W E L 



W E L 



among other benefactions, he erefted an hofpital for fix men 

 and fix women, being old and infirm ; two children were 

 alfo to be educated here. This edifice is ftill Handing : fir 

 John endowed it with an eftate in land, which is vetted in 

 governors, and properly applied. — Beauties of England and 

 Wales, vol. xiii. Somerfetihire. CoUinfon's Hiftory of So- 

 merfetfhire, 3 vols. 410. 1791. 



Wellington, a fmall market-town in the Wellington 

 divifion of the hundred of Bradford, and county of Salop, 

 England, is fituated near the Wrekin-hill, at the diftance of 

 12 miles E. by S. from Shrewfbury, and 151 miles N.W. 

 from London. It is neatly built, and contains many good 

 houfcs. The market, which is held on Thurfdays, is well 

 fupplied, and much frequented ; and here are three annual 

 fairs. The church, which has lieen lately rebuilt, is fup- 

 ported on caft-iron pillars, and the window-frames are of 

 the fame material, which gives a lightnefs to the edifice : 

 one of the frames is fifteen feet in height. Near the church 

 is a very refpeftable charity-fchool. In this town and its 

 vicinity, at the commencement of the civil war, king Charles, 

 then on his march to Shrewlbury, muftered his forces, and 

 after iffuing orders for the obfervance of Arid difcipline, 

 made a folemn proteftation that he would defend the efta- 

 bhfhed religion, govern by law, and preferve the liberty of 

 the fubjedt ; and that if he conquered he would uphold the 

 privileges of parhament. The parifh of Wellington includes, 

 befides the town, fix tovvnfiiips. The return of the year 1811 

 ftates the population to be 8213; the number of houfes 

 1724. The chief employment of the inhabitants is in the 

 coal-works ; here are alfo fome mines of iron-ore. About 

 two miles fouthward from the town is the Wrekin, a ftu- 

 pendous mountain 1100 feet in height. Through the ad- 

 jacent country runs the Roman road called the WatHng- 

 ftreet. 



Beneath the Wrekin, and adjoining the road leading to 

 Shrewfbury, is Orletcn, the feat of William Cludde, efq. of 

 an ancient family in this county. The manfion at prefent 

 has a modern appearance, but is of very great antiquity, and 

 till of late was enclofed with walls and a gate-houfe, and was 

 furrounded by a moat — Beauties of England and Wales, 

 vol. xiii. Salop ; by J. Nightingale, and R. Rylance, i8i i. 



WELLINKOVEN, a town of Germany, in the county 

 of Mark ; 6 miles W. of Schwiert. 



WELLOE, (The,) a rock in the Englifh channel, near 

 the coait of Cornwall ; o miles S.E. of Penzance. N. lat. 

 5°. W. long. 5° 14'. 



