Author: Wilton, Pleydell
Biography:
WILTON, Pleydell (1795-1859: ADB)
The son of the Rev. William Wilton and his wife Charlotte Jelf, who had married in 1793, he was born on 24 Oct. 1795 at Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, and baptised Charles Pleydell Neale Wilton at Upper Swell on 8 Nov. He was admitted to St. John’s College, Cambridge, on 25 June 1813 (matric. Oct. 1813, BA 1817, MA 1827). His one collection of poems dates from the period between his graduation and his professional employment: it reflects his family life, including the deaths of his parents and the birthday of a sister, and his enthusiasms, particularly geology. One of the poems is addressed to a group of young ladies who had made him a set of pasteboard boxes for his collection of fossils. After being ordained deacon and then priest in 1820, he was appointed curate at Awre, Gloucestershire, where he married Elizabeth Plaistowe on 1 Jan 1823. In 1826 he took up a curacy in Kent, but later that year he accepted a chaplaincy in New South Wales, Australia, and emigrated with his family. Besides his parish duties in NSW he was the master of the Female Orphan School at Parramatta and his wife Elizabeth was the matron. He resigned his parish in 1828 but in 1831 accepted the chaplaincy at Newcastle, where his wife died on 21 Dec. 1836, predeceased by their two children. On 14 Oct. 1839 he married Charlotte Albinia Sullivan at Hexham, Newcastle; they had two children, a son and a daughter. Wilton led an active life attending to his church and conducting services in the town jail and hospital as well as more widely in the district. He owned a farm and orchard on the Hunter River. He kept up his scientific studies by maintaining UK fellowships and a corresponding fellowship with the Tasmanian Society; founding and editing the short-lived Australian Quarterly Journal of Theology, Literature, and Science in 1828 (he contributed some poems); and establishing a mechanics’ institute in Newcastle in 1835. He died at Newcastle on 5 June 1859. (ADB 2 July 2024; ancestry.com 2 July 2024; findmypast.com 2 July 2 July 2024; ACAD) HJ