Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/677

 and ‘The Holy Estate: a study in morals’ (with Capt. Francis Alexander Thatcher). With another Cambridge friend, Mr. Herbert Vivian, he wrote under his own name ‘The Green Bay Tree’ (1894), which boldly satirised current Cambridge and political life and passed through five editions.

Wilkins's best literary work was done in biography. He came to know intimately the widow of Sir Richard Burton [q. v. Suppl. I], and after her death wrote ‘The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton’ (1897), a sympathetic memoir founded mainly upon Lady Burton's letters and autobiography. Wilkins also edited in 1898, by Lady Burton's direction, a revised and abbreviated version of Lady Burton's ‘Life of Sir Richard Burton,’ and her ‘The Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau’ (1900), as well as Burton's unpublished ‘The Jew, the Gypsy, and El Islam’ (with preface and brief notes) (1898), and ‘Wanderings in Three Continents’ (1901).

Ill-health did not deter Wilkins from original work in historical biography which involved foreign travel. Patient industry, an easy style, and good judgment atoned for a limited range of historical knowledge. At Lund university in Sweden he discovered in 1897 the unpublished correspondence between Sophie Dorothea, the consort of George I, and her lover, Count Philip Christopher Königsmarck, and on that foundation, supported by research in the archives of Hanover and elsewhere he based ‘The Love of an Uncrowned Queen, Queen Sophie Dorothea, Consort of George I,’ which appeared in 2 vols. in 1900 and was well received (revised edit. 1903). Wilkins's ‘Caroline the Illustrious, Queen Consort of George II’ (2 vols. 1901; new edit. 1904), had little claim to originality. ‘A Queen of Tears’ (2 vols. 1904), a biography of Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark and sister of George III of England, embodied researches at Copenhagen and superseded the previous biography by Sir Frederic Charles Lascelles Wraxall [q. v.]. For his last work, ‘Mrs. Fitzherbert and George IV’ (1905, 2 vols.), Wilkins had access, by King Edward VII's permission, for the first time to the Fitzherbert papers at Windsor Castle, besides papers belonging to Mrs. Fitzherbert's family. Wilkins conclusively proved the marriage with George IV. In 1901 he edited ‘South Africa a Century ago,’ valuable letters of Lady Anne Barnard [q. v.], written (1797–1801) whilst with her husband at the Cape of Good Hope. Wilkins also published ‘Our King and Queen [Edward VII and Queen Alexandra], the Story of their Life,’ (1903, 2 vols.), a popular book, copiously illustrated, and he wrote occasionally for periodicals. He died unmarried on 22 Dec. 1905 at 3 Queen Street, Mayfair, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery. 

WILKINSON, GEORGE HOWARD (1833–1907), successively bishop of Truro and of St. Andrews, born at Durham on 12 May 1833, was eldest son of George Wilkinson, of Oswald House, Durham, by his wife Mary, youngest child of John Howard of Ripon. The father's family had long held an honourable position in Durham and Northumberland (cf. pedigree;, History and Antiquities of the County of Durham, i. 81). Educated at Durham grammar school, he went into residence at Brasenose College, Oxford, in Oct. 1851, and in November was elected to a scholarship at Oriel. He graduated B.A. with a second class in the final classical school in 1854, proceeded M.A. in 1859 and D.D. in 1883. After a year spent in travel, he was ordained deacon (1857) and priest (1858) and licensed to the curacy of St. Mary Abbots, Kensington. His fervour and industry gave him wide influence from the first. In 1859 Lady Londonderry, widow of the third marquess, presented him to the living of Seaham Harbour, co. Durham; and in 1863 the bishop of Durham, C. T. Baring [q. v.], collated him to the vicarage of Bishop Auckland. Wilkinson, although he was untouched at Oxford by the Tractarian movement, had been drawn towards it through the influence of Thomas Thellusson Carter [q. v. Suppl. II]. Difficulties followed with the bishop, who was an evangelical. Wilkinson's health suffered from the strain, and in 1867 he accepted the incumbency of St. Peter's, Great Windmill Street, London. In this poor parish he instituted open-air preaching, then a novelty. One of the earliest to take up parochial missions, he helped to organise the first general mission in London in 1869. During its progress he accepted the offer by the bishop of London, John Jackson, of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and in January 1870 began there an incumbency of rare distinction.

Active in church affairs generally, he spoke at church congresses; sought in the years of ritual trouble, 1870–80, to