Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wogan, William
WOGAN, WILLIAM (1678–1758), religious writer, born in 1678 at Gumfreston, Pembrokeshire, was a younger son of Ethelred Wogan, rector of Gumfreston and vicar of Penally. The father, who was instituted to the rectory of Gumfreston on 10 Aug. 1665 (Episcopal Acts at Diocesan Registry, Carmarthen), belonged to the Wogans of Lisburn in Ireland. On his death in 1685 the family was dispersed; the elder brother, also called Ethelred, going to Lisburn (where he died on 10 April 1712), while William was sent to an uncle (probably his mother's brother), Robert Williams of Cefn-gorwydd in the parish of Loughor, Glamorganshire (cf. Clark, Glamorgan Genealogies, p. 561). He was educated first under a quaker schoolmaster in this neighbourhood, and then at the newly established grammar school of Swansea. In 1694 he was admitted scholar of Westminster, and became captain of the school, proceeding thence in 1700 to Trinity College, Cambridge (Welch, Alumni Westmon. pp. 225, 237). While here he contributed some verses to the Cambridge poems on the death of the Duke of Gloucester. He left, without taking his degree, to become tutor in the family of Sir Robert Southwell [q. v.], and in 1710 became clerk to his son, who was then secretary to the Duke of Ormond, lord lieutenant of Ireland. This took him to Ireland, where he soon after entered the army, and was for years stationed at Dublin. On 7 Dec. 1718 he married Catherine Stanhope, a friend and protégée of Lady Elizabeth Hastings. By her (who died on 19 June 1726) he had an only daughter, who was married to Robert Baynes, rector of Stonham Aspal, Suffolk. From about 1727 on, Wogan lived at Ealing in Middlesex, but died at his daughter's house at Stonham Aspal on 24 Jan. 1758, and was buried at Ealing on 29 Jan.
Wogan was a man of distinguished piety, and was on intimate terms with many of the evangelical leaders of the time, a selection from his correspondence with Whitefield and Wesley being printed in his ‘Life.’ His MS. correspondence with Sir Robert Southwell was purchased by the British Museum at the sale of Sir Thomas Phillipps's MSS. (18 June 1908). In his retirement at Ealing he wrote a large number of religious works, including the following: 1. ‘A Penitential Office,’ London, 1721, 12mo. 2. ‘The Right Use of Lent, or Help to Penitents,’ London, 1732, 8vo. 3. ‘Character of the Times delineated,’ London, 1735, 8vo. 4. ‘Scripture Doctrine of Predestination, Election, and Reprobation;’ new ed. Carmarthen 1824; in Welsh 1808 and 1810 (Cat. Cardiff Welsh Library). 5. ‘Essay on the Proper Lessons of the Church of England.’ This, his most important work, was first published anonymously in 1753 in four volumes (London, 8vo), but to the second edition published after his death in 1764 his name was attached. It was also published in Dublin in 1768, and an edition described as the third was brought out in 1818 (London, 4 vols.), to which is prefixed a memoir of the author by James Gatliff. At least four other editions have been subsequently published (Lowndes, s.v.; Allibone, Dict. of Engl. Lit.) He also left several works in manuscript, one of which, entitled ‘Penitential Offices for the Season of Lent,’ compiled about 1748, is at present in the possession of the Rev. W. G. D. Fletcher of St. Michael's, Shrewsbury.
[The chief authority is Gatcliff's Life of William Wogan, Esq., mentioned above. See also Williams's Eminent Welshmen, p. 543.]