li 



The Eeverei^d AVilliam AVhewell, D.D., late Master of Trinity Col- 

 lege, Cambridge, and a Fellow of this Society, was born on the 24ith of 

 May, l79i. His career affords one more, and a very striking illustration 

 in addition to those which the biographical annals of our country so abun- 

 dantly present, of what may almost be regarded as the normal progress 

 from an origin altogether devoid of external advantages, and in the 

 humbler walks of life, to eminence and distinction as well as social posi- 

 tion, wrought out by innate talent rendered effective by energy and 

 perse veriDg application, and sustained by high moral qualities. Beyond 

 his immediate parents, little is known of his family. His father, a man 

 of probity and intelligence, pursued the calling of a joiner or house- 

 carpenter in Lancaster. His mother appears to have been a person 

 not only of excellent principle and good sense, but of some considerable 

 mental culture. Their family consisted, besides himself, of a brother 

 who died at an early age, and three sisters. His own health in early 

 youth was feeble, and afforded no prognostic of the robust frame and 

 stalwart vigour which so strikingl}^ characterized his manhood. On the 

 other hand, from his earliest years he manifested a remarkable fondness 

 for reading, and exhibited such general promise of future ability, as in- 

 duced his parents to remove him from the Grrammar School in Lan- 

 caster, where he received the first rudiments of instruction, to that of 

 Heversham, where he might obtain the advantage of an Exhibition for 

 admission to Trinity College, the Vicarage of Heversham being in 

 the gift of that body. This he secured, and was in consequence ad- 

 mitted at that College as a sub-sizar in the October term of 1812, and 

 was subsequently elected as a full, or foundation sizar, and obtained a 

 scholarship. In 1816 he graduated as second "Wrangler and Smith's 

 Prizeman, the first honours being carried off by a competitor (Mr. 

 Jacob of Caius College) by whom to have been surpassed could no way 

 be considered as a defeat. His undergraduateship, meanwhile, had been 

 distinguished by obtaining the Chancellor's prize in 1813 for the best 

 English Poem on the subject of Boadicea — a spirited production, which 

 may be read with pleasure as something beyond a college exercise, and 

 evidencing that strong vein of poetical talent which showed itself on 

 many subsequent occasions. 



In the year following his graduation as B.A., he was elected a Eellow 

 of his College with whose interests and glory he ever afterwards con- 

 sidered his own as identified, and was very soon engaged in lecturing in 

 Mathematics as assistant tutor, and subsequently in 1823 as full tutor 

 of one of the " sides " of that numerous establishment, the tutor's chair 

 on the other "side" being filled by Dr. Peacock, afterwards Dean of 

 Ely. This important office he filled during the ensuing sixteen years, 

 being joined in the performance of its duties during the last six with 

 the Eev. Charles Perry, afterwards Bishop of Melbourne. Soon after 

 taking his Master of Arts' degree, he entered into Holy orders, and in 



e 2 



