vicar of Kippax, near Leeds, 1783; minister of St. Paul's Church, Leeds, 1793, which he founded at a cost of nearly 10,000l.; and died 6 Feb. 1811. He published several pulpit discourses, and a collection of his ‘Practical Sermons’ was published at London in two volumes, 1812. In Whitaker's ‘Loidis and Elmete’ there is a fine portrait of him, engraved by W. Holl from a painting by J. Russell, R.A.
[Memoir prefixed to his Practical Sermons; Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete, p. 69.]
ATKINSON, PAUL (1656–1729), Franciscan friar, was a Yorkshireman by birth, and after holding several important offices in his order, including that of definitor of the English province, was infamously betrayed to the officers of the law by his maidservant for a reward of 100l. under the penal statute of 11 and 12 William III. He was apprehended in London in 1698, and condemned, on account of his priestly character, to perpetual imprisonment, which he underwent in Hurst Castle in Hampshire, where he lived with cheerful composure, beloved and respected by the keeper of the castle and the whole neighbourhood as an ill-fated amiable man. The governor at one time allowed him the privilege of walking out beyond the walls of his prison until some bigots complained of this indulgence being granted, and Father Atkinson voluntarily confined himself ever afterwards to his own miserable apartment, wherein, after thirty years of strict incarceration, he died 15 Oct. 1729. He was buried at St. James's, Winchester, where the following epitaph was placed over his grave:— ‘H. S. E. R. P. Paulus Atkinson, Franciscanus, qui 15 Oct. 1729 ætat. 74 in castro de Hurst vitam finivit, postquam ibidem 30 peregerat annos. R. I. P.’
His portrait has been engraved.
[Gent. Mag. lx. 234, 332, 412; Oliver's Collections illustrating the History of the Catholic Religion in Cornwall, &c., 565; Noble's Continuation of Granger, iii. 172; Bromley's Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits; 274, Evans's Catalogue of Portraits, i. 13, ii. 18.]
ATKINSON, PETER (1725–1805), architect, was born at Ripon, trained for a carpenter, became the assistant of John Carr, an architect of York, and was engaged upon many works in his employ. He afterwards succeeded to Carr's practice. He erected a large mansion for Sir John V. B. Johnstone at Hackness, near Scarborough.
[Dictionary of Architectural Publication Society, 1853.]
ATKINSON, PETER (1776–1822), architect, son of the above, was educated in his profession by his father, and succeeded to his business. He built the bridge over the Ouse, begun in 1810. For many years he was steward and surveyor to the corporation of York. To him that city remains grateful for its house of correction and gaol. He erected many churches in the service of the church commissioners. During the last years of his life he resided abroad.
[Dictionary of Architectural Publication Society, 1853.]
ATKINSON, STEPHEN (fl. 1619), metallurgist, was a native of London. After serving an apprenticeship to Francis Tiver, a refiner of gold and silver, he was admitted a ‘finer’ in the Tower of London about 1586, and subsequently he was engaged in refining silver in Devonshire, from lead brought from Ireland. He tells us that he was taught his mining skill ‘by Mr. B. B., an ingenious gent’ (i.e. Mr., afterwards Sir Bevis, Bulmer); that he spent his ‘golden time’ in different shires in England; and that he was for two years in Ireland with Bulmer, who died in his debt 340l., having left him there ‘much in debt for him.’ By a grant of the privy council of Scotland in 1616, confirmed by James I, he obtained leave to search for gold and silver in Crawford Muir, on paying the king one-tenth of the metals found. It appears that he was unsuccessful in his mining operations, and consequently he wrote ‘The Discoverie and Historie of the Gold Mynes in Scotland.’ This was edited by Mr. Gilbert Laing Meason for the Bannatyne Club in 1825, from a manuscript in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. Another manuscript is in the Harleian collection, 4621. The author proposes to the king ‘the opening of the secrets of the earth—the gold mines of Scotland, to make his majesty the richest monarch in Europe, yea, in all the world.’ This measure was to be accomplished by moving ‘twenty-four gentlemen of England, of sufficient land, to disburst 300l. each,’ by creating them ‘for ever Knights of the Golden Mynes, or Golden Knights.’ Atkinson failed to make any impression on the king, who had already expended 3,000l. on the gold mines of Crawford Muir, and had obtained not quite three ounces of gold.
[Meason's introd. to the Discoverie; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. ed. Bohn, App. 9.]
ATKINSON, THOMAS (1600–1639), divine and dramatist, entered Merchant Taylors' School in August 1608. Seven years later he was elected scholar of St. John's
