and Antiq. of Cath. Ch. of Ely, 2nd ed. 1812, p. 254; Brook's Lives of Puritans, ii. 284; Gibbins's Ely Episcopal Records, 1891, pp. 432, 453, 458; Toplady's Historic Proofs, 1774, ii. 556-61.]
WILLET, THOMAS (1605–1674), first mayor of New York, fourth son of Andrew Willet [q. v.], was born in August 1605, in the rectory-house of Barley, and was baptised on the 29th of the same month. His father dying when he was only sixteen years of age, he appears to have continued to reside with his widowed mother and maternal grandmother till he came of age. Shortly after he joined the second puritan exodus, going first to Leyden, and then to the new Plymouth plantation. Governor Bradford mentions him as 'an honest young man that came from Leyden,' as 'being discreet, and one whom they could trust.' In 1633, after he had become a successful trader with the Indians, he was admitted to the freedom of the colony, and married a daughter of Major John Brown, a leading citizen. He shortly afterwards became a large shipowner, trading with New Amsterdam. He was elected one of the assistant governors of the Plymouth colony. As a proof of his worth of character and commanding abilities, he was frequently chosen to settle disputes between the rival colonies of England and Holland; he also became captain of a military company. Early in 1660 he left Plymouth, and, establishing himself in Rhode Island, became the founder of the town of Swansey. Accompanying the English commander Nicholls, he greatly contributed to the peaceable surrender of New Amsterdam to the English on 7 Sept. 1664; and when the colony received the name of New York, Captain Willet was appointed the first mayor (in June 1665), with the approval of English and Dutch alike. The next year he was elected alderman, and became mayor a second time in 1667. Shortly after he withdrew to Swansey, and here, after having lost his first wife, he married the widow of a clergyman named John Pruden. He died in 1674, at the age of sixty-nine. He lies buried in an obscure corner of the Little Neck burial-ground at Bullock's Cove, Swansey, Rhode Island. His descendants were numerous, and included Colonel Marinus Willet, the friend of Washington, who himself became mayor of New York, while the 'Dorothy Q.' of the poem of Oliver Wendell Holmes was Thomas Willet's great-granddaughter, and the great-grandmother of the poet. In his religious views Willet was an independent.
[A full account of Willet, with authorities, by Dr. Charles Parsons, is given in the Magazine of American History, xvii. 233 et seq. See also Governor Bradford's History; Brodhead's History of New York, i. 518 et seq., 524, 743; Mrs. M. J. Lamb's History of New York City, i. 231.]
WILLETT, RALPH (1719–1795), book-collector, was the elder son of Henry Willett of the island of St. Christopher, who married, about 1718, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Colonel John Stanley of the island of Nevis. Dr. Andrew Willet [q. v.] belonged to the family. Their property in England was lost through adherence to the cause of Charles I, but their fortunes were repaired in the West India islands.
Ralph was born in 1719, and matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, on 23 June 1736, aged 17, but did not take a degree, and he was admitted student at Lincoln's Inn on 4 Jan. 1738–9. On his father's death in 1740 the estates in the West India islands came to him, and for the rest of his life he was able to gratify his taste for books and pictures. His town house was in Dean Street, Soho, and in 1751 he bought the estate of Merly in Great Canford, Dorset, where he began in 1752, and finished in 1760, a stately house, which soon proved insufficient for his collections. In 1772 he built two wings, that on the south-east being a library (adorned with fanciful designs in arabesques and frescoes) eighty-four feet long, twenty-three wide, and twenty-three high. A printed account of this room and a view of the house are in Hutchins's ‘Dorset’ (2nd edit. iii. 12); views and plans are also in Woolfe and Gandon's continuation of Campbell's ‘Vitruvius Britannicus.’
Willett's library was remarkably rich in early-printed books and in specimens of block-printing. Many works were on vellum, and all were in the finest condition. He possessed also an admirable collection of prints and drawings, while his pictures included several from the Orleans gallery and from Roman palaces. A description of the library was printed in octavo, in French and English, in 1776; it was reprinted by John Nichols, with twenty-five illustrations of the designs, in folio in 1785. A catalogue of the books in the library was distributed by Willett among his friends in 1790.
Willett was pricked as sheriff of Dorset in 1760. He was elected F.S.A. on 5 Dec. 1763, and F.R.S. on 21 June 1764. He died at Merly House without issue on 13 Jan. 1795, when the estate and the rest of his fortune passed by his will to his cousin, John Willett Adye, who took the name of Willett, and was M.P. for New Romney from 1796 to 1806. Ralph Willett was twice married. His first
