Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/297

 18 June in the same year he was beaten by Alfred Mynn [q. v.] in a single-wicket match which attracted a large crowd of spectators; nor was he successful in the return match with Mynn at Bromley on 29 and 30 Sept. of the same year. In 1845 Felix published, in a thin quarto, his ‘Felix on the Bat; being a scientific Enquiry into the use of the Cricket Bat, together with the History and Use of the Catapulta’ (London, 2nd edit. 1850, and 3rd edit. 1855), which forms one of the classics of cricket, together with the ‘Cricketer's Guide’ of John Nyren [q. v.], and Denison's ‘Sketches of the Players.’ Each of the six chapters is adorned with a quaint coloured plate and a humorous tailpiece; both these and the emblematic frontispiece were engraved after the author's own drawings. The recommendations as to costume, ‘paddings’ (in view of ‘the uncertainty and irregularity of the present system of throwing bowling’), and other accessories are diverting, as is also the description of an engine, ‘the catapulta,’ which he devised as a substitute for a professional bowler.

About 1830 he moved the school from Camberwell to Blackheath, where he was long a familiar figure from the zeal with which he instructed his pupils in the rudiments of the national game. He gave up his school about 1858, when a subscription was raised for him among cricketers and a considerable sum collected. In addition to the ‘catapulta,’ which soon fell into disuse, he invented the tubular indiarubber batting gloves, the patent for which he sold to Robert Dark of Lord's. He retired to Brighton, where he painted portraits and animals, and he died at Montpelier Road, Brighton, in 1876.

[Lillywhite's Cricket Scores and Biographies, vols. ii. iii. and iv. passim, esp. ii. 61; Lit. Memoirs of Living Authors, 1798; Reuss's Regist. of Authors, 1791, p. 421; Brit. Mus. Cat.; private information.]  WANSEY, HENRY (1752?–1827), antiquary, born in 1751 or 1752, was the son of William Wansey of Warminster, Wiltshire. He was by trade a clothier, but retired from business in middle life and devoted his leisure to travel, to literature, and to antiquarian research. He was a member of the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society, in which he served the office of vice-president, and in connection with which he published in 1780 ‘A Letter to the Marquis of Lansdowne on the Subject of the Late Tax on Wool,’ in which he pointed out the impolicy of the tax, and maintained that commercial restrictions of such a nature were generally injurious. In 1789 Wansey was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, in 1794 he visited the United States, and in 1796 he published his observations under the title ‘An Excursion to the United States of America,’ Salisbury, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1798. While residing at Salisbury in 1801 he turned his attention to the condition of poorhouses, and published in that year a pamphlet entitled ‘Thoughts on Poorhouses, particularly that of Salisbury, with a view to their reform.’ Wansey, however, principally occupied himself with the study of local antiquities, and for some years he laboured in conjunction with Sir Richard Colt Hoare [q. v.] in preparing the account of the hundred of Warminster for Hoare's ‘History of Wiltshire.’ The volume containing Wansey's labours was not, however, published until 1831, four years after his death.

Wansey died at Warminster on 19 July 1827. By his wife Elizabeth he had one daughter, Emma, who died in childhood.

Besides the works referred to, Wansey was the author of: 1. ‘Wool encouraged without Exportation,’ published by the Highland Society of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1791, 8vo. 2. ‘A Letter to the Bishop of Salisbury on his late Charge to the Clergy of his Diocese,’ London, 1798, 8vo. 3. ‘A Visit to Paris in June 1814,’ London, 1814, 8vo. He also contributed several papers to the ‘Archæologia’ of the Society of Antiquaries.

[Gent. Mag. 1827, ii. 373; Ann. Biogr. and Obituary, 1828, p. 472; Miscellanea Gen. et Herald. 2nd ser. i. 116; Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. iv. 58, 161.]  WARBECK, PERKIN (1474–1499), Pretender, has been surmised by one or two writers to have been the person he claimed to be, Richard, Duke of York, the second son of Edward IV. This theory, however, involves, among other difficulties, the supposition that the brother of a queen consort (Henry VII's wife, Elizabeth) was hanged during that queen's life without any apparent manifestation of feeling on her part or on that of the people. The true history of the impostor was doubtless contained in his own confession, printed and published shortly before his execution, when its truth in almost every particular could be easily verified. He was a native of Tournay, born most probably in 1474, the son of John Osbeck, controller of that town, by his wife Catherine de Faro. The name Osbeck seems only to be a variation of Warbeck, for that of Perkin's father is found in the archives of Tournay as ‘Jehan