Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/712

 despaired of. He recovered sufficiently to be brought to England, where he gradually regained strength, but his health was clearly unequal to a return to the arduous duties and trying climate of Teheran. In July 1891, somewhat against his will, he was transferred to Bucharest, and six months afterwards was appointed ambassador at Madrid. That post he held for eight years, till his retirement on pension in Oct. 1900. In June 1893 he effected a provisional commercial agreement with the Spanish government, pending the conclusion of a permanent treaty, and this arrangement was further confirmed by an exchange of notes in Dec. 1894. British relations with Spain gave no cause for anxiety, and Wolff's natural geniality and hospitable instincts secured him a general popularity, which was unimpaired by the war between Spain and the United States, when English public opinion pronounced itself somewhat clearly on the American side. After his retirement he lived for reasons of health quietly in England. He retained, however, his keen, restless interest in public affairs, his gift of amusing conversation, and his apparently inexhaustible fund of anecdote. Through life his good temper was imperturbable, and he delighted in mischievous humour, which was free from malice or vindictiveness. He professed in casual conversation a lower standard of conduct than he really acted upon, and despite his avowed cynicism he was by nature and instinct kind-hearted and always ready to assist distress. He became very infirm in the last few months of his life, and died at Brighton on 11 Oct. 1908.

He married at the British Consulate, Leghorn, on 22 Jan. 1853, Adeline, daughter of Walter Sholto Douglas, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. His widow was awarded a civil list pension of 100l. in 1909. His daughter, Adeline Georgiana Isabel, wife of Col. Howard Kingscote, was a prolific novelist, writing under the pseudonym of ‘Lucas Cleeve.’ Her chief works, which show an easy style and vivid imagination, include ‘The Real Christian’ (1901), ‘Blue Lilies’ (1902), ‘Eileen’ (1903), ‘The Secret Church’ (1906), ‘Her Father's Soul’ (1907). She was a great traveller and an accomplished linguist. She predeceased her father on 13 Sept. 1908 at Château d'Œx, Switzerland. A cartoon portrait of Wolff by ‘Spy’ appeared in ‘Vanity Fair’ in 1881.

 WOLVERHAMPTON, first. [See (1830–1911), statesman.]

WOODALL, WILLIAM (1832–1901), politician, elder son of William Woodall of Shrewsbury, by his wife Martha Basson, was born there on 15 March 1832 and educated at the Crescent Schools, Liverpool. He entered the business at Burslem of James Macintyre, china manufacturer whose daughter Evelyn, he married in 1862, and at Macintyre's death in 1870 became senior partner. He was also chairman of the Sneyd Colliery Co.

Woodall was active in local affairs, devoting himself especially to the cause of technical education. He was chairman of the Burslem school board (1870–80), of the Wedgwood Institute there, and of the North Staffordshire Society for Promotion of the Welfare of the Deaf and Dumb. He sat on royal commissions on technical education (1881–4) and the care of the blind and deaf mutes (1886–9). In September 1897 he accompanied Sir Philip Magnus and others to Germany to study technical instruction methods there (, Educational Aims and Efforts, 1910, pp. 92, 94, 120).

Woodall was liberal M.P. for the borough of Stoke-on-Trent 1880–6, and was first representative of Hanley from 1885 to 1900. He was a warm supporter of home rule, disestablishment, and local veto, as well as of the extension of the franchise.

In 1884 he succeeded Hugh Mason (M.P. for Ashton-under-Lyne) in the leadership of the woman suffrage party in the house, and introduced (10 June) an amendment to the Representation of the People Act then before the house, providing that ‘words having reference to the right of voting at parliamentary elections, importing the masculine gender, include women.’ As chairman of the Central Committee for Women's Suffrage (established in 1872), he headed a memorial from 110 members to Gladstone but the prime minister resisted the amendment as likely to imperil the bill. The division was taken on 12 June, when