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 Edward, which, as we now know, got into the White Sea and to St. Nicholas.

On 14 Aug. the ships discovered land, apparently uninhabited, in latitude 72°, but were unable to reach it by reason of the shoal water and the ice. From this position they ran seventy leagues S.S.E., then steered N.W. by W. for a day, then for two days W.S.W., and on the 23rd they saw land, trending W.S.W. and E.N.E.; then, before a strong westerly gale, they ran to the N. by E. thirty leagues. It is well to note these positions and courses, as they show more clearly than is otherwise possible the extreme ignorance of all the responsible officers, Chancellor and Borough being absent, not only of the pilotage but of the most simple navigation. If the latitude 72° is to be accepted as anything like correct, they had been blown over to the coast of Novaya Zemlya, but the courses sailed afterwards are incomprehensible. On 14 Sept. they again found themselves in with the land, rocky and high, where were good harbours. For the next three days they examined the coast, and on the 18th went into one of the harbours, afterwards known as Arzina, near to Kegor, where Norwegian Lapland marches with Russian. It was described as running ‘into the mainland about two leagues, and in breadth half a league; wherein were very many seal fishes and other great fishes; and upon the main we saw bears, great deer, foxes, with divers strange beasts … to us unknown and also wonderful.’ Here, considering the lateness of the season and the badness of the weather, they resolved to winter. But for wintering in an arctic climate they had no provision. The country was entirely desolate and uninhabited, and Willoughby and his companions perished miserably. When, some few years afterwards, the ships and bodies were found, there were found also Willoughby's journal and will, by which it appeared that he and most of the party were still alive in January 1554. The journal is printed in Hakluyt's ‘Principal Navigations’ (i. 232–7), and a manuscript copy of it is in the Cottonian manuscripts (Otho E. viii. 10), but the original has disappeared. Neither it nor the will can now be traced; nor is anything clearly known of their discovery or of their being brought to England. All that can be said is that the commonly received stories (, English Seamen, i. 99) are directly contradicted by positive evidence (, i. 288, 294, 297) that nothing certain was known in the summer of 1557.

By his will (Porch, 34), proved 1 July 1528, Sir Henry left to Hugh ‘all my lands and tenements in Mapurley in the county of Derby, Brokistow, and Basseford in Nottinghamshire, and a parcel of land at Walsall in Staffordshire;’ and further directs, as to certain sums due to him, ‘that my son John shall receive the same, to the use to purchase or buy a marriage for my son Hugh, if the same Hugh will be guided and ordered by my said son Sir John Willoughby; or else the same sums of money to be disposed for the wealth of my soul.’ Of the marriage so bought there does not seem to be any direct record; but in the will of Sir John (Populwell, 22), proved 22 Jan. 1548–9, mention is made of ‘my niece Rose, daughter of my brother Hugh,’ as well as a legacy of 6l. 13s. 4d. yearly ‘to my brother, Sir Hugh.’ In the Wollaton accounts there is also mention of 20l. a year paid out of the Wollaton property to Henry, son of Sir Hugh (, p. 813).

A portrait, full length, preserved at Wollaton, was lent by Lord Middleton to the Tudor Exhibition of 1890 and to the Naval Exhibition of 1891.

[Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, i. 226–37; Thoroton's Hist. of Nottinghamshire, 1797, ii. 209; Colvile's Warwickshire Worthies, p. 813; Brown's Worthies of Nottinghamshire, p. 113; Beazley's John and Sebastian Cabot, 1898, pp. 182, 186, 195; information from Lady Middleton.]

WILLOUGHBY, NESBIT JOSIAH (1777–1849), rear-admiral, descended from a younger branch of the Wollaton family, and son of Robert Willoughby of Cossall, Nottinghamshire, by his second wife, Barbara, daughter of James Bruce of Kinloch, was born on 29 Aug. 1777. His christian names suggest some connection with the family of Lady Nelson's first husband [see ], but there does not appear to be any record of it. He entered the navy in May 1790 on board the Latona, with Captain (Sir) Albemarle Bertie; he was afterwards in the Edgar and other ships on the home station, and in January 1793 went out to the coast of Africa in the Orpheus frigate, which, after a successful cruise against the French trade, was sent round to the East India station, where she captured the French frigate Duguay-Trouin on 5 May 1794. At the reduction of Malacca in August 1795 Willoughby had command of a boat, and in February–March 1796 was present at the occupation of Amboyna and Banda (, i. 414–15), from which even a midshipman's share of the prize-money must have been considerable. He was afterwards in the Heroine and in the Suffolk,


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 flagship of Rear-admiral Peter Rainier [q. v.], by whom he was promoted, on 13 Jan. 1798, to be lieutenant of the Victorious of 74 guns, then commanded by Captain William Clark. On 30 June Clark suspended him from duty and placed him under arrest for disrespectful behaviour. Afterwards he remitted the punishment and ordered him to return to his duty. This Willoughby declined to do without an acknowledgment that the arrest was unjust; and as Clark refused this, he applied for a court-martial. It was nearly twelve months before a court could be assembled, and Willoughby was then convicted of having ‘behaved to Captain Clark in a contemptuous and disrespectful manner;’ but, in consideration of his long confinement, only sentenced ‘to be dismissed his ship.’ Rainier, thinking probably that twelve months' confinement in the tropics had fully punished him, appointed him the next day, 14 June 1799, to command the Amboyna brig; but the imprisonment had told severely on Willoughby's health, and he was obliged to invalid, taking a passage in the Sceptre for the Cape of Good Hope. On the way thither he piloted the ship's boat through a reef of rocks at Rodriguez, and captured a French privateer brig which had sought safety within it. On 5 Nov. the Sceptre was blown from her anchor and driven on shore in Table Bay, with the loss of her captain and a great part of her crew. Willoughby, with many of the officers, was at a ball on shore, and so escaped.

In August 1800 he was appointed to the Russell, one of the fleet which went to the Baltic in the following spring, and of the squadron which, under the command of Nelson, fought the battle of Copenhagen on 2 April. In this, Willoughby's conduct in boarding under a heavy fire and taking possession of the Danish ship Provesteen was highly commended; and as he returned to his ship on the next day he was loudly cheered by his shipmates, on the order of the captain. But the captain was not a pleasant man to work with, and Willoughby repaid his overbearing conduct with studied insolence. Each applied for a court-martial on the other. The captain was tried for tyranny and oppression on 22 June, and was, notwithstanding the evidence, acquitted, the charges being pronounced ‘frivolous, scandalous, malicious, and totally unfounded, tending to lessen the dignity and to subvert the good order and discipline of his majesty's naval service.’ The next day Willoughby in turn was tried ‘for treating his captain with insolence and contempt,’ and, as this was proved by the evidence, he was dismissed the service; his previous trial for a similar offence and the judgment of the court on the previous day certainly telling against him (Courts Martial, vol. xcvi.)

On the renewal of the war in 1803 Sir John Thomas Duckworth [q. v.], then going out to the West Indies as commander-in-chief, received Willoughby on board his flagship as a volunteer; and on his report the sentence was remitted and Willoughby repromoted to be lieutenant on 26 Oct. 1803. In November Duckworth's flagship, the Hercule, to which Willoughby belonged, was sent to join the squadron under Commodore Loring, then blockading Cape Français, in co-operation with the revolted negroes under General Dessalines. By the end of the month the garrison had concluded a treaty with Dessalines, by which they were to embark on board their ships in the port and put to sea on or before the 30th. But as Loring would not accept anything but absolute surrender, and they could not elude his vigilance, they were obliged to capitulate. The ships were to come out of the harbour with their colours flying, fire a complimentary broadside, and strike their flags. M. Montalan, commanding the French frigate Clorinde, is described as refusing to accept this convention, and attempting to escape (, iii. 300). In doing this his ship took the ground under the negro batteries, which were preparing to set her on fire with red-hot shot, or, as an alternative, put to death every soul that landed from her. Willoughby, who was in command of the Hercule's launch—one of the boats which had been towing the other ships out of the mole—seeing the Clorinde's imminent danger, went on board her, persuaded Montalan and the officer commanding the troops to surrender at once, hoisted the English flag, and eventually succeeded in bringing the ship off, to be added to the English navy. The preservation of nine hundred lives was thus owing, Duckworth wrote, to Willoughby's uncommon exertions and professional ability (, iii. 206; cf. ). Marshall thinks that it was for his conduct on this occasion that Willoughby was restored to his rank; but if so, the commission would have been dated 30 Nov.; it was, in fact, more than a month earlier, though he had not yet had the news of it.

In the operations against Curaçoa, in February 1804, Willoughby was in command of an advanced battery, exposed to the frequent assaults of vastly superior numbers, in repelling which and by sickness his little force was almost exterminated.

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 Willoughby distinguished himself throughout by his daring and the reckless exposure of himself; frequently, it was said, taking his meals sitting in a chair upon the ramparts or breastwork of the battery (, iii. 295). Willoughby seems to have denied the chair, and to have maintained that in the circumstances the example was necessary. This was perhaps an afterthought, for during the whole of his service danger, whether from storm, the sea, or the enemy, seems by itself to have been sufficient lure; but the instances of this are far too numerous to be even named here. In February 1805 Duckworth hoisted his flag in the Acasta frigate and appointed Willoughby her first lieutenant, intending to promote him on his arrival in England. The circumstances of his quarrel with Captain (Sir James Athol) Wood [q. v.] and the court-martial arising out of them prevented this; and Willoughby was appointed to the Prince on 8 July 1805, but was not able to join her till 8 Nov., eighteen days after the battle of Trafalgar.

Willoughby was afterwards in the Formidable, and in 1807 was in the Royal George, Duckworth's flagship, on the occasion of his forcing the passage of the Dardanelles; on 14 Feb., when the Ajax was destroyed by fire [see ], he, in the Royal George's cutter, was one of the first to go to her assistance, and succeeded in saving many lives, but at the greatest personal risk. In July 1807 he was discharged to the Otter sloop for a passage to Monte Video and the Cape of Good Hope, where he was promoted to the command of the Otter on 10 Jan. 1808, though the commission was not confirmed by the admiralty till 9 April. The Otter was then sent for a cruise off Mauritius and to Bombay under the orders of Captain Robert Corbet [q. v.] of the Néréide; and on her return to Cape Town in the following January, Willoughby was brought before a court-martial on charges of ‘cruelty and unofficer-like conduct’ preferred against him in a letter to the admiral, signed ‘The ship Otter's company, one and all.’ It appeared from the evidence that there had been a great deal of flogging and starting—promiscuous beating with a stick or rope's-end—and that it had been commonly accompanied by violent threats; that Willoughby had said that ‘it was as much pleasure to him to punish a man when he comes to the gangway as it was to go to his breakfast,’ and that ‘he would flog like hell and start like hell.’ The trial lasted over five days, 9–14 Feb., and in the end Willoughby was acquitted, but was recommended ‘to adopt more moderate language on future occasions’ (Courts Martial, vol. cxxv.). In view of the evidence, the acquittal appears strange, for the punishments had certainly been excessive and irregular; still more open to censure seems the fact that one of the captains sitting on this court was Corbet, who, on the days immediately preceding, had been tried for a similar offence, and had been similarly acquitted with a slight reprimand.

