Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/326

 4. ‘A Visitation and Warning,’ London, 1662, 4to. 5. ‘A General Epistle to Friends in England and Holland,’ 1665–6; several small epistles and testimonies. 6. ‘A Brief Testimony against Friends wearing of Perriwigs’ (posthumous), 1708.

[Barclay's Inner Life of the Commonwealth, p. 372; Piety Promoted, 1789, ii. 91; Besse's Sufferings, i. 332, 365, 651, 654; Smith's Catalogue, ii. 949; Swarthmore MSS. and Registers at Devonshire House, E.C.] 

WOLRICH or WOLRYCHE, THOMAS (1598–1668), baronet, royalist, sprang from a Cheshire family which acquired the estate of Dudmaston in Shropshire in the twelfth century, and was thenceforth identified with that county. The deed of grant is said to be one of the oldest private deeds in England. It is reproduced in Eyton's ‘Antiquities of Shropshire’ (iii. 185). The pedigree is extant from 1279. Thomas was the third in descent from John Wolryche, who married ‘the Fair Maid of Gatacre,’ Mary, daughter of John Gatacre of that place, and was the son of Francis Wolryche (d. 1614) and of Margaret his wife, daughter of George Bromley of Hallon in Shropshire. He was baptised at Worfield on 27 March 1598. On his epitaph he is stated to have received his education at Cambridge, where he studied assiduously, paying especial attention to geometry, history, and heraldry.

He was admitted to the Inner Temple on 11 Oct. 1615, and afterwards represented the borough of Much Wenlock in the parliaments of 1621 (elected 2 Jan.), 1624, and 1625 (elected 2 May). On the breaking out of the civil war he was captain of militia and deputy lieutenant for the county. At his own expense he raised a regiment of which he was colonel, his son Thomas filling the post of captain. He also held the post of governor of Bridgnorth. On 22 July 1641 he was knighted at Whitehall, and on 4 Aug. following was created a baronet. In May 1643 Lord Capel, lieutenant-general of Shropshire, Cheshire, and North Wales, ordered him to draw all his forces of trained bands round about the town of Bridgnorth, and to construct fortifications for its defence where he should ‘think fit to appoint,’ with the help of ‘all the men of this towne.’ He laid down arms before 1645, and afterwards conformed to the parliament. On 30 March 1646 he petitioned to compound for his estate, and with much difficulty obtained an order from the commons for the removal of the sequestration and pardon for his delinquency on 4 Sept. 1648. He was still in difficulties in the matter in 1652.

He died on 4 July 1668, and was buried in the Wolryche mortuary chapel at St. Andrew's Church, Quatt. There is a contemporary life-size portrait of him at Dudmaston, with the castle of Bridgnorth and troops engaged in the background.

Wolrich married, in 1625, Ursula, daughter of Thomas Ottley of Pitchford, by whom he had twelve children, of whom four sons and three daughters survived him. The baronetcy became extinct in 1723 on the death of Sir John Wolryche, great-grandson of Sir Thomas, who was drowned when attempting to ford the Severn, and the estate then passed into his mother's hands, and through her to the Whitmores of Southampton, from whom the present owner, F. H. Wolryche-Whitmore, is lineally descended.

[Visitation of Shropshire (Harl. Soc. Publ.), xxix. 509; Burke's Extinct Baronetage; Blakeway's Sheriffs of Shropshire, pp. 168–9; Official Lists of Memb. of Parl. i. 452, 459–65; Metcalfe's Book of Knights, p. 197; Bellett's Antiquities of Bridgenorth, pp. 142–3; Cal. of Committee for the Advance of Money, pp. 868–9; Commons' Journals, vi. 4; Lords' Journals, x. 331; P. C. C. Hene 149; Epitaph at Quatt; information from the Rev. H. B. Wolryche-Whitmore.] 

WOLSELEY, CHARLES (1630?–1714), politician, son of Sir Robert Wolseley of Wolseley, Staffordshire (created a baronet 24 Nov. 1628), by Mary, daughter of Sir George Wroughton, knight, of Walcot, Wiltshire, was born about 1630. William Wolseley (1640?–1697) [q. v.] was his younger brother. Sir Robert Wolseley took the side of the king during the civil war, and died on 21 Sept. 1646, while his estate was under sequestration. In October 1647 Sir Charles Wolseley on payment of 2,500l. obtained the discharge of the estate from sequestration. He is described in the petition presented on his behalf as then sixteen years of age (Calendar of Committee for Compounding, p. 1771; Commons' Journals, v. 328; Lords' Journals, ix. 492). On 12 May 1648 Wolseley married, at Hanworth, Middlesex, Anne, the youngest daughter of William Fiennes, first viscount Saye and Sele [q. v.], a connection which helps to account for his religious opinions and his political career. In July 1653 he was one of the representatives of Oxfordshire in the so-called ‘Little parliament’ summoned by Cromwell, and was chosen a member of both the councils of state which that body appointed (Old Parl. Hist. xx. 178; Commons' Journals, vii. 285, 344). In December 1653 Wolseley was one of the spokesmen of the party which wished to put