through Gibbon's death, and Petrie was the first to revive it. During 1818 and 1819 various meetings were held at Earl Spencer's house to further the project; it was agreed that no such scheme could be undertaken by private enterprise, and an appeal was made for government aid. Petrie was selected to draw up a plan. His aim was to make the body of materials to be published absolutely complete, and to include extracts from Greek and Roman writers containing all references to early Britain; copies of all inscriptions on stone or marble; all letters, charters, bulls, proceedings of councils and synods; laws, engravings of coins, medals, and seals; besides general histories, annals, and chronicles of England, and histories of particular monasteries.
The plan was presented to the record commission in 1821, and was sanctioned by the government and parliament. The work commenced in 1823, with Petrie as chief editor, assisted by the Rev. John Sharpe (1769–1859) [q. v.] The Welsh portion was entrusted to John Humffreys Parry (1786–1825) [q. v.] and to Aneurin Owen [q. v.], and was published in 1841. The main portion entrusted to Petrie proceeded steadily until 1832, when it was interrupted by his illness. But in 1835, when the whole text of the first volume had been completed, and a large collection of materials made for further volumes, the work was suspended by an order of the record commissioners, due to a misunderstanding between them and Petrie.
Petrie died unmarried at Stockwell, Surrey, on 17 March 1842, before the undertaking was resumed. One volume was finally completed and published in 1848 by Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy [q. v.], who had been trained by Petrie. It bore the title ‘Monumenta Historica Britannica, or Materials for the History of Great Britain from the Earliest Period to the Norman Conquest.’ Hardy acknowledged valuable aid derived from Petrie's manuscripts in his ‘Descriptive Catalogue of Materials’ published in 1862. Petrie also edited ‘Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniæ,’ 1830, 4to; and his translation of the earlier portion of the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ was reprinted from the ‘Monumenta’ in the ‘Church Historians of England,’ 1854, vol. ii. pt. i.
[Prefaces to the Monumenta and Descriptive Catalogue by Sir T. D. Hardy; Edinburgh Rev. xlvi. 472; Dibdin's Bibliographical Decameron, passim, Literary Companion, i. 103, 104, 154, 320, and Literary Reminiscences, pp. 453, 716, 717; Gent. Mag. 1834 i. 375, 1842 ii. 661–2, 1851 ii. 628; Annual Register, 1842, p. 258; Gorton's Biogr. Dict., Suppl.; Manning and Bray's Surrey, ii. 233, 235.]
PETRIE, MARTIN (1823–1892), colonel, was born on 1 June 1823, at the Manor House, King's Langley, Hertfordshire, being the second son of Commissary-general William Petrie (d. 1842), who had seen active service in Egypt, Italy, and France. His mother Margaret was daughter and coheiress of Henry Mitton of the Chase, Enfield. Colonel Petrie was sixth in descent from Alexander Petrie, D.D. [q. v.] His infancy was spent in Portugal, and his childhood at the Cape of Good Hope, at which places his father held appointments. In youth he was chiefly in France, Italy, and Germany. On 14 April 1846 he entered the army as an ensign in the royal Newfoundland corps, and served for eleven years in North America, becoming a lieutenant on 7 Jan. 1848 and captain on 5 May 1854. On 26 Jan. 1855 he was transferred to the 14th foot regiment, and left Newfoundland on 20 March in the small steamer Vesta, which carried twenty-four passengers, seven of them, including Captain Petrie, being officers on their way to join regiments in the Crimea. When three hundred miles off St. John's the vessel, already damaged by ice-floes, was caught in a terrific storm, and the engine-room was flooded. Petrie's mechanical skill and great courage enabled him to save the ship. He was called the ‘hero of the Vesta;’ but his hands were so severely lacerated and frostbitten that he was invalided for some time, and could not proceed to the Crimea.
In May 1856 Petrie joined the Royal Staff College, and in December 1858 he passed the final examination, coming out first on the list. He was attached to the topographical department of the war office from 10 March 1859 to 30 June 1864; and in 1860, during his first year there, he brought out a standard work in three volumes, ‘The Strength, Composition, and Organisation of the Armies of Europe,’ showing the annual revenue and military expenditure of each country, with its total forces in peace and war. In 1863 he published a volume giving more detailed information respecting the British army, ‘The Organisation, Composition, and Strength of the Army of Great Britain,’ which reached a fifth edition in 1867. Petrie also compiled two important volumes, ‘Equipment of Infantry’ and ‘Hospital Equipment’ (1865–6), forming part of a series on army equipment. For the long period of eighteen years (1864–1882) he was examiner in military administration at the staff college, and latterly at the Royal Military College also. He became major on 13 July 1867, and exchanged to the 97th foot on 18th Dec.; in July 1872 he retired on half-pay, in 1876 became colonel, and in 1882 withdrew from the service. Petrie read some
