﻿8 NICHOLSON, Notes on the Wilkinsons, Ironmasters. 



amongst the dissenters, seems to have become a 

 rationalist of the variety fashionable in France in the 

 early years of the Revolution. He was generous to his 

 workmen, and pensioned those worn out in his service. 

 To his brother-in-law, Dr. Priestley, he was most muni- 

 ficent. On the occasion of the Birmingham riots, when 

 Priestley's house, instruments, and books were destroyed, 

 John Wilkinson, without solicitation, besides giving him 

 ^■500, presented him with French bonds to the amount 

 of ;£io,coo, and until these should bear interest, under- 

 took to pay him £200 a year. He left a large fortune, 

 but the bulk of his fine estate was dissipated in 

 litigation. 



William Wilkinson, John's very much younger brother, 

 was, it is believed, born in Lancashire. He went to a 

 school at Nantwich which Dr. Priestley kept, a circum- 

 stance which led to Priestley making the acquaintance of 

 the Wilkinson family, and eventually to his marriage with 

 Miss Wilkinson. Much of Wm. Wilkinson's business life 

 was spent abroad, and he seems to have had a cannon 

 factory in France, in which it is not improbable that his 

 brother John was also interested. At a later date he 

 resided near Wrexham. "Nimrod" (C. J. Apperley) 

 says that " setting aside his ultra-Radical principles, there 

 was nothing against the moral conduct of the ironmaster, 

 who, by the way, was a most entertaining companion, and 

 quite a man of the world, in the true acceptation of that 

 term, for he visited all countries, and he was occasionally a 

 guest at Plasgronow...my father overlooking his political 

 principles for the benefit of his society, and the general 

 fund of information he possessed." Even the fact that he 

 was suspected of supplying the French nation with cannon 

 to be used against his own countrymen did not materially 

 damage him in the estimation of Mr. Apperley and his 



