was the plain and distinct line which separated what he knew from what he did not know’ (Babbage); his ‘predominant principle was to avoid error.’ This characteristic caution and sureness approaching infallibility struck Wollaston's contemporaries most, and they called him familiarly ‘the Pope;’ but the multiplicity of his discoveries and inventions shows that his caution was only the self-imposed limit to a fertile and active imagination. Wollaston had extraordinary dexterity, the ‘genius of the fingertips,’ and eyesight so keen that he could distinguish minute plants while on horseback (Hasted). He was regarded as the most skilful chemist and mineralogist of his day, and his advice was greatly sought after. In character Wollaston was essentially self-contained; his chief object in life was to satisfy the questionings of his own intelligence. He was more than usually resentful of curiosity about his affairs; by the ‘inquisition’ of the commissioners of income in 1800 his usual calm was changed ‘into a fever of extreme indignation.’ He was a warm and genial friend. He refused (10 April 1823) a request of his brother Henry to procure him a place in the customs, on the ground that he would lose independence by soliciting a favour, but enclosed a stock receipt for 10,000l. in consols with his refusal. Towards the end of his life he took to fly-fishing with Davy, to shooting and sport in general. ‘Dr. Wollaston,’ says Lockhart, describing an expedition from Abbotsford to see a coursing match ‘… with his noble serene dignity of countenance might have passed for a sporting archbishop’ (Life of Scott, 1837, v. 7).
J. Jackson, R.A., painted two portraits of Wollaston: the one was presented by his family to the Royal Society, and was engraved by Skelton; the second was painted by Jackson for Mrs. Mary Somerville [q. v.], was left by her to F. L. Wollaston, and is now in the possession of George Hyde Wollaston, esq., of Wotton-under-Edge; a beautiful mezzotint of this portrait was executed by William Ward, A.R.A. Sir Thomas Lawrence also painted a portrait of Wollaston, engraved by F. C. Lewis; Lane the lithographer made a small pencil-drawing of Wollaston, now in the possession of G. H. Wollaston, esq. There is also a portrait in Walker's ‘Distinguished Men of Science.’ Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey [q. v.] modelled a head of Wollaston for the Geological Society's Wollaston medal.
On 8 Dec. 1828 Wollaston transferred 1,000l. consols to the Geological Society (of which he had been a fellow since 1812), with injunctions to expend the dividends as nearly as may be annually. This is now called ‘the Wollaston Fund,’ from which the society awards annually a medal called the ‘Wollaston medal,’ and the balance of the interest. On the same day he gave to the Astronomical Society, of which he had just been elected member, a telescope by Peter Dollond [q. v.] On 11 Dec. 1828 Wollaston transferred 2,000l. consols to the Royal Society to form the ‘Donation Fund,’ the interest to be applied to the promotion of experimental research. The fund has since been largely increased (Record of the Royal Society, 1897, pp. 117, 121).
[Besides the sources quoted, Charterhouse School Register (kindly consulted by E. Trevor Hardman, esq.); Venn's Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College, 1898, ii. 106; Munk's Coll. of Phys.; Royal Society's Catalogue; Wollaston's own papers; Weld's Hist. of the Royal Society; Barrow's Sketches of the Royal Society, 1849, contains memoir, pp. 54–71, 94, 194–5; Thomas Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society; Memoir by Thomas Thomson, Proc. Phil. Soc. Glasgow, iii. 135; Thomson's Hist. of Chemistry, 1831, ii. 216–17, 237, 247, 292, 297; A. and C. R. Aikin's Dict. of Chemistry, 1807, vol. ii., and Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine, vi. 3 (on the preparation of platinum); Reminiscences of a Friend (Rev. Henry Hasted, F.R.S.), printed privately, contains interesting details; Chaney's Weights and Measures, 1897, passim; Parl. Papers, 1814 iii. 131, 1819 xi. 307, 1820 vii. 473, 1821 iv. 289; Peacock's Life of Thomas Young, and edition of Young's Miscellaneous Works, passim; Obituary in Monthly Notices of the Astronomical Society, i. 102; Paris's Life of Sir H. Davy, 1831, pp. 4, 76, 115, 369 passim; John Davy's Memoirs of Sir H. Davy, 1836, i. 258, ii. 160, 165, 376 passim (E. Davy states that the character of Eubathes in the 4th dialogue of H. Davy's Consolations in Travel has a striking resemblance to that of Wollaston); Thorpe's Life of Sir H. Davy, 1896; William Henry's Elements of Chemistry, 1829, preface to 11th edit.; Proc. of the Geol. Soc. i. 110, 113, 270; C. Chevalier's Notice sur l'usage des … chambres claires, 1833, passim; A. Laussedat in Annales du Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, 1895 [2], viii. 253; English Cyclopædia, art. on ‘Platinum;’ Babbage's Essay on the Decline of Science in England, 1830, 8vo, p. 203; W. C. Henry's Life of Dalton, 1854, pp. 94–6, 110; Memoir in G. Wilson's Religio Chemici; Faraday's Life and Letters, ed. H. Bence Jones, 1870, i. 299, 338–53; Claude Louis Berthollet in Mémoires de la Société d'Arcueil, 1809, ii. 470; Manuscript Archives of the Royal Society; Record of the Royal Society, p. 182, passim; François Arago's Œuvres, 1854, passim; C. Chabrié, Sur la Cystine, Annales des Maladies des Voies Génito-urinaires, 1895;
