6 - Griffith Williams: Apothecary and Friend to American Liberty

Summary

Audience of His Majesty, King George III, with the Reverend Dr. Francis Willis, 5 December 1788:

George III: Sir, Your Dress and appearance bespeaks You of the Clergy, do you belong to it?

Dr. Willis: I did formerly, but lately I have attended chiefly to physic [medicine].

George III: I am sorry for it; You have quitted a profession I have always loved, and You have embraced one I heartily detest!

Dr. Willis: Sir, our Savior himself healed the sick.

George III: Yes, yes, but he had not £700 a year for it!

The above discourse, which occurred during the initial interview of King George III with the Reverend Dr. Francis Willis, has become somewhat of a classic in the histories of Britain’s monarchy. Most recently, the noted playwright Alan Bennett cited this interchange in his prize-winning play, The Madness of King George. This dramatization portrayed the initial descent into severe and tragic mental decline by the monarch, and it also told of the unorthodox methods employed by Dr. Francis Willis, who endeavored to restore the King’s psychological stability. Much has been written concerning George III; considerably less has been recorded about Dr. Francis Willis (1718–1807), an Oxford graduate, Fellow of Brasenose College, ordained Episcopal priest and Rector of St. John the Baptist Church in Wapping. Simultaneously, there has been an absence of mention for one Griffith Williams (c. 1741–1792), an obscure yet significant communicant in Willis’s parish.

Griffith Williams, the last of the five “middling-level” Britons surveyed in this work, is clearly the least well known of this group. Historians and genealogists are not absolutely certain about his year of birth, nor the definite identity of both his parents, and the facts concerning his upbringing in Wales leave some matters to speculation. We do know a little more regarding his career in the Wapping district of London working as an apothecary-surgeon. Even there, however, an investigator must rely considerably on secondary sources describing an apothecary’s vocation during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, there are some exact observations that can be proffered concerning this rather uncelebrated individual. Socially, Williams would rank in, or below, the median level of Britain’s middle classes. He resided in one of London’s least desirable sections, and his family life – like that of so many of his contemporaries – included personal tragedies.