Haughton Dale he erected an educational institute for the children employed in his works. In 1876, with his son, William Walton, he founded and endowed at a cost of 4,000l. the church of St. Mary the Virgin at Haughton. Later on he was a munificent contributor to the ancient church adjoining his estate at Kerry in Montgomeryshire.
For some years he resided at Compstall in Derbyshire, then at Cwmllecoediog Cemmaes, subsequently, in 1870, removing to Dolforgan, near Bettws in Montgomeryshire (an estate of 4,250 acres which he had purchased for 5,000l.), for which county he served as sheriff in 1877. He died at Dolforgan Hall on 5 Nov. 1883.
[Manchester Guardian, 8 Nov. 1883; Times, 8 Nov. 1883.]
WALTON, JOHN (fl. 1410), poet, is confused by Tanner with John Walton (d. 1490?) [q. v.], archbishop of Dublin, with John de Waltham, subdean of York [see under Waltham, John de, (d. 1395)], and with others of the same or a similar name. The poet appears to have been canon of Osney in 1410, when he completed his verse-translation of Boethius's ‘De Consolatione Philosophiæ.’ This work was undertaken at the request of Elizabeth Berkeley, possibly the daughter of Thomas, lord Berkeley (d. 1417), who patronised Walton's contemporary John de Trevisa [q. v.], and was afterwards wife of Richard de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick [q. v.] (cf. Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, ed. Maclean, ii. 22). Boethius's work had already been translated into English prose by Chaucer, and Walton makes considerable use of Chaucer's version. He refers to Chaucer as ‘the floure of rethoryk,’ and also mentions Gower.
Ten manuscripts of Walton's translation are extant; the best is British Museum Royal MS. 18 A xiii, which in Casley's ‘Catalogue’ is erroneously ascribed to Lydgate. Other manuscripts in the British Museum are Harleian MS. 44 (which contains numerous marginalia by Thomas Chaundler), Harleian MS. 43, and Sloane MS. 554. There are three copies at Oxford: Balliol College MS. B. 5, Trinity College MS. 75, and Rawlinson MS. 151 in the Bodleian; an eighth copy is in Cambridge University Library (MS. Gg. iv. 18), and a ninth in Lincoln Cathedral MS. i. 53. A tenth, which was in the Phillipps collection (No. 1099), is said by Todd (Illustr. of Gower and Chaucer, p. xxxi) to ascribe the translation to ‘John Tebaud, alias Watyrbeche.’
Walton's book was printed in 1525 with the following title, ‘The boke of Comfort called in Latyn Boethius de Consolatione etc., transl. into Englesse tonge by John Waltionem or Walton, Canon of Osney. Enprented in the exempt monastery of Tauestock in Denshyre by me, Dan. Thomas Rychard, monk of the sayd monastery,’ 1525, 4to (Cat. Bodleian Library, i. 287). There is a copy in the Bodleian Library, but it is very rare, and is not in the British Museum (cf. Lowndes, ed. Bohn, i. 229). Extracts from Walton's poem are printed in Wülker's ‘Altenglisches Lesebuch’ (ii. 56), in Skeat's edition of Chaucer (vol. ii. pp. xvi–xvii), and in the ‘Athenæum’ (1892, i. 565).
[Authorities cited; Tanner's Bibl. p. 753; Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, i. 48; Hearne's edit. of Robert of Gloucester, ii. 78; Gough's Camden, i. 33; Warton's Hist. Poet. ii. 34; Dep. Keeper's 46th Rep. App. ii. 64; Ramsay's Lancaster and York, i. 142; Skeat's Chaucer, vol. ii. pp. xv–xviii; Wylie's Hist. of Henry IV, ii. 405, 454.]
WALTON, JOHN (d. 1490?), archbishop of Dublin, was probably the John Walton, regular canon of Osney, who graduated B.A. at Oxford on 6 June 1450, and D.D. on 24 May 1463 (Boase, Reg. Univ. Oxon. i. 11). He is confused by Tanner with John Walton (fl. 1410) [q. v.], the poet, and with John de Waltham, subdean of York in 1384 [see under Waltham, John de, d. 1395], and it is also improbable that he was the John Walton who was appointed vicar of Birch-magna on 3 July 1426 and vicar of Roding on 25 Jan. 1437. In 1452 he was made abbot of Osney, the temporalities being restored to him on 1 Nov. in that year (cf. Cartul. of S. Frideswide, i. 416). D'Alton says he was eighteenth abbot of Osney, and gives him an alternate name, Mounstern; Dugdale gives the name of the abbot at this time as Multon, and says he died in 1472, the date of Walton's election as archbishop of Dublin. Possibly he is the John Walton whose grant of the chantry of Clipston on 19 Dec. 1456 was confirmed by Edward IV on 18 Dec. 1461 (Cal. Patent Rolls, Edward IV, i. 57). Walton paid heavy fees to the papal court for his election to the archbishopric (Brady, Episcopal Succession, i. 325). He was consecrated in England in 1472, but does not appear to have obtained the restitution of his temporalities until 1477. In 1478 he procured from the Irish parliament the restitution of several manors alienated by his predecessors in the archbishopric, Richard Talbot [q. v.] and Michael Tregury [q. v.] During his tenure of that office Sixtus IV sanctioned the establishment of a university at Dublin (De Burgo, Hibernia
