(1717–1775) was an eighteenth century academic and priest, most notably Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1765 until 1766;[1] and Archdeacon of Colchester from 1766 until his death.
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.
"[4][3][5] On 3 November 1760 Powell became a senior Fellow of his college, and in 1761, when he had inherited the property of his cousin, he left Cambridge and took a house in London.
[4] On 25 January 1765 Powell was unanimously elected Master of St John's College, Cambridge, where he spent the rest of his life; there were numerous competitors for the post, but he was backed by the influence of Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle.
[4] In 1768 Powell claimed the college rectory of Freshwater, Isle of Wight, worth £500 per annum, which was in the option of the master, and resigned the benefices of Colkirk and Stibbard; the Fellows disliked this act.
[4][5] He gave money to the college when it was intended to rebuild the first court and to lay out the gardens under the care of Capability Brown.
He helped several undergraduates financially and gave prizes at his own expense; he did not allow any student to pass without examination in one of the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles.
"[4] About 1770 Powell suffered a stroke of apoplexy, and he died in his chair, from a fit of the palsy, on 19 January 1775.
[4][8] Their son, Charles Reynolds of Peldon Hall, admitted to the Inner Temple in 1719, inherited the family estates in Essex.
[11]) 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.