William Powell

William Samuel Powell, D.D. (1717–1775) was an eighteenth century academic and priest, most notably Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1765 until 1766; and Archdeacon of Colchester from 1766 until his death. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1764.

Life He was born on 27 September 1717 in Colchester, the elder son of the Rev. Francis Powell and his wife Susan Reynolds, daughter of Samuel Reynolds (died 1694), Member of Parliament for Colchester. He was educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School, under Palmer Smythies. He was admitted in 1734, and matriculated 1738, at St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1739, M.A. in 1742, B.D. in 1749, and D.D in 1749.

Academic career Powell was successively Fellow, tutor, taxor and Master of St John's.

In 1741 Powell became private tutor to Charles Townshend, second son of Charles Townshend, 3rd Viscount Townshend. At the end of that year he was ordained deacon and priest, and was presented on 13 January 1742 by Lord Townshend to the rectory of Colkirk in Norfolk, with Stibbard. In 1742 he returned to college life, and, after reading lectures for two years as assistant tutor, was promoted in 1744 to be principal tutor, and acted in 1745 as senior taxor of the university. In Cambridge his main friends were Thomas Balguy and Richard Hurd. William Mason, who was then an undergraduate at St John's tutored by Powell, referred in a contemporary poem to "gentle Powell's placid mien."

Family Powell's fortune came to him through the death of a childless cousin. Their son, Charles Reynolds of Peldon Hall, admitted to the Inner Temple in 1719, inherited the family estates in Essex. He married Charlotte, second daughter of Francis Anderson of Manby (1675–1747); Anderson having married Mary, eldest daughter of Charles Pelham of Brocklesby, this was a first-cousin marriage. (While the wording in both the Dictionary of National Biography and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography implies the Brocklesby estate passed to Powell, it went to Charles Anderson-Pelham, 1st Baron Yarborough, a grandson of Francis Anderson. The History of Parliament confirms he succeeded Charles Pelham MP. )

Those Essex estates, with other property in Little Bentley and Wix, in the same county, came to Powell when Charles Reynolds died in 1760, his two children having predeceased him. He left his property to Miss Jolland, granddaughter of Susan Reynolds his mother through a marriage to George Jolland that preceded her marriage to the Rev. Francis Powell.