Man.' On 5 Feb. 1863 the apparatus was patented in the joint names of Pepper and Dircks, both renouncing any pecuniary claim upon the Polytechnic.
Dircks afterwards complained, with some apparent justification, that he had been deluded into this arrangement, and that his name as that of sole inventor was unduly obscured in the advertisements of the exhibition. Popularly known as 'Pepper's Ghost,' the illusion had an enormous vogue, was visited by the Prince and Princess of Wales (19 May 1863), commanded to Windsor, and transferred to the boards of many London theatres, to the Chatelet at Paris, to Wallack's Theatre, New York, and to the Crystal Palace. In March 1872 Pepper temporarily transferred his exhibit to the Egyptian Hall. Shortly after this he went out to Australia and was appointed public analyst at Brisbane. In 1890 he returned to England and reintroduced his 'ghost' at the Polytechnic, but the spectre failed to appeal to a sophisticated public, and its proprietor withdrew into private life and wrote 'The True History of Pepper's Ghost' (1890). The 'Professor' died in Colworth Road, Leytonstone, Essex, on 29 March 1900.
[Times, 26 and 30 Dec. 1871, 30 March 1900; Daily Telegraph, 30 March 1900; Mechanical Magazine, vol. lxxivii. passim; Thornbury's Old and New London, iv. 454; All the Year Round, June 1863; Dircks's Ghost, or The Dircksian Phantasmagoria, 1863; The True History of Pepper's Ghost, 1890.]
PERRY, GEORGE GRESLEY (1820–1897), church historian, born at Churchill in Somersetshire on St. Thomas's day, 1820, was the twelfth and youngest child of William Perry, an intimate friend and neighbour of Hannah More [q. v.] He was educated at Ilminster under the Rev. John Allen, and in 1837 he won a scholarship on the Bath and Wells foundation at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1840 he graduated B.A. with a second class in lit. hum. His fellowship at Corpus would have followed in due course, but meanwhile a vacancy occurred in the Wells fellowship at Lincoln College, for which Perry was the successful competitor, Mark Pattison [q. v.], who was then just beginning his intellectual reform of the college, strongly pressing his claims. He graduated M.A. in 1843, and was ordained by the bishop of Oxford deacon in 1844 and priest in 1845. He held for a short time, first, the curacy of Wick on the coast of Somerset, and then that of Combe Florey, near Taunton; but in 1847 he returned to Oxford as college tutor at Lincoln, which office he held until 1852. During the last year of his fellowship occurred the memorable contest for the rectorship, described with such painful vividness in Pattison's 'Memoir.' In this contest Perry took a leading and characteristically straightforward part. It was he who first told Pattison that the junior fellows wished to have him for their head, and from first to last he supported Pattison heartily.
In 1852 Perry accepted the college living of Waddington, near Lincoln, and there he remained to the end of his days. He entered upon his duties on Low Sunday, 1852, and in October of the same year married Miss Eliza Salmon, sister of the present provost of Trinity College, Dublin, a most happy union. The life of a country clergyman suited Perry. He was always fond of country pursuits, understood the minds of country people, and could profitably employ the leisure which such a life affords. He attended well to his country parish, and also threw himself heartily into the work of the diocese, which showed, as far as it could, its appreciation of him. In 1861 Bishop Jackson made him a non-residentiary canon and rural dean of Longoboby; in 1867 his brother clergy elected him as their proctor in convocation; and they continued to re-elect him (more than once after a contest) until he voluntarily retired in 1893. In 1894 Bishop King appointed him to the archdeaconry of Stow, which he held until his death.
Perry's parochial and diocesan work still left him abundance of time for study, which he employed conscientiously for the benefit of the church. The earliest work which brought him into notice in the literary world was his 'History of the Church of England,' in 3 vols. 8vo, the first of which appeared in 1860, the third in 1864. Its fairness and accuracy were at once recognised, and its value was increased by the fact that it was the first general history which included the dreary but highly important period of the eighteenth century, previous historians, as a
