William Stephen Gilly

Gilly was born on 28 January 1789, the son of Ann nee Oliver and Rev. William Gilly (b. c. 17 Dec 1761-d. 1837, Wanstead), rector of Hawkedon, Suffolk, and of Wanstead, Essex (1759-87, himself the son of a grazier in Suffolk and lord of the manor -- Thurston Hall -- of Hawkedon and Mary nee Firmin, of Hawkedon). (Venn 1898)

In November 1797 he was admitted at Christ's Hospital, London, whence he matriculated in 1808 to his father's College, Caius, at Cambridge (William senior had also been a Fellow there), but later that year 'migrated' to St Catharine's, and graduated B.A. there in 1812 (List of Exhibitioners of Christ's Hospital, ed. 1885, p. 39). He proceeded M.A. in 1817, and accumulated his degrees in divinity in 1833. In 1817 he was presented by Lord-chancellor Eldon to the rectory of North Fambridge in Essex.

By the time he took his DD in 1833, Gilly was already a well-known name in the Church of England. He had paid the first of many visits to the Waldensians in 1823, and during the following year published a Narrative of an Excursion to the Mountains of Piemont, and Researches among the Vaudois, or Waldenses (London, 1824). It was received with alarm, sympathy and considerable attention, being printed in four editions in less than three years. A subscription, headed by the king and Barrington, bishop of Durham (who no sooner had Gilly's book read to him by his classmate, Dr Townsend, but was moved to write to the author asking how he could help), was started for their relief, and was devoted in part to the endowment of a college and library at La Tour in Piedmont.

His literary notoriety (as was perhaps intended, and was not an unusual complement to clerical careers), assisted his career prospects. On 13 May 1826 Gilly was collated to a prebendal stall in Durham Cathedral (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii. 317). The following year he became perpetual curate of St. Margaret, Durham, and in 1831 vicar of Norham, near Berwick-on-Tweed. He was 'a laborious and devoted parochial clergyman'. (Obit.) In 1853 he was appointed canon residentiary of Durham. With a view to bettering the condition of the agricultural labourers in north Northumberland, he wrote The Peasantry of the Border; an Appeal in their behalf (Berwick-upon-Tweed, 1841), in which he called the attention of landowners to the miserable condition of the cottages.

Gilly died at Norham on 10 Sept. 1855. He married, 1. Eliza Oliver, with whom he had Mary Anna (1816–); Eliza Henrietta (1818–1818); Rosalie Emily (1820–); William Octavius Shakespeare (1822–; adm. St Catharine's, 1839); and, after the death of his first wife in 1822; (2). in December 1825 at All Saints, Langham Place, London, Jane Charlotte Mary (1804–1899), only daughter of Major Samuel Thomas Colberg, 90th and 58th Regiments, and his wife Elizabeth Brodie 1756 - 1833). Their children included Frederick Dawson (1831-d. Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, 24 March 1880); Alice Ann (1844-); Charles Pudsey (1846–1904; adm. St Catharine's 1864). (White and Armytage 1897)

Works:

‘The Spirit of the Gospel, or the Four Evangelists, elucidated by explanatory observations,’ 8vo, London, 1818.

Narrative of an Excursion to the Mountains of Piemont, and Researches among the Vaudois, or Waldenses (London, 1824)

Horæ Catecheticæ, or an exposition of the duty and advantages of Public Catechising in Church, London, 1828.

Waldensian Researches during a second Visit to the Vaudois of Piemont, London, 1831.

A Memoir of Felix Neff, pastor of the High Alps, London, 1832 (many editions). Lord Monson published in 1840 some folio ‘Views’ in illustration of this memoir.

Our Protestant Forefathers, London, 1835 (many editions).

Valdenses, Valdo, and Vigilantius; being the articles under these heads in the seventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Edinburgh, 1841 (the third article was reprinted separately in 1844).

The Romaunt Version of the Gospel according to St. John. With an introductory history, London, 1848.

A Comparative View of the progress of Popular Instruction. Two Lectures, Durham, 1848.

He contributed a preface to Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy, between 1793 and 1849, compiled principally from official documents at the admiralty by his son William O. S. Gilly, and another to J. L. Williams's Short History of the Waldensian Church, 1855. His three letters on the Noble Lesson and Waldensian MSS., communicated to the British Magazine for 1841, are reprinted in the appendix to J. H. Todd's Books of the Vaudois, 1865.

Sources:

• Goodwin, Gordon. (1959). 'Gilly, William Stephen', Dictionary of National Biography vol. 21.

• Norwood, Hugh (with Nicholas Groves, ed.). (2014). William Stephen Gilly. An exceptionally busy life, Norwich: Lasse Press.

• Obituary. (1855). Gentleman's Magazine xcv.ii (October 1855): 437-439.

• Venn, John. (1898). Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College 1349-1897, Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press, 1898.

• White, E.A., and G. J. Armytage. (1897). The Baptism, Marriage and Burial Registers of the Cathedral Church of Christ and Blessed Mary the Virgin, Durham, London: Harleian Society, 1897.