George James Williams, known familiarly as Gilly Williams (1719–1805) was an English official, known as a wit and letter writer.
Life
Born at
Denton, Lincolnshire, he was a younger son of
William Peere Williams and Anne, daughter of
Sir George Hutchins
Sir George Hutchins (died 1705) was an English lawyer and politician, a Member of Parliament and king's serjeant.
Life
He was the son and heir of Edmund Hutchins of Georgeham in Devon. On 19 May 1666 he entered Gray's Inn, and was called to the b ...
. Through the influence of
Lord North, who married in 1756 a daughter of Williams's sister, he obtained on 8 November 1774 the post of Receiver-General of Excise, which he held until 1801.
Williams made up, with
George Selwyn,
Richard Edgecumbe and
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician.
He had Strawb ...
, a group who met at stated periods in the year at
Strawberry Hill Strawberry Hill may refer to:
United Kingdom
*Strawberry Hill, London, England
**Strawberry Hill House, Horace Walpole's Gothic revival villa
**Strawberry Hill railway station
United States
*Strawberry Hill (San Francisco), California
*Strawberry ...
. He also met his friends for "wit and whist" in Selwyn's Thursday Club at the Star and Garter in
Pall Mall. He dropped out of his old circle, and little is heard of him after 1770. He died in Cleveland Court, St. James's, near the house where his friend Selwyn had lived, on 28 November 1805.
Family
Williams married, on 30 July 1752, Diana, daughter of
William Coventry, 5th Earl of Coventry, who appears to have died early without issue.
Notes
;Attribution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Gilly
1719 births
1805 deaths
English writers