William Henry Wilkins

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William Henry Wilkins
In The Sketch, 14 October 1896
Born(1860-12-23)23 December 1860
Compton Martin, Somerset, England
Died22 December 1905(1905-12-22) (aged 44)
Mayfair, London, England
EducationClare College, Cambridge
OccupationWriter
Political partyConservative

William Henry Wilkins (1860–1905) was an English writer, best known as a royal biographer and campaigner for

immigration controls
. He used the pseudonym W. H. de Winton.

Life

Born at

Mortimer, Berkshire, where Wilkins passed much of his youth. His mother was Mary Ann Keel. After private education, he was employed in a bank at Brighton. Entering Clare College, Cambridge in 1884, he graduated B.A. in 1887, and proceeded M.A. in 1899.[1][2]

Initially considering holy orders, at the university Wilkins developed literary tastes and interested himself in politics. A Conservative, he spoke frequently at the Cambridge Union, of which he was vice-president in 1886.[1]

After leaving Cambridge, Wilkins acted for a time as private secretary to the

Evening News, and support from local MPs, and clergy including George Sale Reaney in Stepney. There lacked any serious local support in the parts of east London most affected, and the public at large was indifferent. APIDA ceased to function in 1892.[4][5]

Wilkins then made a literary career in London. He died unmarried on 22 December 1905 at 3 Queen Street,

Kensal Green cemetery.[1]

Works

Social questions

In 1890 Wilkins wrote in the

Methuen & Co.[8] The recommendations in the book bore some relation to later measures in the Aliens Act 1905.[1]

Wilkins argued against the admittance of Southern Europeans and

sweated labour, finding contemporary caricatures of Jewish exploiters apt.[10] The contribution of The Alien Invasion to the immigration debate of the period, with the warnings Wilkins gave of the impact on British working class opinion, the spread of nationalities in view, and the appeal to rich British Jews to limit Jewish immigration in particular, is considered significant.[11] Dunraven wrote an article "The invasion of destitute aliens" in The Nineteenth Century for June 1892.[12]

That year the Trades Union Congress had come down in favour of restricting Jewish immigration, and the book listed labour organisations favouring immigration controls.[13] An earlier work was The Traffic in Italian Children,[14] and Wilkins contributed a paper "The Italian Aspect" to Arnold White's The Destitute Alien in Great Britain (1892).[15] In 1893 Wilkins wrote a pamphlet for the Women's Emancipation Union on sweated labour in the garment trade, particularly in the East End of London.[16]

Novelist

In 1892, Wilkins edited, with

society novel. Then followed The Forbidden Sacrifice (1893), set partly in Germany, partly in East London,[17] John Ellicombe's Temptation (1894, with the Hon. Julia Chetwynd), and The Holy Estate: a study in morals (with Captain Francis Alexander Thatcher). With another Cambridge friend, Herbert Vivian, he wrote under his own name The Green Bay Tree (1894), which satirised the Cambridge and political life of the time and went through five editions.[1]

The Burtons and their papers

Wilkins came to know

anti-Semitic manuscript left by Burton)[18] (1898), and Wanderings in Three Continents (1901).[1] The version of The Jew, the Gypsy, and El Islam brought Wilkins into discussion with the Board of Deputies of British Jews on what should be published of Burton's research on blood libels.[19] Burton's appendix on the Damascus affair of 1840 was omitted.[20]

Biographer

At

Philip Christopher Königsmarck. This research, backed up from the archives of Hanover and elsewhere, led to The Love of an Uncrowned Queen, Queen Sophie Dorothea, Consort of George I, which appeared in 2 vols. in 1900 (revised edit. 1903). His Caroline the Illustrious, Queen Consort of George II (2 vols. 1901; new edit. 1904), had less claim to originality. A Queen of Tears (2 vols. 1904), a biography of Caroline Matilda of Great Britain, Queen of Denmark and sister of George III of Great Britain, used research at Copenhagen and superseded the previous biography by Frederic Charles Lascelles Wraxall. For his last work, Mrs. Fitzherbert and George IV (1905, 2 vols.), Wilkins had access, by Edward VII's permission, for the first time to the Fitzherbert papers at Windsor Castle, besides papers belonging to Maria Fitzherbert's family. Wilkins argued for the marriage with George IV.[1]

In 1901 Wilkins edited South Africa a Century ago, letters of Lady Anne Barnard written 1797–1801 at the Cape of Good Hope. Wilkins also published Our King and Queen, the Story of their Life, (1903, 2 vols.), a popular illustrated book on Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and he wrote occasionally for periodicals.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lee, Sidney, ed. (1912). "Wilkins, William Henry" . Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). Vol. 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ^ "Wilkins, William Henry (WLKS884WH)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-907123-45-3
    .
  4. ISBN 978-0-7481-2396-4
    .
  5. ISBN 0-435-32350-4
    .
  6. ISBN 978-0-520-91582-4
    .
  7. ISBN 978-0-907123-45-3
    .
  8. ISBN 978-0-9825996-0-0
    .
  9. ISBN 978-90-420-2147-1
    .
  10. ISBN 978-1-107-02281-2
    .
  11. ^ Cecil Bloom, The politics of immigration, 1881-1905, Jewish Historical Studies Vol. 33, (1992-1994), pp. 187-214, at p. 194. Published by: Jewish Historical Society of England. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29779919
  12. ISBN 978-0-521-21547-3
    .
  13. ISBN 978-1-85856-291-9
    .
  14. ^ archive.thetablet.co.uk, 24 June 1893, Review of "The Alien Invasion".
  15. ^ Arnold White, The Destitute Alien in Great Britain; a series of papers dealing with the subject of foreign pauper immigration (1892) p. 146;archive.org
  16. ^ Wilkins, William Henry, The bitter cry of the voteless toilers, with special reference to the seamstresses of East London, LSE Selected Pamphlets (1893). Contributed by: LSE Library. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/60217901
  17. ^ XIX Century Fiction, Part I, A–K (Jarndyce, Bloomsbury, 2019).
  18. ISBN 978-0-674-03948-3
    .
  19. ISBN 978-0-299-13114-2
    .
  20. ISBN 978-1-909254-20-6
    .
Attribution

Wikisource This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1912). "Wilkins, William Henry". Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). Vol. 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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William Henry Wilkins
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