Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wyatt, William
WYATT, WILLIAM (1616–1685), scholar and friend of Jeremy Taylor, the son of William Wyat or Wyatt of ‘plebeian’ origin, was born at Todenham, near Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Gloucestershire, in 1616. He matriculated from St. John's College, Oxford, on 16 March 1637–8, but was prevented by the outbreak of the civil war from taking his degree in arts. His diligence as a scholar appears to have been noted by Jeremy Taylor while at Oxford in 1642, and at the close of 1644 he joined Taylor in Wales as an assistant teacher at his school, called Newton Hall (Collegium Newtoniense), in the parish of Llanfihangel-Aberbythych, Carmarthenshire. He seems to have spent a portion of his time, at any rate, with Taylor's family at Golden Grove, whence he dates the epistle dedicatory prefixed to ‘A New and Easie Institution of Grammar. In which the labour of many yeares usually spent in learning the Latine tongue is shortned and made easie. In usum Juventutis Cambro-Britannicæ. London, printed by J. Young for R. Royston … Ivie Lane,’ 1647, 12mo. Wyatt's epistle in Latin is addressed to Sir Christopher Hatton, and is followed by one by Taylor in English, addressed to Christopher Hatton, esquire, evidently one of the pupils. This curious little work, now exceedingly rare, was published in Taylor's name, but was mainly the work of Wyatt, with some aid from William Nicholson (1591–1672) [q. v.] and F. Gregory of Westminster school. Subsequently Wyatt, who was much sought after as a teacher, was tutor in a school at Evesham, and then assisted Dr. William Fuller (1608–1675) [q. v.] in a private school at Twickenham, Middlesex. By recommendation of the chancellor he was created B.D. at Oxford on 12 Sept. 1661, and when Fuller became bishop of Lincoln he made Wyatt his chaplain. He obtained a prebend in Lincoln Cathedral by Fuller's favour (installed on 13 May 1668, ‘vice William Gery, deceased’), and on 16 Oct. 1669 was admitted precentor of Lincoln. In 1681 he exchanged this preferment with John Inett for the living of Nuneaton in Warwickshire, and died there in the house of Sir Richard Newdigate on 9 Sept. 1685. A copy of Wyatt's grammar in Caius College, Cambridge, is described in some detail in Bonney's ‘Life of Jeremy Taylor’ (pp. 45 sq.).
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 254; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. ii. 86, 179; Chambers's Biogr. Illustr. of Worcestershire, p. 228; Willmott's Bishop Jeremy Taylor, p. 121; Bonney's Life of Jeremy Taylor, D.D., 1815, pp. 42–8.]