Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/488

 WOOLEE

WOOLSTON

installed as conductor of the Queen s Hall Promenade Concerts, and in 1897 of the Queen s Hall Symphony Concerts, the Queen s Hall Choral Society Concerts, and the Sunday Orchestral Concerts. Sir Henry founded the Nottingham City Orchestra (1899), and conducted at the Wagner Festival Concerts (1901), the Sheffield Musical Festival (1902), the Norwich Festivals (1908-11), the Cardiff Orchestral Concerts (1911-13), and many other lead ing musical functions. He was knighted in 1911. Sir Henry is a member of the Eationalist Press Association.

WOOLER, Thomas Jonathan, writer and politician. B. 1785 or 1786. He was apprenticed to printing at an early age. In time he set up a business of his own in London, and he started The Eeasoner, which he printed (without manuscript) and published himself. It failed the Eeasoner of G. J. Holyoake is a much later paper and, after editing the States man for some time, Wooler started The Black Dwarf (1817-24), a Sunday paper which greatly angered the conservative. He was several times prosecuted, and in 1819 he was sent to jail for eighteen months. He was conspicuous also in the debating societies of the metropolis, and he helped Francis Place in 1818 to edit Bentham s Plan of Parliamentary Reform. The British Gazette was another Sunday paper which he conducted, to the horror of the orthodox. Wooler read much, and was so well known that at his death even the elegant Gentleman s Magazine devoted several columns to him (1853, ii, 647) and spoke of his &quot; master mind.&quot; His activity was entirely political, but his Eationalism was very plainly avowed by his Sunday work for years. D. Oct. 29, 1853.

WOOLNER, Thomas, E.A., sculptor. B. Dec. 17, 1825. Ed. Ipswich. His family removed from Ipswich to London when Woolner was a boy, and at the age of twelve he was placed in the studio of W. Behnes. In 1842 he began to attend

903

the Eoyal Academy Schools. He exhibited

his first piece of sculpture in 1843, before

he was eighteen years old ; and in the

following year he carved a life-size group,

&quot; Death of Queen Boadicea,&quot; which was-

greatly admired. In 1845 he won the

medal of the Society of Arts, and in 1846

he exhibited at the Academy. In 1847 he

joined the Pre-Eaphaelites, and he was.

soon a friend of Eossetti, Holman Hunt,

Carlyle, Tennyson, and other eminent men.

He was, how r ever, still so little successful

financially that in 1852 he sailed for

Australia, and made a fruitless attempt to

improve his fortunes in the diggings. He

returned to England in 1854, and from

that time he was regarded as one of the

most distinguished and prosperous of

British sculptors. Most of the great men

of the time sat to him, and he is the

sculptor of the statue of John Stuart Mill

on the Thames Embankment, which is

one of the finest open-air statues in

London. In 1871 he became an Associate

of the Eoyal Academy, and in 1874 an

Academician. He was appointed professor

of sculpture in 1877, but he never lectured.

Woolner did, like other artists, a certain

amount of church-work, but his views

were those of his friends Eossetti and Ford

Madox Brown, and of G. J. Holyoake, with

whom he was very friendly. D. Oct. 7,

1892.

WOOLSTON, Thomas, M.A., B.D., writer. B. 1670. Ed. Northampton and Cambridge (Sidney- Sussex College). In 1690 he was elected a Fellow of his college &amp;gt; and he took orders. Seven years later he was appointed ecclesiastical lecturer,, and he then graduated in divinity. The reading of Origen gave him the idea of regarding the stories in the Bible as allegories ; and he left Cambridge, and, under the pen-name of &quot; Aristobulus,&quot; began to issue controversial pamphlets in London. He was in 1721 summoned to return to his college, and was, when he refused to do so, deprived of his fellowship. In 1722 he published A Free Gift to the 904