Edward Ellerker Williams
Edward Ellerker Williams (22 April 1793 - 8 July 1822) was a retired army officer who became friends with Percy Bysshe Shelley in the final months of his life and died with him.
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[edit] Early life
Edward Williams was born in India, the son of an East India Company's army officer, John Williams. His family sent him to England where he attended Eton College, and then, at the age of 14, he entered the Royal Navy. His father died at sea in 1809, and with a comfortable settlement from the will, Williams joined the Eighth Light Dragoons of the East India Company's army in India as a cornet in 1811.[1]
He served under his half-brother and was promoted to Lieutenant in 1813.[1] Williams's Sporting Sketches during a Short Stay in Hindustane contains drawings and journal descriptions of places and events during a leave of absence he took in 1814. The original copy of this notebook is in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. He remained with his regiment until 1817 and retired on half-pay on 28 May 1818.[1] During his time in India he met and served with Thomas Medwin, the cousin of Shelley.
Williams returned to England, taking with him the wife of another army officer, Jane Johnson, née Cleveland (1798–1884), who told him her husband mistreated her and that she was justified in leaving him.[1] Some time before September 1818 she began using the name Jane Williams, and hereafter they presented themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Williams.
[edit] Friendship with Medwin and Trelawny
In 1819 Medwin (left) returned to London and persuaded the Williamses to travel with him to Geneva, where they lived until September 1820.[1] In February Jane and Edward's first child, Edward Medwin (d.1897), was born.[1] Williams also wrote an article on big game hunting for a Swiss encyclopaedia, Bibliotèque universelle des sciences, belles-lettres, et des arts.
Medwin left, and the Williamses moved first to Chalon and then to Italy, where they met with Medwin again in January 1821 in Pisa.[1] Medwin introduced them to Shelley's circle, and Williams became a close companion of Shelley, writing a play under his tutelage, The Promise, or a Year, a Month and a Day, which he sent to Covent Garden, although it was rejected. The Williamses' second child, Jane Rosalind (d.1880), was born on 16 March.[1]
Williams met Lord Byron in November 1821 and Edward John Trelawny in January 1822.[1] Shelley became very affectionate towards Jane Williams, addressing many of his poems to her.[1]
[edit] Death
On 1 July 1822, Williams and Shelley, along with a friend, Daniel Roberts, and a young Cornish boatman, sailed Shelley's boat, Don Juan, to Leghorn to see Leigh Hunt. Shelley, Williams and the young Cornishman set sail back on 8 July, but the boat sank in a squall, and they were drowned. Their bodies washed ashore, and Williams was recognized by Trelawny by a boot and a scarf. They were buried until Trelawny obtained permission to cremate them, and Williams's body was burnt in Tuscany on 15 August.[1] Williams's ashes were carried back to England by Jane, where eventually, she became the partner of another friend of Shelley, Thomas Jefferson Hogg. On her death his ashes were buried with her in Kensal Green Cemetery.[1]
Williams kept a daily journal of his activities, which has since produced information on the lives of Shelley, Byron and Trelawny. A pencil sketch from Williams's journal in 1821 is the only good likeness of the poet.[1]
The close relationship between the Williamses and Shelleys has been recorded in Williams's Journal, Mary Shelley's Journal, Trelawny's Recollections, the Letters of the Shelleys and Byron, and also in many biographies about the members of Shelley's Pisan Circle.
[edit] Journal and Notebooks
"Must people render themselves ridiculous, not by appearing what they are, but by appearing what they are not?"
Williams produced at least four journals or notebooks in addition to Sporting Sketches during a Short Stay in Hindustane. The original copies can be viewed at three libraries:
Journal (21 October 1821 – 4 July 1822) recording his day-to-day activities during the eight month period before the fatal drowning accident on 8 July 1822 is part of the Special Manuscript Collection at the British Library, London (Add. 36622).
Notebook (circa. 1819 – 1822) containing many sketches, botanical specimens, fragments of poems, and one particular pencil portrait that might be of Shelley is now part of the Donald Prell Collection of Edward John Trelawny at the Honnold/Mudd Special Collections at the Libraries of the Claremont Colleges, Claremont, California. http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/joe
Notebook (28 May – 2 June 1819) recording his travels on the continent with his friends and family is a manuscript in the Pforzheimer Collection at the New York Public Library (call number S’ANA 0399)
Journal (18 April - 2 December 1807) Holograph manuscript Log of HMS Superb in the Pforzheimer Collection (call number S'ANA 0153)
[edit] Bibliography
Maria Gisborne & Edward E. Williams, Their Journals and Letters, Edited by Frederick L. Jones, (1951) Norman, University of Oklahoma Press
Journal of Edward Ellerker Williams, with an introduction by Richard Garnett, (1902) London, Elkin Mathews
Shelley and His Circle 1773-1822, Edited by Donald H. Reiman, Cambridge, Harvard University Press Vol. IV, p. 816-829
Carol L. Thoma, Williams, Edward Ellerker (1793–1822), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 3 Jan 2008
