was born in Charterhouse Square, London, on 13 April 1762, and educated at the Charterhouse. On 5 May 1779 he was admitted a pensioner of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge. He was elected to a scholarship in 1780, and proceeded B.A. in 1783, when he was senior wrangler. In the same year he was elected to the mathematical lectureship founded by Samuel Taylor in 1726, which he held until 10 Dec. 1785; and on 21 Oct. 1785 he accepted a fellowship at Trinity Hall, where he was also tutor. He graduated M.A. in 1786, B.D. in 1795.
In 1792 Wollaston succeeded Isaac Milner [q. v.] as Jacksonian professor at Cambridge, polling 35 votes against 30 for William Farish [q. v.] He began by lecturing alternately on chemistry and experimental philosophy, and is said to have exhibited ‘not less than three hundred experiments annually’ (Cambr. Cal. 1802, p. 32); but after 1796, when Samuel Vince [q. v.] was elected Plumian professor, he lectured on chemistry only. He published ‘A Plan of a Course of Chemical Lectures’ in 1794, of which a second edition appeared in 1805. He resigned his professorship in 1813.
In 1793 Wollaston vacated his fellowship by marriage, and in 1794 the bishop of London instituted him to the vicarage of South Weald, Essex. On 6 July 1802 he was appointed to a stall in St. Paul's Cathedral, London; and on 18 Feb. 1807 was made master of Sidney-Sussex College. But in rather less than a year the election was declared invalid by the visitor on the ground that Wollaston had never been a fellow, and his successor was appointed 31 Jan. 1808. On 12 May 1813 Wollaston became rector of Cold Norton, Essex, on 14 Dec. archdeacon of Essex, and on 2 Dec. 1815 rector of East Dereham. He usually resided at South Weald. He died on 12 Oct. 1823. On 13 Aug. 1793 he married Frances Hayles, by whom he had a son and two daughters. A portrait of Wollaston in chalks is in the possession of F. W. Trevor, esq., and a marble medallion is in the church at South Weald.
Besides the two schemes of lectures referred to above, Wollaston published:
- ‘Charge to Clergy of Archdeaconry of Essex,’ London, 1816, 8vo.
- ‘Description of a Thermometrical Barometer for measuring Altitudes’ (Phil. Trans. 1817).
- ‘On the Measurement of Snowdon by the Thermometrical Barometer’ (Phil. Trans. 1820).
[Luard's Graduati, 1884; Cambr. Univ. Calendar, 1802; Cooper's Memorials, iii. 30; Cambr. Chronicle, 1823; Le Neve's Fasti; Foster's Index Eccles.; private information.]
WOLLASTON, THOMAS VERNON (1822–1878), entomologist and conchologist, born at Scotter, Lincolnshire, on 9 March 1822, was the tenth son and fifteenth child of Henry John Wollaston (d. 27 Oct. 1833), rector of Scotter, and his wife Louisa (1783–1833), youngest daughter of William Symons of Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk. He was educated chiefly at the grammar school, Bury St. Edmund's, and in 1842 entered at Jesus College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1845, and proceeding M.A. in July 1849. He resided at Cambridge until symptoms of weakness in the lungs compelled him to pass the winter of 1847–8 in Madeira. On his return he lived for a few years in London, first at Thurloe Square and later in Hereford Street, Park Lane, till his health compelled his removal to Kings Kerswell, near Torquay, and afterwards to Teignmouth. He passed many winters in Madeira, visiting, with his friend Mr. John Gray, the Cape Verde islands in 1866 and St. Helena in 1875–6.
He became a fellow of the Linnean Society of London on 2 March 1847, and was also a fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. From his Cambridge days he was devoted to entomology, especially the study of coleoptera, and his first paper, on ‘Coleoptera observed at Launceston,’ appeared in the ‘Zoologist’ in 1843; and between that date and 1877 he contributed upwards of sixty papers on insects, chiefly coleoptera, to various scientific journals. He applied himself so assiduously to collecting on his winter visits that he was able to publish a most exhaustive account of the beetles of Madeira. His collections having been purchased by the trustees of the British Museum, he produced more complete accounts in the form of museum catalogues in 1857 and 1864. An ‘Account of the Land Shells of Madeira,’ which he had just completed, was brought out shortly after his death. He died at 1 Barnepark Terrace, Teignmouth, on 4 Jan. 1878. He married, on 12 Jan. 1869, Edith, youngest daughter of Joseph Shepherd of Teignmouth.
Wollaston was a friend of Darwin, who was well acquainted with his work. Wollaston's book ‘On the Variation of Species,’ which was published in 1856, three years before Darwin's paper on the ‘Origin of Species’ was read, anticipated dimly some of Darwin's theories. Wollaston was too timid and too orthodox to take a decided position. His separate works are:
- ‘Insecta Maderensia,’ London, 1854, 4to.
- ‘On the Variation of Species,’ London, 1856, 8vo.
- ‘Catalogue of the Coleopterous Insects of Madeira in the Collection of the British Museum,’ London, 1857, 8vo.
- ‘Catalogue of the Coleopterous Insects of the Canaries in the Collection of the British
