WESTMACOTT, SIR RICHARD, sculptor, born in London; studied at Rome under Canova; acquired great repute as an artist on his return to England, and succeeded Flaxman as professor of Sculpture in the Royal Academy; he executed statues of Pitt, Addison, and others, and a number of monuments in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s; his latest work was the sculptured pediment of the British Museum (1775-1856).

WESTMACOTT, RICHARD, sculptor and writer on art, born in London, son of preceding; was distinguished for the grace, simplicity, and purity of his style as an artist; succeeded his father as professor of Sculpture in the Royal Academy, and wrote a “Handbook of Sculpture” (1799-1872).

WESTMEATH (71), an inland county in Leinster, Ireland; is mostly level and gently undulating; the soil in many parts is good, but little cultivated; the only cereal crop raised is oats, but the herbage it yields supplies food for fattening cattle, which is a chief industry.

WESTMINSTER, a city of Middlesex, on the N. bank of the Thames, and comprising a great part of the West End of London; originally a village, it was raised to the rank of a city when it became the seat of a bishop in 1451, but it was as the seat of the abbey that it developed into a bishop’s see; the abbey, for which it is so famous, was erected as it now exists at the same period, during 1245-72, on the site of one founded by Edward the Confessor during 1045-65; in Westminster Parliaments were held as early as the 13th century, and it is as the seat of the legislative and legal authority of the country that it figures most in modern times, though the most interesting chapters in its history are connected with the abbey round which it sprang up.  See Dean Stanley’s “Memorials of Westminster.”

WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES, a convocation of divines assembled under authority of Parliament, at which delegates from England and Scotland adopted the SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT (q. v.), fixed the establishment of the Presbyterian form of Church government in the three kingdoms, drew up the “Confession of Faith,” the “Directory of Public Worship,” and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms; it held its first meeting on 1st July 1643, and did not break up till 22nd February 1649.

WESTMINSTER HALL, a structure attached to the Houses of Parliament at Westminster, built by King William Rufus, and roofed and remodelled by Richard II.; was the scene of the trials of Wallace, Sir Thomas More, Strafford, Charles I., Warren Hastings, and others, as well as the installation of Cromwell as Lord Protector, and till 1883 the seat of the High Courts of Justice; is a place of great historic interest; has a roof composed of 13 great timber beams, and one of the largest in the world to be unsupported.

WESTMORLAND (i. e. westmoorland) (60), a northern county of England, 32 m. from N. to S. and 40 m. from E. to W.; is in the Lake District, and mountainous, with tracts of fertile land and forest land, as well as rich pasture lands.