After refitting, the Otter was again sent off Mauritius, and on 14 Aug. Willoughby, in the sloop's boats, brought out a vessel strongly anchored under the batteries of the Black river. On 21 Sept. he commanded the seamen who were put on shore at St. Paul's with the troops, and had an important share in the happy success of the operation [see ]. For his exertions at this time the commander-in-chief at the Cape, his old patron Albemarle Bertie, promoted him to command the Néréide frigate; but his commission as post-captain was not confirmed till nearly a year later (5 Sept. 1810), and then for another piece of service—the landing with a party of a hundred men on the night of 30 April, destroying two French batteries at Jacotel, and utterly routing a strong body of militia, Willoughby himself leading the onslaught in full-dress uniform. A few weeks after this (15 June) he narrowly escaped being killed by the accidental bursting of a musket fired in exercise. As it was, his right lower jaw was shattered, and his neck so lacerated that the windpipe was laid bare. For nearly three weeks he lay between life and death, but on 7 July he took part in the capture of Bourbon, and, with his face and neck still bound up, superintended the landing of the troops.

In August 1810 he was with Captain (Sir Samuel) Pym [q. v.] at the seizure of the Isle de la Passe on the 13th, and was left there when Pym went round to Port Louis. On the 20th the French squadron came in sight—four large ships and a sloop; and though two of the former proved to be East Indiamen prizes, the other two were 40-gun frigates, which, by going round to Port Louis to join the French ships there, would have placed Pym in a position of very great danger. With equal good judgment and boldness Willoughby, by hoisting French flags and signals, decoyed the enemy into the passage; when they found out their mistake they were no longer able to turn, and were obliged to go into the Grand Port, after a sharp interchange of broadsides with the Néréide. At the very first Willoughby had sent off


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 the news to Pym, who joined him on the 22nd with three powerful frigates; the force was overwhelmingly superior to the French, and Pym resolved to go into the port and take or destroy them. But as he attempted to do so on the 23rd two of his ships ran aground and could not be moved; a third, going on the wrong side of a shoal, was unable to get close enough in; the Néréide alone succeeded in reaching her allotted station, and found herself the target for the whole French force. After one of the most obstinate defences on record, being reduced to a shattered wreck and having lost 222 men killed or wounded out of a total of 281, she struck her colours on the morning of the 24th. The terrible loss of men was partly explained by the fact that the upper works of the ship—a French prize—were lined with fir, which, on being broken through by cannon shot, gave off showers of dangerous splinters. At the very beginning of the action one of these struck Willoughby on the left cheek and tore the eye completely out of the socket. The first lieutenant was killed; the second lieutenant dangerously wounded; the lieutenant of marines was also wounded; two lieutenants of soldiers were killed. When, after the capture of the Isle of France in December, Willoughby recovered his liberty and was tried for the loss of the Néréide, the court declared that the ship had been ‘carried into battle in a most judicious, officer-like, and gallant manner,’ and formally expressed ‘its high admiration of the noble conduct of the captain, officers, and ship's company during the whole of the unequal contest.’ The sentence, concluding with a ‘most honourable’ acquittal, has been correctly described as ‘unprecedented’.

On his return to England Willoughby was surveyed by a medical board, and on their report was awarded (4 Oct. 1811) a pension of 300l. per annum, which was afterwards (1 July 1815) increased to 550l. Meantime, in 1812, having no immediate prospect of employment, he obtained leave to go abroad, and went to the Baltic, where he offered his services as a volunteer to Sir Thomas Byam Martin [q. v.], then commanding in the Gulf of Riga. Learning, however, from Martin that there was no immediate prospect of any active operations, he went on to St. Petersburg, where his offer to serve with the Russian army was accepted. He was then sent to Riga, from which, on 26 Sept., he accompanied Count Steinheil, who, with a force of fifteen thousand men, was marching to join Wittgenstein at Polotzk. Before this could be effected Steinheil was surprised by a very inferior French detachment, and utterly routed with the loss of some two thousand men killed or taken prisoners. Among these latter was Willoughby, who had put a wounded Russian on his own horse, and was himself leading it when he fell into the hands of a party of French hussars. A Dutch officer in the French service befriended him and supplied him with money, so that he was able to make the terrible retreat from Russia with comparative comfort. Even so, however, the hardships he underwent told severely on a constitution already tried by wounds and a tropical climate, and at Königsberg he was seized with a fever which confined him to bed for seven weeks. Special representations had been made on his behalf by order of the czar, but Napoleon refused to exchange him, and on his return to France ordered him to be confined au secret in the Château de Bouillon. Here he remained for nine months, till, on the advance of the allies, he was moved to Peronne, whence he managed to escape.

On 4 Jan. 1815 Willoughby was nominated a C.B.; from 1818 to 1822 he commanded the Tribune frigate on the coast of Ireland and in the West Indies; on 30 June 1827 he was knighted at the instance of the Duke of Clarence, then lord high admiral, and again, by a curious blunder of the king's, on 21 Aug. 1832, when he was invested with the insignia of a K.C.H.; on 14 Jan. 1839 he was awarded a good-service pension, and on 30 Nov. 1841 was appointed a naval aide-de-camp to the queen. He was promoted to be rear-admiral on 28 April 1847, and died, unmarried, at his house in Montagu Street, Portman Square, after a fortnight's suffering, on 19 May 1849. It is said that by the seamen of his day he was known as ‘the immortal.’

A portrait of Willoughby is at Wollaton, the property of Lord Middleton, by whom it was lent to the Naval Exhibition of 1891.

[The Memoir in Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biogr. vi. (suppl. pt. ii.) 111 is unusually long (eighty-four pages), written apparently from notes supplied by Willoughby himself; that in O'Byrne's Nav. Biogr. Dict. is merely an abstract of Marshall's. See also Gent. Mag. 1849, ii. 648; James's Naval Hist. (1861 edit., in vol. vi. is an engraving of the Wollaton portrait); Troude's Batailles Navales de la France; official documents in the Public Record Office, more especially the Minutes of Courts Martial.]

WILLOUGHBY, RICHARD (d. 1362), judge, was the son of a Richard de Willoughby who acted as justice in eyre


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Author:Clement Webber Coumbe

Works

 * Johanna Spyri, Uncle Titus in the country (translator)
 * Johanna Spyri, Uncle Titus in the country (translator)
 * Johanna Spyri, Uncle Titus in the country (translator)

title: Author:Clement Webber Coumbe


text:
Portal talk:Ethical Culture

Classification
BJ (Ethics) is a bit of a difficult place to put Ethical Culture. My natural inclination was to put it in either BL (Religion) as it is a sort of quasi-religious but non-theistic movement that can rightfully be thought of as a stepping stone between traditional religion and freethinking/atheism, or indeed BLB (where Freethinking currently is). The Library of Congress Authorities site places the heading at BJ10.E8, while checking a few books on the topic at a variety of university theological libraries, it turns up at BP605.E84 (which is in 'Other beliefs and movements'). —Tom Morris (talk) 14:52, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

title: Portal talk:Ethical Culture


text:
Portal:Ethical Culture

 * United States v. Seeger 380 U.S. 163 – US Supreme Court case on conscientious objection and religion
 * The Human Origin of Morals/Chapter VII
 * Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Right of Voluntary Association
 * The Psychology of Religion
 * The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 6/Epistles - Second Series/LVII Mrs. Bull
 * Ethical Religion/Introduction
 * Washington Ethical Society v. District of Columbia
 * 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Adler, Felix
 * Comptroller of Public Accounts v. Ethical Society of Austin
 * Through the Brazilian Wilderness/Up the Paraguay
 * Engel v. Vitale/Concurrence Douglas
 * Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Ascetical Theology
 * A Biographical Dictionary of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Freethinkers

title: Portal:Ethical Culture


text: Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Divol, Ira


text:
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 under Edward II, and purchased the manors of Wollaton in Nottinghamshire and Risley in Derbyshire. The original name of the family was Bugge. They took the name of Willoughby from their lordship of that name in Nottinghamshire. In 1324 the younger Richard was substituted for his father as knight of the shire for that county, and was about the same time appointed chief justice of the common pleas in Ireland (Parl. Writs, i. 306, 312, 314; Cal. Rot. Pat. pp. 78, 94, 97). He is mentioned as one of the justices appointed for the trial of the persons who had spoiled Henry le Despenser's lands in 1322 (Parl. Writs, ii. 189). On the accession of Edward III he was removed from his office and appears in the year-book of the first year of that reign as an advocate. On 6 March 1328 he was made a justice of the common pleas, and on 2 Sept. 1329 became second justice. On 15 Dec. 1330 he was removed into the court of king's bench; and when Geoffrey le Scrope [q. v.], the chief justice, went abroad with the king, Willoughby occupied the chief seat during his absence, at different times from 1332, till Geoffrey le Scrope ultimately resigned in the middle of 1338. From this time he presided in the court until he was displaced on 24 July 1340.

In 1331 he was captured journeying towards Grantham by a certain Richard de Folville, and compelled to pay a ransom of ninety marks (, i. 460). In November 1340 he was arrested by order of the king, and imprisoned in Corfe Castle (French Chronicle of London, p. 84). He was tried on several charges at Westminster on 13 Jan. (ib. p. 87). But he was restored to office as one of the justices of the common pleas on 9 Oct. following, and continued to hold the office of judge till 1357, but probably retired in that year (, Origines Juridiciales, p. 45). He died in 1362. His extensive estates were situated in the counties of Nottingham, Derby, and Lincoln, but he also had a house in London in ‘le Baly’ (Cal. Inq. post mortem, ii. 256). He married, first, Isabel, daughter of Sir Roger Mortein; secondly, Joanna; and thirdly, Isabella, and had several children. Later members of the family were Sir Hugh Willoughby [q. v.], Sir Nesbit Josiah Willoughby [q. v.], and Francis Willughby, the naturalist [q. v.]

