There is something about this letter which I like. Wilkinson's honesty and frankness, the friendliness with which he treated his assistants, the trust he reposed in them, are revealed in it. The letter shows also how completely the iron-master kept in touch with all the details of his many and vast operations.

One of the workmen at Bersham furnace was John Waithman, a joiner. He married at Wrexham, Jan. 29, 1761, one Mary Roberts, and died July 1764. It is almost as certain as can be that these were the parents of the celebrated Radical, Alderman Robert Waithman, of Fleet Street, London, whose memory one of the two obelisks at Faringdon Circus commemorates. The widow Waithman married Sept. 9, 1776, Thomas Mires, a furnace-man, a marriage which perhaps led young Robert to leave home, and go first to Reading and afterwards to London.

Spite of Mr. John Wilkinson's obstinacy and the violence of his temper, he was an exceedingly generous man. He was accustomed to pension off, in their old age, those who had served him well. Very generous he was also to other people. This, for example, is what his brother-in-law, Dr. Priestley, says of him :-"The favours that I received from my two brothers-in-law deserve my most grateful acknowledgments. They acted the part of kind and generous relatives, especially at the time when I most wanted assistance. It was in consequence of Mr. John Wilkinson's proposal, who wished to have us nearer to him, that being undetermined where to settle, I fixed on Birmingham, where he soon provided a house for me." We learn also from Rutt's Life and Correspondence of Dr. Joseph Priestley (Vol. ii, p. 121) that after the Doctor's house was wrecked by the "Church and King" rioters, and his furniture, books, papers, and scientific apparatus destroyed, John Wilkinson sent him £500, and transferred

to his name £10,000, which he had deposited in the French funds, allowing him, till that investment should be productive, £200 a year.

But although Mr. Wilkinson had many virtues, he was not, as already has been hinted, without his vices also. And in particular, it must now be said, that when he was himself an old man and his second wife still alive, he became acquainted with a certain Ann Lewis (a servant, I have heard, at one of his houses), and had by her three children, namely, Mary Ann, born July 27, 1802; Johnina, born August 6, 1805; and John, the youngest, the date of whose birth I do not know, but who was born when his father was more than 77 years old. John Wilkinson's second wife having died, a warrant was obtained, under "the king's royal sign manual," to enable these three children, as well as their mother, to bear the name of Wilkinson. Of their subsequent history something will hereafter be said.

Mr. John Wilkinson died in his house at Hadley, July 14, 1808, at the age of 80, and was buried, according to his desire, in his garden at Castlehead. He had wished to be buried in an iron coffin, and one had been prepared, but was found to be too small to hold the leaden and wooden shells in which the body had been brought from Hadley. How the body had to be re-buried when the larger coffin had been at last made; how it had to be again disinterred because the rock in the spot where the grave had been dug came so near the surface that the coffin was scarcely covered with soil; and how, finally, in 1828, when the estate was about to be sold, the body was again disinterred, and buried beneath the Castlehead pew in Lindal Chapel-all this has already been many times told. John Wilkinson had had his daughter in like manner buried in his garden at Bradley, and her body was, Mr. Randall tells

us, four times removed before it was allowed to rest in peace (Ann. Carm., pp. 220 & 221).

Mr. Randall has given us the epitaph which Mr. Wilkinson had himself prepared to be placed upon his monument: :

"Delivered from Persecution of Malice and Envy Here Rests John Wilkinson, Iron Master, In certain hope of a better estate aud Heavenly Mansion, as promulgated by Jesus Christ in whose Gospel he was a firm believer. His Life was spent in action for the benefit of man, and he trusts in some degree to the glory of God [as his different works that remain in various parts of the kingdom are testimonies of increasing labour, until death released day of 18 at the advanced age

him the

Mr. Wilkinson's executors were not satisfied with the above-named inscription, and substituted for it the following, which was duly placed upon the coffin.

"John Wilkinson, ironmaster, who died 14th July, 1808, aged 80 years. His different works in various parts of the kingdom are lasting testimony of his unceasing labours. His life was spent in action for the benefit of man, and, as he presumed humbly to hope, to the glory of God."

