PLIMER, ANDREW (c. 1763-1837), English miniature painter, was the son of a clock-maker at Wellington. With his brother Nathaniel (1757–c. 1822) he joined a party of gipsies and wandered about with them, eventually reaching London, where in 1781 he was engaged by Mrs. Cosway as studio boy. Cosway sent him to a friend to learn drawing, and then received him into his own studio. In 1785 he set up for himself in Great Maddox Street. He exhibited many times in the Royal Academy, resided for a while in Exeter and travelled a good deal through England. He died at Brighton in 1837 and was buried at Hove. His miniatures are of great brilliance and are in considerable demand among collectors. They are to be distinguished by the peculiar wiry-treatment of the hair and by the large full expres sive eyes which Plimer invariably gave to his female sitters, eyes resembling those of his own wife and daughters. See G. C. Wil liamson, Andrew and Nathaniel Plimer (1903). (G. C. W.) PLIMSOLL, SAMUEL (1824-1898), British politician and social reformer, was born at Bristol on Feb. lo, 1824. His efforts for reform were directed more especially against "coffinships" —unseaworthy and overloaded vessels, often heavily insured, in which unscrupulous owners risked the lives of their crews. Plimsoll entered parliament as Liberal member for Derby in 1868, and failing to pass a bill dealing with the subject, he pub lished a work entitled Our Seamen (1872), which made a great impression throughout the country. On Plimsoll's motion in 1873, a royal commission was appointed, and in 1875 a govern ment bill was introduced, which Plimsoll, though regarding it as inadequate, resolved to accept. On July 22, when Disraeli, an
nounced that the bill would be dropped, Plimsoll lost his self-con trol, applied the term "villains" to members of the house, and shook his fist in the Speaker's face.
Eventually Plimsoll apologised, but the country shared his view that the bill had been stifled by the pressure of the shipowners, and the popular agitation forced the government to pass a bill, which in the following year was amended into the Merchant Shipping Act. This gave stringent powers of inspection to the Board of Trade. The mark that indicates the limit to which a ship may be loaded is generally known as Plimsoll's mark. Plimsoll was re-elected for Derby at the general election of 1880, but gave up his seat to Sir W. Harcourt, in the belief that the latter, as home secretary, could advance the sailors' interests more effec tively than any private member. Later on Plimsoll was estranged from the Liberal leaders by what he regarded as their breach of faith in neglecting the question of shipping reform. He became president of the Sailors' and Firemen's Union, and raised a further agitation about the horrors of the cattle-ships. Later he visited the United States with the object, in which he did good service, of securing the adoption of a less bitter tone towards England in the historical textbooks used in American schools. He died at Folkestone on June 3, 1898.