and stoned, and with some difficulty made his escape from Bristol by night, and after considerable risk of his life (see Pinney's trial, State Trials, new ser. vol. iii.). For three days Bristol was in the hands of a riotous mob, and a considerable part of the town was burnt. Wetherell returned to practice for some years, and remained recorder of Bristol till his death. He had been standing counsel for Magdalen College, Oxford, since 1804, and in 1830 became standing counsel to the university of Oxford. He was made a D.C.L. on 13 June 1834, and deputy steward in 1846. On 10 Aug. 1846 he received injuries in a carriage accident which proved fatal on the 17th, and he was buried in the Temple church on the 25th. He married, 28 Dec. 1826, his cousin Jane Sarah Elizabeth, second daughter of Sir Alexander Croke. She died in 1831, and in 1838 he married Harriet Elizabeth, second daughter of Colonel Warneford, of Warneford Place, Wiltshire. There was no surviving issue of either marriage. Wetherell, who had inherited a considerable fortune on his father's death in 1807, accumulated a very large one himself. He died intestate, leaving upwards of 200,000l. personalty, and a great deal of landed property. A statue of him was erected at Clifton in 1839.
Wetherell's reputation has suffered by the indiscretion and violence of his speeches as an ultra tory and protestant champion from 1826 to 1832. He is probably now best remembered by the sarcasm evoked by his speech on the second reading of the catholic relief bill, that ‘the only lucid interval was that between his waistcoat and his breeches.’ Yet his political conduct generally was fair and honourable, and at the bar he was always considered a man of scrupulous bearing and honour (see Roebuck's History of the Whig Ministry, i. 328).
[Times, 19 Aug. 1846; Gent. Mag. October 1846; Greville Memoirs, 1st ser.; Walpole's Hist. of England, vol. ii; Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, iii. 99, viii. 163; Law Mag. new ser. vi. 280; St. Paul's School Register; Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Bloxam's Magd. Coll. Reg. vi. 106.]
WETHERELL, NATHANIEL THOMAS (1800–1875), geologist, was born at the Grove, Highgate, on 6 Sept. 1800, where his father, William Roundell Wetherell, was in practice as a surgeon. His mother's maiden name was Anne Maria Gibson. He was educated first at private schools, then at the Middlesex Hospital, and, after passing the examinations of the Royal College of Surgeons, settled at Highgate.
Wetherell's attention was early turned to geology, and to this all his spare time was given. He was an active member of the London Clay Club [see Bowerbank, James Scott], and a zealous searcher after the fossils of that formation. Sundry deep excavations, like that at Highgate Archway, afforded him good opportunities for forming an unusually fine collection, which was ultimately purchased by the British Museum authorities and is now at South Kensington. He also acquired a large series of interesting specimens from the glacial drift of Muswell Hill, Finchley, &c., which is preserved in the Jermyn Street Museum; and he paid especial attention to the banded structure of flints. He was elected F.G.S. in 1863, but resigned, owing to increasing deafness, in December 1869. He died at Highgate on 22 Dec. 1875, having spent his whole life at the Grove, which had been the home of his father and grandfather, also members of the same profession. He married, on 20 March 1837, Louisa Mary Capon of Highgate. She, with four sons and three daughters, survived him.
Most of the time which Wetherell could spare from professional duties was taken up in forming and arranging his collections. He was the author of thirteen papers, some of which appeared in the publications of the Geological Society, and of a few short notes.
[Obituary notices, Quarterly Journal Geol. Soc. xxxii. (1876), Proc. p. 90, Geol. Mag. 1876, p. 48; information from Dr. H. Woodward, Professor T. R. Jones, and Mrs. Wetherell (widow).]
WETHERSET, RICHARD (fl. 1350), theological writer, was a native of Wetheringsett, Suffolk, and became chancellor of the university of Cambridge in 1349–50 (Le Neve, Fasti, iii. 598). He wrote: 1. A ‘Summa’ or ‘Speculum Ecclesiæ,’ in which William de Monte [see William] is largely used. It is copied in the Digby MS. 103 without indication of the author's name, in the Cambridge University Library, Ii. iv. 12, and Addit. MS. 3471 (formerly Phillipps 22339 and 7402), and in the New College MS. 145. This is the work which Boston of Bury names under the title ‘De Vitiis et Virtutibus et de Sacramentis’ (Tanner, p. xxxvii). 2. In MS. ccclvi. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is a ‘Tractatus qui dicitur Numerale’ by him, probably taken from William de Monte's ‘Numerale,’ which is largely quoted in the ‘Summa.’ 3. The jesuit manuscripts of Louvain contain, besides the above, ‘Sermones de Sanctis,’ under the name of Ric. Wedringler (Sanderus, Bibl. Belg. MSS. p. 327). Wetherset also appears to
