PRIAULX, Osmond de Beauvoir. Guernsey 5.3.1805 — London 15.1.1891. British Classical Scholar interested in India. Born in a wealthy family, son of Anthony Priaulx and Martha Gore, studied law at Cambridge (St. Claire’s College). Called to the bar 1832, but never practised law. Instead he lived in London as a wealthy private scholar and book collector. Married late in life Louisa, the widow of Thomas Nelson. One of the first persons in the U.K. to be cremated. Before his death he donated a house and all his books to Guernsey, to form a public library, opened 1889 as the Priaulx Library.
Publications: Quæstiones Mosaicæ: Or the Book of Genesis Compared with the Remains of Ancient Religions. 6+497 p. L. 1842.
– The Indian Travels of Apollonius of Tyana”, JRAS 17, 1860, 70-105; “On the Indian Embassy to Augustus”, JRAS 17, 1860, 309-321; “On the Second Indian Embassy to Rome (Pliny, Nat. Hist. VI, 24)”, JRAS 18, 1861, 345-361; “On the Indian Embassies to Rome from the Reign of Claudius to the Death of Justinian”, JRAS 19, 1862, 274-298; “On the Indian Embassies to Rome from the Reign of Claudius to the Death of Justinian – continued”, JRAS 20, 1863, 269-312; all republished in The Indian Travels of Apollonius of Tyana and the Indian Embassies to Rome. An Historical Investigation, from the Reign of Augustus to the Death of Justinian, A.D. 565, with Critical Notes, References and an Index. 5+260 p. L. 1873.
Sources: R.N.C[ust], JRAS 3, 1891, 348; priaulxlibrary.co.uk; www.bbc.co.uk/guernsey/content/articles/2009/03/02/osmond_de_beauvoir_priaulx_feature.shtml with portrait (1888, better reproduction in artuk.org/discover/artworks/osmond-de-beauvoir-priaulx-18051891-founder-of-the-priaulx-library-136887); stray notes in Internet.
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