procedure. He worked in absolute silence; he took the greatest care in the selection of his instruments, and he submitted his assistants to a firm discipline which proved of the highest value to them in after life. At the conclusion of every operation he superintended the cleaning and drying of each instrument, and packed it into its case in the most orderly manner.
In addition to his purely surgical work, Wells was an ardent advocate of cremation, and it was chiefly due to his efforts and to those of Sir Henry Thompson that this means of disposing of the dead was brought into early use in England.
Almost to the last Wells had the appearance of a healthy, vigorous, country gentleman, with much of the frankness and bonhomie of a sailor. He was an excellent rider, driver, and judge of horseflesh. Besides his London residence, he owned a house and fine gardens at Golder's Hill, Hampstead, purchased for public recreation in 1898.
A half-length oil painting by Lehman, executed in 1884, represented Wells sitting in the robes of the president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It was bequeathed to the Royal College of Surgeons. A bust executed in 1879 by Oscar Liebreich is in the possession of Sir A. S. Wells. Wells published: 1. ‘The scale of Medicines with which Merchant Vessels are to be furnished by command of the Privy Council for Trade. … With observations on the means of preserving the health and increasing the comforts of seamen,’ London, 1851, 12mo; 2nd ed. 1861, 8vo. 2. ‘Practical Observations on Gout and its Complications,’ London, 1854, 8vo. 3. ‘Cancer Cures and Cancer Curers,’ London, 1860, 8vo. 4. ‘Diseases of the Ovaries: their Diagnosis and Treatment,’ 8vo, London, vol. i. 1865, vol. ii. 1872; also published in America, and translated into German, Leipzig, 1866 and 1874. 5. ‘Notebook for Cases of Ovarian and other Abdominal Tumours,’ London, 1865, 8vo; 2nd ed. 1868; 7th ed. 1887; translated into Italian, Milan, 1882, 12mo. 6. ‘On Ovarian and Uterine Tumours: their Diagnosis and Treatment,’ London, 1882, 8vo; translated into Italian, Milan, 1882, 8vo. 7. ‘Diagnosis and Surgical Treatment of Abdominal Tumours,’ London, 1885, 8vo; translated into French, Paris, 1886, 8vo.
[Autobiographical details in the Revival of Ovariotomy and its Influence on Modern Surgery, London, 1884; obituary notices in the British Medical Journal, 1897, i. 368, and in the Revue de Gynécologie et de Chirurgie abdominale, 1897; additional information kindly given by Sir Arthur S. Wells, bart.]
WELLS, WILLIAM (1818–1889), agriculturist, born on 15 March 1818, was eldest son of Captain William Wells, R.N., of Holme, Huntingdonshire, by Elizabeth, daughter of John Joshua Proby, first earl of Carysfort [q. v.] After being educated at Harrow and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 16 June 1836, and graduated B.A. 1839 and M.A. 1842, he entered the army, holding a commission in the 1st life guards. In 1826 he had succeeded to an estate of eight thousand acres in the fen country, and he is chiefly remembered in virtue of his efforts as a practical agriculturist to improve and develop this area, more especially by the draining of Whittlesea Mere, a shallow sheet of stagnant water situated some five miles from Peterborough, a little over a thousand acres in extent, surrounded by another two thousand acres of bog and marsh. The reclamation of this tract was begun by Wells in 1851; on 12 Nov. of the following year the mere was again submerged. All the water was, however, discharged a second time by the help of the ‘Appold’ centrifugal pump, which Wells was one of the first, if not the first, to appreciate and to put to an agricultural use. By the autumn of 1853 the bed of the mere was in a state of complete cultivation. The surrounding peat land proved, however, more obdurate, and it was found necessary to go through a process of warping, or overlaying with fertile soil. This work had been hardly begun when Wells in 1860 contributed his account of the draining operations to the ‘Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society’ (1st ser. xxi. 134). These operations were brought to an end about 1866, after fifteen years of incessant labour (Journal R. A. S. E., 2nd ser. 1870, vi. 203).
Much of the cultivation of the reclaimed land, and most of that of the two home farms reserved by Wells, was performed by means of steam power. With the object of encouraging the intelligent use of steam for agricultural purposes, Wells offered prizes annually, beginning in 1864, at the meetings of the Peterborough Agricultural Society, to the drivers of agricultural portable steam engines, for skill and care in the management of their machines, coupled with a clear record with regard to accidents (ib. 2nd ser. 1868, iv. 204).
Wells became a member of council of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1861. In December 1862 he was chosen a member of the chemical committee, of which he was elected chairman in 1866. This post he continued to hold up to the time of his death. He was president of the Royal Agricultural
