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William Rae Wilson

May 12, 2024

William Rae Wilson (1772–1849) was a Scottish lawyer, landowner and travel writer.[1]

Life edit

Wilson was from a family in Haddington, East Lothian named Rae or Ray, and was born in Paisley on 7 June 1772. His parents were Patrick Ray and his wife Isobel Wilson. He learned law under his uncle, John Wilson of Kelvinbank, town clerk of Glasgow, and for a time practised as a solicitor in the Scottish courts.[2][3][4]

His uncle died in 1806, and left him his fortune; and William Rae then, by letters patent, added Wilson to his name.[2] When still young, he had met the Duke of Kent, and found in him a patron.[1] He was presented at court in 1831 to William IV of the United Kingdom by Frederick Augustus Wetherall, comptroller of the household to the Duchess of Kent.[5]

After his first wife's death, Rae Wilson travelled in Egypt and Palestine, and through most of Europe. He became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and in 1844 received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University of Glasgow.[2]

Rae Wilson died in London, in South Crescent, Bedford Square, on 2 June 1849, and was buried in Glasgow necropolis, where his grave is marked by a conspicuous monument of oriental design.[2] The height is 27 feet (8.2 m), and the stone was "liver-rock" from the Binny quarry near Ecclesmachan.[6][7]

 
The family mausoleum of William Rae Wilson, Glasgow Necropolis, kiosk design by Jonathan Anderson Bell with the sculptor Alexander McLean[8][9][10]

Works edit

Rae Wilson's publications included:[2]

  • Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land, 1823. A popular work, based on the author's travel notes, it went through several editions. The second edition of 1824 was illustrated, after sketches by Rae Wilson and Lady Bell, drawings by A. P. Harrison, engraver I. Clark.[11]
  • A Journey through Turkey, Greece, the Ionian Isles, Sicily, Spain, 1824.
  • Travels in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Hanover, Germany, Netherlands, 1826.
  • Travels in Russia, 1828, 2 vols.
  • Records of a Route through France and Italy; with Sketches of Catholicism, 1835.
  • Notes Abroad and Rhapsodies at Home (1837, 2 vols.), as "A Traveller"[12][13][14]

Views and reception edit

A religious man, a writer and a distributor of tracts, Rae Wilson was not of a tolerant spirit.[2] He was described in 1817, after he had visited Rome, as a "zealous friend of our cause" by the British and Foreign School Society.[15]

His sabbatarian views were of his time. Joseph Irving's Book of Scotsmen (1882) commented that "Charitable and hospitable, Rae Wilson's religious views would now be considered narrow and severe [...]".[16] His works included anti-Catholic passages:

In one word, Popery is "of the earth, earthy;"- is revelation so overlaid and disfigured by human conceits and inventions, which, although they cunningly assume the semblance of righteousness, are for the most part quite the reverse of it, as to retain very little indeed of scriptural origin.[17]

John Clubbe wrote that he "glorified the narrowest Protestantism."[18] William Beckford in annotations to the first Travels wrote:

I am rather afraid that reasoning Believers will not find their faith particularly strengthened by the perusal of this volume, which, when it does not repeat what has already been again and again repeated, conveys little if any information at all.[19]

One stricture was answered by Thomas Hood's "Ode to Rae Wilson, Esquire", published in 1837 in the Athenæum. It was described by Thomas Wilson Bayne in the Dictionary of National Biography as "discursive and pungent".[2] Hood already in 1825, in his volume Odes and Addresses to Great People with John Hamilton Reynolds, had written about the Covenanter Mause Headrigg from Old Mortality by Walter Scott:

I like dear Mrs. Headrigg, that unravels
Texts of scripture on a trotting horse—
She is so like Rae Wilson when he travels![20]

Rae Wilson was further provoked by Hood's "Drinking Song By a Member of a Temperance Society" published in 1836 in the Athenæum.[21][22] The "Ode", a satire on evangelicalism,[23] was much liked by Charles Dickens,[24] and James Ewing Ritchie felt that in it Hood had "turned the tables" on his evangelical critics generally.[25]

