Author: WESTLY, William King
Biography:
WESTLY, William King (1796-1875: ancestry.co.uk)
Westly was born in St Petersburg, Russia, on 1 Feb. 1796 and baptised there on 28 Feb. His parents were John Westly, a customs officer, and his wife Martha Lowth; they had married in St. Petersburg and had eleven children. It is not known when the family moved to England where they lived first in Greenwich, London, and then in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, where John Westly died in July 1835, leaving an estate that included assets in Russia. William became a flax spinner and in about 1814 he was living at Thorp Hall near Leeds, Yorkshire, when he sent a poem, “The Vision of Belshazzar,” to Walter Scott (q.v.) using the pseudonym W. B. Villiers. When Westly—as Villiers—wrote again in 1817 to complain that Scott had failed to fulfill a promise to ensure the poem’s publication, Scott replied that in fact “The Vision of Belshazzar” had appeared in the Edinburgh Annual Register for Jan. 1815. He added that, while he found the poem to have “strong indications of genius,” Westly should not be overly confident of literary success. On 12 May 1824, this time under his real name, Westly wrote again to send the manuscript of “Charmion” for Scott’s opinion; the letter states that the poem had already been printed but not published. Scott’s reply has not survived but on 19 May 1824 the poem was advertised for sale in The Leeds Mercury. Westly’s only other known publication is an eight-page pamphlet, An Account of a New Flax Roving Frame (London and Leeds, 1843). In the 1851 Census Westley is recorded as living with a servant at Blundell Street, Leeds; his occupation is given as “retired engineer.” The 1871 Census identifies him as a flax machinist living at 14 Coventry Place, Leeds, where he died on 15 Aug. 1875. He was buried on 20 Aug. in the churchyard of St. John the Baptist, Adel, Yorkshire. His will was proved on 6 Sept. 1875 and disbursed effects of under £600. (ancestry.co.uk 8 Sept. 2025; H. J. Grierson, The Letters of Sir Walter Scott [1932], 5: 469, 8: 516-17; NLS MS 3888, ff 250-51; Edinburgh Annual Register 8 [1815], 251-55) SR