Author: Williams, William
Biography:
WILLIAMS, William (c. 1737-99: findmypast.com)
According to Cambridge University records, he was admitted as sizar to St. John’s College on 16 Mar 1754, aged 17—hence the estimated birth year—and went on to matriculate in 1754 and to graduate BA in 1758. The same source gives the name of his father as William Williams of Pembrokeshire in Wales, attorney-at-law, but notes that he himself was born at Tenbury, Worcestershire, and attended the grammar school there. No public records have been found to confirm these details but there is no obvious reason to question them. The Preface to The Head of the Rock (1775) reveals that the poem had been composed late in 1758 as a gift to his father but abandoned upon his death, later revised as a patriotic spur to the Pembrokeshire militia but again abandoned on the ending of war, and circulated in manuscript before acquiring historical notes for publication. Williams’s later publications are historical works in prose, The Christian History (1776) and Primitive History (1789). He was ordained priest in Sept. 1758 and may have held a curacy at Thurlow, Suffolk, but his career lay outside the church. In 1768 he opened a school at Denbigh, Denbighshire, Wales, not far from the border with Cheshire; he was still master of the “free grammar school” of Denbigh at the time of his death on 9 June 1799. His name is so common that it is not possible to be certain whether or not he married and had a family. (findmypast.com 17 June 2024; ancestry.com 17 June 2024; ACAD; Chester Courant 14 June 1768, 11 June 1799) HJ
Other Names:
- W. Williams