Woide was appointed assistant librarian at the British Museum in 1782. He was at first engaged in the natural history section, but was afterwards transferred to the more congenial department of printed books. Dr. Thomas Somerville [q. v.], while in London in 1785 at work in the British Museum, was ‘under the deepest obligations’ to Woide, whom he describes as ‘the oriental secretary who had the charge of the Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts’ (Life and Times, pp. 210–11). He was at this time engaged upon his noble facsimile edition of the ‘Novum Testamentum Græcum,’ from the ‘Codex Alexandrinus’ or ‘Codex A,’ at the British Museum. It was published by John Nichols in 1786, through the munificence of the trustees of the British Museum, and on 5 May 1786 Woide presented a copy to the king (Gent. Mag. 1786, i. 437, ii. 497–8). There were about 450 copies on common paper at two guineas each, and twenty-five on fine paper at five guineas apiece. Ten were on vellum, but only six of them had the notes and illustrations. He added to it ‘admirable prolegomena and notes.’
An appendix to this work, begun by Woide and completed by Henry Ford, professor of Arabic at Oxford, was published by the university in 1799. It contained the fragments of the New Testament, about a third in all, in the Sahidic dialect, mostly taken from manuscripts at Oxford, with a dissertation on the Egyptian versions of the scriptures, and a collation of the ‘Vatican Codex.’ On the publication of the ‘Codex Alexandrinus’ in 1786 J. G. Burckhardt printed a thesis at Leipzig in justification of the reading theos in the manuscript in 1 Tim. iii. 16, and in 1788 G. L. Spohn published at the same place the ‘notitia’ of Woide, ‘cum variis ejus lectionibus omnibus.’
Woide was a D.D. of the university of Copenhagen. He was elected F.R.S. on 21 April 1785, created D.C.L. by the university of Oxford on 28 June 1786, and was also a fellow of many foreign societies. A fit of apoplexy seized him at a conversazione in the house of Sir Joseph Banks on 6 May 1790, and on 9 May he died in his rooms at the British Museum. His wife had died on 12 Aug. 1784, leaving two daughters.
Woide supplied information to Franciscus Perezius Bayerius for his book ‘De Nummis Hebræo-Samaritanis,’ which was printed at Valentia in 1781, and several of his communications are in the appendix (pp. i–xix). He contributed to the ‘Archæologia’ (vi. 130–2) a paper on a ‘Palmyrene Coin,’ communicated for the fourth edition of William Bowyer's ‘Critical Conjectures on the New Testament’ (1812) the notes of Professor Schultz, and revised the Greek notes in the 1788 edition of Bishop Warburton's works.
His portrait was engraved by Bartolozzi in 1791.
[Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Sheppard's St. James's Palace, ii. 244–7; Gent. Mag. 1784 ii. 638, 1790 i. 478; Biogr. Univ. 1828; Didot's Nouvelle Biogr. Générale; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. vi. 492, 602, ix. 11–14; Nichols's Lit. Illustr. viii. 448.]
WOLCOT, JOHN (1738–1819), satirist and poet, under the title of Peter Pindar, was the son and fourth child of Alexander Wolcot, by Mary Ryder, his wife. He was born at Dodbrooke, near Kingsbridge, Devon, and baptised on 9 May 1738 (Baptismal Register, Dodbrooke). His father, who was a country surgeon and son of a surgeon, died on 14 June 1751, and the future poet fell under the care of his uncle, John Wolcot of Fowey. He was educated at Kingsbridge grammar school, and afterwards at Liskeard and Bodmin. In or about 1760 he was sent on his uncle's advice for twelve months to France to learn the language. He, however, acquired no love for the French, of whom he afterwards wrote:
I hate the shrugging dogs,
I've lived among them, ate their frogs
(Coll. Works, i. 107). Medicine being determined on as a profession, Wolcot went in 1762 to London for the purpose of study, and lodged with his uncle by marriage, Mr. Giddy of Penzance. In 1764 he returned to his uncle at Fowey, with whom he lived, acting as assistant till 1767. On 8 Sept. of this year he graduated M.D. at Aberdeen (Notes and Queries, 6th ser. xi. 94). Wolcot was well acquainted and distantly connected with Sir William Trelawny of Trelawne, Fowey [see under Trelawny, Edward], and, on Trelawny's appointment as governor of Jamaica in 1767, Wolcot was chosen to accompany him as physician. Finding, however, that medical prospects in Jamaica were not encouraging, he returned home in 1769 for the purpose of taking orders, with a view to securing the valuable living of St. Anne, which was in the gift of his patron, and then apparently soon likely to become vacant. He was without difficulty admitted by the bishop of London deacon on 24 June 1769, and priest on the following day (Register of Bishopric of London). Thus equipped he returned to Jamaica in March 1770, but found the hoped-for living was not vacant. He was granted the incumbency of Vere, but lived most of his time at the governor's house,