Family and estate edit

 
Kelvinbank House in the 1870s, in derelict condition

From his uncle John Wilson, Rae Wilson inherited Kelvinbank House and an estate of 12 Scottish acres. Between Partick to the west and Anderston to the east,[26] it was bounded to the north by the River Kelvin, and by Kelvingrove Street, In 1811 Rae Wilson married Frances Phillips, the invalid daughter of a Glasgow merchant, John Phillips of Stobcross.[2][9][3] The Stobcross estate had been bought by Phillips, a sugar refiner in Glasgow, in 1786 from the Watson banking family.[27] It bordered the Kelvinbank estate on the south side, closer to the River Clyde.[3]

Frances was the fourth of at least six daughters.[1] Of her sisters, Elizabeth married in 1805 Robert Coldstream, and was mother of John Coldstream. Margaret married Alexander Smith, and was mother of William Rae Wilson Smith, noted as a reforming Glasgow councillor.[3] Daughter Martha married in 1808 John Reid of Clarendon, Jamaica;[28] Mary married in 1814 Thomas Rowan of Haughhead;[29] and Hannah, the fifth daughter, married A. W. H. Le Neve RN.[30] John Phillips died in 1829 aged 84, and his wife Frances died in 1832, also at age 84.[30]

The death of his wife Frances, 18 months after the marriage, prompted Rae Wilson to write a privately-circulated memorial tribute. It was later published in Thomas Gisborne's Christian Female Biography.[2]

Rae Wilson married secondly, in 1820, Ann Cates (1780/81–1864), of Bedford Square, London.[1] She accompanied him in his travels, and after her death was buried in the mausoleum at Glasgow Necropolis.[2] He had no children by either marriage.[3]

In 1846 Rae Wilson sold the Kelvinbank estate. It was acquired, with adjoining property in Sandyford, by the Glasgow Trades' House.[26]

Legacy edit

In recognition of his honorary doctorate, Rae Wilson left to Glasgow university £300 to provide an annual prize for an essay on Christ and the benefits of Christianity.[2] With money from James Cleland who died in 1840, the Cleland and Rae Wilson Medals were also awarded.[31]

