Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/304

* WAKE. 250 WAKEFIELD. ceased. The custom no doubt originated in super- stitious fear either of passing the night alone ■with a dead body, or of its being interfered with by evil spirits.' Consult Brand, Popular An- tiquities, in Bohn's Antiquarian Library (Lon- don, 1849). See Mobtuaby Customs. WAKE, William (1657-1737). Archbishop of Canterbury. He was born at Blandford, Dorsetshire, England, graduated at Oxford, 1676, and accompanied Viscount Preston as chaplain to the English Embassy to France in 1682; returning in 1685, he was elected preacher to Gray's Inn, 1688. He became canon of Christ Church, 1080; rector of Saint James's, Westminster, 1G93; Dean of Exeter, 1702; Bishop of Lincoln, 1705; and Archbishop of Can- terbury, 1715. In 1717-20 a union was proposed between certain members of the Galilean Church and the Church of England, to which he showed himself favorably inclined. He published many works, including The Stale of the Church and Cleriji/ of England in Their Councils, Synods, Conventions, and Their Other Assemblies, Hisforinillif Deduced (1703). and a translation of The Aiiostolic Fathers (1693). WAKE'FIELD. An episcopal city, market town, and municijial and Parliamentary borough, the ca])it:il of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Eng- land, on the Calder, nine miles south of Leeds (Map: England, E 3). Among the chief build- ings are the cathedral, formerly the parish church, founded in 1329; the grammar school (1591), a wealthy institution; a library, corn exchange, etc. The to-vn has long been famous for its manufactures of woolen yarn and cloths. The surrounding district is agricultural, and Wakefield is noted for its corn and cattle mar- kets. Coal mines are worked in the vicinit.v. It was incorporated in 1S4S, and its boundaries were extended in 1895. It dates from the Wackefield of Domesday, and was the scene of a Yorkist de- feat in 1460. Population, in 1801, 38,832; in 1901, 41,544. WAKEFIELD. A town, including several villages, in iliddlesex County, Mass., ten miles north of Boston, on the Boston and Maine rail- road (Map: Massachusetts, E 2). It has the Beebe Town Library with over 13.000 volumes and the Wakefield Home for Aged Women. The Town Hall was th-e gift of Cyrus Wakefield, a public-spirited citizen. Wakefield is mainly en- gaged in manufacturing, its various industries in the census vear 1900 having an invested capital of .$3,209,070, and an output' valued at $2,958,656. The most important products are rattan, knit goods, stoves, and shoes. The government is ad- ministered through town meetings. The town owns and operates the electric light plant and the gas plant. Originally a part of Reading. Wake- field was settled about 1639, and was incor- porated as South Reading in 1812. It received its present name in 1868." Population, in 1890, 6982: in 1900. 9290. Consult llurd. History of Middlesex County (Philadelphia, 1890). WAKEFIELD, EnwAitn GmnoNS (1796- 1862). An Anglo-Australian colonist and states- man. He was born in London, and was educated in Westminster and in Edinburgh, but was an unruly student and did not graduate. In 1814 he received a minor ;ippointment in the di])lomatic service at Turin and later at Paris. At twenty years of age he made a runaway marriage; in 1826, his first wife having died in 1820, he agaia eloped with an heiress, going through a "Gretna Green' marriage which was declared void by act of Parliament, and he was imprisoned in New- gate. His three years' imjirisonment furnished him material for a valuable work on prison management, entitled Facts Uelaling to the Pun- ishment of Death in the Metropolis (1831). He subsequently resided in Australia, in Canada, where he was elected meml)er of Parliament (1843), and in New Zealand; introduced the "Wakefield colonization system," somewhat re- sembling the preemption i)lan of the United States; took part in abolishing penal transporta- tion ; and edited and wrote various treatises on social and political questions, of which the most important is A Mew of the Art of Colonization ( 1849) . He died in New Zealand. WAKEFIELD, Gilbert (17.56-1801). An English classical scholar, born at Nottingham. At the age of twenty he graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1778 he was ordained a deacon in the Church of England, but after hold- ing for a brief time two curacies, he gave up his profession owing to his inability to subscribe to the doctrine of the Trinity. He turned to teach- ing for support, becoming classical tutor in War- rington Academy (1779-83), and in the dis- senting college at Hackney (1790-91). Resign- ing this position on account of his objection to public worship (elaborated in -4)i Enquiry into the Expediency and Propriety of Public or Social Worship, 1791), he devoted the rest of his life to study and controversy. He wrote a reply to Paine's Age of Reason (1794), crossed swords with Porson (q.v.). and was im]U'isoned for two years (1799-1801) in Dorchester jail for seditious libel contained in a violent Reply to Bisho|) Wat- son's Address to the People of Great Brilain. As an ardent .sympathizer with the French Revo- lution, he looked forward with enthusiasm to the expected invasion from France. Wakefield's scholarship is well represented by a critical edi- tion of Lucretius (3 vols., 1796-99), and Silva Crilica (1789-95). an attempt to illustrate the Scriptures "by light borrowed from the ])hilolog}' of Greece and Rome." Among other works are a translation of the New' Testament (1792). a group of Greek tragedies edited under the title of Tragoediarum Delectus (1794), editions of Vergil's Georgica (1788), of Horace (1794), ilosehus (1795), a treatise on Greek metres called Xoctes Carccraria' (1801), controversial tracts pertaining to politics and religion, and an autobiography under the title of Memoirs. WAKEFIELD, Robert (1480?-L-)37). An English Oriental scholar. He was born prob- ably at Pontefract. Yorkshire. After graduating from Cambridge in 1513-14 he went aliroad for' study and remained to teach at Louvain and at Tiibingen. Being sunmioned home in 1523. he was appointed chajjlain to Henry Vlll.. and be- came attached to Cnmliridge I'niversity as lec- turer on Hebrew. He was among the advisers of the King on the stibject of his divorce. In 1530 he went to Oxforil as teacher of Hebrew-, and in 1532 was appointed canon of King's College or Christ Church, newly refminded by Wolsey. He is remembered for his ell'orts to prevent the destruction of books duriug the dissolution of