Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/228

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Winterbotham
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Winterbotham

in 1595; in 1588 he commanded his father's ship the Minion.

The Vanguard's lieutenant, John Wynter, who also commanded the Elizabeth with Drake in 1578, and returned through the straits of Magellan, was Wynter's nephew, the son of Wynter's brother George, who in 1571 bought the manor of Dyrham in Gloucestershire. Kingsley, in 'Westward Ho!' has confused the uncle and nephew, and speaks of the man who commanded the fleet at Smerwick as the same that turned back through the straits of Magellan (cf. Cal. State Papers, Simancas, iii. 340-1).

The name has been very commonly written Winter and Wintour; the admiral himself, his eldest son, and his brother spelt it Wynter.

[Visitations of Gloucestershire, pp. 273-4, and of Worcestershire, pp. 148-9 (Harl. Soc.); Atkyns's Gloucestershire; Rudder's Gloucestershire; Cal. of State Papers, Dom., East Indies, Foreign, and Simancas; Cal. Hatfield MSS. i-iii.; Acts of the Privy Council, i-xvi; Corbet's Drake and the Tudor Navy, 1898; Defeat of the Spanish Armada (Navy Records Soc.); Oppenheim's Administration of the Royal Nayy; notes kindly supplied by Mr. Oppenheim.]

J. K. L.


WINTERBOTHAM, HENRY SELFE PAGE (1837–1873), politician, born at Stroud on 2 March 1837, was second son of Lindsey Winterbotham, banker in that town, and grandson of William Winterbotham [q. v.], dissenting minister. He was educated at Amersham school, Buckinghamshire, and University College, London. His collegiate career was exceptionally brilliant. In 1856 he graduated with honours, and in 1859 became LL.D., and won in 1858 the Hume scholarship in jurisprudence, and in the following year the Hume scholarship in political economy and the university law scholarship. In 1860 he was called to the bar by the society of Lincoln's Inn, and speedily acquired a reputation in chancery practice. On 20 Aug. 1867 he was returned to represent Stroud, Gloucestershire, in the liberal interest, and, refusing to join the regular liberal party, took his seat among the more advanced politicians who then were sitting below the gangway. A speech which he shortly afterwards made on the abolition of university theological tests drew the attention of the house to his abilities, and from that day he was regarded as one of the coming leaders of his party. He was virtually the leader of the nonconformists in the House of Commons for some years, and took a prominent part in the education and other nonconformist movements. In March 1871 he joined the liberal ministry as under-secretary of state to the home department. His health was never robust, and the work of his office killed him. In the autumn of 1873 he fell seriously ill after addressing a meeting in Bristol, and went to Italy for a rest. He died at Rome on 13 Dec., and was buried in the protestant cemetery there. He was unmarried.

[Times, 15 and 22 Dec. 1873; Stroud Gazette; Independent; private information.]

J. R. M.


WINTERBOTHAM, WILLIAM (1763–1829), dissenting minister and political prisoner, born in Aldgate, London, on 15 Dec. 1763, was sixth child of John Winterbotham, who had been a soldier in the Pretender's army. He was brought up by his maternal grandparents at Cheltenham. Returning to London in 1774, he got into trouble with his schoolmaster and was apprenticed to a silversmith. In 1784 he started in business for himself, and, having occasion during a severe illness to review the nature of some dissolute habits which he had contracted, prepared himself for the conversion which he underwent two years afterwards when he joined the Calvinist methodists. Next year he began to preach, and in 1789 became a baptist. In December that year he went to assist at How's Lane chapel, Plymouth. Here he preached on 5 and 18 Nov. 1792 the two sermons for which he was prosecuted for sedition. Feeling on the French Revolution was high in Plymouth at the time, and Winterbotham had also been engaged in some local dispute with the corporation. The sermons were political, as their occasion—the gunpowder plot and the revolution—demanded. He enunciated the democratic view of kingly authority, and referred to the political aspects of the prevailing distress. A prosecution was immediately talked of after the first was delivered, and, to put matters right, he preached the second. On 25 and 26 July 1793 he was tried at the Exeter assizes for both sermons, and a jury found him guilty. An anonymous gift of 1,000l. which reached him years afterwards was supposed to be the conscience money of one of the jurymen. On 27 Nov. he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a fine of 100l. for each sermon. He spent some of his time in the New Prison, Clerkenwell, but the conditions there were so disgusting that he successfully applied to be transferred, and was lodged in the state side of Newgate. While in prison he made the acquaintance of Southey, who frequently visited him. During one of those visits Southey left his drama of ‘William Tell’ in the hands of Winterbotham, request--