Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/474

 regiment of the king's service, and that non-commissioned officers and musicians should be instructed in its use. In 1798 he entered himself at Caius College, Cambridge, and as a member of that house proceeded M.B. in 1803 and M.D. on 12 Sept. 1811. Some years before this Williams had settled at Ipswich, and in 1810 was appointed by Sir Lucas Pepys [q. v.], the physician-general of the army, to the charge of the South Military Hospital, close by Ipswich, then filled with soldiers just returned from Walcheren, and suffering with fever, ague, and dysentery. On the completion of his service there he received a flattering letter from the army medical board. He was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians on 30 Sept. 1816, and a fellow on 30 Sept. 1817. He was a fellow of the Linnean Society. He continued to reside at Ipswich, but he died at Sandgate in Kent, whither he had gone for the benefit of his health, on 8 Nov. 1841.

Williams's principal works were: 1. ‘Hints on the Ventilation of Army Hospitals and on Regimental Practice,’ 1798, 8vo. 2. ‘A Concise Treatise on the Progress of Medicine since the year 1573,’ 1804, 8vo. 3. ‘General Directions for the Recovery of Persons apparently dead from Drowning,’ 1808, 12mo. 4. ‘Pharmacopœia Valetudinarii Gippovicensis,’ 1814, 12mo. 5. ‘A Plain and Brief Sketch of Cholera, with a Simple and Economical Mode for its Treatment,’ 2nd edit., revised and enlarged, Ipswich, 1832, 8vo.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys.; Clarke's History of Ipswich, 1830, 8vo, pp. 488 et seq.; Records of Caius and Gonville College, Cambridge; Cat. Brit. Mus. Library.] 

WILLIAMS, WILLIAM MATTIEU (1820–1892), scientific writer, son of Abraham Williams, a fishmonger of London, and his wife Louise, daughter of Gabriel Mattieu, a Swiss refugee, was born in London on 6 Feb. 1820. He lost his father in infancy, and his mother married again when he was only four years old.

After receiving the usual elementary education of that period, he was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to Thomas Street, mathematical and optical instrument maker in Lambeth. Although his hours for work were from 7 A.M. till 8 P.M., he found time to attend the evening classes at the London Mechanics' Institution in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane (now the Birkbeck Institution).

In 1841 he inherited a sum of money, and, his apprenticeship being over, he passed two years at the university of Edinburgh, and about a similar period on a walking tour through Europe, paying his way by working as an artisan. He thus spent much time in Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. On his return to England he went to Edinburgh to study medicine, but proved too sensitive to become a surgeon. He accordingly set up as an electrical instrument maker and electrotyper in Hatton Garden. He also delivered lectures about his tour in different parts of the country, as well as lectures on other subjects at the Mechanics' Institution, where he was a member of the committee of management. He was largely instrumental in forcing on that body the acceptance of William Ellis's offer of money to found a school, which, as the ‘Birkbeck School,’ was opened on 17 July 1848 [see, 1800–1881)]. The immediate success of this school led George Combe [q. v.] (whose acquaintance he had formed when in Edinburgh), with the monetary aid of Ellis, to found a similar institution in Edinburgh; Williams undertook the headmastership, and it was opened on 4 Dec. 1848 under the title of the ‘Williams Secular School’ in the Trades' Hall, Infirmary Street. Shortly afterwards it was removed, owing to the rapid increase in its numbers, to the premises of the former anatomical school of Dr. Robert Knox (1791–1862) [q. v.] 1 Surgeons' Square.

In 1854, having been appointed ‘master of the science classes’ in the recently opened ‘Birmingham and Midland Institute,’ Williams removed to that town and delivered his opening lecture on 17 Aug. 1854. In 1856 he introduced the ‘Institute penny lectures,’ which were a marked success. In 1857 he became acquainted with Orsini, of whom he was the innocent instructor in the method of manufacturing some of the explosive compounds subsequently put to nefarious uses by Orsini and Pieri.

Later on he turned his attention to the chemistry and manufacture of paraffin, and his knowledge of this illuminant led to his being appointed manager of the Leeswood Oil Company in 1863, when he left Birmingham for Caergwrle, Flint. After the breaking up of the Welsh oil-distilling industry, consequent on the discovery of the oil-springs in America, Williams went in 1868 to Sheffield as chemist to the Atlas Iron Works of Sir John Brown & Co.

In 1870 Williams removed to London, and devoted his time to scientific writing. He delivered the Cantor lectures in 1876, taking for his subject ‘Iron and Steel Manufacture,’ and again in 1878, when he dealt with ‘Mathematical Instruments.’ On the death of his stepfather's brother, Zachariah Watkins, early in 1889, he was freed from