Author: HULL, William Winstanley
Biography:
HULL, William Winstanley (1794-1873: ODNB)
He was born on 15 Mar. 1794 and baptised on 26 June at St. John’s, Blackburn, Lancashire, the only son of John Hull MD (1764-1843) and his wife Sarah Winstanley (1765-1842), who had married in 1791. He was educated at Manchester and Macclesfield grammar schools and proceeded to Brasenose College, Oxford (matric. 1811, BA 1814, Fellow 1816-20). He attended Lincoln’s Inn and was called to the bar in 1820. He married first Frances Wilson, on 27 Dec. 1820 at Manchester Cathedral. She died in 1849. He then married Frances Rowe on 11 Sept. 1850 at Hazelwood, Derbyshire. She died in 1853, four months after having given birth. He then married Eliza Matilda Good on 4 July 1861. There was issue from all three marriages. He gave up his legal practice in 1846 and retired to Tickwood Hall, near Much Wenlock, Shropshire, later moving to the Knowle, Hazelwood, Derbyshire, where he died on 28 Aug. 1873, leaving an estate of around £5000 to his surviving wife and children. He was an evangelical Tory but was interested in and proposed liturgical reform. He opposed Tractarianism and the admission of Jews and Catholics into Parliament. A third edition of the works listed here appeared in 1852 with his name on the title-page. John Julian includes Poems on Various Subjects (1832) but he may not have seen a copy and it is quite possibly an error. A work of liturgical research, “Inquiry after the Original Books of Common Prayer” (Occasional Papers on Church Matters [1848]) looked for but did not find the original manuscript of the 1662 Prayer Book. It was eventually found by Dean A. P. Stanley in 1867 and published in 1870 with extensive acknowledgement of Hull’s work. (ODNB 24 May 2022; ancestry.co.uk 24 May 2022; findmypast.co.uk 24 May 2022; OUCH 30 Dec. 1829; MH 21 Sept. 1850; Derby Mercury 10 July 1861; Hour 3 Sept. 1873; John Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology [1892]1: 542) AA