Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/77

 tion was accepted, and the control of the revenue of the crown lands was vested in the assembly on condition of establishing a permanent civil list out of it.

In 1838 Wilmot was made a queen's counsel. In 1844 he accepted a seat in the executive council without a portfolio; but when the lieutenant-governor, Sir William Colebrooke, without consulting his advisers, appointed his son-in-law to the office of provincial secretary, Wilmot, with three colleagues, resigned his place in the cabinet.

In 1847 Earl Grey, the colonial secretary, declared that members of the executive council should hold office only while they possessed the confidence of the majority of the people. In 1848 the New Brunswick house of assembly passed a resolution approving of Earl Grey's despatch, and Wilmot, who made a great speech on the occasion, was called on to form a government. He accepted the task, and his cabinet became a coalition ministry with liberal tendencies. He himself held office as attorney-general, a post which he first filled on 24 May 1848. In this capacity and as premier he took an active part in the consolidation of criminal and municipal law. In 1850 he attended the international railway convention at Portland in Maine. In the same year he took part in negotiations in Washington on the subject of commercial reciprocity. A treaty was concluded four years later by Lord Elgin.

In January 1851 Wilmot was appointed a judge of the supreme court. While holding this office he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the university of King's College. When the question of federation became prominent in 1865 he espoused the cause of union, and after federation was accomplished he was nominated to the post of lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick on 27 July 1868. He held office till 14 Nov. 1873, when he received a pension as a retired judge. In 1875 he became second commissioner under the Prince Edward Island Purchase Act, passed in that year, and he was also nominated one of the arbitrators in the Ontario and north-west boundary commission, but death prevented him serving. He died at Fredericton on 20 May 1878, and was buried near the town. Wilmot was twice married: first, to a daughter of the Rev. J. Balloch; and, secondly, to a daughter of William A. Black of Halifax, a member of the legislative council.

[Lathern's Hon. Judge Wilmot, 1881; Dominion Annual Register, 1878, p. 371; Appleton's Cycl. of American Biogr.; Withrow's Hist. of Canada, 1888, p. 506.] 

WILMOT, ROBERT (fl. 1568–1608), dramatist, was presented by Gabriel Poyntz on 28 Nov. 1582 to the rectory of North Okendon, now Ockendon, about six miles from Romford in Essex, and by the dean and chapter of St. Paul's Cathedral, on 2 Dec. 1585, to the vicarage of Horndon-on-the-Hill, a few miles away from Ockendon. He is described in 1585 as M.A. (, Repertorium, ii. 447, 343). It does not appear when the vicarage at Horndon was vacated, but in 1608 the crown, by lapse of the patron's right, appointed to Ockendon another Robert Wilmot, whose death took place in 1619.

Wilmot published, in 1591, ‘The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismund, compiled by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her Majestie. Newly revived and polished according to the decorum of these daies. By R. W. London,’ 1591 (1592 in some copies), 4to. The play is dedicated by ‘Robert Wilmot’ to ‘Lady Marie Peter and the Lady Annie Graie;’ the latter was the wife of Henry Grey, esq., of Pirgo. After the dedication comes a letter to the author from Guil. Webbe [see ], dated ‘from Pyrgo in Essex, August the Eight, 1591.’ Webbe claims from Wilmot the performance of an ‘old intention’ of publishing this play. He refers to the gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and says that the play was ‘by them most pithily framed and no less curiously acted in view of her Majestie, by whom it was then as princely accepted as of the whole honorable audience notably applauded.’ After this letter follows an address by Wilmot to the ‘Gentlement students of the Inner Temple and Gentlemen of the Middle Temple,’ in which he mentions his doubt ‘whether it were convenient for the commonwealth, with the indecorum of my calling (as some thinke it), that the memorie of Tancred's Tragedie should be againe by my meanes revived.’ This seems a reference to his clerical profession. He speaks of his acquaintance with the Temple as having lasted twenty-four years. Before the play there are complimentary sonnets to ‘the Queenes Maidens of Honor.’ The play was acted before Queen Elizabeth in 1568. In Wilmot's version the initials of five composers are given at the end of the five acts as follows: Rod. Staf.; Hen. No (Henry Noel?); G. Al.; Ch. Hat. (Christopher Hatton); R. W. (Robert Wilmot). The play is taken from Boccaccio. It ‘may still claim to be designated the oldest known English play of which the plot is certainly taken from an Italian novel.’ The story is told in Painter's ‘Palace of