The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [814]
Whiting, Ann (nee Johnson) (b. 1736), S.J.’s cousin and wife of William Whiting: 989 n. a
Wilcox, J. (?John, fl. 1721–62), bookseller in London: 60 n. b
Wilkes, Dr Richard (1691–1760), physician and antiquary: 86
Wilkes, Friar (fl. 1775–7), of the English Benedictine Convent in Paris: 476
Wilkes, John (1727–97), politician; member of the Royal Society (1749), the Beef Steak Club (1754) and the Hell Fire Club; founder of the North Briton (1762), a political weekly designed to attack Bute’s ministry; published the scandalous North Briton, no. 45, denouncing George III’s judgement; Alderman, for the ward of Farringdon Without (1769); subject of the Middlesex election saga (1768-9); came to blows with the government in the Printer’s case, the controversy over the printing of parliamentary debates (1771); highly popular Mayor of London (1774-6); lost public support after perceived endorsement of American independence, becoming instead a parliamentary radical; constant thorn in the side of Westminster, spokesman for ‘Liberty’, womanizer, blasphemer and scandal-merchant: 78, 163, 186 and n. e, 187, 210, 266, 299, 318, 552, 553–61, 622, 632, 645, 697, 731, 755–6, 779, 790–92, 819–22, 882, 955 n. a
Wilkins, J., landlord of the Three Crowns, Lichfield: 511, 745
Wilks, Robert (1665?-1732), actor and theatre manager; strongly associated with the part of Sir Harry Wildair in Farquhar’s The Constant Couple; quarrelled with Christopher Rich over payment and Drury Lane and moved to the Queen’s Theatre at Haymarket (1706-8) before becoming a co-manager of that theatre in 1709; tender and graceful tragedian but better remembered as a sprightly comic actor: 791–2
Willes, Sir John (1685–1761), judge and politician; loyal supporter of Walpole; Chief Justice of Chester (1729); Attorney General (1733); Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (1737); Chief Commissioner of the Great Seal (1756); able judge but career faltered when he refused to pander for preferment: 820, 1062 n. 1035
William III (1650–1702), king of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Prince of Orange; son of the eldest daughter of Charles I, Mary (1631–1660), and hence nephew of Charles II and James II; invaded Britain and seized the Stuart crown in the Glorious Revolution of 1688–9, citing legal rather than religious motivations: 397, 431, 445, 952
Williams, Anna (1706–83), poet and companion of S.J.; daughter of Zachariah Williams; lived with S.J. in various residences from 1748, except for the period 1759–65; published a polished if uninspired Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1766); eyesight impaired by cataracts; greatly cared for by S.J.: 15, 85, 126 n. a, 133, 138, 176–7, 276, 286, 301, 310, 337, 340, 347, 372–4, 380, 383, 389, 404, 415, 429, 441, 452, 454, 467, 482, 497, 522, 532, 541, 546, 554, 561, 569–70, 575, 587, 591, 593, 594, 637, 639, 642, 644–5, 668, 692, 708, 720, 728, 759, 814–16, 842, 859, 879, 891, 895, 904, 913
Williams, Helen Maria (1762–1827), writer; committed abolitionist; keen observer of the French Revolution, publishing her Letters from France (1790-96) and later admirer of Napoleon in Sketches of the French Republic (1801); sometime translator: 919
Williams, Sir Charles Hanbury (1708–59), writer and diplomatist; Paymaster of Marines (1737); custos rotulorum of Herefordshire (1741); Lord Lieutenant of Herefordshire (1741-4); satirist of the Whig opposition then the Tories, in the mode of Pope, if more prolix and less artful; diplomat to the Prussia, The Hague, Poland and Russia (1747–57): 281
Williams, Zachariah (1673?-1755), experimental philosopher; father of Anna Williams; developed a method for ascertaining longitude using a theoretically derived table of the earth’s magnetic variation, but his ideas were rejected with no financial gain; bedridden from 1748; financially and intellectually assisted by S.J.: 13, 149 n. a, 163, 164 n. b
Wilson, Father (fl. 1775), of the English Benedictine