act as an interpreter between the bishops and the ritualists; and zealously advocated foreign missions, the day of intercession for which owed its establishment to him. In 1877 the bishop of Truro, E. W. Benson [q. v. Suppl. I], made him an examining chaplain. In 1878 he declined an invitation to be nominated suffragan bishop for London. He was select preacher at Oxford 1879–81. In 1880 he was elected a proctor in convocation, and gave evidence before the royal commission of 1881 on ecclesiastical courts. In 1882 he declined an invitation from the bishop of Durham, J. B. Lightfoot, to become canon missioner.
In 1883, on the translation of Dr. Benson to Canterbury, Wilkinson succeeded him at Truro. He was consecrated at St. Paul's on 25 April 1883. At Truro he pressed forward the building of the cathedral; saw it consecrated on 3 Nov. 1887; founded a sisterhood, the community of the Epiphany; and did much for the clergy of poorer benefices. In 1885 he declined the see of Manchester; in 1888 he took part in the Lambeth conference; and in April 1891, after nearly two years of failing health, announced his resignation. Restored by a visit to South Africa, Wilkinson was on 9 Feb. 1893 elected to succeed Charles Wordsworth [q. v.] as bishop of St. Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane, and was enthroned in St. Ninian's Cathedral, Perth, on 27 April. In 1904 the bishops of the Scottish episcopal church elected him primus. He created a bishop of St. Andrews fund for church extension; raised 14,000l. for building a chapter-house for St. Ninian's Cathedral, Perth; fostered interest in foreign missions, more especially in South Africa, which he again visited; and sought to promote closer relations between the episcopal and the presbyterian churches. He died suddenly at Edinburgh, on 11 Dec. 1907, and was buried in Brompton cemetery, London. There is a memorial (the bishop's figure by Sir George Frampton, R.A.) in St. Ninian's Cathedral. A cartoon portrait by ‘Spy’ appeared in ‘Vanity Fair’ in 1885.
Wilkinson combined deep spirituality with practical sagacity, courage in dealing with others and intense humility. He exercised his ministry through conversation as seriously as in pulpit work (cf. How's Walsham How: a Memoir, pp. 178–9). He abandoned his early evangelicalism, and his anglicanism grew more definite with years. He married on 14 July 1857 Caroline Charlotte, daughter of lieutenant-colonel Benfield Des Vœux, fourth son of Charles Des Vœux, first baronet; she died on 6 Sept. 1877; by her he had three sons and five daughters.
Wilkinson published many minor devotional works, of which the most widely circulated were: 1. ‘Instructions in the Devotional Life,’ 1871. 2. ‘Instructions in the Way of Salvation,’ 1872. 3. ‘Lent Lectures,’ 1873.
[A. J. Mason, Memoir of George Howard Wilkinson, 1909; A. C. Benson's Leaves of the Tree (character sketch of Wilkinson), 1911, and his The Life of Edward White Benson, 1899, 2 vols.; H. S. Holland, George Howard Wilkinson, 1909; Guardian, 18 Dec. 1907; Record, 8 July 1904; Daily Telegraph, 3 May 1911.]
WILKS, Sir SAMUEL, baronet (1824–1911), physician, born at Camberwell, on 2 June 1824, was second son of Joseph Barber Wilks, treasurer at the East India House, by his wife Susannah Edwards, daughter of William Bennett of Southborough, Kent. He went to Aldenham grammar school in 1836, and spent three years there, followed by a year at University College school in London. He was then apprenticed to Richard Prior, a general practitioner in Newington, and in 1842 entered as a student at Guy's Hospital; in 1847 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. His natural turn was for medicine, and he graduated M.B. at the University of London in 1848 and M.D. in 1850, and was admitted a member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1851 and elected a fellow of that college in 1856, in which year he was appointed assistant physician to Guy's Hospital. He became physician in 1866, and held office till 1885. He was also successively curator of the museum, lecturer on pathology, and lecturer on medicine there, and attained a great reputation by his researches and teaching in the post mortem room and the wards. He published in 1859 ‘Lectures on Pathological Anatomy,’ one of the most important works on the anatomy of disease since the appearance of the ‘Morbid Anatomy’ of Dr. Matthew Baillie [q. v.] in 1795. A second edition in which Dr. Walter Moxon [q. v.] took part appeared in 1875, and a third thoroughly revised by Wilks in 1887. The fame of Guy's Hospital from 1836 to the present day has been largely increased by its annual volumes of ‘Reports,’ and Wilks from 1854 to 1865 became editor and contributed numerous important papers to them. In 1874 he published ‘Lectures on the Specific Fevers and on Diseases of
