Page:Men of Kent and Kentishmen.djvu/159

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AND KENTISHMEN.
145

William Woollett,

ENGRAVER,

Was born at Maidstone in 1735. He soon displayed an admirable talent for the art of engraving, and carried landscape engraving to a degree of beauty and perfection unknown before him. Nor was he less successful in historical subjects and portraits, as his reproduction of the "Death of General Wolfe," and the "Battle of la Hogue," after West, sufficiently prove. He became engraver to George III. He died 23rd May, 1785. He was buried in St. Pancras churchyard, and a monument is erected to him in Westminster Abbey.

[See Strutt's "Biographical Dictionary."]


Nicholas Wotton,

THE FIRST DEAN OF CANTERBURY,

Belonged to an ancient and honorable Kentish family settled at Boughton Malherb, where he was born in 1496. He was the fourth son of Sir Robert Wotton of that place. He was educated at Oxford where he studied the civil and canon law. His skill commended him to Tunstall, Bishop of London, and procured him rapid promotion. In 1539 he was made Archdeacon of Gloucester, and in 1542 was constituted Dean of Canterbury by the King's charter of foundation. Two years later he obtained also the Deanery of York, together with a prebendal stall in that cathedral, and it is said that even the Sees of York and Canterbury were placed within his reach, but that he declined them. It was, however, as a statesman that he