Willenhall’s most illustrous son was Dr. Richard Wilkes, Antiquary, whose house still stands on the Walsall Road. He came of good family of county rank, and his personal character raised him to the eminence of a notability in Staffordshire. His portrait appears in Shaw’s history of this county of which his (Wilkes’) valuable and voluminous MSS. formed the nucleus. Though settled in this locality, adding to their little patrimony from time to time for 300 or 400 years, the family came originally from Hertfordshire.

The pedigree of Wilkes, according to the Heralds’ Visitation in 1614, commences with John Wylkys de Darlaston, who was witness to a Deed of Roger, Lord of Darlaston, in the time of Edward III. (1331). There is a Richard Wylkys, of Willenhall, who witnessed a Bentley Deed in 1413. To this Richard and his wife Juliana, daughter and heir of William Wilkes, a grant of lands in Bentley was made by Humphrey, Earl of Stafford. The son of this couple was William Wilkes of Willnall (1505). Protonotary of the Court of Common Pleas, 15 Henry VIII. The family tree is very complete in Shaw.

One John Wilkes married a widow Parkhouse, nee Margery Garbet, of Nether Penn; another John, his nephew, was Rector of Lum, and evidently a Puritan, as his two sons bear the striking biblical names, Ephraim and Manasses. Richard seems to have been the favourite name for the eldest son. One Richard married Mercy Drakeford, of Stafford (see Salt. Vol. VIII.); his son, also named Richard, became the father of our Willenhall worthy, whose mother was Lucretia, youngest daughter of Jonas Astley, of Wood Eaton, in this county.

Richard Wilkes, M.D., was born in March, 1690, and had his school education at Trentham. In his 19th year he was entered at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and was admitted scholar 1710. In April, 1711, he began to attend Mr. Saunderson’s mathematical lectures, and became very proficient in algebra. In January, 1713, he took his B.A degree; three years later he was chosen Fellow, and in 1718 he was appointed Linacre Lecturer.

It does not appear when or where he took his degrees in medicine. He seems to have taken pupils and taught mathematics in college from the year 1715 till he left it, and to have been engaged thus early in literary matters, particularly in the collection of material for subsequent use. It was by his literary labours, particularly in antiquarian research, that he made himself a name.

He presently took deacon’s orders, and once preached in the parish church of Wolverhampton. He also preached several times at Stow, near Chartley. However, disappointment in the expectation of preferment in the Church soon disgusted him with the ministry, and in 1720 he began to practise physic, for which he seemed to have a natural talent, at Wolverhampton. In 1725 he married Rachel Manlove, of Abbots Bromley, with whom he had a handsome fortune, and from that time he dwelt with his father (who died in 1730) at Willenhall.

About this time he wrote an excellent treatise on Dropsy; and later, when a dreadful disease raged among the horned cattle of the Midlands, he published a very useful and practical “Letter to Breeders and Graziers in the County of Stafford,” and made every effort to assist in stamping out the plague. Possibly while at Chartley he had made a study of the herd of wild cattle preserved there.

His skill as a physician was very considerable, and seems to have been applied chiefly to the gratuitous relief of his poorer neighbours. He led an exemplary life, being an early riser, and an indefatigable reader, constantly adding to the rich stores of his well-stocked mind.

As previously mentioned, he spent several years of industry in collecting historical manuscripts, and making antiquarian notes relating to his native county, of which the Rev. Stebbing Shaw afterwards made such good use.

For instance, Dr. Wilkes’ account of Roman roads, camps, and other remains of antiquity is a fairly exhaustive one for a county history, and shows a considerable depth of research. It is embodied in the “Introduction” and the “General History” at the commencement of Shaw’s compendious work.

Like Pepys, he kept a Diary, which was never intended for publication—he was a diligent recorder of historical facts. Here is an interesting note from it:—

“The first steam engine that ever raised any quantity of water was erected near Wolverhampton, on the right-hand side of the road leading to Walsall, over against the half-mile stone.” (This was on the site of the Chillington ironworks.)

The Diarist was too modest to add that the Waterworks which long supplied Wolverhampton with water were the property of Dr. Wilkes.

