Wimborne—Winchcomb
701
Coombe’s Hill and elsewhere British relics have been found. At Domesday Wimbledon formed part of the manor of Mortlake, held by the archbishops of Canterbury. Afterwards the name was sometimes used interchangeably with Mortlake, and in 1327 it is described as a grange or farm belonging to Mortlake. On the impeachment of Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1398, it was confiscated. In the reign of Henry VIII. Cromwell, earl of Essex, held the manor of Wimbledon, with Bristow Park as an appendage. On the confiscation of Cromwell’s estates in 1540 it again fell to the crown, and by Henry VIII. it was settled on Catherine Parr for life. By Queen Mary it was granted to Cardinal Pole. In 1574 Elizabeth bestowed the manor-house, while retaining the manor, on Sir Christopher Hatton, who sold it the same year to Sir Thomas Cecil. In 1588 Elizabeth transferred the manor to his son Sir Edward Cecil, in exchange for an estate in Lincolnshire. At the time of the Civil War the manor was sold to Adam Baynes, a Yorkshireman who shortly afterwards sold it to General Lambert; and at the Restoration it was granted to the queen dowager, Henrietta Maria, who sold it in 1661 to George Digby, earl of Bristol. On his death in 1676 it was sold by his widow to the lord-treasurer Danby. Some years after Danby’s death it was purchased by Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, who bequeathed it to her grandson, John Spencer. It was sold by the fifth Earl Spencer in 1877. Wimbledon House, built by Sir Thomas Cecil in 1588, was replaced by another building in 1735 by the duchess of Marlborough; this was destroyed by fire in 1785, and a new house, called Wimbledon Park House, was erected about 1801. Wimbledon was incorporated in 1905.
Wimborne (Wimborne Minster), a market town, in the eastern parliamentary division of. Dorsetshire, England, 111½ m. S.W. by W. from London by the London & South Western railway; served also by the Somerset and Dorset railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 3696. It iscsituated on a gentle slope above the river Allen near its confluence with the Stour. The church or minster of St Cuthberga is a fine cruciform structure of various styles from Early Norman to Perpendicular, and consists of a central lantern tower, nave and choir with aisles, transepts without aisles, western or bell tower, north and south porches, crypt and vestry or sacristy, with the library over it. It contains a large number of interesting monuments, including a brass with the date 873 (supposed to mark the resting place of King Æthelred I.), a lunar orrery of the 14th century and an octagonal Norman font of Purbeck marble. There is a church dedicated to St John the Evangelist. The free grammar school occupies modern buildings in the Elizabethan style. Near Wimborne is Canford Manor, the seat of Lord Wimborne, a mansion in the Tudor style, built by Blore in 1826, and improved from designs of Sir Charles Barry. The town depends chiefly on agriculture; but the manufacture of hose is carried on to a small extent, and there are also coach building works. Although Wimborne (Wimburn) has been identified with the Vinogladia of the Antonine Itinerary, the first undoubted evidence of settlement is the entry of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the date 718, that Cuthburh, sister of King Ine, founded the abbey here and became the first abbess; the house is also mentioned in a somewhat doubtful epistle of St Aldhelm in 705. The importance of the foundation made it the burial-place of King Æthelred in 871, and of King Sifferth in 962. Æthelwald seized and fortified Wimborne in his revolt in 901 against Edward the Elder. The early abbey was probably destroyed by the Danes in the reign of Æthelred the Unready (978–1015), for in 1043 Edward the Confessor founded here a college of secular canons. The college remained unaltered until 1496, when Margaret, countess of Richmond, obtained letters patent from her son, Henry VII., to found a chantry, in connexion with which she established a school. The continuance of this was recommended by the commissioners of 1547, and in 1562 Elizabeth vested a great part of the property of the former college in a school corporation of twelve governors, who had charge of the church. New charters for the school were obtained from James I. in 1562 and from Charles I. At the conquest Wimborne was a royal borough, ancient demesne of the crown, and part of the manor of Kingston Lacy, which Henry I. gave to Robert Mellent, earl of Leicester. From him it descended by marriage to the earls of Lincoln, and, then passing by marriage to Earl Thomas of Lancaster, it became parcel of the county and later of the duchy of Lancaster; an inquisition of 1352 found that Henry, duke of Lancaster, had 77s. 3d. rent of assize in the borough of Wimborne. The borough is again mentioned in 1487–1488, when John Plecy held six messuages in free burgage of the king as of his borough of Wimborne, but it seems to have been entirely prescriptive, and was never a parliamentary borough. The town was governed until the 19th century by two bailiffs, chosen annually at a court leet of the royal manor of Wimborne borough, part of the manor of Kingston Lacy. The market held here on Friday of each week is not mentioned in Domesday Book, but seems to be of early origin. Wimborne carried on considerable manufactures of linen and woollen goods until the time of Charles II., when they declined, their place being taken by the stocking-knitting industry of the 18th century.
