Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/148

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Wilson
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Wilson

Wilson's ‘Works’ were collected (under his son's direction) by Clement Cruttwell [q. v.], 1781, 2 vols. 4to, including a ‘Life’ (reprinted 1785, 3 vols. 8vo), and by John Keble [q. v.], with additions, in the ‘Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology,’ 1847–63, 7 vols. 8vo, preceded by a ‘Life,’ 1863, 2 vols. 8vo (or parts), to which Keble had devoted sixteen years' labour. Besides works noted above, many sermons and devotional pieces, he published:

  1. ‘Life,’ prefixed to the ‘Practical Christian,’ 1713, 8vo, by Richard Sherlock.
  2. ‘History of the Isle of Man’ in Gibson's (2nd) edit. of Camden's ‘Britannia,’ 1722, fol. vol. ii.
  3. ‘Observations’ included in ‘Abstract of the Historical Part of the Old Testament,’ 1735, 8vo (his ‘Notes’ are in an edition of the Bible, 1785, 4to).

Posthumous were:

  1. ‘Sacra Privata,’ first published in Cruttwell, 1781, vol. i. (the Oxford edition, 1838, has a preface by Cardinal Newman; the original manuscript of the ‘Sacra Privata’ was exhibited, by the president and fellows of Sion College, in the loan collection at the London church congress, 1899).
  2. ‘Maxims of Piety and Christianity’ (ditto).

Many devotional manuals have been framed, by extraction and adaptation, from Wilson's works. Of his writing Cardinal Newman says (1838): ‘There is nothing in him but what is plain, direct, homely, for the most part prosaic; all is sober, unstrained, rational, severely chastened in style and language.’

His son, Thomas Wilson (1703–1784), divine, was born at Bishop's Court on 24 Aug. 1703. He was the second son of the name, a previous Thomas having died an infant in 1701. His father taught him till he was sixteen, when he was placed with Clerk at the grammar school of Kirk Leatham, North Riding of Yorkshire. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, on 20 April 1721, was elected student on 8 July 1724, and graduated B.A. on 17 Dec. 1724 (Keble, p. 660); M.A. 16 Dec. 1727, B.D. and D.D. 10 May 1739. He was ordained deacon (1729), and priest (1731) by John Potter (1674?–1747) [q. v.], then bishop of Oxford. From Christmas 1729 to September 1731 he assisted his father in the Isle of Man, and is said to have suggested the ‘clergy, widow, and orphans' fund’ (Cruttwell). One reason assigned for his leaving the island is that he did not know Manx (Keble, p. 739). He declined (November 1732) an invitation to the Georgia mission. In June 1737 he was made one of the king's chaplains. On 5 Dec. 1737 he was presented to the rectory of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, and held this preferment till death. He was made prebendary of Westminster on 11 April 1743, and held the rectory of St. Margaret's, Westminster, from 1753. During the Manx famine and pestilence (1739–42) he petitioned the king for a grant of breadcorn for the island. In 1743 and 1750 he visited his father in the Isle of Man. With John Leland (1691–1766) [q. v.] he corresponded from 1742, inviting his criticisms on his father's manuals of religion. He suggested to Leland that he should answer Dodwell (as he did in 1744), and Bolingbroke (1753); and Leland's chief work, ‘A View of the principal Deistical Writers’ (1754–6), was written as letters to Wilson, and published at his expense. He rebuilt (1776) the chancel of Kirk Michael church. Till her second marriage (1778) he was a great admirer of Catharine Macaulay [q. v.], placing (1774) his residence, Alfred House, Bath, at her disposal; he erected (8 Sept. 1777) a marble statue of her, by J. F. Moore, within the altar-rails of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, which the vestry ordered him to remove. He was a man of much benevolence, a considerable book collector, in politics a follower of Wilkes, and in religion anxious for the union of ‘all protestants.’ He died at Alfred House, Bath, on 15 April 1784; his body was brought to London ‘in grand funeral procession,’ with ‘near two hundred flambeaux,’ and buried (27 April) in St. Stephen's, Walbrook. He married (4 Feb. 1734) his cousin Mary, daughter of William Patten, and widow of William Hayward, of Stoke Newington, and had one son, who died in infancy. He left his property to his relative, Thomas Patten, father of John Wilson-Patten, baron Winmarleigh [q. v.] He wrote ‘A Review of the Project for … a new Square at Westminster … By a Sufferer,’ 1757, 8vo; and an introduction to ‘The Ornaments of Churches … with a … view to the late decoration of St. Margaret, Westminster,’ 1761, 4to (by William Hole).

[Life by Cruttwell, 1781; Life by Stowell, 1819; Life by Hone, in Lives of Eminent Christians, 1833, p. 161; Life by Keble, 1863, very full and exact, and embodying a large quantity of unpublished material; Gent. Mag. 1784, i. 317, 379; Butler's Memoirs of Hildesley, 1799; Stubbs's Univ. of Dublin, 1889, pp. 143, 347; Notes and Queries, 9th ser. v. 472; Moore's Sodor and Man, 1893, pp. 186 sq.]

A. G.

WILSON, THOMAS (1747–1813), master of Clitheroe grammar school, son of William and Isabella Wilson, was born at Priest Hutton, in the parish of Warton, near Lancaster, on 3 Dec. 1747, and educated at the grammar schools of Warton and Sedbergh. At the latter school he was an assistant under Dr. Wynne Bateman from