WEY or WAY, WILLIAM (1407?–1476), traveller and author, born in Devonshire apparently in 1407, was educated at Oxford, where he graduated M.A. and B.D. before the autumn of 1430, when he became fellow of Exeter College. He held his fellowship at least till 1442, if not later, and then became an original fellow of Eton College, though his name does not occur, as Harwood implies, in the charter of foundation. Early in 1456 he started on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella, leaving Eton on 27 March, and sailing from Plymouth on 17 May. He reached Coruña on 21 May, and left it on his return home on 5 June, arriving at Plymouth on the 9th. As the statutes of Eton College forbade fellows to be absent more than six weeks, Wey probably obtained leave of absence similar to that granted him in a letter from Henry VI, among the archives at Eton dated 11 Aug. [1457], to go on a second pilgrimage to holy places. He left Venice on 18 May 1458, reached Jaffa on 18 and Jerusalem on 24 June, leaving again on 2 July, and returning to Eton late in the autumn, the whole journey having taken thirty-nine weeks. On 26 Feb. 1462 Wey left Eton for a second visit to Palestine, sailing from England on 13 March, and arriving at Venice on 22 April. He remained there five weeks, witnessing the ceremonies of St. Mark's day and those connected with the installation of Nicolas Moro as doge in succession to Pascale Malopero. He left on 26 May, arriving at Jaffa on 16 July; he started back from Jerusalem on the 25th, and landed at Dover on 1 Dec.
Of all of these pilgrimages Wey left a remarkably detailed and interesting account, formerly preserved in Edingdon monastery (not, as Aungier states, at Syon), and now in the Bodleian Library (MS. 565); it was edited with introduction and notes for the Roxburghe Club in 1857. The manuscript begins with two introductory treatises in prose, giving information useful for travellers, much in the manner of a modern guidebook; the narratives in verse follow in a stilted metre, said to resemble Lydgate's. That of the journey to St. James of Compostella is the least interesting of the three, though it contains some information on the ecclesiastical condition of Spain. The narrative of the first journey to Jerusalem is detailed after Wey's departure from Venice, while that of the second journey is fuller on his travels across Europe.
Soon after his return from his third pilgrimage, Wey resolved to take the monastic vow, thereby vacating his fellowship at Eton. He entered the Augustinian monastery at Edingdon, Wiltshire, where he passed the remainder of his days. He gave that house some church furniture, relics, and curiosities which he had collected in Palestine, and died on 30 Nov. 1476.
Besides his itineraries, Wey wrote, ‘Sermones dominicales super Evangelia per totum Annum’ and ‘Sermones de Festis principalibus et Sanctis cum ahis multis Sermonibus generalibus;’ both were formerly extant in Syon MS. Q. 14 (Bateson, Cat. Libr. Syon Monastery, 1898, p. 162).
[Introd. to Roxburghe Club edition of Wey's Itineraries; Tanner's Bibl. pp. 759–60; Oudin's Script. Eccl. iii. 2543; Fabricius, Bibl. Med. Ævi, vi. 902; Tobler's Bibl. Geogr. Palestinæ, 1867, p. 48; Boase's Reg. Exeter Coll. (Oxford Hist. Soc.) pp. lxx, 36, 369; Wood's Hist. et Antiq. Univ. Oxon. ii. 95; Harwood's Alumni Eton. p. 51.]
WEYLAND, JOHN (1774–1854), writer on the poor laws, born on 4 Dec. 1774, was the eldest son of John Weyland (1744–1825) of Woodrising, Norfolk, and Woodeaton, Oxfordshire, by his wife Elizabeth Johanna (d. 1822), daughter and coheiress of John Nourse, of Woodeaton. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 10 Nov. 1792, and was called to the bar by the society of the Inner Temple in 1800. He devoted much time to the study of the English poor-law system, and in 1807 published ‘A Short Enquiry into the Policy, Humanity, and Effect of the Poor Laws,’ London, 8vo. In this treatise, and in a supplemental pamphlet published in the same year entitled ‘Observations on Mr. Whitbread's Poor Bill and on the Population of England,’ London, 8vo, he deprecated too much education for the poor, and affirmed that a certain degree of hardship was a necessary incentive to industry.
On 31 July 1830 he was returned to parliament for Hindon in Wiltshire, and retained his seat until December 1832. He died, without issue, at Woodrising on 8 May 1854. On 12 March 1799 he married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Whitstead Keene of Richmond.
Besides the works mentioned, Weyland was the author of ‘A Letter to Sir Hugh Inglis on the State of Religion in India’ (London, 1813, 8vo), and ‘The Principles of Population and Production as they are affected by the Progress of Society’ (London, 1816, 8vo); he edited Robert Boyle's ‘Occasional Reflections’ (London, 1808, 8vo).
[Burke's Landed Gentry; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Official Returns of Members of Parliament; Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; Gent. Mag. 1854, i. 670.]