Notes edit

  1. ^ a b c d Baigent, Elizabeth. "Wilson, William Rae (1772–1849)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29703. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lee, Sidney, ed. (1900). "Wilson, William Rae" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 62. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  3. ^ a b c d e "William Rae Wilson 1772-1849 — Friends of Glasgow Necropolis". www.glasgownecropolis.org.
  4. ^ House of Lords (1879). Reports of Scotch Appeals in the House of Lords A. D. 1851 to 1873: With Tables of All the Cases Cited, Notes, and Copious Index. T. and T. Clark. p. 894.
  5. ^ The Royal Lady's Magazine, and Archives of the Court of St. James's. W. Sams. 1831. p. 182.
  6. ^ Blair, George (1857). Biographic and Descriptive Sketches of Glasgow Necropolis. M. Ogle. pp. 156–157.
  7. ^ "The Stone of Infinitely Long Endurance - Scottish Shale". scottishshale.co.uk.
  8. ^ "Dictionary of Scottish Architects - Glasgow Necropolis, William Rae Wilson Monument and Octagonal Moorish Kiosk". www.scottisharchitects.org.uk.
  9. ^ a b "The Late Dr. William Rae Wilson of Kelvinbank". Glasgow Herald. 29 July 1850. p. 4.
  10. ^ "Jonathan Anderson Bell (fl. 1809-65), architects, a biography". www.glasgowsculpture.com.
  11. ^ "Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land. - YCBA Collections Search". collections.britishart.yale.edu.
  12. ^ Wilson, William Rae (1837). Notes abroad and rhapsodies at home. By a veteran traveller. Vol. I.
  13. ^ Wilson, William Rae (1837). Notes Abroad and Rhapsodies at Home. Vol. II. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman.
  14. ^ Royal Institute of British Architects (1889). Supplement to the Library Catalogue of the Royal Institute of British Architects: Comprising Additions from 13th June 1887 to 31st December 1898. Royal Institute of British Architects. p. 274.
  15. ^ The Christian Disciple. Cummings and Hillard. 1817. p. 364.
  16. ^ Irving, Joseph (1881). The Book of Scotsmen Eminent for Achievements in Arms and Arts, Church and State, Law, Legislation, and Literature, Commerce, Science, Travel, and Philanthropy. A. Gardner. p. 556.
  17. ^ Wilson, William Rae (1837). Notes abroad and rhapsodies at home. By a veteran traveller. Vol. I. p. 198.
  18. ^ Clubbe, John (1968). Victorian Forerunner: The Later Career of Thomas Hood. Duke University Press. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-8223-0038-0.
  19. ^ Melville, Lewis; Storer, James (1910). The life and letters of William Beckford, of Fonthill. By Lewis Melville. London: Heinemann. p. 276.
  20. ^ Thomas Hood, John Hamilton Reynolds (1826). Odes and addresses to great people [by T. Hood and J.H. Reynolds]. p. 48.
  21. ^ Wilson, William Rae (1837). Notes abroad and rhapsodies at home. By a veteran traveller. Vol. I. p. 68.
  22. ^ Athenaeum: Journal of Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama. Francis. 1836. p. 888.
  23. ^ Landow, George P. (11 July 2014). Victorian Types, Victorian Shadows (Routledge Revivals): Biblical Typology in Victorian Literature, Art and Thought. Routledge. p. 169. ISBN 978-1-317-63496-6.
  24. ^ Hammerton, J. A. (1910). The Dickens Companion. p. 159.
  25. ^ The Essex review : an illustrated quarterly record of everything of permanent interest in the county. Chelmsford, England: E. Durant and Co. ; London : T.F. Unwin. 1892. p. 80.
  26. ^ a b Reid, Robert (1864). Old Glasgow and Its Environs: Historical and Topographical. D. Robertson. p. 44.
  27. ^ Scott, Andrew (1866). "The history and progress of the four leading articles of foreign origin which were first imported into Great Britain about two centuries ago, viz., sugar, tea, coffee and potatoes". Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society. 1 (4): 356 note. ISSN 2398-5755. JSTOR 43913823.
  28. ^ "Marriages". The Scots Magazine. 1 February 1808. p. 78.
  29. ^ "Married". Caledonian Mercury. 10 March 1814. p. 3.
  30. ^ a b "The Late John Phillips, Esq., of Stobcross". Glasgow Herald. 3 November 1862. p. 4.
  31. ^ University of Glasgow (1895). Glasgow University Calendar for the Year ... The University. p. 295.

External links edit

Attribution

  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1900). "Wilson, William Rae". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 62. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

