Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/14

 physician of University College Hospital, a believer in mesmerism, had been duped in his experiments by two hysterical girls. His remonstrances concerning the unfair treatment of medical referees by assurance companies led to the establishment in 1851 of the New Equitable Life Assurance Company, and to a great improvement in the conduct of assurance agencies in general. At the time of his death he projected an inquiry into the working of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which he thoroughly detested. The inquiry, however, did not take place until three years later.

Wakley died at Madeira on 16 May 1862, and was buried on 14 June at Kensal Green cemetery. On 5 Feb. 1820 he married the youngest daughter of Joseph Goodchild, a merchant of Tooley Street, London. She died in 1857, leaving three sons. The eldest son, Thomas Henry Wakley, senior proprietor of the ‘Lancet,’ born 20 March 1821, died 6 April 1907. The youngest, James Goodchild, succeeded his father as editor of the ‘Lancet.’ On his death in 1886 his brother Thomas Henry and his son Thomas became co-editors.

The interests of Wakley's life were various, but the motives governing his action were always the same. He hated injustice, especially when he found it in alliance with power. Athletic in bodily habit, he possessed a mind no less fitted for successful strife. Though he aroused strenuous opposition and bitter ill will among his contemporaries, time has proved his contentions in every instance of importance to be just. Some of the abuses he denounced are still in existence, but their harmfulness is acknowledged; the greater number have been swept away, chiefly through his vigorous action. He was not accustomed to handle an opponent gently, and many passages in his earlier diatribes are almost scurrilous. But no feeling of personal malice entered into his controversies; he spoke or wrote solely with a view to portraying clearly injustice or wrongdoing, and never with the purpose of paining or humiliating an enemy. Many who opposed him on particular questions became afterwards friends and supporters. A bust of Wakley by John Bell stands in the hall of the ‘Lancet’ office. A portrait, painted by K. Meadows, has been engraved by W. H. Egleton.



WALBRAN, JOHN RICHARD (1817–1869), Yorkshire antiquary, son of John and Elizabeth Walbran, was born at Ripon, Yorkshire, on 24 Dec. 1817, and educated at Whixley in the same county. After leaving school he became assistant to his father, an iron merchant, and afterwards engaged in commerce on his own account as a wine merchant. From his early years he had a marked taste for historical and antiquarian studies, and all the time that he could spare from his avocation was occupied with archæological investigations, especially with respect to the ecclesiastical and feudal history of his native county. His study of the records of Fountains Abbey led him to make a speciality of the history of the whole Cistercian order. A paper by him ‘On the Necessity of clearing out the Conventual Church of Fountains,’ written in 1846, originated the excavations at Fountains Abbey, which were carried out under his personal direction. The first edition of his ‘Guide to Ripon’ was printed in 1844, and was succeeded by nine other editions in his life-time. His chief work, ‘The Memorials of the Abbey of St. Mary of Fountains’ (Surtees Soc. 1864–78, 2 vols.), was left unfinished. Another uncompleted work was his ‘History of Gainford, Durham,’ 1851. He also made some progress with a ‘History of the Wapentake of Claro and the Liberty of Ripon,’ and a ‘History of the Parish of Halifax.’ Although he had great literary ability, he had a singular dislike to the mechanical part of authorship—that connected with printing—and had it not been for the encouragement and technical assistance of his friend William Harrison, printer, of Ripon, few of his writings would have been printed.

Walbran was elected F.S.A. on 12 Jan. 1854, and in 1856 and 1857 filled the office of mayor of Ripon. In April 1868 he was struck with paralysis, and died on 7 April 1869. He was buried in Holy Trinity churchyard, Ripon.

He married, in September 1849, Jane, daughter of Richard Nicholson of Ripon, and left two sons, the elder of whom, Francis Marmaduke Walbran of Leeds, is the author of works on angling. Among Walbran's minor printed works are the following:
 * 1) ‘Genealogical Account of the Lords of Studley Royal,’ 1841; reprinted, with additions, by Canon Raine in vol. ii. of ‘Memo