(Numismatic Journal, ii. 10) for St. Thomas's Hospital, where he succeeded admirably with a difficult reverse-design—a dead body laid out in the dissecting-room. The list given below furnishes only a small selection from his numerous works. A good list of his coins and medals, up to 1836, may be found in Carlisle's ‘Memoir,’ and another list (not complete) of his medals was drawn up by L. C. Wyon and printed in Sainthill's ‘Olla Podrida’ (ii. 401–3). A case of Wyon's medals was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and many of his pattern-coins and medals are preserved in the British Museum. His signature is w. w. and w. wyon.
Wyon engraved the following coins: 1817, pattern crown executed in frost work, reverse, ‘Incorrupta fides.’ Royal Arms: pattern crown, reverse, ‘Fœdus inviolabile,’ England, Ireland, and Scotland as the three Graces; 1819, Ionian Islands coinage; 1826, pattern five-pound piece of George IV; 1831, pattern double-sovereign of William IV; 1839, pattern five-pound piece of Victoria (type, Una and Lion); 1846, ‘Gothic’ crown.
Wyon's chief medals were: 1812, Alexander I of Russia; 1813, ‘Ceres’ medal; 1818, Earl Howe (Mudie's series); 1824, Sir Walter Scott; 1825, London Bridge; 1826, Harrow School, Peel medal; Burmese War; 1827, University of London; 1828, Royal Institution, Fuller medal; 1829, St. Thomas's Hospital, Cheselden medal; 1830, Bodiam Castle medal; 1831, coronation of William IV; 1834, Sir John Soane; Bombay Native Education Society; 1836, London Horticultural Society; 1837, accession of Queen Victoria; visit of the queen to the Guildhall, London; 1840, Newcastle and Carlisle Railway; 1841, Apothecaries' medal; 1842, China, Jellalabad, Candahar (war medals); 1846, Chantrey medal, Art Union; 1848, general service medals; medal awarded to Major Herbert B. Edwardes (Mayo, Medals, pl. 27, fig. 4); 1849, the society's medal of the Society of Arts; 1851, India medal.
[Carlisle's Memoir of William Wyon, 1837 (an extra-illustrated copy prepared by Edward Hawkins has been kindly lent by its owner, Mr. Charles H. Read, F.S.A.); Numismatic Journal, 1837, ii. 10 f.; Sainthill's Olla Podrida, ii. 391 f.; newspaper cuttings in Brit. Mus. Libr. relating to Wyon and Pistrucci; Hawkins's Medallic Illustrations (ed. Franks and Grueber); Mayo's Medals and Decorations; Sharp's Catalogue of the Chetwynd Collection, p. v; Redgrave's Dictionary; Athenæum, 8 Nov. 1851, p. 1177; Gent. Mag. 1851, ii. 609.]
WYRCESTER, WILLIAM (1415–1482?), chronicler. [See Worcester.]
WYRLEY, WILLIAM (1565–1618), antiquary and Rouge Croix pursuivant, born in Staffordshire in 1565, was son of Augustine Wyrley of Wyrley, Staffordshire, and of Netherseal in Leicestershire, by Mary his wife, daughter of Walter Charnells of Snarestone, Leicestershire. His grandfather was William Wyrley of Handsworth in Staffordshire, where the family had been long settled.
Wyrley, who was educated at a country grammar school, showed from his childhood an ‘excellent genie for arms and armory.’ While still a youth he was employed as amanuensis by the Staffordshire antiquary, Samson Erdeswicke [q. v.] of Sandon. During the period that he was working with Erdeswicke, Wyrley published under his own name a brief heraldic essay entitled ‘The trve Vse of Armorie, shewed by Historie, and plainly proued by Example’ (London, by J. Jackson for Gabriell Cawood, 1592, 4to). The little work embodies some valuable historical research in regard to the early origin and significance of heraldic emblems. It was dedicated ‘To the Right honourable the Lords and others, the professors of martiall discipline.’ The ‘True Use of Armorie’ only fills twenty-eight pages, but to it Wyrley appended two historical poems of his own composition; they were in seven-line stanzas, and were entitled respectively ‘Lord Chandos’ and ‘Capitall de Buz.’ These ‘dull, creeping, historical narratives’ are very ‘uncouth ditties’ (Ritson, Bibl. Poetica, 1802, p. 399; Phillips, Theatrum Poet. Angl. ed. Brydges, p. 333). Dugdale republished a part of the heraldic tract in his ‘Ancient Usage of Bearing Arms’ (1682, 12mo, pp. 6–46), and he ascribed the whole of it to Erdeswicke, on the authority of William Burton, author of the ‘History of Leicestershire’ (who had the story from Erdeswicke). Wood disputed Erdeswicke's responsibility. Wyrley doubtless used materials which he gathered from Erdeswicke's papers. His authority for the poems has not been questioned. Wyrley's heraldic tract was reprinted without the poems in 1853 (London, sm. 4to).
Soon after the publication of his book Wyrley left Erdeswicke's service, and resolved to pursue his antiquarian studies at Oxford. He matriculated from Balliol College, Oxford, on 29 Nov. 1594 at the mature age of twenty-nine. During his residence at Balliol he made ‘Collections of Arms from Monuments and Windows in Churches and