May 12, 2024
william, wilson, 1772, 1849, scottish, lawyer, landowner, travel, writer, contents, life, works, views, reception, family, estate, legacy, notes, external, linkslife, editwilson, from, family, haddington, east, lothian, named, born, paisley, june, 1772, parent. William Rae Wilson 1772 1849 was a Scottish lawyer landowner and travel writer 1 Contents 1 Life 2 Works 3 Views and reception 4 Family and estate 5 Legacy 6 Notes 7 External linksLife editWilson was from a family in Haddington East Lothian named Rae or Ray and was born in Paisley on 7 June 1772 His parents were Patrick Ray and his wife Isobel Wilson He learned law under his uncle John Wilson of Kelvinbank town clerk of Glasgow and for a time practised as a solicitor in the Scottish courts 2 3 4 His uncle died in 1806 and left him his fortune and William Rae then by letters patent added Wilson to his name 2 When still young he had met the Duke of Kent and found in him a patron 1 He was presented at court in 1831 to William IV of the United Kingdom by Frederick Augustus Wetherall comptroller of the household to the Duchess of Kent 5 After his first wife s death Rae Wilson travelled in Egypt and Palestine and through most of Europe He became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and in 1844 received the honorary degree of LL D from the University of Glasgow 2 Rae Wilson died in London in South Crescent Bedford Square on 2 June 1849 and was buried in Glasgow necropolis where his grave is marked by a conspicuous monument of oriental design 2 The height is 27 feet 8 2 m and the stone was liver rock from the Binny quarry near Ecclesmachan 6 7 nbsp The family mausoleum of William Rae Wilson Glasgow Necropolis kiosk design by Jonathan Anderson Bell with the sculptor Alexander McLean 8 9 10 Works editRae Wilson s publications included 2 Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land 1823 A popular work based on the author s travel notes it went through several editions The second edition of 1824 was illustrated after sketches by Rae Wilson and Lady Bell drawings by A P Harrison engraver I Clark 11 A Journey through Turkey Greece the Ionian Isles Sicily Spain 1824 Travels in Norway Sweden Denmark Hanover Germany Netherlands 1826 Travels in Russia 1828 2 vols Records of a Route through France and Italy with Sketches of Catholicism 1835 Notes Abroad and Rhapsodies at Home 1837 2 vols as A Traveller 12 13 14 Views and reception editA religious man a writer and a distributor of tracts Rae Wilson was not of a tolerant spirit 2 He was described in 1817 after he had visited Rome as a zealous friend of our cause by the British and Foreign School Society 15 His sabbatarian views were of his time Joseph Irving s Book of Scotsmen 1882 commented that Charitable and hospitable Rae Wilson s religious views would now be considered narrow and severe 16 His works included anti Catholic passages In one word Popery is of the earth earthy is revelation so overlaid and disfigured by human conceits and inventions which although they cunningly assume the semblance of righteousness are for the most part quite the reverse of it as to retain very little indeed of scriptural origin 17 John Clubbe wrote that he glorified the narrowest Protestantism 18 William Beckford in annotations to the first Travels wrote I am rather afraid that reasoning Believers will not find their faith particularly strengthened by the perusal of this volume which when it does not repeat what has already been again and again repeated conveys little if any information at all 19 One stricture was answered by Thomas Hood s Ode to Rae Wilson Esquire published in 1837 in the Athenaeum It was described by Thomas Wilson Bayne in the Dictionary of National Biography as discursive and pungent 2 Hood already in 1825 in his volume Odes and Addresses to Great People with John Hamilton Reynolds had written about the Covenanter Mause Headrigg from Old Mortality by Walter Scott I like dear Mrs Headrigg that unravels Texts of scripture on a trotting horse She is so like Rae Wilson when he travels 20 Rae Wilson was further provoked by Hood s Drinking Song By a Member of a Temperance Society published in 1836 in the Athenaeum 21 22 The Ode a satire on evangelicalism 23 was much liked by Charles Dickens 24 and James Ewing Ritchie felt that in it Hood had turned the tables on his evangelical critics generally 25 Family and estate edit nbsp Kelvinbank House in the 1870s in derelict condition From his uncle John Wilson Rae Wilson inherited Kelvinbank House and an estate of 12 Scottish acres Between Partick to the west and Anderston to the east 26 it was bounded to the north by the River Kelvin and by Kelvingrove Street In 1811 Rae Wilson married Frances Phillips the invalid daughter of a Glasgow merchant John Phillips of Stobcross 2 9 3 The Stobcross estate had been bought by Phillips a sugar refiner in Glasgow in 1786 from the Watson banking family 27 It bordered the Kelvinbank estate on the south side closer to the River Clyde 3 Frances was the fourth of at least six daughters 1 Of her sisters Elizabeth married in 1805 Robert Coldstream and was mother of John Coldstream Margaret married