[Foss's Judges of England, and authorities cited in text.]  WILLOUGHBY, ROBERT, first  (1452–1502), born in 1452, was son and heir of Sir John Willoughby, and great-great-grandson of Robert, fourth baron Willoughby de Eresby (d. 1396). His father was probably the John Willoughby who was sheriff of Somerset in 1455. The ancestral seat was at Clutton in that county, where Sir Robert afterwards acquired other estates. His mother was Anne, daughter and coheir of Sir Edmund Cheney or Cheyne of Broke, Wiltshire, and Up-Ottery, Devonshire. In or before 1475 he married Blanche, daughter and coheir of Sir John Champernowne of Beer Ferrers, Devonshire, and Callington, Cornwall. Through her he became possessed of the Beer Ferrers estate. His mother died in or before 1479, in which year he was found to be cousin and coheir, in her right, of Humphrey Stafford, earl of Devon [q. v.] His mother's family were strong Lancastrians, and Willoughby joined them as one of the leaders in the abortive rising of Henry Stafford, second duke of Buckingham [q. v.], in October 1483. After the dispersion of the insurgents Willoughby, with three of the Cheneys, escaped to Brittany (, p. 700), where they joined Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond (Henry VII). An act of attainder was immediately passed, in which Willoughby is described as ‘late of Byerferrys, knight’ (Rot. Parl. vi. 246). Probably under a grant following on this act, Humphrey Stafford of Grafton seized Willoughby's estates [see under ].

Willoughby doubtless returned with Richmond when he landed at Milford on 7 Aug. 1485. He is mentioned by the ‘Croyland Continuator’ (p. 574) among the fourteen leading generals of Richmond's army at Bosworth. Immediately after the victory Henry detached him from the main army to march from Leicester to Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire, and seize the person of Edward, earl of Warwick, son of George, duke of Clarence, and nephew of Edward IV, and his cousin, the Princess Elizabeth, who had both been imprisoned there by Richard III. Sheriff Hutton apparently surrendered without resistance, and Willoughby marched with Warwick to London (, p. 718).

On 24 Sept. in the same year Willoughby was granted the receivership of the duchy of Cornwall and the office of steward of all manner of mines in Devonshire and Cornwall in which there was any proportion of gold or silver. He was appointed high steward of the household preparatory to Henry VII's coronation on 30 Oct. (, Mat. ii. 3, &c.). Parliament met on 7 Nov. 1485, and at once repealed Richard III's act of attainder against Wil-


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 loughby and other Lancastrians (Rot. Parl. vi. 273). Humphrey Stafford was attainted, but his lands were exempted from forfeiture to the crown, and Willoughby, who appears to have seized them on his march to Sheriff-Hutton, retained them in peaceful possession.

Willoughby is first styled ‘knight for the king's body’ in a grant dated 26 Dec. 1485 (, Mat. i. 222, 442). He was also granted on 20 June 1486 the manor of Cary, and lands in Stokegolampton and Bruton Weyokale, Somerset, forfeited by John, lord Zouche. In this grant he is styled for the first time a king's councillor (, Mat. i. 467; see, p. 719). It was perhaps with the hope that the new king's favourite would exert his influence to maintain her in her estates that Cecilia, duchess of York, mother of Richard III, soon after the battle of Bosworth, granted to Willoughby by letters patent, dated 1 Oct. 1485, the offices of keeper of the great park of Fasterne and of lieutenant of the forest of Bradon, Wiltshire, and steward of all her possessions in that county (, Mat. i. 468). Of these grants he was fortunate enough to obtain a confirmation on 20 June 1486 by Henry VII (ib.) On 7 Feb. 1487 he was appointed a commissioner of assize for Devonshire and Cornwall (ib. ii. 117), being sheriff of Devonshire for 1487–8 (, Survey, App. p. 3;, Mat. ii. 461). After the reversal of his attainder Willoughby seems to have made his mother's seat of Broke, near Westbury, Wiltshire, his residence. He is for the first time described as Robert Willoughby de Brooke (sic) in commissions issued on 23 Dec. 1488.

At the same time Willoughby was appointed a commissioner of musters of archers in the counties of Somerset, Dorset, Wilts, Devon, and Cornwall, for the proposed expedition for the defence of Brittany (ib. pp. 385, 386; cf. ib. p. 417). On 1 March 1489 he was appointed, jointly with Sir John Cheyne, to lead the expedition (ib. p. 419; cf. Paston Letters, iii. 350). The army consisted of eight thousand men, and was destined to avenge the destruction of Edward, lord Woodville, and the English auxiliaries of the Bretons at the battle of St. Aubin-du-Cormier on 28 July 1488. A number of indecisive actions followed, and, after a five months' fruitless campaign, the force returned to England in the winter of 1489 (, Chron. p. 442). Henry next tried negotiations, his object being to prevent the marriage of Anne, duchess of Brittany, with Charles VIII. He despatched Willoughby as his envoy to Brittany. Willoughby's instructions were to promise aid against the French if the duchess would refuse the French king's proposals. Willoughby was at the same time (16 July 1490) appointed admiral of the fleet (, Fœdera, xii. 455), and left England on 18 Aug. (, Journal, p. 212), at the head of a thousand archers, whom he threw into the town of Morlaix. On 21 Sept. he had audience of the duchess at Rennes (ib. p. 220). The fruitlessness of his diplomacy was proved by the marriage of the duchess to Charles VIII on the following 6 Dec., and the incorporation of Brittany with France.

As a reward for his services Willoughby was summoned to parliament by writ dated 12 Aug. 6 Henry VII (1491); (see ‘Creations,’ 1483–1646 in Dep.-Keeper Public Records, App. 47th Rep.; other authorities give 12 Aug. 1492). The defeat of Henry's diplomacy and his engagements with the Emperor Maximilian, to whom Anne had been betrothed, impelled him to an invasion of France. Willoughby was relieved of actual command of the fleet, though retained in his office as admiral and nominated marshal of the army. The campaign was short. An unsuccessful siege was laid to Boulogne, and on 3 Nov. a treaty of peace was signed at Étaples, a formal request to that effect having been made to Henry by the military commanders (1 Nov. 1492, ib. p. 490). On the following 18 Feb. Willoughby received a grant of the office of seneschal of the lands in Wiltshire belonging to the earldoms of Warwick and Salisbury (Pat. Roll, 8 Hen. VII, pt. ii. m. 18). At about the same time, the exact date being unknown, he was made a knight of the Garter. He was present as lord steward on 1 Nov. 1494 when Prince Henry (Henry VIII) was created Duke of York, and took part in the reception of Catharine of Arragon in 1501 (, Letters and Papers, i. 393, 416, ii. 104).

Willoughby's next employment was against Perkin Warbeck, who landed in Cornwall on 7 Sept. 1497. When news arrived that he was threatening the coast with a few ships, Willoughby, as admiral, took command of the fleet (see, ii. 215). He took part in the relief of Exeter a few days later ({{sc|Bacon}, p. 191).

Some proceedings in the exchequer in 1507 disclose the exact date of Willoughby's death as 23 Aug. 1502 (MS. R. O. 23 Hen. VII, M. T. iiii. dors.) His will, dated 19 Aug., was proved on 25 Dec. 1502. He left a son and heir, Sir Robert, second baron Willoughby de Broke, and a daughter Elizabeth,


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 married to John, lord Dynham. On Robert's death in 1522, without surviving male issue, the barony fell into abeyance between the two daughters of his son Edward: Elizabeth, wife of Sir Fulke Greville [see under, first ], and Blanch, wife of Sir Francis Dawtrey. A descendant of the elder daughter, Richard Verney, successfully claimed the barony in 1696 [see, third ].

[Historiæ Croylandensis Continuatio in Gale's Scriptores (Oxford, 1684), pp. 451–578; Polydore Vergil's Historia Anglica (ed. Leyden, 1651); Hall's Chron. 1809; Machado's Journals in Gairdner's Memorials of Henry VII (Rolls Ser. 1858); Patent Rolls of Henry VII, MS. R. O.; Rymer's Fœdera (ed. 1741); Rotuli Parliamentorum, vol. vi.; Gairdner's Letters and Papers of Richard III and Henry VII (2 vols. 1861); Campbell's Materials for a Hist. of Henry VII (2 vols. 1873); Bacon's Hist. of Henry VII, ed. Ellis and Spedding, 1858; Works, vol. vi.; Ashmole's Order of the Garter, 1672; Anstis's Register of the Garter, 2 vols. 1724; Beltz's Order of the Garter, 1841; Collinson's Hist. of Somerset, 3 vols. 1791; Lysons's Magna Britannia, vol. vi.; ‘Devonshire’ (1822); Risdon's Survey of Devonshire, 1811; Hoare's Modern Wiltshire, vol. iv.; Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges, 1812, vol. vi.; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage, 1898; Busch's König Heinrich VII (Stuttgart, 1892).]

WILLS, CHARLES (1666–1741), general, son of Anthony Wills of St. Gorran, Cornwall, by ‘Jenofer’ (Guinevere), his wife, was baptised at St. Gorran on 23 Oct. 1666 (Parish Register). His father, whose family had been settled in Cornwall since early in the sixteenth century, farmed his own land, and, having encumbered his estate with debts, quitted the same at the revolution and offered his services and those of six of his sons to the Prince of Orange, who, it is said, gave them all commissions (Parochial Hist. of Cornwall, pp. 11, 101). Charles Wills appears to have been appointed a subaltern in Colonel Thomas Erle's foot regiment (disbanded in 1698), with which corps he served in the Irish campaign. On 1 July 1691 he was appointed captain in the regiment known as the 19th foot, the colonelcy of which had been bestowed on Erle on 1 Jan. 1691. Wills served several campaigns in Flanders, including the battle of Landen. On 6 Nov. 1694 he was appointed major to Colonel Thomas Saunderson's foot regiment, and on 1 May 1697 was promoted lieutenant-colonel. A few months later Saunderson's foot was disbanded and the officers placed on half-pay. On the formation of Viscount Charlemont's foot regiment in Ireland (28 June 1701), Wills was appointed to the lieutenant-colonelcy, and in the following spring embarked with his corps for Cadiz.

