Powell was successively Fellow, tutor,
taxor and
Master of St John's. In 1741 Powell became private tutor to
Charles Townshend, second son of
Charles Townshend, 3rd Viscount Townshend. 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. In 1742 he returned to college life, and, after reading lectures for two years as assistant tutor, was promoted in 1744 to be principal tutor, and acted in 1745 as senior taxor of the university. In Cambridge his main friends were
Thomas Balguy and
Richard Hurd.
William Mason, who was then an undergraduate at St John's tutored by Powell, referred in a contemporary poem to "gentle Powell's placid mien." 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. He resigned his fellowship in 1763. 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. The following November, he succeeded to the vice-chancellorship of the university, and in December 1766 he was appointed by the crown to the archdeaconry of Colchester. 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. 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 guarded the college revenues. In his first year he established college examinations, drawing up the papers himself, and attending the examinations; but he opposed
John Jebb's proposal for annual examinations of the whole university. 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. He himself attended chapel without a break through the whole year, at six o'clock in the morning. His manners, however, were "rigid and unbending." About 1770 Powell suffered a stroke of
apoplexy, and he died in his chair, from a fit of the
palsy, on 19 January 1775. He was buried in the college chapel on 25 January. Over his vault was placed a flat blue stone, with an epitaph by Balguy. He was unmarried. ==Works==