Among other projected literary works was a new edition of Hudibras, with notes, &c. In the beginning of the year 1747, having a severe fit of illness which confined him to the house, he amused himself with writing his own epitaph, which he calls “A picture drawn from the life without heightening.” It is as follows:—

Here, reader, stand awhile, and know
Whose carcase ’tis that rots below;
A man’s, who walk’d by Reason’s rule
Yet sometimes err’d and play’d the fool;
A man’s sincere in all his ways,
And full of the Creator’s praise,
Who laughed at priestcraft, pride and strife,
And all the little tricks of life.
He lov’d his king, his country more,
And dreadful party-rage forbore:
He told nobility the truth
And winked at hasty slips of youth.
The honest poor man’s steady friend.
The villain’s sconce in hopes to mend.
His father, mother, children, wife,
His riches, honour, length of life,
Concern not thee. Observe what’s here—
He rests in hope and not in fear.

His wife dying in May, 1756, he married for the second time in October the same year Mrs. Frances Bendish (sister to the Rev. Sir Richard Wrottesley, of Wrottesley, Bart.), who long survived him, dying December 24, 1798, at Froxfield, near Petersfield, in Hampshire, at a very advanced age.

The learned doctor himself died March 6, 1760, with a return of the gout in his stomach, and his death was universally lamented by his tenants, who lost an indulgent landlord; by his servants, who lost a good master; but more by numbers of poor in the populous villages adjacent and at a distance, in grateful remembrance of the charitable advice and friendly assistance they had always enjoyed at his kindly hands. A somewhat eulogistic entry of his death appears in the Bilston Registers.

As Dr. Wilkes left no issue, his property passed to the Unett family, the representatives of his aunt Anne who had married George Unett, of Wolverhampton.

He was buried at Willenhall in his native soil, where a neat monument was erected to his memory near the family pew, by his heirs, Captain Richard Wilkes Unett, and Mr. John Wilkes Unett; the tablet was thus inscribed:—

“Near this place
Lie the remains
of
RICHARD WILKES, M.D.

Formerly fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge; the last of an ancient and respectable family resident at this place 300 years and upwards. He married first, Rachel, eldest daughter of Rowland Manlove, of Lees Hill, in this county, esq.; secondly, Frances, daughter of Sir John, and sister

of the late
Sir Richard Wrottesly, of Wrottesly, Bart.
and widow of Higham Bendish, Esq.
He died March 6, 1760,
aged 70 years.

[Underneath is the following escutcheon:—

(Wilkes) Paly of eight Or and Gules; on a chief Argent, three lozenges of the second: impaling, 1. (Manlove) Azure, a chevron Ermine, between three anchors Argent; 2. (Wrottesley) Or, three piles Sa. a canton Ermine]

“The children of the late Rev. Thomas Unett, of Stafford, his heirs-at-law, placed this monument an. 1800.”

On the floor of the Lane Chapel in Wolverhampton Church will be found stones to the memory of the Wilkes family, “seated at Willenhall from the reign of Edward IV.”; there is also a blue slab to the memory of Mary Unett, who died in 1767.

The old house of Dr. Wilkes, a good specimen of its type of architecture, stands back from the main road behind iron palisading. Part of it has been utilised as a stamper’s warehouse; had it received the respect due to its associations, it might flittingly have been a town Museum, or some such public institution. It was built by the Doctor’s father, and the Doctor was born there.

The house has a white stuccoed front, irregularly disposed, the semi-porticoed doorway with classic columns having three windows on its left and two on its right, although the shorter side seems to have been lengthened at a later period by a red brick wing. Along the line of the first floor are six windows, whose lights in the Annean period, to which the building belongs, were doubtless of small leaded panes.

From the tiled roof project three dormers, the centre one having a semi-circular head, the outer ones pointed. The chimneys stand out from each gable end, and in the brickwork of each of their sides is a plain recessed panel; the chimney-heads being noticeable for the absence of the usual projecting courses. Local tradition says that Hall street was once a stately avenue of trees by which this residence was approached from Lichfield Street.

On entering the house, the visitor feels a pang of regret that the venerable building should ever have been degraded to the purposes of commerce; particularly as the fabric retains many of its characteristics, thanks to the soundness of the workmanship of two centuries ago. The decorations in the form of plaster mouldings that cover the beams, and the medallion or panel pictures, being partly historical and partly classical, all exhibit the Renaissance feeling of the early eighteenth century.