Thence Charlemont's regiment was sent to the West Indies, where Wills gained distinction in the island of Guadeloupe, and several towns were burnt after the French troops had been defeated. In the action at La Bayliffe ‘Colonel Wills behaved himself with great bravery’ (London Gazette, 10 May 1703. He succeeded to the command of the troops on shore in April 1703; and, after burning and destroying the French towns and fortifications along the coast, he embarked his troops on board the squadron on 7 May 1703, bringing away all the captured French guns. After losing many officers and men in the West Indies, Charlemont's regiment (36th foot) returned to Ireland in the winter of 1703–4.

In 1705 Wills accompanied the Earl of Peterborough to Spain as quartermaster-general, and served almost uninterruptedly in the Peninsula until December 1710. He was at the taking of Barcelona on 4 Oct. 1705, and nine days later was appointed colonel of a regiment of marines (30th foot), vice Thomas Pownall. Wills was subsequently second in command in the district of Lerida, and rendered valuable service in the important action at San Estevan, where he commanded after Major-general Conyngham was mortally wounded (26 Jan. 1706); again distinguished himself at the defence of the town of Lerida, which capitulated after an obstinate defence; was appointed a brigadier-general on 1 Jan. 1707; commanded 1,500 marines and a Spanish regiment in Sardinia (1708), and reduced Cagliari. He was promoted major-general on 1 Jan. 1709, and appointed commander-in-chief of the forces on board Admiral Baker's fleet on 17 June in the same year.

Wills fought at Almenara in 1710, and commanded an infantry brigade at the battle of Saragossa. He was thereupon recommended to Queen Anne for promotion to the grade of lieutenant-general (Marlborough Despatches, v. 168), which rank had been already conferred on him in Spain by Charles III, the titular king. In the unfortunate action at Brihuega on 1 Dec. 1710, Wills earned fresh laurels, and was mentioned in General Stanhope's despatches as having been ‘during the action at the post which was attacked with most vigour and which he as resolutely defended.’ After suffering a rigorous imprisonment of some


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 months, Wills was allowed to return to England.

When Preston was taken by the Jacobite forces in 1715, Wills, who was then commanding in Cheshire, assembled his troops at Manchester, and then marched to Wigan, where he arrived on 11 Nov. He had at his disposal the cavalry regiments of Pitt, Wynne, Honeywood, Dormer, Munden, and Stanhope, and Preston's foot regiment. At Wigan Wills received intelligence that Lieutenant-general George Carpenter [q. v.] was advancing from Durham by forced marches with about nine hundred cavalry, and would be ready to take the enemy in flank. Early on 12 Nov. Wills marched towards Preston, and at one in the afternoon he arrived at the bridge over the Ribble, and found there about three hundred of the rebel horse and foot who upon the approach of the royal troops withdrew hastily into the town, where barricades had been erected. On coming before Preston a reconnaissance was made by Wills in person, and, in consequence of his party being fired upon and two men killed, he ordered an immediate assault by Preston's foot regiment, which corps behaved with great bravery. At the same time Wills ordered the whole town to be surrounded, to the right and left, by the cavalry. The rebels, being well posted behind the barricades, inflicted great loss on Preston's regiment (the Cameronians), which was commanded by Lieutenant-colonel Lord Forester. After two barricades had been gallantly charged, and the troops repulsed with equal courage, Wills drew off his men, and, all the avenues to the town having been effectually secured, the cavalry were ordered to stand at their horses' heads all that night. At nine o'clock next morning General Carpenter arrived with three dragoon regiments. The rebels witnessed the arrival of the reinforcements from the church steeple, and, losing heart, their commander was anxious to capitulate. ‘Unconditional surrender’ were the only terms that Carpenter and Wills would give, and after stormy debates within the beleaguered town the rebels laid down their arms and surrendered next morning [see, 1675?–1738; and ].

A good deal of friction occurred between Carpenter and Wills on this occasion, the former being the senior officer, and it was increased by George I bestowing the rank of lieutenant-general on Wills directly news of the surrender of the rebels at Preston reached London, no notice being then taken of Carpenter's share in the success. In January 1716 Carpenter sent a challenge by General Churchill to Wills (Life of George, Lord Carpenter), but the duel was honourably compromised by the generous intervention of the Dukes of Marlborough and Montagu. Wills was appointed colonel of the 3rd foot on 5 Jan. 1716, governor of Portsmouth 1717, lieutenant-general of the ordnance on 22 April 1718, K.B. on 17 June 1725, colonel of the grenadier guards on 26 Aug. 1726, general commanding the foot in 1739, M.P. for Totnes (1714–41), and one of George I's privy council.

Wills died unmarried in London on 25 Dec. 1741, and was interred in Westminster Abbey; there is a memorial inscription in the Guards' Chapel, Westminster.

It appears from the ‘Political State of Great Britain’ for September 1726 that there was an intention, unrealised owing to George I's death, of creating Wills a peer with the title of Baron Preston. With the exception of a few legacies and an annuity of 200l. per annum to his nephew Richard Wills, Sir Charles bequeathed all his fortune, which was a very considerable one, to his executor, General Sir Robert Rich, bart. This will was unsuccessfully contested by Sir Richard Wills in the probate court.

[John Burchett's Hist. of the most remarkable Transactions at Sea; Life of George Lord Carpenter; Dalton's English Army Lists, 1661–1714, vol. iii.; Dr. John Friend's Memoir of the Earl of Peterborough; Georgian Era; Hamilton's Hist. of the Grenadier Guards; Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. pt. iv., wherein are several letters relating to Preston fight, 1715; London Gazettes, especially those for 10 May 1703 and 4 Oct. 1708; Boyer's Queen Anne, 1735, pp. 295, 418, 465; Lord Mahon's War of the Succession in Spain; Parochial Hist. of Cornwall, vol. ii.; Rapin's Hist. of England; Visitations of Cornwall, ed. Vivian (1887), which contain a pedigree of the Wills family drawn up by the Rev. J. V. Wills; Warburton's Memoir of the Earl of Peterborough; Registers of Westminster Abbey.]  WILLS, JAMES (1790–1868), poet and man of letters, born on 1 Jan. 1790, was the younger son of Thomas Wills of Willsgrove, co. Roscommon, a country gentleman belonging to a family of Cornish extraction long settled in Ireland, who had married as his second wife a daughter of Captain James Browne of Moyne, co. Roscommon. He received his education at Dr. Miller's school at Blackrock, co. Dublin, and from private tutors. He entered at Trinity College, Dublin, on 1 Nov. 1809, taking a high place at entrance. During his university career he


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 formed one of a brilliant circle of undergraduates, which included Charles Wolfe [q. v.], John Sydney Taylor [q. v.], John Anster [q. v.], and Samuel O'Sullivan [see under ]. He inherited as joint-heir with his brother a very considerable estate, which came into his family through his mother; and in early manhood was in very easy circumstances. But shortly after leaving the university the improvidence of the elder brother, who managed to squander the property of both, left the younger with very slender resources, and Wills was obliged to abandon the notion he had formed of embracing the profession of the bar, though he had taken the first steps towards getting called, and had entered at the Middle Temple in 1821.

Returning to Ireland, Wills spent several years at Bray, in the neighbourhood of Dublin, engaged in desultory literary pursuits, and wrote many of his subsequently published poems at this period. Here also he met Charles Robert Maturin [q. v.], and wrote his well-known poem, ‘The Universe,’ which was published by, and long attributed to, Maturin, and the authorship of which was long a subject of literary controversy (cf. Notes and Queries, 5th ser. iii. 20, 172, 240, 280, 340; Dublin Univ. Mag. October 1875; Irish Quarterly Review, March 1852). For this poem, which is now proved to have been entirely the composition of Wills, Maturin received 500l. from Colburn.

In 1822 Wills married Katherine, daughter of the Rev. W. Gorman, niece of Chief-justice Charles Kendal Bushe [q. v.], and grandniece of Sir John Doyle [q. v.] He took orders on his marriage in the expectation of receiving a presentation to a crown living through the chief justice, a hope which was defeated through a change of government. From the date of his marriage until 1838 he resided in Dublin.

In 1831 he published ‘The Disembodied, and other Poems,’ in Dublin, and became a constant contributor to ‘Blackwood's Magazine,’ the ‘Dublin University Magazine,’ the ‘Dublin Penny Journal,’ and other periodicals. To the ‘Dublin University Magazine,’ his connection with which originated in a review of George O'Brien's criticism of Petrie's ‘Round Towers’ [see ], he was one of the earliest contributors; and later in his career he was associated with Cæsar Otway [q. v.] in founding the ‘Irish Quarterly Review.’ In 1835 he published the ‘Philosophy of Unbelief,’ a work which was afterwards republished, and which acquired considerable popularity in America. Wills combined with a strong literary instinct a remarkable aptitude for metaphysical analysis. Of several essays read by him before the Royal Irish Academy, one on the ‘Spontaneous Association of Ideas’ was said by Archbishop Richard Whately [q. v.] to overturn Dugald Stewart's theory on the same subject. In 1835 Wills was nominated to the sinecure curacy of Suirville, co. Kilkenny, of which parish he was appointed vicar in 1846. In 1849 he was further advanced to the living of Kilmacow in the same county, and ultimately, in 1860, to that of Attanagh in co. Kilkenny. In 1845 Wills published ‘Dramatic Sketches and other Poems,’ which were followed in 1848 by ‘Moral and Religious Epistles.’ But his most important literary venture was the valuable biographical work known as ‘Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen,’ of which the first volumes were published in 1839 and 1840. This work, which was completed in 1847 and for which its author received 1,000l., aims at giving a history of Ireland in a series of biographies ranging from the earliest to the most modern times, and is divided into six periods, to each of which Wills prefixed a valuable historical introduction. It was reissued subsequently under the title of ‘The Irish Nation,’ the concluding volumes of the revised edition appearing after the author's death, under the editorship of his son, Mr. Freeman Wills. The work has been accorded by a very competent authority, John Thomas (afterwards Lord-chancellor) Ball, in the ‘Dublin University Magazine,’ the praise of ‘great research, patient investigation, and sound judgment, free alike from sectarian and political prejudices,’ and as ‘the most elaborate and the most complete record of the history and biography of Ireland as yet (1847) given to the Irish public.’ The book is, however, very deficient in point of style and arrangement, and, like all works of reference on so large a scale by a single hand, is in parts perfunctory.

