memoirs of John Owen (1820) made his name more widely known in nonconformist circles.
On 7 Oct. 1824 he became pastor of the congregational church at Camberwell Green, Surrey, and soon afterwards was elected foreign secretary of the London Missionary Society. In both positions he exhibited great ability, and acquired much influence. He died in his prime on 8 May 1830, and was buried on 17 May at Bunhill Fields. His portrait, engraved by Thomson from a painting by Wildman, was published in the ‘Evangelical Magazine’ for January 1830. He was twice married, and left a widow.
Orme's contributions to the biographical history of the later puritanism were able and timely, and rendered an important service, not to nonconformists alone, by reviving an interest in the religious problems of the seventeenth century. Dr. Andrew Thomson has superseded him in regard to the life of John Owen, and Ivimey in that of Kiffin. His two volumes on Baxter, characterised by Sir James Stephen as ‘learned, modest, and laborious,’ retain their place as the best modern biography.
He published, in addition to separate sermons and pamphlets:
- ‘Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Religious Connections of John Owen, D.D.,’ &c., 1820, 8vo (portrait).
- ‘Remarkable Passages in the Life of William Kiffin,’ &c., 1823, 12mo (portrait).
- ‘Bibliotheca Biblica … List of Books on Sacred Literature, with Notices, Biographical, Critical,’ &c., Edinburgh, 1824, 8vo (a work of good erudition and judgment, still valuable).
- ‘Memoirs, including … Remains of John Urquhart,’ &c., 1827, 12mo, 2 vols.
Posthumous was:
- ‘Life and Times of Richard Baxter,’ &c., 1830, 8vo, 2 vols. (partly printed at the time of his death; edited by Thomas Russell. It accompanies an edition of Baxter's ‘Practical Works,’ begun by Orme in 1827. The second volume contains a detailed critique of Baxter's writings, digested under heads).
[Evangelical Magazine, 1830, pp. 253 seq. 289 seq.; Stephen's Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, 1860, p. 376; Cox's Literature of the Sabbath Question, 1865, ii. 35; Waddington's Surrey Congregational History, 1866, pp. 115 seq. 171 seq.]
ORMEROD, EDWARD LATHAM (1819–1873), physician, sixth son of George Ormerod [q. v.], the historian of Cheshire, and his wife Sarah, eldest daughter of Dr. John Latham [q. v.], was born in London in 1819. He was sent to school first at Laleham, and afterwards at Rugby, which he left in 1838. He then became a student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and worked there till October 1841, when he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. At Caius he obtained a classical scholarship, and afterwards scholarships in anatomy and chemistry. In 1846 (Graduati Cantabr. 1800–84, p. 389) he graduated M.B., and in 1851 M.D. In 1867 and 1868 he was an examiner for the M.B. degree. At St. Bartholomew's Hospital he worked in the post-mortem room as a demonstrator during 1846 and 1847, but in the latter year his health broke down, and he left London and went to practise as a physician at Brighton. In 1848 he published ‘Clinical Observations on Continued Fever,’ and in 1853 he was elected physician to the Sussex County Hospital. He published two papers on ‘Degeneration of the Bones’ in the ‘St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports’ (vols. vi. and vii.), and one (vol. iv.) on ‘Fatty Degeneration,’ as well as several less important papers in the ‘Medico-Chirurgical Transactions’ and in medical journals. All contain evidence of his careful pathological work. In 1868 he published a natural history of ‘British Social Wasps,’ a work esteemed by entomologists, and was elected F.R.S. in 1872. At the time of his death he was working at the change of colour observable in gurnards, fish of brilliant hues. He died on 18 March 1873 of malignant disease of the bladder, the agony of which he bore patiently. He was a modest, shy, and sensitive man, whose personal character and pathological attainments were respected by the physicians of his time, and in the wide circle of the school of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He married, in 1853, Mary Olivia Porter, who died three months later; and, in 1856, Maria Millett, by whom he had six children.
[Memoir by Sir James Paget in St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, vol. ix.; information from his son; Works.]
ORMEROD, GEORGE (1785–1873), historian of Cheshire, born in High Street, Manchester, on 20 Oct. 1785, was only son of George Ormerod of Bury, Lancashire, by Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Johnson of Tyldesley in the same county (Ormerod, Cheshire, 2nd edit. ii. 376–8; cf. Manchester School Register, Chetham Soc., i. 56). He was sent to the King's School, Chester, of which the Rev. Thomas Bancroft was then master (ib. i. 366 n.) On Bancroft's preferment to the vicarage of Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, Ormerod accompanied him thither as a private pupil. He matriculated from Brasenose College, Oxford, on 21 April 1803, and received the honorary degree of M.A. in 1807 and that of D.C.L. in 1818 (Foster,