See John Hutchins, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset (3rd edition, Westminster, 1861); Anon., History of Wimborne Minster (London, 1860).
Wimpffen, Emmanuel Felix de (1811–1884), French soldier. Entering the army from the military school of St Cyr, he saw considerable active service in Algeria, and in 1840 became captain, in 1847 chef de bataillon. He first earned marked distinction in the Crimean War as colonel of a Turco regiment, and his conduct at the storm of the Mamelon won him the grade of general of brigade. In the campaign of 1859 he was with General MacMahon at Magenta at the head of a brigade of Guard Infantry, and again won promotion on the field of battle. Between this campaign and that of 1870 he was mainly employed in Algeria, and was not at first given a command in the ill-fated “Army of the Rhine.” But when the earlier battles revealed incapacity in the commander of the 5th corps, De Wimpffen was ordered to take it over, and was given a dormant commission appointing him to command the Army of Châlons in case of Marshal MacMahon’s disablement. He only arrived at the front in time to rally the fugitives of the 5th corps, beaten at Beaumont, and to march them to Sedan. In the disastrous battle of the 1st of September, MacMahon was soon wounded, and the senior officer, General Ducrot, assumed the command. Ducrot was beginning to withdraw the troops when Wimpffen produced his commission and countermanded the orders. In consequence it fell to him to negotiate the surrender of the whole French army. After his release from captivity, he lived in retirement at Algiers, and died at Paris in 1884. His later years were occupied with polemical discussions on the surrender of Sedan, the responsibility for which was laid upon him.
He wrote, amongst other works, Sedan (1871), La Situation de la France, et les reformes necessaires (1873) and La Nation armée (1875).
Winburg, a town in the Orange Free State, 90 m. N .E. by rail of Bloemfontein. Pop. (1904) 2762, of whom 1003 were whites. It is built by the banks of a tributary of the Vet affluent of the Vaal, and is a trading centre for a large grain and pastoral district. It is joined to the trunk railway from Port Elizabeth to the Transvaal by a branch line from Smaldeel, 28 m. N .W. The town was founded in 1837 by Commandant H. Potgieter, one of the voortrekers, and was named by him in commemoration of a victory gained over the Matabele chief Mosilikatze. It became the capital of a quasi-independent Boer state, which included considerable areas north of the Vaal. In 1848 the town and district were annexed to Great Britain and thereafter followed the fortunes of the Orange river sovereignty (see Orange Free State). In the Boer War of 1809–1902 Winburg was one of the Boer centres in the guerrilla fighting which followed the fall of Pretoria.
Winchcomb, a market town in the northern parliamentary division of Gloucestershire, England, 7 m. N.E. of Cheltenham. Pop. (1901) 2864. It is picturesquely situated among the Cotteswold Hills, in the narrow valley of the Isbourne stream. The Perpendicular church of St Peter, cruciform, with a central