Wills was appointed Donellan lecturer in the university of Dublin for 1855–6, and delivered a course of sermons, published in 1860 under the title of ‘Lectures on the Antecedent Probability of the Christian Religion.’ He also edited Chief-justice Bushe's posthumously published ‘Summary View of the Evidences of Christianity.’ In 1868, shortly before his death, he published ‘The Idolatress, and other Poems,’ which, like the ‘Dramatic Sketches’ of an earlier date, was a collection of scattered contributions to various periodicals. His verse is not without merit; the shorter pieces breathe a strong spirit of Irish patriotism of the best kind;


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 and a famous Irish nationalist is said to have embraced the old clergyman on learning that he was the author of ‘The Minstrel's Walk.’ He died at Attanagh in November 1868.

Wills was an unusually brilliant conversationist, and some of his more ambitious poems show much of the dramatic power which descended to his son, William Gorman Wills [q. v.]

[Webb's Compendium; Dublin University Magazine; W. G. Wills, Dramatist and Painter, by Freeman Wills; Irish Quarterly Review, March 1852; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Todd's Graduates of Dublin University; Burke's Landed Gentry; Brooke's Recollections of the Irish Church, 2nd ser.]

WILLS, JOHN (1741–1806), benefactor of Wadham College, Oxford, the only son of John Wills of Seaborough, Somerset, was born at Seaborough in 1741. He matriculated from Hertford College, Oxford, on 18 March 1758, aged 17, graduated B.A. in 1761, becoming a fellow of the society in 1765. In the same year he proceeded M.A. He was preferred to the college rectory of Tyd St. Mary in 1778, and in 1779 was presented to the rectory of Seaborough by Adam Martin; five years later he rebuilt the parsonage of his native village. Wills was elected fifteenth warden of Wadham College on 7 July 1783, in succession to Dr. James Gerard. He took the degree of D.D. in the same year, and the office of vice-chancellor devolved upon him in 1792. After an uneventful headship he died at Wadham on 16 June 1806, aged 65.

In Wills Wadham found its greatest benefactor since its foundation. He left 400l. a year to augment the warden's stipend, at the same time bequeathing his books and furniture to his successor, Dr. William Tournay. He left 1,000l. to improve the warden's lodgings; two exhibitions of 100l. each annually to two fellows of the college, students of law and physic; two scholarships of 20l. each for the same faculties; stipends of thirty guineas yearly for a divinity lecturer and preacher, and annuities of 75l. and 50l. to superannuated fellows, besides a reading prize and minor benefactions. He also left an estate at Tyd St. Giles, worth about 150l. per annum, to the vice-chancellor for the time being, ‘in aid of the great burthens of his office;’ 100l. per annum to the senior Bodleian librarian; 100l. per annum to the theatre, and 100l. per annum to the Oxford Infirmary. After some private bequests he made the residue of his estate over to the college for the purchase of livings. Owing to Wills's liberality the Wadham gardens reached their present extent, the parterres and clipped yews and statuettes of Dr. Wilkins's time, as described by John Evelyn, giving place to the ‘romantic’ garden designed by Shipley. The portrait of Wills by Hoppner, in the hall at Wadham, was painted in 1793.

[Jackson's Wadham College, pp. 121, 147, 184, 187, 215; Gent. Mag. 1806, i. 589–90; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886.]

WILLS, RICHARD (fl. 1558–1573), author. [See .]

WILLS, THOMAS (1740–1802), evangelical preacher, born at Truro, Cornwall, on 26 July 1740, was the son of Thomas Wills of St. Issey (a descendant of Jonathan Wills, ejected minister in 1662 from Lanteglos-juxta-Camelford), who married Mary Spry. The mother and twin-sister, both of whom were buried in Truro church, died at his birth. The father died a year or two later, and was also buried there. The two surviving sons were adopted by the eldest aunt, Lucy Spry of Truro, who died in 1755, leaving most of her fortune to Thomas. The elder boy, John Wills (d. 11 Oct. 1764), became a lieutenant in the navy under his relative, Admiral Spry. The younger son, after his aunt's death, was put under the care of her brother-in-law, Thomas Michell of Croft West, near Truro, and placed at Truro grammar school, where he attended the ministry of Samuel Walker [q. v.]

Wills matriculated from Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 28 March 1757, and graduated B.A. 11 Dec. 1760. While at the university he became friendly with Thomas Haweis [q. v.], a brother Cornishman and pupil at Truro school, and was numbered among his religious associates. He was ordained deacon by the bishop of Oxford in 1762, and priest by the bishop of Exeter on Trinity Sunday 1764. In 1764 he was appointed to the curacy of Perranzabuloe and St. Agnes, two parishes on the north coast of Cornwall, of which James Walker, a brother of Samuel Walker, was vicar. His connection with Perranzabuloe ceased in 1765, but he remained at St. Agnes until January 1778.

In the autumn of 1772 Wills made the acquaintance of the Countess of Huntingdon at Bath and frequently preached in her chapel. In the autumn of 1774 he was again in that city, and on 6 Oct. 1774 he married Selina Margaretta, third daughter of the Rev. Granville Wheler of Otterden Place, near Faversham, Kent, by his wife, Lady Catherine Maria Hastings. Lady Huntingdon, his wife's aunt, visited them at St. Agnes in the autumn of 1775, and established her chapels in Cornwall. Wills was appointed


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 her chaplain in January 1778, and thereupon resigned his curacy.

Wills next proceeded to Lady Huntingdon's college at Trevecca, and then to Brighton. For his irregular conduct in preaching at the Spa Fields chapel in 1781 he was served with a citation by the Rev. William Sellon of St. James's, Clerkenwell. Next year he took the oath of allegiance as a dissenting minister, and was appointed minister of Spa Fields chapel. He officiated there and in the several chapels of Lady Huntingdon's connexion throughout England for several years, and on 9 March 1783 he and another minister held ‘the primary ordination’ of Lady Huntingdon's connexion in Spa Fields chapel. He took temporary leave of that congregation on 12 Aug. 1787. Differences ensued between him and Lady Huntingdon, and he did not minister there again until 30 March 1788. He preached his last sermon in the chapel on 6 July 1788, and a few days later was dismissed by her.

After preaching occasionally at Surrey chapel and elsewhere Wills was engaged by the proprietors of Dr. Peckwell's chapel, in the Great Almonry at Westminster, and also by those of Orange Street chapel, Leicester Square, to officiate in their respective buildings. The chapel at Silver Street, near Aldersgate Street, was let to him from Michaelmas 1789 for a lecture on Thursday evenings, and at the following Christmas he took the building on lease. Its interior was then altered, and the liturgy of the English church, an organ, and the hymns of the Countess of Huntingdon were introduced. He ceased in 1789 to preach in Orange Street chapel, and in 1791 he gave up Westminster chapel; but in 1793 he began preaching in Islington chapel. There and at Silver Street chapel he remained preaching the doctrines of Calvinism with unabated popularity for several years. About 1797 his congregation dwindled, through the popularity of an Antinomian preacher in Grub Street, and his own health began to decline. His mental faculties gave way, and in 1799 a stroke of paralysis incapacitated him from preaching. He took leave of his congregation at Silver Street on 23 Feb. 1800, and retired to Boskenna in the parish of St. Buryan, Cornwall, the seat of James Paynter. He died there on 12 May 1802, and was buried on the north side of Buryan churchyard in a vaulted grave which he had constructed for himself and his wife. A monument to his memory was placed in the church by his widow, who died at Boskenna on 3 April 1814.

As a popular preacher Wills was second only to George Whitefield, and his preaching in the open air, especially on Tower Hill, attracted great crowds. He was the author of: 1. ‘Remarks on Polygamy in answer to Madan's “Thelyphthora,”’ 1781. 2. ‘Authentic Narrative of the Primary Ordination in Lady Huntingdon's Chapel, 9 March 1783;’ 2nd ed. 1786. 3. ‘The Spiritual Register,’ 1784–95, 3 vols.; he had previously sent some of the cases to the ‘Protestant Magazine.’ 4. ‘A Farewell Address to the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapels, and especially Spa Fields,’ 1788. He also published some single sermons, and edited several religious works, including ‘Letters from the late Rev. William Romaine to a Friend,’ which passed through many editions.

A portrait, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, of Wills was engraved by H. R. Cook, and on a larger scale by Fittler. A print of him, drawn and engraved by Goldar, is prefixed to the ‘Spiritual Register’ and the ‘New Spiritual Magazine,’ vol. i. Another print, by Ridley, published by T. Chapman on 1 May 1799, is in the ‘Evangelical Magazine.’

[Memoir of the Rev. T. Wills, by a friend, 1804; Life of the Countess of Huntingdon, i. 310, 393–394, ii. 53–9, 76, 203–4, 310–15, 414–33, 479–81; Life of S. E. Pierce, pp. 59–62, 92–9; Wilson's Dissenting Churches, iii. 116–23; Nelson's Islington, pp. 273–5; Bennett's Silver Street Church, pp. 21–2; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Gent. Mag. 1774 p. 494, 1802 i. 585, 1814 i. 515; Parochial Hist. of Cornwall, i. 162; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. ii. 890–1; Willcocks's Spa Fields Chapel, pp. 34, 38.]

WILLS, WILLIAM GORMAN (1828–1891), dramatist, son of James Wills [q. v.], was born at Blackwell Lodge, Kilmurry, on 28 Jan. 1828. He was educated at Waterford grammar school under Dr. Price, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he entered on 6 Nov. 1845, his college tutor being Dr. Frank Sadleir [q. v.] He did not proceed to a degree, but established a reputation among the students by his poem on ‘Poland,’ for which he won the vice-chancellor's medal in 1848. He showed a strong bent for portrait-painting, but received no training in art beyond that which the Royal Hibernian Academy, then in a very decrepit state, could afford. Like Goldsmith when an undergraduate, he seems to have rioted upon a minute allowance, earning a precarious guinea now and again by a portrait or by contributing to an ephemeral magazine called ‘The Irish Metropolitan,’ through the pages of which ran his first serial story entitled ‘Old Times,’ published in volume form some


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 years later, in 1857. At Dr. Anster's house he met with a fellow-contributor and congenial spirit, the brilliant university Bohemian, Charles Pelham Mulvany [q. v.]

In 1862, after several years of very desultory occupation, or, as he styled it, ‘daisy-picking’ in Ireland, Wills settled in London. He took rooms with his friend Henry Humphreys in Clifford's Inn. His efforts to make a livelihood by his pen were not encouraging. In 1863 appeared his ‘Notice to Quit,’ a story conceived after the manner of Eugène Sue, which was praised for its dramatic situations but met with little success. In October of this same year Wills obtained the Royal Humane Society's medal for a brave attempt to rescue a drowning lad near Old Swan Wharf. ‘The Wife's Evidence’ (1864, reissued 1876), a story of considerable melodramatic power, gained him an introduction to the magazines, and he wrote ‘David Chantrey’ (1865) for ‘Temple Bar,’ and for ‘Tinsley's Magazine’ ‘The Three Watches’ (1865), and ‘The Love that Wills’ (1867), in which he remanipulates material already used in ‘Old Times.’

His father's death in 1868 impelled Wills to undertake the support of his mother. He reverted to portraiture as his best means of earning money, took a studio at 15 The Avenue, Fulham Road, and worked very successfully in pastel drawings, mainly of children. He exhibited in the Grosvenor Gallery, and was soon asking twenty guineas for a small picture finished in three or four sittings; and for a time there was no lack of fashionable sitters. Incurably unconventional, Wills, in response to a command to visit Osborne to draw the royal grandchildren, pleaded a prior engagement. The Princess Louise was interested in Wills's methods and amused by his Bohemian ways, but other patrons were repelled by the filth of his studio, which was haunted by stray cats, by monkeys and other unclean animals, and also by numerous parasites and loafers, attracted by the painter's easy-going habit of inviting visitors to stay, and keeping his spare change in a tobacco jar on the chimney-piece. Absent-mindedness, inherited, it is said, from his father, who once boiled his watch in mistake for an egg, grew upon Wills to an extent which prejudiced his career. He became oblivious of social engagements, asked people with the utmost cordiality to meet him at dinner and then could not be found to receive them, forgot or travestied the names of people who entertained him, and prided himself in being as dispassionate as Dr. Johnson on the subject of clean linen. In his later years he did most of his composition in bed.

Meanwhile Wills was turning his attention to writing for the stage. A first dramatic attempt, an adaptation from the German of Van Holtei, entitled ‘A Man and his Shadow’ (1865), was followed by the pathetic ‘Man o' Airlie,’ which was put on at the Princess's in July 1867, with Mr. Hermann Vezin in the title-part. Though the receipts were small, the play rarely failed to move its audience, and the author was encouraged to write two other plays, suggested and produced by Mr. Vezin: ‘Hinko, or the Headsman's Daughter’ (founded upon Ludwig Storch's historical novel), produced at the Queen's Theatre in September 1871; and ‘Broken Spells,’ written in conjunction with Westland Marston, and produced at the Court in April 1872. A short time before this date Wills was introduced by Vezin to the Batemans, and after the appearance of ‘Hinko’ he was retained by Colonel Bateman as ‘dramatist to the Lyceum’ at a yearly salary of 300l. Upon this endowment he produced in turn ‘Medea in Corinth’ (July 1872), ‘Charles I’ (28 Sept. 1872), and ‘Eugene Aram’ (April 1873). The first two of these plays contain Wills's best work. ‘Charles I,’ though inferior to its predecessor in form, caught the taste of the public, and enabled Mr. (Sir) Henry Irving to confirm the reputation which he had made for himself in the ‘Bells.’ The portraiture of Charles was in harmony with Van Dyck, and the suggestion of calm and dignified suffering that disdained to resent or protest is decidedly effective. Like Scott, Wills was a staunch cavalier, and he was as little concerned with historical accuracy as Dumas.

In his next historical play, ‘Marie Stuart’ (Princess's, February 1874), he caricatured John Knox with the same gusto with which he had defamed Cromwell. He was now in great demand as a verse playwright, and produced in quick succession ‘Sappho,’ given at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, in 1875; ‘Buckingham’ (Olympic, November 1875); ‘Jane Shore’ (Princess's, September 1876); and ‘England in the Days of Charles II’ (Drury Lane, September 1877). His second great success was with ‘Olivia’ (based upon Goldsmith's ‘Vicar of Wakefield’), of which the best that can be said is that it has rarely been surpassed as an adaptation of a novel. It was produced at the Court Theatre in March 1873 under the management of John Hare, with William Terriss [q. v.] as Squire Thornhill and Miss Ellen Terry as Livy; both players were seen in their original parts


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 when the piece was successfully revived at the Lyceum in 1885.

The dramatist now produced with great rapidity a quantity of very inferior work. ‘Nell Gwynne,’ given at the Royalty in May 1878; ‘Vanderdecken,’ based upon the legend of the ‘Flying Dutchman’ (Lyceum, June 1878); ‘Ellen,’ afterwards called ‘Brag’ (Haymarket, April 1879); ‘Bolivar’ (Theatre Royal, Dublin, November 1879); ‘Ninon’ (Adelphi, February 1880); ‘Forced from Home’ (Duke's Theatre, February 1880); ‘Iolanthe’ (Lyceum, May 1880); ‘William and Susan’ (St. James's, October 1880); ‘Juana’ (Court, May 1881); ‘Sedgmoor’ (Sadler's Wells, August 1881); and ‘Jane Eyre’ (Globe, December 1882). In 1882 Henry Herman, Mr. Wilson Barrett's manager, provided a ‘plot’ on which Wills was coaxed into basing the play ‘Claudian’ (successfully produced at the Princess's in December 1883), a strange compound of tinsel and hollow columns, in which the old legend of the Wandering Jew is turned to melodramatic purpose. ‘Gringoire,’ given at the Prince's Theatre in June 1885, was followed in December by Wills's version of ‘Faust’ for the Lyceum. In this, as in ‘Claudian,’ he appeared merely as the text writer to a series of scenes and situations; his sub-archaic verbiage was not devoid of romantic resonance and was scrupulously cut into blank-verse lengths. Like qualities are conspicuous in his ‘Melchior,’ a blank-verse poem in thirty-two cantos, dedicated to Robert Browning and published in 1885. The long-drawn descriptions are often mere pinchbeck, but Wills had some of the faculty of an Irishman as a balladist, clearly shown in such songs as ‘I'll sing thee songs of Araby’ and ‘The Ballad of Graf Bröm.’

In the intervals of dramatic work Wills spent much time at Étretat and a few weeks occasionally at Paris, where he rented a studio. His real interest was still in oil-painting; his oil-painting of Ophelia is now in the foyer at the Lyceum. His plays were a by-product, in which he took little interest after he had furnished the manuscript. He seldom attended rehearsals, and his recommendations, even when feasible, were generally unheeded by the actors; he was never present at the première of one of his own plays.

On 3 April 1887 Wills's mother died, and her loss removed one of the few incentives he had to exert himself. He moved his ‘studio’ to Walham Green, was henceforth little seen by his friends at the Garrick Club or elsewhere, and wrote little. His health began to break, and at the close of 1891 he was by his own request removed to Guy's Hospital, where he died on 13 Dec. 1891. Many of the leading actors and playwrights of the day were present at his interment in Brompton cemetery. His last piece, ‘A Royal Divorce,’ was being played at the Olympic at the time of his death. A previous play, on the subject of ‘Don Quixote,’ was produced at the Lyceum with very moderate success in May 1895. ‘Charles I’ and his adaptation of the first part of ‘Faust’ are the only plays by Wills which were issued in printed form.

Wills was a born writer of dramatic scenes, but his gifts were neutralised to a large extent by his inability to concentrate and by the essential lack of firm taste and self-critical power. He is ably summed up in the acute judgment of M. Filon: ‘His Bohemian life, his impassioned character, his hasty methods of production, gave him in the distance the look of genius. But it was a misleading look .... his pieces are founded upon conceptions which crumble away upon analysis, and the versification is too poor to veil or redeem the weakness of the dramatic idea.’

[‘W. G. Wills, Dramatist and Painter,’ a well-written biography by the dramatist's brother, Freeman Wills, appeared in 1898, with a good portrait and facsimile autograph. See also Archer's English Dramatists of To-day, 1888, pp. 352–80; Archer's About the Theatre, 1886, pp. 240 sq.; Filon's English Stage, 1897; Fitzgerald's Henry Irving, 1893, chaps. xiv. xv.; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland, p. 261; An Evening in Bohemia (Temple Bar, June 1896); Celebrities of the Century; Times, 15 Dec. 1891; The Theatre, 1 Feb. 1892 (with portrait); Era, 19 Dec. 1891.]  WILLS, WILLIAM HENRY (1810–1880), miscellaneous writer, was born at Plymouth on 13 Jan. 1810. His father, at one time a wealthy shipowner and prize-agent, met with misfortunes, and at his death the chief care of supporting his family devolved upon William Henry, or Harry Wills as he was always called. Wills became a journalist, and contributed to periodical publications such as the ‘Penny’ and ‘Saturday’ magazines, and McCulloch's ‘Geographical Dictionary.’ He was one of the original literary staff of ‘Punch,’ and had some share in the composition of the draft prospectus. He contributed to the first number (17 July 1841) the mordant epigram on Lord Cardigan called ‘To the Blackballed of the United Service Club.’ He was for some time the regular dramatic critic, in which capacity he ridiculed Jullien, the introducer of the promenade concerts


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 at Drury Lane, and severely criticised the acting of Charles Kean. Among his other contributions in prose and verse were ‘Punch's Natural History of Courtship’ (illustrated by Sir John Gilbert), ‘Punch's Comic Mythology,’ ‘Information for the People,’ and skits such as ‘The Burst Boiler and the Broken Heart,’ and ‘The Uncles of England,’ in praise of pawnbrokers. In 1846 he wrote for the ‘Almanac,’ but his contributions were thenceforth infrequent.

Wills began his lifelong association with Dickens in 1846, when he became one of the sub-editors of the ‘Daily News’ under him. Soon afterwards he went to Edinburgh to edit ‘Chambers's Journal,’ but two years later returned to London to become Dickens's secretary. In 1849, on John Forster's suggestion, Wills was made assistant editor of ‘Household Words,’ and was given the same position by Dickens when, ten years later, ‘All the Year Round’ was incorporated with it. His business capacity was invaluable to Dickens, and he was one of the most intimate friends of the novelist in later life. At the end of 1851 Wills accompanied Dickens on his theatrical tour in connection with the Guild of Literature and Art, to the temporary success of which his exertions largely contributed.

In 1868, while Dickens was in America, Wills suffered concussion of the brain from an accident in the hunting field, and was disabled from his duties as editor of ‘All the Year Round.’ He never recovered, and retired from active work. The remaining years of his life Wills spent at Welwyn, Hertfordshire, where he acted as magistrate and chairman of the board of guardians. He died there on 1 Sept. 1880.

Wills edited, in 1850, ‘Sir Roger de Coverley by the Spectator,’ illustrated by engravings from designs by Frederick Taylor (1851, 16mo; Boston, Massachusetts, 1851, 12mo; reissued in the ‘Traveller's Library,’ 1856, 8vo).

Wills also published ‘Old Leaves gathered from Household Words’ (1860, 8vo), dedicated to Dickens. The book consists of thirty-seven descriptive sketches of places and events. In 1861 he issued a quarto volume, ‘Poets' Wit and Humour,’ illustrated by a hundred engravings from drawings by C. Bennett and G. H. Thomas. Two pieces, ‘A Lyric for Lovers’ and an ‘Ode to Big Ben,’ the latter of which originally appeared in ‘Punch,’ were from his own pen. The book was republished in 1882. Wills also republished under the title ‘Light and Dark’ some of his contributions to ‘Chambers's Journal.’ He was a fluent writer both in prose and verse, with a faint tinge of pedantry, which afforded Dickens much amusement. Douglas Jerrold was fond of exercising his wit at his expense, and Wills had enough humour to enjoy the situation. The Baroness Burdett-Coutts had for many years the advantage of Wills's judgment and experience in the conduct of her philanthropic undertakings.

Wills married Janet, youngest sister of William and Robert Chambers, the Edinburgh publishers. She was a woman of strong character, and a great favourite with Dickens, in whose correspondence her name frequently appears. She had an extensive knowledge of Scottish literature, and a large fund of anecdotes, and was for many years the centre of a wide literary and social circle. She died on 24 Oct. 1892. At her death the sum of 1,000l. accrued to the newspaper press fund, in which Wills had interested himself after the failure of the Guild of Literature and Art.

WILLS, WILLIAM JOHN (1834–1861), Australian explorer, the son of William Wills, a medical man, was born at Totnes, Devonshire, on 5 Jan. 1834, and educated at Ashburton school till 1850, when he was articled to his father, and at intervals from 1850 to 1852 studied medicine in London, both at Guy's and St. Bartholomew's hospitals. On 1 Oct. 1852, carrying out an idea which his father had already formed, he emigrated with his brother to Victoria, and started life as a shepherd at 30l. a year and rations. In 1853 he was joined by his father, and settled at Ballarat, where for almost a year he acted as his father's assistant. He was, however, always pining for the open air and the bush, and in 1855 he obtained admission as a volunteer to the office of the surveyor of crown lands for the district. Here his aptitude for astronomical work and surveying was soon recognised. In 1858 he was employed on his first field survey for the department. In November 1858, on the institution of the magnetic and meteorological observatory at Melbourne, he was appointed to the staff.

In 1860 Wills was appointed third in command of the exploring expedition sent


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 out from Victoria to discover a route to the north across Australia. The party left Melbourne on 20 Aug. 1860, and proceeded slowly as far as the Darling river, where a difference occurred between the leader, Robert O'Hara Burke [q. v.], and Landells, the second in command, resulting in the retirement of Landells and the appointment of Wills to be second in command. On 19 Oct. Burke and Wills, with a portion of their men, left Menindie with sixteen camels and fifteen horses, to push on in advance of the rest of the expedition. Travelling about twenty miles a day, they made Torowoto on 29 Oct., whence they sent back a despatch with a report by Wills. This was the only direct message ever received from them, and in it Burke remarks, ‘I consider myself very fortunate in having Mr. Wills as my second in command. He is a capital officer, zealous and untiring in the performance of his duties.’ After leaving the Torowoto swamp the party proceeded by way of Wright's Creek to Cooper's Creek, which was reached on 11 Dec. A depot was formed, and on 16 Dec. Burke and Wills started northward with six camels, a horse, and three months' provisions. Their route was for the most part through a pleasant country and along good watercourses, and they reached the tidal waters of the Flinders river on 12 Feb. 1861. Wills's own diary is the source from which we learn the details of their advance, and he tells the tale in a simple and modest fashion. On 21 April they arrived at the depot on their return journey, but only to find it abandoned.

On 23 April they started down Cooper's Creek for Adelaide; but after losing their remaining camels they began to feel the anxieties of their position, without proper conveyance, and dependent on the natives or their own exertions for supplies. Between 27 May and 6 June Wills made a journey on foot and alone to the depot at Cooper's Creek and back to the camp on the road to Mount Hopeless. No help had come, and they were all in a desperate position. Wills's journal tells the tale of gradual starvation during the month of June; the last entry is on 26 June, when he records that Burke and King, the only other Englishmen remaining, are to leave him in the search for help from the natives, and that he does not expect to last more than four or five days. King, the only eventual survivor of the party, returned within that time, and found that Wills had already died, probably on 29 or 30 June.

It was the opinion of many that if only Wills had been in chief command of the expedition its success would have been attained without such loss of life. It is in evidence that Wills on more than one occasion advised a course which would have certainly been rewarded by the safety of the party.

Wills has been described by one of his friends as ‘a thorough Englishman, self-relying and self-contained.’ He was modest yet strong of purpose, persevering, and to the last degree trustworthy. His passion for astronomy was remarkable, but study of all kinds was a part of his life. He was thoughtful and religious.

A national memorial of him and his leader stands in front of the Parliament House at Melbourne. There is also a memorial of him at his native town of Totnes, and a tablet in his old school at Ashburton. One of the streets in Ballarat is called after him. A print of a good portrait is given in his father's memoir of his journey.

[Wills's Exploration of Australia, London, 1863; Illust. Lond. News, 1862, pp. 126–7, 157; Howitt's Hist. of Discovery in Australia, ii. 191 sqq.; Parl. Paper on the Burke and Wills Exploring Expedition, House of Commons, 1862, No. 139.]

WILLSHIRE, THOMAS (1789–1862), bart., general, born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 24 Aug. 1789, was the eldest surviving son of Captain John Willshire by Mary, daughter of William Linden of Dublin. The father was son of Noah Willshire, a merchant, and, as the latter would not buy him a commission, he enlisted in the 38th foot. He was made quartermaster in 1790, lieutenant and adjutant in 1793, and paymaster in 1801. He obtained commissions in the regiment for three of his sons while they were still children: that of Thomas Willshire was dated 25 June 1795, and on 5 Sept. following he became lieutenant.

Thomas Willshire joined his regiment at Saintes in the West Indies in January 1798. It returned to England in 1800, and it was probably then that he went to school, at King's Lynn and Kensington. He was promoted captain on 28 Aug. 1804, when a second battalion was raised. The first battalion went to the Cape in 1805, but he remained behind, and was second in a duel fought at Nottingham on 1 Jan. 1806. He joined the first battalion in South America in 1807, and took part in the attack on Buenos Ayres. He went with it to Portugal in 1808, and was present at Roliça, Vimiero, and Coruña. He served with it in Walcheren, where his father died on 25 Sept. 1809.

In June 1812 the first battalion of the 38th again embarked for the Peninsula,


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 Willshire commanding the light company. It joined the army three days before the battle of Salamanca (22 July), and was brigaded with the royals and the 9th in the 5th (Leith's) division. Willshire received two wounds in the battle. He commanded the light companies of the brigade in the action on the Carrion on 25 Oct. during the retreat from Burgos. In 1813 the division formed part of Graham's corps at Vittoria, and at the siege of San Sebastian. In the first assault the 38th was assigned the lesser breach. In the second assault it was at first in reserve, but was soon brought up in support of the stormers. Willshire's youngest brother was killed; he himself was given a brevet majority on 21 Sept. He commanded the light companies of the brigade at the passage of the Bidassoa, which he is said to have been the first man to cross, and in the actions on the Nive (9–11 Dec.) and the repulse of the sortie from Bayonne (14 April 1814). He received a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy, and afterwards the Peninsular silver medal with seven clasps.

In 1815 his battalion was sent to the Netherlands, but was too late for Waterloo. It went on to Paris, and Willshire was employed for a short time on the staff. In December he returned with the battalion to England, and in June 1818 went with it to the Cape. On his way out he wrote a manual of ‘light company manœuvres in concert with battalion manœuvres,’ which was sent to Sir Henry Torrens [q. v.], and was probably used by him in preparing the drill-book of 1824. Early in 1819 Willshire was sent to the frontier as commandant of British Kaffraria. A quarrel between the chiefs, in which the British authorities intervened, led to an attack on Grahamstown by Mokanna with six thousand Kaffirs on 22 April. Willshire had only his own company of the 38th, with 240 local troops and five guns. The attack was well planned and determined; but it was skilfully met and repulsed with loss. Willshire followed up the Kaffirs, and forced Mokanna to surrender. The territory between the Fish river and the Keiskamma was added to the colony, and Fort Willshire was built in it. He was highly praised by the governor, Lord Charles Somerset, who was also commander of the forces, and by the Duke of York.

In 1822 the 38th went to Calcutta, and Willshire was strongly recommended by Somerset to the governor-general, Lord Hastings. He could not afford to purchase his majority in the regiment, and on 10 Sept. 1823 he was given a majority without purchase in the 46th. He had command of it for some time at Ballary, and in December 1824 he commanded a brigade in the force under Colonel Deacon which retook the fort at Kittoor. On 30 Aug. 1827 he was made lieutenant-colonel without purchase of the 2nd (queen's), stationed at Poona. He served with it nearly ten years, and Sir Lionel Smith, after inspecting the regiment in 1830, reported that he had ‘never yet met so perfect a commanding officer.’

On 10 Jan. 1837 he was made brevet colonel, with the local rank of brigadier-general in India. In 1838, while commanding a brigade at Poona, he was given one in the ‘army of the Indus,’ formed for the invasion of Afghanistan. In February 1839 the army was reorganised, Keane becoming commander-in-chief, and Willshire succeeding him in the command of the Bombay division of infantry. His troops were the last to cross the Bolan, and were harassed by the tribesmen; but he reached Quetta on 30 April, and Kandahar on 4 May. He took part in the storming of Ghazni on 23 July, and went on to Kabul.

On 18 Sept.—the day after a grand investiture of the Durani order, of which he received the second class—he began his march back to the Indus with the Bombay division. After passing Ghazni he marched direct on Quetta, punishing some of the tribes on his way, and arriving there on 31 Oct. He had been told to depose Mehrab Khan of Kelat, and sent a column from Quetta for that purpose on 3 Nov. Learning from Major (afterwards Sir James) Outram that resistance was likely, he joined it himself two days afterwards. It consisted of the queen's and 17th foot, the 31st Bengal native infantry, some local horse, six guns, and some Bombay engineers, numbering in all 1,166 men.

He reached Kelat on the 13th, and found the khan's troops (about 2,000 men) posted on three hills north-west of the fort. He drove them from these hills, captured their guns, and tried to enter the fort along with the fugitives. The gate was closed before his men could reach it, but it was soon opened by his guns, and after a determined resistance the fort and its citadel were stormed, with a loss of 138 men killed and wounded. Mehrab Khan died fighting at the head of his men (Lond. Gaz. Extr. 13 Feb. 1840).

The governor-general, in forwarding Willshire's report, commended his ‘decision, great military skill, and excellent dispositions;’ and Outram speaks of ‘the cool and determined demeanour of our veter n


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 general.’ He had been made C.B. in 1838. For the campaign in Afghanistan he received the thanks of parliament, and was made K.C.B. on 20 Dec. 1839; and for the capture of Kelat he was created a baronet on 6 June 1840.

After installing a new khan, who was soon displaced, Willshire left Kelat on 21 Nov. 1839, and resumed his march to the Indus. His division was broken up on 27 Dec., and he returned to the command of his brigade at Poona. In October 1840 a sunstroke obliged him to resign this and go to England. On 27 Nov. 1841 he exchanged from the queen's regiment to half-pay, being appointed commandant at Chatham. He remained there till 1846, when he was promoted major-general on 9 Nov. He was afterwards unemployed. He was made colonel of the 51st foot on 26 June 1849, lieutenant-general on 20 June 1854, general on 20 April 1861, and G.C.B. on 28 June 1861. He died on 31 May 1862 at Hill House, near Windsor. On 11 May 1848 he married Annette Lætitia, eldest daughter of Captain Berkeley Maxwell, R.A., of Tuppendene, Kent; he had two sons and three daughters.

Willshire was a tall, athletic man, with aquiline features. His portrait, painted by T. Heaphy, was lent by Lady Willshire to the Victorian Exhibition. In the 38th he had the sobriquet of ‘Tiger Tom.’ As a disciplinarian he ‘was strict, indeed severe, but always impartial and just.’

[Low's Soldiers of the Victorian Age, i. 1–104; Gent. Mag. 1862, ii. 631; Kennedy's Campaign of the Army of the Indus; Goldsmid's Life of Outram; Durand's First Afghan War; Burke's Peerage.]

WILLSON. [See also .]

WILLSON, EDWARD JAMES (1787–1854), antiquary and architect, born at Lincoln on 21 June 1787, was the eldest son of William Willson of Lincoln by his wife Clarissa, daughter of William Tenney. Robert William Willson [q. v.] was his younger brother. He was brought up a Roman catholic, and, after education at the grammar school, began to learn business as a builder under his father, who had unusual knowledge of theoretical construction. In a few years he abandoned building for the study of architecture, in which he obtained help from a local architect. He was engaged by Archdeacon Bayley in 1823 in the restoration of Messingham church, and superintended repairs or restorations at Haxey, Louth, West Rasen, Saundby, Staunton, and other churches in the counties of Lincoln and Nottingham. He designed Roman catholic chapels at Nottingham, Hainton, Louth, Melton Mowbray, Grantham, and elsewhere, some of which may be regarded as early examples of the Gothic revival. In 1826 he designed the organ case for Lincoln Cathedral, but beyond this (and occasional informal suggestions) he was not engaged on the cathedral restorations, conducted at that time in a spirit of wholesale renovation which he deprecated. Between 1834 and 1845 he restored the keep, towers, and walls of Lincoln Castle, and had for more than twenty years the charge of that fabric as county surveyor. The Pelham Column, 128 feet high, on a hill at Cabourn between Caistor and Grimsby, was designed by Willson for the Earl of Yarborough. About 1818 an acquaintance with John Britton [q. v.] and Augustus Charles Pugin [q. v.] started him upon an industrious career as a writer on the phase of architecture then becoming popular. For Britton's ‘Architectural Antiquities’ (4to, 1807–26) he supplied accounts of Boston church, St. Peter's, Barton, and the minsters of Beverley and Lincoln, and probably took a large share in the chronological table attached to the fifth volume. He was associated with the same author's ‘Cathedral Antiquities’ (4to, 1814–35) and ‘Picturesque Antiquities of English Cities’ (4to, 1830).

The ‘Specimens of Gothic Architecture’ which Augustus Charles Pugin began to publish in 1821 owed much to Willson's suggestions, both in the delineation of mouldings and details (an advance on previous methods of recording architecture) and in the selection of the examples. Willson wrote the whole of the letterpress for these two volumes, and supplied a valuable glossary of Gothic architecture, the first of its kind. For Pugin's ‘Examples of Gothic Architecture’ (4to, 1828–31) he also wrote the text, including essays on ‘Gothic Architecture’ and ‘Modern Imitation.’ He was intimately connected with the movement for the cultivation and nomenclature of Gothic architecture with which Thomas Rickman [q. v.] and others were then associated.

He was the author of various pamphlets on local subjects, and collected a wealth of material for the architectural history of his county and cathedral, which lack of time and health prevented his putting into print. All branches of ecclesiastical history claimed his attention, and he left notes upon the disputed authorship of the ‘De Imitatione Christi.’ He was honoured as a citizen in Lincoln, and became a city magistrate in 1834 and mayor in 1852.


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 Willson died at Lincoln on 8 Sept. 1854. He was buried at Hainton. He married, in 1821, Mary, daughter of Thomas Mould. By her he had two surviving sons.

 WILLSON, ROBERT WILLIAM (1794–1866), Roman catholic bishop of Hobart, Tasmania, born at Lincoln in 1794, was the third son of William Willson of Lincoln. [q. v.] was his eldest brother. He entered the college of Old Oscott in 1816, was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop (1752–1826) [q. v.] in December 1824, and in February 1825 was stationed at Nottingham, where he built the spacious church of St. John, which was completed in 1828. Subsequently he erected the fine group of buildings that now constitute the cathedral of St. Barnabas, with its episcopal and clerical residence, schools, and convent. At the suggestion of [q. v.] he was made the first bishop of Hobart Town, Tasmania, being consecrated in St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham, on 28 Oct. 1842 by Archbishop Polding of Sydney. Bishop (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman's sermon, preached on the occasion, has been printed. Willson arrived at Hobart Town in 1844.

Besides Norfolk Island, other penal settlements at Port Arthur and on Maria Island came within the jurisdiction of the new bishop. Great social evils had been developed under the prevailing system of penal discipline, but Willson effected many ameliorations in the treatment of the convicts, especially on Norfolk Island. Indeed his representations to the colonial and imperial governments, backed by Sir [q. v.], ultimately obtained a thorough reformation of this part of the system. So earnest was he in his purpose that he resolved to come home in order to let the British Government know the truth with regard to the sufferings of the convicts and the horrors of Norfolk Island. He arrived in England in the middle of 1847, and he was listened to with respectful attention both by her majesty's government and by the select committee of the House of Lords. He reached Hobart Town again in December 1847, and, in consequence of his continued exertions, Norfolk Island was eventually abandoned as a penal settlement. Willson brought about other reforms in the penal discipline of Tasmania, and he likewise effected various reforms in the treatment of the insane. His services as chief pastor of his own communion, and as a public man in the development of various colonial and local institutions, were warmly acknowledged by successive governors and by the community at large throughout Tasmania.

He finally left the colony, in shattered health, in the spring of 1865, and settled at the scene of his earlier labours. Having formally resigned his preferment, he was translated by the holy see on 22 June 1866 from the bishopric of Hobart Town to that of Rhodiopolis, in partibus infidelium. He died at Nottingham on 30 June 1866, and was buried in the crypt of the cathedral church of St. Barnabas.

 WILLUGHBY. [See also .]

WILLUGHBY, FRANCIS (1635–1672), naturalist, was born at Middleton, Warwickshire, in 1635. He was collaterally descended on his maternal grandfather's side from Sir [q. v.], his father's father being Sir Percivall Willughby, the male representative of the Willoughbys of Eresby, and his father's mother the eldest daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Willughby of Wollaton, Nottinghamshire. His father, Sir Francis Willughby, who died 17 Dec. 1665, married Cassandra, daughter of, earl of Londonderry [q. v.], and Willughby was their only son. ‘He was, from his childhood,’ says Ray, ‘addicted to study. … As soon as he had come to the use of reason, he was so great a husband of his time as not willingly to lose or let slip unoccupied the least fragment of it, … so excessive in the prosecution of his studies … that most of his intimate friends were of opinion that he did much weaken his body and impair his health’ (The Ornithology of Francis Willughby, 1678, pref.) Willughby entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1653, as a fellow-commoner, his tutor being [q. v.], who in 1660 dedicated his ‘Gnomologia Homeri’ to Willughby and three others. Ray, who was eight years Willughby's senior, had entered Trinity College in order to become Duport's pupil, but in 1653 was already himself Greek lecturer, and became soon after mathematical lecturer, and in 1655 humanity reader. Isaac Barrow, to whom Willughby's mathematical tastes recommended him, had been elected to a fellowship at the same time as


text: Author:Charles Bertie Wedd

title: Author:Charles Bertie Wedd


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alicante (province)


text:
Page:Grimm's household tales, volume 2 (1884).djvu/121

 her room, and told him that the huntsman was the man who had really set her free from the giants. And when the aged King saw all the proofs of this, he could no longer doubt, and said that he was very glad he knew how everything had happened, and that the huntsman should have her to wife, on which the maiden was glad at heart. Then she dressed the huntsman as if he were a foreign lord, and the King ordered a feast to be prepared. When they went to table, the captain sat on the left side of the King's daughter, but the huntsman was on the right, and the captain thought he was a foreign lord who had come on a visit. When they had eaten and drunk, the old King said to the captain that he would set before him something which he must guess. "Supposing any one said that he had killed the three giants and he were asked where the giants' tongues were, and he were forced to go and look, and there were none in their heads, how could that happen?" The captain said, "Then they cannot have had any." "Not so," said the King. "Every animal has a tongue," and then he likewise asked what any one would deserve who made such an answer? The captain replied, "He ought to be torn in pieces." Then the King said he had pronounced his own sentence, and the captain was put in prison and then torn in four pieces; but the King's daughter was married to the huntsman. After this he brought his father and mother, and they lived with their son in happiness, and after the death of the old King he received the kingdom.

112.—THE FLAIL FROM HEAVEN.

was once going out to plough with a pair of oxen. When he got to the field, both the animals' horns began to grow, and went on growing, and when he wanted to go home they were so big that the oxen could not get through the gateway for them. By good luck a butcher came by just then, and he delivered them over