His published works include:
- ‘The Saint's Guide,’ London, 1653, 1654, 1699.
- ‘The Picture of Mercurius Politicus,’ London, 1653, 4to.
- ‘The Judgment Set and the Books opened,’ London, 1654, containing (i.) ‘The Vail of the Covering’ (reprinted, separately, London, 1713, Greenwich, 1817); (ii.) ‘The Builders of Babel confounded;’ (iii.) ‘The Power of Divine Attraction;’ (iv.) ‘The Cloud taken off the Tabernacle’ (reprinted, London, 1708); (v.) ‘The Secret Soothsayer’ (reprinted, London, 1716); (vi.) ‘The Rooting of every Plant;’ (vii.) ‘The Saint's Perfect Freedom;’ (viii.) ‘A Responsion to certain pretended Arguments;’ (ix.) ‘A Testimony freely given,’ the whole work, Brighton, 1835.
- ‘Academiarum Examen,’ London, 1654.
- ‘Metallographia,’ London, 1661, 1671.
He also wrote an account and defence of the character of William Erbury as an epistle to Erbury's work, ‘The Great Earthquake.’
[Whitaker's Whalley, ii. 86–7, 95, 494, 506, 548–51; Whitaker's Craven, p. 22; Introduction and Notes to Potts's Discovery of Witches by James Crossley (Chetham Soc.) pp. xxviii–xli; Webster's Works, passim; Cal. of State Papers, 1657–8, p. 302; Boehmer's Handbuch der Naturgeschichte, pt. ii. vol. i. p. 34; Morhof's Polyhistor Literarius, ii. 402; Journal des Sçavans, 1678, p. 158; Philosophical Transactions, 1670, p. 2034; Oldys's British Librarian, p. iii; Brydges's Censura Literaria, x. 306–7; Lansdowne MS. 459, f. 72; Note-book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly (Chetham Soc.), pp. xiv. 126, 128; State Papers (Record Office) Dom. Commonwealth, vol. clxxix. f. 177.]
WEBSTER, THOMAS (1773–1844), geologist, born in the Orkneys in 1773, was educated at Aberdeen, came to London early in life, and studied architecture and agriculture. He travelled through England and France, making sketches for illustrated works and obtained some practice as an architect, the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street being built from his design. It was probably this circumstance that brought him into association with Sir Benjamin Thompson, count von Rumford [q. v.] Webster's geological insight was shown in his classical memoir ‘On the Fresh-water Formations in the Isle of Wight, with some Observations on the Strata over the Chalk in the South-east of England,’ which was published in the ‘Geological Transactions’ in 1814, and led to his association as geologist with Sir Henry Charles Englefield [q. v.] in his ‘Description of the Isle of Wight’ (London, 1816, 4to). Though Webster is only credited with eight papers in the Royal Society's catalogue (vi. 296), all dealing with the geology of the Upper Secondary and Tertiary strata of the south-east of England, and dated between 1814 and 1825, they nearly all rank as loci classici on their respective subjects. Such are the memoirs on the Reigate stone and Nutfield fuller's-earth (1821), Hordwell Cliff, the strata at Hastings, and the Purbeck and Portland beds (1824). He edited the best edition of Imison's ‘Elements of Science and Art’ (London, 1822, 8vo), and, with Mrs. Parkes, Longman's ‘Encyclopædia of Domestic Economy’ (London, 1844, 8vo), which John Claudius Loudon [q. v.] had begun. In 1826 Webster was appointed house-secretary to the Geological Society and curator of the museum; in 1840 he was granted a government pension of 50l. a year for his services to geology, and in 1841–2 he was appointed professor of geology in the university of London (University College). He died in London on 26 Dec. 1844 at London Street, Fitzroy Square, and was buried in Highgate cemetery. He left more than a hundred volumes in manuscript dealing with a wide variety of subjects. His name is associated with a rare British mineral, Websterite, and with various fossils.
[Michaud's Biographie Universelle, vol. xliv.; Gent. Mag. 1845, i. 211; Builder, 1847, v. 115; Cansick's Epitaphs in Church and Burial Grounds of St. Pancras, 1872, ii. 20; Jones's Royal Institution, 1871, passim.]
WEBSTER, THOMAS (1810–1875), barrister, born on 16 Oct. 1810, was the eldest son of Thomas Webster, vicar of Oakington, Cambridgeshire. From the Charterhouse he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. as fourteenth wrangler in 1832, proceeding M.A. in 1835. In 1837 he became secretary to the Institution of Civil Engineers. In 1839 he resigned this post, but remained honorary secretary to the institution till 1841. In that year he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, and joined the northern circuit. He soon acquired a large practice in connection with scientific cases, and for many years was recognised as a leading authority on patent law. His ‘Reports and Notes of Cases on Letters Patent for Inventions’ (1844) was long the chief textbook on the subject, and still remains a standard work of reference. It was largely due to his efforts that the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852 was passed, an act by which the numerous abuses that had grown up round the ancient system of granting patents were swept away, the cost of a patent greatly reduced, and the system introduced that with certain modifications has worked well up to the present time. Webster
