advocate-general till 1835, when he was removed by Sir John Keane. After that he was appointed oriental translator to the government, and he held this office till his death.
Kennedy was throughout life a student, and he seems to have belonged to the type of the recluse and self-denying scholar. He is described as working sixteen hours a day, and as spending all his money on manuscripts and munshies, and in relieving the wants of others. He contributed several papers to the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and in 1824 he published at Bombay a Maratha dictionary. In 1828 he published in London a quarto volume entitled ‘Researches into the Origin and Affinity of the Principal Languages of Asia and Europe,’ and in 1831 he followed this up by another quarto entitled ‘Researches into the Nature and Affinity of Ancient and Hindu Mythology.’ Both these works exhibit much learning and vigorous and independent thinking, but are now nearly obsolete. The first seems to be the more valuable of the two, and contains some interesting notes, e.g. that at p. 182 on the number of Arabic words in the Shāhnāma. Kennedy also wrote five letters on the Puranas, and had a controversy with Horace Hayman Wilson [q. v.] and Sir Graves Champney Haughton [q. v.] He published at Bombay in 1832 a work on military law, of which a second edition appeared in 1847. He died at Bombay on 29 Dec. 1846, and was buried at the old European cemetery at Back-Bay.
[Biographical Memoir by James Bird, Secretary Bombay branch R.A.S.; Journal of B.B.R.A.S. ii. 430, Bombay, 1848, and N. V. Mandlik's edition of the Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, Bombay, 1877, vol. i. p. xv; Preface to Grace Kennedy's Collected Works, Edinburgh, 1827.]
KENNISH or KINNISH, WILLIAM (1799–1862), Manx poet, son of Thomas Kennish by his wife, Margaret (Radcliffe), was baptised at Kirk Maughold, Isle of Man, on 24 Feb. 1799. Of humble parentage, he was reared as a ploughboy, but in 1821 entered the navy as a common seaman, learned English of his messmates, having previously known only his native dialect, and rose to be a warrant officer. He was ship's carpenter on the Hussar, bearing the flag of Sir Charles Ogle upon the North American station, 1829-30, and while stationed at Halifax devised a plan for concentrating a ship's broadside with greater effect than hitherto attempted upon a given mark. His plan, which met with encouragement from Captain Edward Boxer of the Hussar, was tried by Sir Charles Napier on board the Galatea in 1831, and was recommended to the admiralty, to which body Kennish also submitted a theodolite of his invention. In June 1832 he received the gold Isis medal from the Society of Arts. He published his essay, on concentrating a ship's broadside, in 1837 in a handsome quarto, with nineteen plates, and subsequently he served upon the men-of-war Tribune and Donegal in the Mediterranean and in the Channel. But he felt that he had received no encouragement from the admiralty at all commensurate with the labour and money that he had expended upon his essay, and he left the navy in or about 1841. Three years later he published in London ‘Mona's Isle and other Poems’ (1844, 8vo, a scarce volume), with a long subscription list of naval men. Some of the local pieces, such as ‘The Curraghs of Lezayre,’ more especially those in ballad metre, have merit, and the book is a mine of Manx folk-lore. Disappointed at the limited circulation of his fame, Kennish went over to America, became attached to the United States admiralty, for which body he made a survey of the Isthmus of Panama, and died at New York on 19 March 1862, at the age of sixty-three.
[Harrison's Bibliotheca Monensis (Manx Soc.), 2nd edit. 1876, p. 165; Kennish's Works in Brit. Museum Library; note kindly furnished by Mr. R. Cortell Cowell.]
KEPPEL, WILLIAM COUTTS, seventh
Earl of Albemarle and Viscount Bury (1832–1894), born in London on 15 April 1832, was eldest son of George Thomas Keppel, sixth earl of Albemarle [q. v.], by his wife Susan, third daughter of Sir Coutts Trotter, bart. Throughout the greater part of his life he was known as Viscount Bury, his father's second title. He was educated at Eton, and in 1843, when eleven years old, was gazetted ensign and lieutenant in the forty-third regiment. In 1849 he became lieutenant in the Scots guards, and during 1850-1 he was private secretary to Lord John Russell. In 1852 he went out to India as aide-de-camp to Lord Frederick Fitzclarence, commander-in-chief at Bombay. In the following year he came home on sick leave, retired from the army, and in December 1854 went out to Canada as superintendent of Indian affairs for Canada. He utilised the knowledge gained in Canada in his ‘Exodus of the Western Nations’ (London, 1865, 2 vols. 8vo). This is really a history of North America, with particular reference to Canada. Bury believed that
