Hewitt, William, -1876

William Hewitt (Hewitt, William, -1876) was a nineteenth-century author whose biographical details are now difficult to establish; public information is limited, and only his year of death, 1876, is recorded. Two of his works are held in the collection, and their subjects differ considerably. The first, Observations on Coroners, examines and discusses the office of the coroner and belongs to practical writing on law and local governance. The second, An Essay on the Encroachments of the German Ocean Along the Norfolk Coast, addresses the erosion of the Norfolk coast by the North Sea and touches on coastal change and physical geography. One concerns institutions and the other the natural world, yet both take specific problems as their subject and proceed largely by description and argument, suggesting an author attentive to practical affairs. Given the scarcity of material, his life, nationality and education cannot be confirmed and are not speculated upon here.