WELLS, William Charles, F.R.S., I. and E., 

 licentiate of the Royal College of Phyficians, London, and 

 one of the phyficians to St. Thomas's Hofpital, in Biography, 

 was the fon of parents who left Scotland and fettled in 

 Carolma, in 1753, and born in Charlellown, South Carolina, 

 m May 1757. Few lives have been more diverfified by inci- 

 dent and more feduloufly devoted to literary and fcientific 

 purfuits, and therefore more entitled to notice in our bio- 

 graphical notches than the fubjed of this article. Before 

 he had attained the age of feven years, he was fent to a con- 

 fiderable grammar-fchool at Dumfries, where he remained 

 nearly two years and a half ; and in the autumn of the year 

 1770 he removed to Edinburgh, and attended feveral of the 

 lower clafles of the univerfity . At this early age he had the 

 good fortune to become acquainted with Mr. David Hume 

 and fir William Miller, now known by the title of lord Glen- 

 lee, whofe friendfhip he afterwards cultivated and valued, 

 and whofe kind offices he gratefully acknowledged. In 1771 

 he returned to Charleltown, and was apprenticed, in the 

 medical profeflion, to Dr. Alexander Garden, whofe name 

 is well known among naturalifts ; and during three years of the 



time he was with this gentleman, he purfued his ftudies with 

 fuch diUgence, that he acquired perhaps more knowledge 

 than in any three fubfequent years of his life. Soon after 

 the commencement of the American war, in 1775, he came 

 to London. The occafion of his removal was his refufal, 

 from confcientious motives, to fign a paper denominated 

 " The AlTociation," which was drawn up in order to unite 

 the people in a refillance to the claims of the Britifh govern- 

 ment. At the commencement of the winter of that year he 

 went to Edinburgh, and entered upon his medical ftudies, 

 with the view of taking a degree. To his former two 

 friends, with whom he had kept up a regular corr< fj^ondence, 

 he had now the happinefs of adding a third, no lefs intimate 

 and conftant than the others, the prefent Dr. Robertfon 

 Barclay. Having purfued his ftudies for three winters, and 

 parted his preparatory trials in the fiimmer of 1778, he left 

 Edinburgh without graduating, and returned to London, 

 where he attended a courfe of Dr. William Hunter's lec- 

 tures, and became a furgeon's pupil at Bartholomew's hof- 

 pital. In 1779 he went to Holland as furgeon to a Scotch 

 regiment, in the fervice of the United Provinces ; but re- 

 ceiving ofTenfive treatment from the commanding officer, he 

 refigned his commiffion, and challenged the aggreffor, under 

 the unjuft charge of military infubordination, for which an 

 attempt was made to punifti him; but without receiving the 

 fatisfaftion which he demanded, he went to Leyden in the 

 beginning of the year 1780, and there prepared an inaugural 

 thefis on the fubjeft of " Cold," which was publiftied at 

 Edinburgh in the clofe of that year, on occafion of his 

 taking the degree of doftor in medicine. At this time he 

 commenced his acquaintance with Dr. Lifter, a gentleman 

 no lefs diftinguiftied for his integrity and liberality than for 

 his flcill in his profeffion ; and it redounds in no fmall de- 

 gree to the honour of Dr. Wells, that their frienddiip con- 

 tinued without interruption till his death. Nor was it lefs 

 honourable to both thefe gentlemen, that they were intro- 

 duced to an acquaintance with each other by their common 

 friend Dr. James Currie, the author of " Medical Reports," 

 and the biographer of Burns ; whofe premature death was 

 lamented by all who knew him, and were duly apprized 

 of the eminent rank which he occupied in the medical pro- 

 feffion. In the beginning of the year 1782 Dr. Wells vifited 

 Carolina, then in the pofleffion of the king's troops, for the 

 purpofe of arranging the aff^airs of his family ; and whilft; 

 he was there, he fuftained a variety of offices, feemingly very 

 incompatible with each other, and which no perfon deftitute 

 of his verfatile talents and peculiar adtivity could have fatif- 

 faftorily performed. He was an officer in a corps of volun- 

 teers, a printer, a bookfeller, and a merchant, a truftee for 

 the management of the affairs of fome of his father's friends 

 in England, and on one occafion a judge-advocate. In De- 

 cember 1782, when the king's troops were obliged to eva- 

 cuate Charleftown, he removed to St. Aiiguftine, in Eaft 

 Florida, and there edited the firft weekly newfpaper that had 

 been publiftied in that country, having brought with him a 

 printing-prefs, which had been taken to pieces for the con- 

 venience of carriage, and which he contrived, with the affiftance 

 only of a negro-carpenter, to refit for ufe. During his reC- 

 dence in Florida, he became captain of a corps of volunteers, 

 and manager of a company of officers, who had agreed to 

 aft plays for the relief of the pooreft of the loyal refugees 

 from Carohna and Georgia, and occafionally an aftor him- 

 felf. In 1784 he removed from St. Auguftine to London, 

 and becoming acquainted with Dr. Bailhe, commenced an 

 intimate, fteady, and affeftionate friendfhip, the benefits of 

 which he experienced till his death. Having fpent three 

 months at Paris in the year 1785, he returned to London in 



the 



