The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-07 00:00:00

MILITIA

The City of Edinburgh Militia have volunteered
their services to recruit for the regular army, and
have received authority to enlist for 17 differout
regiments.
Notices have been issued calling upon the 4th
Royal Lancashire Militia to assemble for emb )di-
meat at the Militia Storehouses, Warrington, on
Tuesday, Sept. 22.

Tho Durham Artillery, under Lieut.-CA Sto-
bort, will assemble at Sunderland during. this
month for training; the regiment is said to be very
efficient.

TILE MAN THAT HAD EIGHTEEN

WIVES'.

(Front the, Retrospective Tour:sal)
A very notorious impostor, named Wm. Morrell,
lived in the reign of Charles 11. His birth and
parentage were obscure, and his first start in the
world was as a journeyman shoemaker at Worcester.
He afterwards went abroad, and when he returned
to England he took up his residence at Swalcliffe,
near Banbury, where he commenced business as a
professor of chirurgery, and where, from the won
derful tales which he told of his travels, ho was
looked upon by the country people as a proligy.
Having received some notice from Cap'cain Hum-
phrey Wickham, of Swalcliffe, he removed to Ban-
bury, wheie he resided many years, and main-
tained his wife and family respectably. About
the year 1674, however, his business, through
neglect, decreased, and his wants put him to
many shifts. At length, having secured the ser-
vices .of a young countryman as a servant and
accomplice, he quitted his home, and went first
to Brailes fair, where, by personating a brother of
Sir William alters, he cheated a countryman out
of a drove of cattle. He then met in the fair a
young village lass, a mason's daughter, who per-
mitted him to accompany her home, where her
father, struck with his assumed name and quality,
made the best provision for him. Morrell ten-
dered his hand to the maiden, and her parents,
not on)r gave consent to this union, brit borrowed
all the money they could for the occasion, and the
marriage was solemnised. Morrell now metamor-
phosedhimself into a dashing gentleman, and then
went to Ludlow, where he obtained the affections of
the daughter of a wealthy tradesman, and married
her. He then went to Bristol and Bath in the
character of a salesman, and, in the latter city, he
obtained for a fourth wife the daughter of an inn-•
keeper, who possessed considerable weath.
His next appearance was at Slough, where he as-
slimed the character of a merchant, and soon
formed an intimacy with a country gentleman, who
had a daughter to whom he was able to give 5001.
for a portion. Though in this case it is said he
had " to Cope with judgment in the faller of the
girl, wit and sense in the lady herself, an 1 some
ingenuity in her brother ; yet he overcame every
difficulty, and the marriage was accomplished."
Immediately after the ceremony the whole party set
off fur London, but Morrell contrived to raise the
the cry of " thieves" OA the road, and galloped off
with the property they had taken, in order, as he
pretended to secure it from depredation. IL was
sought for in vain by the bride and her father, who
returned to Slough, whilst he continued in London
for come time pursuing the same sort of praetices.
Morrell's third, or Ludlow, wife cane to London
in quiet of her deceiver, and accidentally met, at
her inn at Holborn bridge, a motherly woman, who
was just arrived from Oxfordsnire, and who turned
out to be the-first wife of this wretched impostor.
The two thereupon agreed together, and means
were adopted to capture Morrell, who they soon
found was about to marry another wife.

At this juncture the Banbury wife accidentally
met her as her husband, and after some high words
he succeeded in persuading her that h's conduct
was the result of his necessities ; and that now he
had got gold. he would be faithful to her. The
Banl-4wife-was thus . induced to disconcert the
sche hich had been prepared with the Ludlow
wife ; and sent for all her goods.up from Banbury
to London, where a house was furnished with
them. However, she had not lived in it three days
before an errand was contrived to take her from
home ; and on her return at night, she Lund
neither husband nor goOdi in the house, and was
compelled to return to Banbury and live upon the
alms of the parish.

Soon after this, Morrell took the name of 'a,
brother of Sir Charles Bowyer, and at Wes mar-
ried 4 boarding-school miss, who hid a po:tion of
1801., of which he soon deprived hpr. At Kidder-
minster he married an innkeeper's daugleer. Ho
then returned to Loudon, courted dridh Vintn.-r's
widow, by personating Sir Charles B myer himself,
and °Lot lined 2001. from her. After forgii.g a bill
for 7001, and ob'aining the amount, he went ablo:d
as a volunteer in the service of the Duke of Mon-
mouth. After a long compign in Flande's, he re-
turned t b London, and married a clergyman's
daughter with a portion- of'soo/., by again pro m-
ating Sir Charles B )wyer. His Ludlow wife now
discovered him and caused him to be placed in Wor-
cester gaol ; film which, at the-charge of the Lon-
don clergyman whose daughter he had mai ried, he
was removed to Newgate. Six of his wives ap-
peared against him on his trial—he pleaded guilty
to those six marriages, besides twelve more. After
sentence ho removed himself to the King's Bench,
where he behaved so winningly b his keepers that
he obtained some privileges which enabled him to
effect his escape.
About the year 1687 he made another attemps in
his oldline, and under the•nameofSir Chas. Bowyer
succeeded in marryng tho cooknaaid at the Castle
Tavern, Fetter-lane. For this he was tried and con-
victed as an imposter, and was set in the pillory be-
fore the door of the Castle Tavern. ,In the latter
end of Dec., 1691, being without money, he repre-
sented himself to one Cullen, a baker in the Strand,
as Captain Humphrey
.Wickham, of Swalcliffe,
whose name, it seems, was known to Mrs.
Cullen, and btained lodgings in their house, and a
supply equal to all his wants. Being taken ill
here, he, on the 28th of December, made a will, in
which, in the name of Humphrey Wickham, Esq.,
he bequeathed large property at Swalcliffe and
other neighbouring parishes, together with money
in the bands of Ambrose Holbech, mci., of
Mollington, and other sums to divers pretended
relations, friends, and servants ; but the family of
Cullen were especially remembered. Morrell died
on the the 3rd of January following.. Cullen pro-
vided a coffin of ten pounds value, embalmers were
paid, and a sumptuous funeral was prepared.
Cullen wrote to Mr. Wm, Wickham, Of Garsington,
in Oxfordshire, who had bean named in the will
as one of the executors, to whom the family man-
sion at Swalcliffe was bequeathed ; and in answer
to the letter a gentlianan came up to London from
Oxford, to s.y that the Christian name of Mr
Wickham, of Garaington,,was not William, which
gave come alarm of an imposture. Cullen also
despatched a messenger t i Swalcliffe ; for, in
the meantime, two gentleman had inspected
the corpse, and pronounced that it was not the
body of Captain Wickham, but that of the
man who had been formerly convicte 1 of having six
Wives. The messenger returned from Swalcliffe to
London on the 12th of January, having had an
interview widt the real Captain Wickham, . and,
upon this foil proof of the impostlre, the corpse
was taken by a watchman, with a lantern, in a four
shilling coffin, and was bur:ed in Sc. Clement's
churchyard.

MEnTHtI TYDVIL —The inhabitanti of this important
and thriving town aro about to apply to her Majaisty'a
Privy Council for a charter_of incorporation.