The ceilings of two lower rooms are in a splendid state of preservation, and contain excellent work. One room is square with beams across the middle; the ceiling on one side of the beam representing “The Seasons,” and on the other side “The Elements.” The Seasons are severally depicted as follows:—A young face, with the hair of the head bedecked with flowers, for “Spring”; a face in the bloom of womanhood, with the hair bedecked with corn, represents “Summer”; a well-matured face, having the hair bedecked with fruit, “Autumn’”; while a pleasing aged face, the brow bedecked with holly, stands for “Winter.” Painted on the wall over the fireplace is the Castle of St. Angelo, and the bridge crossing the Tiber at Rome. The Elements, (so called by the old alchemists) are also figuratively, represented by four heads; one bearing a castle, with three towers and other buildings in the background (Earth); one surmounted by an eagle with outspread wings (Air); the next with tongues of fire issuant (Fire); and the other spouting forth a fountain (Water).

The other room is oblong, with beams across dividing its ceiling into four parts. In these parts there are four well-drawn figures, one believed to be Bacon, with beard, moustache, whiskers, and in Elizabethan costume; two close cropped heads, carried on noble necks, believed to be respectively Julius CÆsar and Mark Antony; and the fourth is said to be Homer, with the customary curly hair and beard, but showing a collar of some sort, and apparently wearing a skull cap. Over the mantel, painted on canvas, is the Coliseum, showing the Arch of Titus and a pool in the foreground.

In the main room upstairs is still to be seen the portrait of Dr. Wilkes, painted on canvas, over the mantelpiece. He is depicted as a clean shaven man with benevolent face, bluish or blue-grey eyes, a good forehead, nose, mouth and chin well-defined, and wearing a wig. His costume includes a high-cut waistcoat, bearing ten buttons, opened in front nearly all the way down to show cravat and frilled shirt, the cravat having a buckle—probably jewelled in front. The outer coat is without a collar, cut a little lower than the waistcoat, sloping from above outwards, showing eight buttons, and apparently of greenish-brown velvet.

The pool which formerly ornamented the garden had disappeared; but the boathouse is still there, and the room above it in which the Doctor used to keep his Antiquarian Collection and other artistic treasures. As to the lawns, shrubberies, gardens, orchards, and pleasaunces, there is scarcely a remnant left.

Of the once sweet and pellucid stream, spanned by an ornamental bridge, which conducted the rambler to the pleasant meads beyond, nothing remains but the name, “Willenhall Brook”—it is now little better than a dirty open sewer.

It may not be generally known that a passing allusion is made to Wilkes in Boswell’s “Life of Johnson.”

In the IV. chapter of Vol. I. of this monumental biography we read that in 1740 Dr. Johnson wrote “an epitaph on Phillips, a musician, which was afterwards published with some other pieces of his, in ‘Mrs. Williams’s Miscellanies.’ This epitaph is so exquisitely beautiful, that I remember even Lord Kaines, strangely prejudiced as he was against Dr. Johnson, was compelled to allow it very high praise. It has been ascribed to Mr. Garrick from its appearing at first with the signature G; but I have heard Mr. Garrick declare it was written by Dr. Johnson, and give the following account of the manner in which it was composed. Johnson and he were sitting together, when amongst other things Garrick repeated an epitaph upon this Phillips, by a Dr. Wilkes, in these words:—

Exalted soul! whose harmony could please
The love-sick virgin, and the gouty ease;
Could jarring discord, like Amphion, move
To beauteous order and harmonious love;
Rest here in peace, till angels bid thee rise
And meet thy blessed Saviour in the skies.

“Johnson shook his head at the common-place funeral lines, and said to Garrick, ‘I think, Davy, I can make better.’”

The great biographer goes on to state that Johnson, after stirring about his tea and meditating a little while, produced these lines:—

Exalted soul! thy various sounds could please
The love-sick virgin, and the gouty ease;
Could jarring crowds, like old Amphion, move
To beauteous order and harmonious love.
Rest here in peace, till angels bid thee rise,
And join thy Saviour’s concert in the skies.

Suffice it to add that the personage who inspired the lines was an eccentric genius named Claudius Phillips [88], on whose memorial tablet in the porch of Wolverhampton Church were engraved the said lines, attributed to Dr. Wilkes, who strangely enough is described as “of Trinity College, Oxford and Rector of Pitchford, Salop”—a clergyman whose name was John, and who lived a century previously. We are further informed that our Willenhall worthy is spoken of by Browne Willis in the “History of Mitred Abbies,” Vol. II. p. 189—Browne Willis being one of the most notable antiquarians of that period, and an eccentric individual withal.

All this points to the fact that Dr. Richard Wilkes was well known as a writer, and acknowledged as an authority.

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