retired to Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, and took an active interest in the affairs of the Royal Astronomical Society, of which he became honorary secretary in 1862 and president in 1866. His career as a professional astronomer began in 1870, when he was elected Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford. At his request the university determined to erect a fine equatorial telescope for the instruction of his class and for purposes of research, a scheme which, in consequence of Warren de la Rue's munificent gift of instruments from his private observatory at Cranford, expanded into the establishment of the new university observatory. By De la Rue's advice, Pritchard began his career there with a determination of the physical lib ration of the moon, or the nutation of its axis. In 1882 Pritchard commenced a systematic study of stellar photometry. For this purpose he employed an instrument known as the “wedge photometer ” (see Pnoroiunrnv, CELESTIAL, and Mem. R./1.5. xlvii. 353), with which he 'measured the relative brightness of 2784 stars between the North Pole and about -10° declination. The results were published in 1885 in his Uranornetria Nova Oxortiertsis, and their importance was recognized by the bestowal in 1886 upon him, conjointly with Professor Pickering, of the Royal Astronomical Society's gold medal. He now resolved to try the experiment of applying photography to the determination of stellar parallax. With the object of testing the capabilities of the method, he took for his first essay the well-known star 61 Cygni, and his results agreed so well with those previously attained that he undertook the systematic measurement of the parallaxes of second-magnitude stars, and published the outcome in the third and fourth volumes of the Publications of the Oxford University Observatory. Although some lurking errors impaired the authority of the concluded parallaxes this work ranks as a valuable contribution to astronomy, since it showed the possibility of employing photography in such delicate investigations. When the great scheme of an international surve of the heavensY was projected, the zone between 25° and 31° north declination was allotted to him, and at the time of his death some progress had been made in recording its included stars. Pritchard became a fellow of New College, Oxford, in 1883, and an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, in 1886. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1840, and in 1892 was awarded one of the royal medals for his work on photometry and stellar parallax. He died on the 28th of May 1893. See Proc. Roy. Soc. liv. 3; Month. Notices, Roy. Astr. Soc. liv. 198; W. E. Plummer, Observatory, xvi. 256 (portrait): Astr. and Astrophysics, xii. 592; ]. Foster, Oxford Men and their Colleges, p. 206; Hist. Register of the Univ. of Oxford, p. 95; The Times (May 30, 1893); C. ]. Robinson's Register of Merchant Taylors' School, ii. 210; Charles Pritchard, D.D., Memoirs of his Life, by Ada Pritchard (London, 1897).
PRITCHARD, HANNAH (1711-1768), English actress, whose name before her early marriagwto an actor-was Vaughan, first attracted attention as a singer at Bartholomew's Fair in 1733. She was soon playing a wide variety of parts, mostly comedy, at the Haymarket, Drury Lane and Covent Garden. When Garrick became patentee of Drury Lane in 1747 she joined his company and played with him for twenty years, her last appearance being as Lady Macbeth-one of her greatest réles-in April 17-68, a few months before her death. Her talents were highly thought of by the critics of the day. Her daughter, who had studied under Garrick, and whose beauty created a sensation when she made her début (as “Miss Pritchard
”) in October 1756, did not live up to the expectations
then raised. She married in 1762 the actor John Palmer,
retired from the stage at the same time as her mother, and after
her husband's death married a political writer named Lloyd.
PRITTLEWELL, a residential parish in the borough of
Southend-on-Sea, and in the S.E. parliamentary division of Essex, England; lying 1½ m. inland (N.N.W.) from Southend, with a station on the Southend branch of the Great Eastern railway. The church of St Mary the Virgin has ine Perpendicular work and traces of Norman work. There are fragments of a Cluniac priory of the 12th century. Pop. (1001), 27,245.
PRIVAS, a town of south-eastern France, capital of the department
of Ardèche, 95 m. S. by W. of Lyons on a branch line of
the railway from that city to Nimes. Pop. (1906), town, 3495;
commune, 7000. Privas is situated near the Ouvèze, here joined
by the Mezayon and Chazalon. The town is the seat of a prefecture,
a court of assizes and a tribunal of first instance. Other
institutions are training colleges for both sexes, a communal
college and a lunatic asylum for the departments of Ardèche
and Drôme. Silk-milling is carried on. The rearing of silkworms
and the cultivation of the mulberry are widespread
industries. There are mines of iron ore in the vicinity. Trade
is in silk, tanned leather, game, chestnuts and fruit preserves.
Privas is first heard of in the 12th century, as a possession of the counts of Valentinois, and subsequently became the seat of a separate barony. One of the strongholds of the Reformed Faith, it suffered terribly during the Wars of Religion. Ineffectually besieged by the royal troops in 1574, it passed in 1619, by the marriage of the heiress of the barony, Paule de Chambaud, into the possession of the vicomte de Lestrange, a Roman Catholic noble. A general rising followed, and in 1629 it was besieged and taken by Louis XIII. It was reduced to ruins, and the king decreed that it should not be again inhabited; but in 1632, some of the townspeople having fought against Lestrange, who had joined Montmorency's rebellion, the inhabitants were allowed to return. Some ancient houses, which escaped the general destruction, are still standing.
PRIVATEER, an armed vessel belonging to a private owner,
commissioned by a belligerent state to carry on operations of
war. The commission is known as letters of marque. Acceptance
of such a commission by a British subject is forbidden
by the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870. Privateering is now a
matter of much less importance than it formerly was, owing
to the terms of art. 1 of the Declaration of Paris, April 16, 1856,
“Privateering is and remains abolished.” The declaration
binds only the powers who are signatories or who afterwards
assented, and those only when engaged in war with one another.
The United States and Spain have not acceded to it, but though
it did not hold as between them in the war of 1898, they both
observed it. Privateers stand in a position between that of
a public ship of war and a merchant vessel, and the raising of
merchant vessels to the status of warships has in recent wars
given rise to so much difficulty in distinguishing between volunteer
war-ships and privateers that the subject was made one of
those for settlement by the Second Hague Conference (1907).
The rules adopted are as follows:—
1. A merchant-ship converted into a war-ship cannot have
the rights and duties appertaining to vessels having that status
unless it is placed under the direct authority, immediate control
and responsibility of the power the flag of which it flies.
2. Merchant-ships converted into war-ships must bear the
external marks which distinguish the war-ships of their nationality.
3. The commander must be in the service of the state and
duly commissioned by the proper authorities. His name must
figure on the list of the officers of the fighting fleet.
4. The crew must be subject to military discipline.
5. Every merchant-ship converted into a war-ship is bound
to observe in its operations the laws and customs of war.
6. A belligerent who converts a merchant-ship into a war-ship
must, as soon as possible, announce such conversion in the
list of its war-ships.
In connexion with the conversion of the “ Peterburg ” and “Smolensk” on the high seas during the Russo-Japanese War, and the ruse by which they came through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, it was agreed, after a vain attempt to solve the question in a way satisfactory to all parties, that the subject of whether the conversion may take place upon the high seas should remain outside the scope of the convention. (T. Ba.)
PRIVET, in botany, the vernacular name of Ligustrum,[1] a
genus of Oleaceae, containing about thirty-five species, natives
- ↑ Other vernacular names for the common species are prim, primprint, primwort and primrose.