Alexander Smith and was mother of William Rae Wilson Smith noted as a reforming Glasgow councillor 3 Daughter Martha married in 1808 John Reid of Clarendon Jamaica 28 Mary married in 1814 Thomas Rowan of Haughhead 29 and Hannah the fifth daughter married A W H Le Neve RN 30 John Phillips died in 1829 aged 84 and his wife Frances died in 1832 also at age 84 30 The death of his wife Frances 18 months after the marriage prompted Rae Wilson to write a privately circulated memorial tribute It was later published in Thomas Gisborne s Christian Female Biography 2 Rae Wilson married secondly in 1820 Ann Cates 1780 81 1864 of Bedford Square London 1 She accompanied him in his travels and after her death was buried in the mausoleum at Glasgow Necropolis 2 He had no children by either marriage 3 In 1846 Rae Wilson sold the Kelvinbank estate It was acquired with adjoining property in Sandyford by the Glasgow Trades House 26 Legacy editIn recognition of his honorary doctorate Rae Wilson left to Glasgow university 300 to provide an annual prize for an essay on Christ and the benefits of Christianity 2 With money from James Cleland who died in 1840 the Cleland and Rae Wilson Medals were also awarded 31 Notes edit a b c d Baigent Elizabeth Wilson William Rae 1772 1849 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 29703 Subscription or UK public library membership required a b c d e f g h i j k Lee Sidney ed 1900 Wilson William Rae Dictionary of National Biography Vol 62 London Smith Elder amp Co a b c d e William Rae Wilson 1772 1849 Friends of Glasgow Necropolis www glasgownecropolis org House of Lords 1879 Reports of Scotch Appeals in the House of Lords A D 1851 to 1873 With Tables of All the Cases Cited Notes and Copious Index T and T Clark p 894 The Royal Lady s Magazine and Archives of the Court of St James s W Sams 1831 p 182 Blair George 1857 Biographic and Descriptive Sketches of Glasgow Necropolis M Ogle pp 156 157 The Stone of Infinitely Long Endurance Scottish Shale scottishshale co uk Dictionary of Scottish Architects Glasgow Necropolis William Rae Wilson Monument and Octagonal Moorish Kiosk www scottisharchitects org uk a b The Late Dr William Rae Wilson of Kelvinbank Glasgow Herald 29 July 1850 p 4 Jonathan Anderson Bell fl 1809 65 architects a biography www glasgowsculpture com Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land YCBA Collections Search collections britishart yale edu Wilson William Rae 1837 Notes abroad and rhapsodies at home By a veteran traveller Vol I Wilson William Rae 1837 Notes Abroad and Rhapsodies at Home Vol II Longman Rees Orme Brown Green amp Longman Royal Institute of British Architects 1889 Supplement to the Library Catalogue of the Royal Institute of British Architects Comprising Additions from 13th June 1887 to 31st December 1898 Royal Institute of British Architects p 274 The Christian Disciple Cummings and Hillard 1817 p 364 Irving Joseph 1881 The Book of Scotsmen Eminent for Achievements in Arms and Arts Church and State Law Legislation and Literature Commerce Science Travel and Philanthropy A Gardner p 556 Wilson William Rae 1837 Notes abroad and rhapsodies at home By a veteran traveller Vol I p 198 Clubbe John 1968 Victorian Forerunner The Later Career of Thomas Hood Duke University Press p 56 ISBN 978 0 8223 0038 0 Melville Lewis Storer James 1910 The life and letters of William Beckford of Fonthill By Lewis Melville London Heinemann p 276 Thomas Hood John Hamilton Reynolds 1826 Odes and addresses to great people by T Hood and J H Reynolds p 48 Wilson William Rae 1837 Notes abroad and rhapsodies at home By a veteran traveller Vol I p 68 Athenaeum Journal of Literature Science the Fine Arts Music and the Drama Francis 1836 p 888 Landow George P 11 July 2014 Victorian Types Victorian Shadows Routledge Revivals Biblical Typology in Victorian Literature Art and Thought Routledge p 169 ISBN 978 1 317 63496 6 Hammerton J A 1910 The Dickens Companion p 159 The Essex review an illustrated quarterly record of everything of permanent interest in the county Chelmsford England E Durant and Co London T F Unwin 1892 p 80 a b Reid Robert 1864 Old Glasgow and Its Environs Historical and Topographical D Robertson p 44 Scott Andrew 1866 The history and progress of the four leading articles of foreign origin which were first imported into Great Britain about two centuries ago viz sugar tea coffee and potatoes Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society 1 4 356 note ISSN 2398 5755 JSTOR 43913823 Marriages The Scots Magazine 1 February 1808 p 78 Married Caledonian Mercury 10 March 1814 p 3 a b The Late John Phillips Esq of Stobcross Glasgow Herald 3 November 1862 p 4 University of Glasgow 1895 Glasgow University Calendar for the Year The University p 295 External links editAttribution nbsp This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Lee Sidney ed 1900 Wilson William Rae Dictionary of National Biography Vol 62 London Smith Elder amp Co Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title William Rae Wilson amp oldid 1178417904, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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