Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gilly, William Stephen

by Gordon Goodwin

GILLY, WILLIAM STEPHEN (1789–1855), divine, born on 28 Jan. 1789, was the son of William Gilly (d. 1837), rector of Hawkedon, Suffolk, and of Wanstead, Essex. In November 1797 he was admitted at Christ's Hospital, London, whence he proceeded in 1808 to Caius College, Cambridge, but graduated B.A. as a member of St. Catharine Hall in 1812 (List of Exhibitioners of Christ's Hospital, ed. 1885, p. 39). He proceeded M.A. in 1817, and accumulated his degrees in divinity in 1833. In 1817 he was presented by Lord-chancellor Eldon to the rectory of North Fambridge in Essex. He paid the first of many visits to the Vaudois in 1823, and during the following year published a ‘Narrative of an Excursion to the Mountains of Piemont, and Researches among the Vaudois, or Waldenses,’ 4to, London, 1824; 3rd edition, 8vo, 1826. Much sympathy for the Vaudois was evoked in England by Gilly's book. A subscription, headed by the king and Barrington, bishop of Durham, was started for their relief, and was devoted in part to the endowment of a college and library at La Tour in Piedmont. On 13 May 1826 Gilly was collated to a prebendal stall in Durham Cathedral (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii. 317). The following year he became perpetual curate of St. Margaret, Durham, and in 1831 vicar of Norham, near Berwick-on-Tweed. In 1853 he was appointed canon residentiary of Durham. With a view to bettering the condition of the agricultural labourers in north Northumberland, he wrote ‘The Peasantry of the Border; an Appeal in their behalf,’ 8vo, Berwick-upon-Tweed, 1841 (2nd edition, London, 1842), in which he called the attention of landowners to the miserable condition of the cottages. Gilly died at Norham on 10 Sept. 1855. He married, in December 1825, Jane Charlotte Mary, only daughter of Major Colberg, who survived him (Gent. Mag. vol. xcv. pt. ii. p. 640). His other works include:

1. ‘The Spirit of the Gospel, or the Four Evangelists, elucidated by explanatory observations,’ 8vo, London, 1818.
2. ‘Horæ Catecheticæ, or an exposition of the duty and advantages of Public Catechising in Church,’ 8vo, London, 1828.
3. ‘Waldensian Researches during a second Visit to the Vaudois of Piemont,’ 8vo, London, 1831.
4. ‘A Memoir of Felix Neff, pastor of the High Alps,’ 8vo, London, 1832 (many editions). Lord Monson published in 1840 some folio ‘Views’ in illustration of this memoir.
5. ‘Our Protestant Forefathers,’ 12mo, London, 1835 (many editions).
6. ‘Valdenses, Valdo, and Vigilantius; being the articles under these heads in the seventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1841 (the third article was reprinted separately in 1844).
7. ‘The Romaunt Version of the Gospel according to St. John. With an introductory history,’ 8vo, London, 1848.
8. ‘A Comparative View of the progress of Popular Instruction. Two Lectures,’ 12mo, Durham, 1848.

He contributed a preface to ‘Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy, between 1793 and 1849,’ compiled principally from official documents at the admiralty by his son William O. S. Gilly, and another to J. L. Williams's ‘Short History of the Waldensian Church,’ 1855. His three letters on the ‘Noble Lesson’ and Waldensian MSS., communicated to the ‘British Magazine’ for 1841, are reprinted in the appendix to J. H. Todd's ‘Books of the Vaudois,’ 1865.

[Gent. Mag. new ser. xliv. 437–9, 626.]

G. G.