Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/408

 ‘for some years engaged with him in scientific experiments and researches on light, heat, and magnetism.’ Vyvyan died at Trelowarren on 15 Aug. 1879, and on 21 Aug. was buried in the family vault in the north-west corner of Mawgan church. He was unmarried, and was succeeded by a nephew.

Vyvyan’s scientific writings included: He also published several letters and speeches. His letter ‘to the magistrates of Berkshire’ on their practice of ‘consigning prisoners to solitary confinement before trial, and ordering them to be disguised by masks,’ passed into a second edition in 1845. His account of the ‘fogou’ or cave at Halligey, Trelowarren, is in the ‘Journal’ of the Royal Institute of Cornwall (1885, viii. 256-8).
 * 1) ‘An Essay on Arithmo-physiology,’ privately printed, 1825.
 * 2) ‘Psychology, or a Review of the Arguments in proof of the Existence and Immortality of the Animal Soul,’ vol. i. 1831; called in immediately after publication.
 * 3) ‘The Harmony of the Comprehensible World’ (anon.), 1842, 2 vols.
 * 4) ‘The Harmony of the Comprehensible World’ (anon.), 1845.



WAAD or WADE, ARMAGIL (d. 1568), ‘the English Columbus,’ is stated in the inscription of his tombstone, composed by his son, Sir William, to have sprung from an ancient Yorkshire family; but as he was himself granted a coat-of-arms by Sir Gilbert Dethick, it is improbable that his father was entitled to bear them. He is said to have been born at Kilnsey, near Coniston, and his mother’s maiden name is given as Comyn. On the dissolution of the monasteries Kilnsey was granted to Sir Richard Gresham, to whom Armagil may have owed his introduction at court. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, whence he graduated B.A. on 23 Jan. 1531-2 (Oxford Univ. Reg. i. 167; Fasti, p. 86). He is then said to have entered some inn, possibly the Middle Temple, as his name does occur in the registers of the other three principal inns of court. In 1536 he joined as an adventurer in Hore’s voyage to North America; he sailed with Oliver Daubeney, ‘Mr. Joy, afterwards gentleman of the king’s chapel,’ and others in the Minion from Gravesend, towards the end of April. After about two months’ sailing they reached Cape Breton; they also visited Newfoundland and Penguin Island. They steered a northerly course home, fell in with icebergs, though it was the middle of summer, and reached St. Ives in Cornwall about the end of October. Waad is said to have written an account of this voyage, which was afterwards printed. No such work has been traced, and it is not in Hakluyt, which, however, contains an account of the voyage furnished by one of Waad’s companions, Thomas Butts, son of Sir [q. v.] (, iii. 129-31; cf., Genesis U.S.A. i. 2; , John Cabot and his Son, 1896, pp. 123, 340). Sir William Waad’s description of his father as the first English explorer of America, subsequently paraphrased into ‘the English Columbus’ rests on this voyage. It has little justification. Waad has no more title to the name than his companions on the Minion, and infinitely less than the sixteen Englishmen who accompanied Sebastian Cabot, not to mention the possibility that were English sailors among Columbus’s crews.

After his return Waad seems to have entered the service of Henry VIII, probably as a messenger. In 1540, on the recommendation of Lord Maltravers, the lord deputy, Waad was promoted clerk of the council at Calais. He was promoted third clerk of the privy council in London at midsummer 1547, serving at first without a regular salary, though he was paid for special services, like arresting a Frenchman (probably Jean Ribauld) when he tried to escape to France (Acts P.C. ed. Dasent, 1547-50, pp. 113, 184). On 22 Sept. 1547 he was elected member of parliament for Chipping Wycombe, and on 17 April 1548 began to draw a regular salary of fifty marks as third clerk of the council. Four years later he had risen to be chief clerk, in which capacity he was paid 50l. a year. In July 1550 he was employed as the channel of communication with the French and Spanish ambassadors, on 20 Dec. 1551 he was ordered to make an inventory 