Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/430

Wade and 1805 he was in Kerry (ib. ii. 160), and in 1801 in Connemara, ‘a district … never examined by any botanist before’ (ib. p. 148), where he was the first to find the pipewort (Eriocaulon) in Ireland. In 1802 he issued a full ‘Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Botany’ (Dublin, pp. 50, 8vo), on the title-page of which he is described as ‘professor and lecturer on botany to the Right Honourable and Honourable the Dublin Society.’ This syllabus is largely historical, and refers to the arrangement of the Glasnevin botanical garden. Wade's second work of importance, however, was ‘Plantæ rariores in Hibernia inventæ’ (Dublin, 1804, pp. 214, 8vo), an English work, reprinted from the ‘Transactions of the Dublin Society’ (1803, vol. iv.). About this time Wade was awarded a prize of 5l. by the Dublin Society for the discovery of mosses new to Ireland (, Magazine of Natural History, 1829, ii. 305); and on the title of his ‘Sketch of Lectures on Meadow and Pasture Grasses delivered in the Dublin Society's Botanical Garden Glasnevin’ (Dublin, 1808, pp. 55, 8vo), he is described as physician to the Dublin General Dispensary and lecturer on botany to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. In 1811 he published, ‘Salices, or an Essay towards a General History of Willows’ (Dublin, 8vo), his chief remaining independent work. Wade died in Dublin in 1825. He had been elected an associate of the Linnean Society in 1792. Besides the works already mentioned, he published ‘Sketch of Lectures on Artificial or Sown Grasses’ (Dublin, 1808, pp. 51, 8vo), catalogues of the Glasnevin garden, and several papers in the Dublin Society's ‘Transactions’ (vols. ii–vi.), of which the most important are on Buddlea globosa, Holcus odoratus, and ‘Oaks,’ the latter in the main a translation from Michaux's ‘Chênes de l'Amérique septentrionale’ (Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers, vi. 221). He also projected a work entitled ‘Flora Hibernica’ which never appeared.

[Britten and Boulger's Biogr. Index of Botanists, and authorities there cited.] 

WADE or WAAD, WILLIAM (1546-1623), lieutenant of the Tower. [See .]

WADER, RALPH, (fl. 1070). [See .]

WADESON, ANTHONY (fl. 1600), playwright, borrowed, on 13 June 1601, twenty shillings of Philip Henslowe, the theatrical manager, on account of a play on which he was engaged, bearing the title ‘The honourable life of the humorous Earle of Gloster, with his conquest of Portugall’ (, Diary, p. 183). The piece, which was to be acted by the Lord Admiral's company, is not known to be extant. But there is reason to believe that the play was the sequel of a comedy which still survives in print. A year before Wadeson was commissioned to write for Henslowe ‘The lyfe of the humorous Earl of Gloster’ there was published ‘A Pleasant Commodie called Looke about You. As it was lately played by … the Lord High Admirall his seruants’ (London, for William Ferbrand, 1600, 4to). In this effective, if somewhat bustling, comedy the ‘fantastical Robert [Earl] of Gloster’—obviously the hero of Wadeson's piece of 1601—was a leading character. At the close of ‘Look about You’ the ‘humorous earl’ announces that he is about to proceed to Portugal on a crusade against ‘the unchrist'ned Saracens.’ These words may be interpreted as a promise on the part of the author to treat in a sequel of the earl's ‘conquest of Portugal.’ Consequently Wadeson, who embodied that topic, according to Henslowe's ‘Diary,’ in his play of 1601, may be regarded as author also of ‘Look about You.’ That piece was probably written for Henslowe between 17 April and 26 May 1599—a period for which his diary is lost. It is reprinted in Dodsley's ‘Old Plays’ (ed. Hazlitt, vii. 385 sqq.).

Henslowe noticed in his ‘Diary’ under dates 9 July and 11 Sept. 1602 that he advanced money to ‘Antony the poet’ for a play (now lost) entitled ‘The Widow's Charm.’ It was suggested by Collier that Henslowe's client on this occasion again was Anthony Wadeson, but it seems more probable that the reference is to Anthony Munday [q. v.]

[Notes kindly supplied by P. A. Daniel, esq.; Fleay's Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama.] 

WADESON, RICHARD (1826–1885), colonel, was born at Gaythorse, near Lancaster, on 31 July 1826. On 17 Nov. 1843 he enlisted at Plymouth in the 75th (Stirlingshire) regiment, now the 1st battalion of the Gordon highlanders. He was promoted to corporal on 27 Aug. 1846 and sergeant on 7 Nov. 1848, and embarked for India in the following year. He was sergeant-major of the regiment, to which rank he had been appointed on 24 Feb. 1854, when the Sepoy mutiny broke out in India. The 75th regiment made forced marches from Kussauli, in the Himalayas, to Umballa, where, in May, it formed portion of the