Over the grave in Castlehead garden was raised, according to the dead man's desire, a huge pyramid of iron, for a memorial, which was cleared away when the body was removed, in 1828, to Lindal Chapel.

I must now say something of John Wilkinson's illegitimate children, who were authorized, it will be remembered, to assume their father's name. Of these, the eldest, Mary Ann, married (May 24, 1821) at Cartmel Church, William Legh, gent., of Hordley, Hants, second illegitimate son of Thomas Peter Legh, Esq., of Lyme Hall, Cheshire, by whom she became mother of the first Lord Newton, of

'This epitaph differs somewhat from that given by Mr. Stockdale, who omits the portion I have placed in square brackets

Lyme,' who as William John Legh, Esq., was for many years Member of Parliament, successively, for South Lancashire and East Cheshire. Mr. and Mrs. William Legh lived for some time at Brymbo Hall, and two of their children (Blanche Calvert, baptized Dec. 12, 1832, and William FitzJames, baptized Feb. 25, 1834) were baptized at Wrexham Church. Mrs. William Legh died at Bebington, October 13, 1838. Johnina, the second daughter of Mr. John Wilkinson, married Alexander Murray, Esq., of Polmaise, Stirlingshire, who died June 5, 1835, aged 32, at Brymbo Hall, and was buried at Wrexham. John Wilkinson, the only son, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and, in 1808, £700 were paid to him to purchase a commission in the army, and to pay sundry debts. Two years later, he was arrested for debt in London, and detained at the offices of the under sheriff. He subsequently went to America and never returned. There he married, and a few years ago his son visited Brymbo to see the old Hall and Works, and to chat with some of the old people who remembered his father." The mother of these three children, Ann Lewis, otherwise Wilkinson, married in 1824 one Thomas Milson, and she appears afterwards to have been constantly involved in pecuniary difficulties.

It is time now to explain the provisions of Mr. John Wilkinson's will (dated November 29, 1806) and of its codicils, treating them as all one. The testator devised his mansion at Castlehead and an annuity to his wife (who

Lord Newton was the fourth of eight children of Wm. and Mary Anne Legh, and succeeded his uncle (Thos. Legh, Esq.), at Lyme, in 1857.

2 I am assured that the Miss Janet Wilkinson, of Brymbo Hall, who in 1840 published "Sketches and Legends among the Moun tains of North Wales," was in no way related to the great ironmaster.

soon afterwards died) with the provision that after her decease, the said mansion, with the furniture, etc., there should be enjoyed by Ann Lewis for the term of her life, if she should remain so long unmarried. He left all the rest of his property in land, securities, ready money, stock, debts, etc., to Ann Lewis; James Adam, Esq., of Runcorn; William Vaughan, Esq., of the city of London; William Smith, Esq., of Birmingham; and Samuel Fereday, Esq., of Ettingshall Park, in the parish of Sedgeley, Staffordshire, in trust for 21 years, to carry on his works at Bradley, and Brymbo, and elsewhere, and at the end of 21 years "to the children which he might have by the aforesaid Ann Lewis, and living at his decease, or born within six months after, equally to be divided between such children and their heirs, share and share alike," and if there were no such children, to his nephew, Thomas Jones, and to his heirs, provided he or they took the name of Wilkinson. He left also an annuity of £200 to Ann Lewis, while she remained unmarried, and annuities not exceeding £200 during the term of the trust to each of his children by her.

Mr. Fereday, one of the trustees named in Mr. Wilkinson's will, soon after the testator's death relinquished his trust, and I believe Mr. Smith and Mr. Vaughan, two of the other trustees, died not very long after, so that Mr Adam and Mrs. Wilkinson were alone left to fulfil the duties of the rest.

The trustees never attempted, so far as I can make out, to carry on, after Mr. Wilkinson's death, the undestroyed portion of Bersham Works. The latter were let, until about the year 1815, to Messrs. Thomas Jones and Company, Mr. Jones being the only son of William Jones, Esq., of Llanerchrugog Hall. Then, Messrs. Ayton [or Aydon] and Alwall are mentioned in connection with the Works, and again in 1819, Messrs. Poole & Company. After this latter