{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{short description|English clergyman and antiquary}} '''David Thomas Powell''' (1772/73 – 9 June 1848<ref name=GentMag>{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HjRZhWeToDwC&pg=RA1-PA438 |title=Rev D. T. Powell, B.C.L. |journal=The Gentleman's Magazine |volume=185 |date=October 1848 |pages=438–39 }}</ref>) was an English clergyman and antiquary.
Born in Tottenham, the son of Thomas Powell, an occasional poet, Powell became a Lieutenant in the 14th Light Dragoons; he left a manuscript account of his 1794 experiences in Cork, Flanders and Brabant. He later entered Magdalen College, Oxford, receiving a B.C.L. in June 1805.<ref name="GentMag" /> He spent much of the rest of his life making heraldic and genealogical collections, and touring both England and Wales to produce watercolour sketches of churches and manor houses in over forty counties.<ref name="PowellsEssex">{{Cite web |url=http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/1860-essays-reviews/powel-book.html |title=The Powells in Essex and their London Ancestors |access-date=24 June 2008 |archive-date=24 July 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724085833/http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/1860-essays-reviews/powel-book.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
Powell died in 1848 aged 75, in Tottenham<ref>"Death of a Miser". ''The Sun'' (London), Friday 23 June 1848, p.6. Via British Newspaper Archive. {{subscription required|s}}</ref> and was buried in the churchyard of St Nicholas Church, Loughton.<ref name="PowellsEssex" /> In addition to his antiquarian material, Powell's library, sold by auction by Puttick & Simpson over three days,<ref>''Catalogue of the very curious... library of the late Rev. D. T. Powell ...'', 1848</ref> contained two ancient manuscripts sold for over £100 each: an illuminated book of hours, executed for George van Egmond, Bishop of Utrecht, and a psalter from the monastery of "Farehow".<ref name="GentMag" /> Many of Powell's own notes and drawings, and other manuscripts from his collections, are now held in the British Library. Other items are in the Bodleian Library, the Brotherton Library, Leeds, Lambeth Archives, Cardiff Central Library, and elsewhere.<ref>{{cite book |author=Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts |author-link=Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts |title=Papers of British Antiquaries and Historians |series=Guides to Sources for British History based on the National Register of Archives |volume=12 |place=London |publisher=HMSO |year=2003 |isbn=0-11-440279-5 |page=165 }}</ref> Most of his wealth was left to the London Hospital, which used it to build a new medical school in 1854.
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== *{{cite journal |author=R. W. C. |title=The Powell MSS |journal=Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association |volume=22 |year=1890 |pages=61–63 }}
==External links== *{{UK National Archives ID}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, David Thomas}} Category:1770s births Category:1848 deaths Category:English antiquarians Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford