Welsh Journals

354 BYE-GONES. Dec, 1879. tory as the parish clerk of Condover, where for fifty years he did service in the church to the satisfaction of all his neighbours. This man of humble parentage is as worthy of respectful remembrance as if he had been a prince, for he suffered for his country, and gave those proofs of soldierly valour which has made Englishmen famous. He died in 1873, at the ripe age of eighty-three, WILLIAMS, Meriel, born at Worthyn, in Shrop¬ shire, 1(327, was the youngest daughter of Richard Powell, and a descendant of Lord Chancellor Bromley. She mar¬ ried John Williams of Ystym Colwyn, of the same family as the celebrated Archbishop of York of that name. Her goodness and charity to the poor, gave her a claim to honourable notice, but she was also a learned woman, an excellent poet, and wonderfully well versed in the legendary lore of the Welsh Borders. Some of her writings were published, but under an assumed name, and mostly in the "Collections" of other people. She died in 1702, and is said to have been buried at Meifod, Montgomeryshire. Mr. Walter Da vies, in one of his numerous letters to Hugh Jones of Chester, says, " Her life should be written out in full, for she was a mother in Israel, and a notable woman for her times." WILLIAMS, Thomas Walter, a great law writer, was born at Usk, in Monmouthshire, 1760. It has been the fashion to say he "was not much known as a pleader," but towards the close of the last century his name was a household one among justices of the peace, and the equally useful, though more humble officials called parish officers. His " Original Precedents in Conveyancing,"4 vols., 1792, gave him a claim to distinction in the legal world. In 1795 his "Whole Law relative to the duty and office of a Justice of the Peace and Parish Officers" passed through the press in 5 vols. And in 1798 he published an "Abridg¬ ment of cases argued during the reign of George III.," in 5 vols. From that time to his death he published several other learned works; and an annual abridgment of the statutes of each year. A painstaking writer and a clear appreciation of law he secured for his name honour and respect. WILLS, Francis, a native of Sandbach, in Cheshire, founded in 1718 a free school in that town, and endowed it with a sum of money to be expended annually in the education of twenty boys who are to be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic; three of them to be prepared for the University. He is supposed to have derived from an old Cheshire family called Willis, and a very eminent judge of that name claimed kindred with the founder of Sandbach School^ but a close examination of the pedigree founded upon this assumption shows that the eminent lawyer in question was mistaken. WILSON, Hugh Owen, born at Shrewsbury in the year 1825, is deserving of mention as the grandson of Mr. Archdeacon Owen, and a scholar at the Grammar School of his native town. He graduated at Oxford, B.A. in 1844 and M.A. in 1848, and having chosen the Church for his profession, he became in 1849 rector of Church Stretton, and a pattern clergyman. He was merciful as a magis¬ trate, kind to the poor, and exemplary in the discharge of his duties in the parish. All these qualities are so many testimonies to the worth of the man ; they may not be rare among the clergy, but where they shine out as they did in this instance, they become so many living sermons to men; they help to mould character, to culti¬ vate the Christian graces, and to lift our thoughts to the great source of all good. This kind and genial man died in February, 1879, to the great grief of all who knew and appreciated him rightly. WILSON, Samuel, a native of Shrewsbury, who be¬ came M.A. at Oxford in 1677, had matriculated there in 1670 upon his election from Westminster School, where he had been educated, but nothing more is known of him as a student. He is supposed to have written divers books, but in no instance have we seen them mentioned, nor is it very clear that he ever published anything under his own name. WIMPRISS, Edmund Morrison, was born at Chester in the year 1835, and having when a child displayed a taste for drawing he was educated for an artist. His early pictures shewed that he had the promise of a great painter about him, and of late years his productions have secured eager and appreciative purchasers. Few men in his line of art have excelled him, and Chester may well be proud of so worthy a son. WINSTON, Jenkin, a native of Herefordshire, is mentioned in song as a famous Borderer, who, "out of his abundant love for the people of Gwentland, acquired a thorough knowledge of their language, and became a Welshman in principle and in practice." We sincerely hope not, for in his day it was a cherished principle to hate the Saxon, and a fixed practice to slay him. The true story is, that Winston had a love for literature, and that he befriended the bards and minstrels when most English¬ men cursed them all round. The Borderers had their hands full, for Edward the Fourth was king, and men buckled on their swords to fight under the "Roses," and to slay all comers who presumed to differ from them in colour. We need not doubt the valour of Winston, but he had the high honour of trying to cultivate the graces of literature and music, when others were devoting all their thoughts to war. A time came when the Bards remem¬ bered all this, and then the minstrels sang his praises as a friend whose memory should be held in remembrance, and thus his name comes down to us, glorified and sancti¬ fied as a man of peace, and a true patriot. WODENOTE, Thomas, a native of Monmouthshire, was one of the active Royalists who attended upon the Earl of Glamorgan, and cheerfully sacrified all he had in the world in supporting the interests of the Stuarts. He is supposed to have been in the confidence of Queen Henrietta, and to have passed over the seas as her trusted messenger to the French Court, but under a feigned name. He was living in London long after the Restoration, but in the most abject poverty. His royal master having done nothing for him, although both he and his owed so much to him. Some have named him as the writer of " Hermes Theologus," published in 1649, but in error, for the author of that work was Theophilus Wodenote, no relation of his. WOLFE, Edward, a Salopian by birth, and living at or near Madeley in the early part of the seventeenth century, is spoken of as one of the co-partners who pro¬ moted the early development of the mineral industries of that part of the county. One Walter de Caldebrook had obtained a licence from the Prior of Wenlock in very early times " to dig for coales in Le Brockholes," and sometime in the sixteenth century some part of the minerals in the neighbourhood passed under a grant from the kiDg to- Robert Brook, and coales as well as iron ore were worked there. Coalbrookdale probably sprang out of a combina¬ tion of some of theae names, and Mr. Wolfe, we imagine, was one of the early promoters of the undertaking, which subsequently became so well known as the Coalbrookdale Company. The celebrated quaker family of Darby came upon the scene in or about the year 1700, and some think found the old works in which Wolfe had been interested