months of that year. It was closed in 1861 because of the Civil War,
and the main building was occupied in turn by Confederate troops
and by Federal troops until some of the latter burned it in 1862.
Although reopened in 1869, the college was closed again from 1881 to
1888 because of the low state of its finances. In 1888 it was reorganized
under an act of the state legislature which provided for the
addition of a normal course and an annual appropriation towards its
maintenance. In 1893 Congress passed an act indemnifying it in
some measure for its loss during the Civil War; and in 1906 its
endowment was increased to more than $150,000 and it was made a
state institution governed by a board (appointed by the governor)
and receiving $35,000 annually from the state. Peyton Randolph,
Edmund Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Tyler,
Chief Justice John Marshall and General Winfield Scott were
graduates of the college.
Bruton Parish Church, completed in 1717 and enlarged in 1752, is the second church of a parish dating from 1674. It contains a Bible given by King Edward VII., a lectern given by President Roosevelt, and some old relics. The church itself has been restored (1905-1907) so far as practicable to its original form and appearance. The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities has preserved a powder magazine, erected in 1714, from which the last royal governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, removed the powder on the day after the encounter at Lexington, Massachusetts, and thus occasioned the first armed uprising of the Virginia patriots. The County and City Court-House was erected in 1769. The Eastern State Hospital for the Insane was opened here in 1773, but its original building was burned in 1885. Among several colonial residences are the George Wythe House, which was the headquarters of Washington during the siege of Yorktown in 1781, and the Peyton Randolph House. The principal industries are the manufacture of men's winter underwear, lumber and ice, and the shipment of lumber and farm and garden produce.
Williamsburg, originally named Middle Plantation from its position midway between the York and James rivers, was founded in 1632. It was immediately walled in and for several years it served as a refuge from Indian attacks. On the 3rd of August 1676 Nathaniel Bacon held here his “rebel” assembly of the leading men of the province, and in January 1677 two of the “rebels” were hanged here. In 1698 Middle Plantation was made the provincial capital; and in 1699 the present name was adopted in honour of William III. Williamsburg was chartered as a city in 1722. In 1736 the Virginia Gazette, the oldest newspaper in the South, was established here. In the capitol here Patrick Henry, on the 30th of May 1765, presented his historic resolutions and made his famous speech against the Stamp Act. On the 15th of May 1776, the Virginia Convention in session here passed resolutions urging the Continental Congress to declare for Independence. In 1779 Richmond became the seat of the state government, and in 1832 fire destroyed the last of the old capitol at Williamsburg with the exception of the foundations, which since 1897 have been cared for by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. In the Peninsula campaign of the Civil War the Battle of Williamsburg was fought on the 5th of May 1862 on the south-eastern outskirts of the city. The Confederate army under General J. E. Johnston was retreating from Yorktown toward Richmond and a part of it under General James Longstreet waited here to check the pursuit of the advance portion of the Union army under General E. V. Sumner. A Union division under General J. D. Hooker began a spirited attack at 7.30 A.M., other Union divisions dealt heavy blows, but they failed from lack of co-operation to rout the Confederates and at night the latter continued their retreat. The Union loss in killed, wounded and missing was 2228; the Confederate about 1560.
See L. G. Tyler, Williamsburg, the Old Colonial Capital (Richmond, 1907), and his “Williamsburg, the Ancient Capital,” in L. P. Powell's Historic Towns of the Southern States (New York, 1900).
WILLIAMSON, ALEXANDER WILLIAM (1824–1904), English chemist, was born at Wandsworth, London, on the 1st of May 1824. After working under Leopold Gmelin at Heidelberg, and Liebig at Giessen, he spent three years in Paris studying the higher mathematics under Comte. In 1849 he was appointed professor of practical chemistry at University College, London, and from 1855 until his retirement in 1887 he also held the professorship of chemistry. He had the credit of being the first to explain the process of etherification and to elucidate the formation of ether by the interaction of sulphuric acid and alcohol. Ether and alcohol he regarded as substances analogous to and built up on the same type as water, and he further introduced the water-type as a widely applicable basis for the classification of chemical compounds. The method of stating the rational constitution of bodies by comparison with water he believed capable of wide extension, and that one type, he thought, would suffice for all inorganic compounds, as well as for the best-known organic ones, the formula of water being taken in certain cases as doubled or tripled. So far back as 1850 he also suggested a view which, in a modified form, is of fundamental importance in the modern theory of ionic dissociation, for, in a paper on the theory of the formation of ether, he urged that in an aggregate of molecules of any compound there is an exchange constantly going on between the elements which are contained in it; for instance, in hydrochloric acid each atom of hydrogen does not remain quietly in juxtaposition with the atom of chlorine with which it first united, but changes places with other atoms of hydrogen. A somewhat similar hypothesis was put forward by R. J. E. Clausius about the same time. For his work on etherification, Williamson in 1862 received a Royal medal from the Royal Society, of which he became a fellow in 1855, and which he served as foreign secretary from 1873 to 1889. He was twice president of the London Chemical Society, from 1863–1865, and again in from 1869–1871. His death occurred on the 6th of May 1904, at Hindhead, Surrey, England.
WILLIAMSON, SIR JOSEPH (1633–1701), English politician, was born at Bridekirk, near Cockermouth, his father, Joseph Williamson, being vicar of this place. He was educated at St Bees, at Westminster school and at Queen's College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow, and in 1660 he entered the service of the secretary of state, Sir Edward Nicholas, retaining his position under the succeeding secretary, Sir Henry Bennet, afterwards earl of Arlington. For his connexion with the foundation of the London Gazette in 1665 see Newspapers. He entered parliament in 1669, and in 1672 was made one of the clerks of the council and a knight. In 1673 and 1674 he represented his country at the congress of Cologne, and in the latter year he became secretary of state, having practically purchased this position from Arlington for £6000, a sum which he required from his successor when he left office in 1679. Just before his removal he had been arrested on a charge of sharing in the popish plots, but he had been at once released by order of Charles II. After a period of comparative inactivity Sir Joseph represented England at the congress of Nijmwegen in 1697, and in 1698 he signed the first treaty for the partition of the Spanish monarchy. He died at Cobham, Kent, on the 3rd of October 1701. Williamson was the second president of the Royal Society, but his main interests, after politics, were rather in antiquarian than in scientific matters. Taking advantage of the many opportunities of making money which his official position gave him, he became very rich. He left £6000 and his library to Queen's College, Oxford; £5000 to found a school at Rochester; and £2000 to Thetford.
A great number of Williamson's letters, dispatches, memoranda, &c., are among the English state papers.
WILLIAMSON, WILLIAM CRAWFORD (1816–1895), English naturalist, was born at Scarborough on the 24th of November 1816. His father, John Williamson, after beginning life as a gardener, became a well-known local naturalist, who, in conjunction with William Bean, first explored the rich fossiliferous beds of the Yorkshire coast. He was for many years curator of the Scarborough natural history museum, and the younger Williamson was thus from the first brought up among scientific surroundings and in association with scientific people. William Smith, the “father of English geology,” lived for two years in the Williamsons' house. Young Williamson's maternal grandfather was a lapidary, and from him he learnt the art of cutting stones, an accomplishment which he found of great use
