WOLLASTON, WILLIAM, descended of an ancient family in Staffordshire, was born at Cotton Clanford on the 26th of March 1659. His father was a private gentleman of small fortune. In 1674, his son was admitted a pensioner of Sidney College, Cambridge, where, notwithstanding several disadvantages, he acquired a great degree of reputation. In 1681, he commenced A.M., having previously been an unsuccessful candidate for a fellowship. In 1682, seeing no prospect of preferment, he became assistant to the head-master of Birmingham school. Some time after he obtained a small lecture about two miles distant, but did the duty the whole Sunday; which, together with the business of a great free school for about four years, began to break his constitution. During this space he likewise underwent a great deal of trouble and uneasiness,
in order to extricate two of his brothers from some inconveniences to which their own imprudence had subjected them. In 1688 affairs took a new turn. He found himself, by a cousin's will, entitled to a very ample estate, and came to London that same year, where he settled, choosing a retired and studious life. In 1722, he printed a few copies of his celebrated work, entitled The Religion of Nature delineated. It was printed for sale in 1725, and so great was its success, that more than 10,000 were sold in a very few years. He likewise wrote a great many other works, which have not been published. He had scarcely completed his treatise when he unfortunately broke his arm; and this accident adding strength to distempers that had been growing upon him for some time, accelerated his death, which happened upon the 29th of October 1724. He was a tender, humane, and in all respects worthy man, but is represented to have had something of the irascible in his constitution and temperament. His Religion of Nature delineated exposed him to some censure, as if he had disparaged Christianity by laying so much stress, as he does in this work, upon the obligations of truth, reason, and virtue, and by making no mention of revealed religion. But this censure must have been the offspring of ignorance or envy, since it appears from the introduction to the work that he intended to treat of revealed religion in a second part, which he lived not to finish.