VICE-ADMIRAL JOHN BENBOW, the son of a tanner, was born at Shrewsbury in 1653. In 1678 he entered the navy, and served in the Mediterranean, where he did good service against the Algerine corsairs. In 1686 he appears to have owned a ship in the Levant trade. In 1689 he re-entered the navy, and became master attendant at Chatham Dockyard and at Deptford. In 1690–92 he acted as Master of the Fleet; he was present at the engagements of Beachy Head, Barfleur and La Hogue. In 1693–94 he commanded a flotilla of bomb vessels against the French; and, though only a captain, received the pay of rear-admiral, which rank he acquired in 1695; and in 1697 he became Commander-in-Chief of the King’s ships in the West Indies, with especial orders to hunt down the pirates. The help which he rendered to the Scotch colony in Darien was not acceptable to the English government. In 1700 he returned to England, but in the following year he was back in the West Indies, and in 1702 he was stationed at Jamaica. From August 19 to the 24th of that year took place his engagement off Santa Martha with Du Casse, _chef d’éscadre_ in the French navy, and a former governor of San Domingo, which has been called “the most disgraceful event in our naval records.” Owing to the cowardice displayed by some of his captains, Benbow had to abandon pursuit. He court-martialled his captains, of whom two were shot, one cashiered and two suspended. Benbow died of his wounds at Port Royal on November 4, 1702. JOHN WOLMER, was a goldsmith, to whose benefaction the town of Kingston has for nearly two centuries been indebted for the excellent school bearing his name. Of his life little is known. On July 11, 1705, he married at Halfway Tree Mary Elizabeth Lumbard. From the name of one of the executors of his will (Samuel Kemer Main), as well as from his own, it is possible that he was of German or Swiss extraction. By his will, dated May 21, 1729, he devised, after some small legacies mentioned therein, the rest and residue of his estate for the foundation of a Free School in the parish in which he should happen to die. This amounted to about £2360. He died on June 29, 1729, at Kingston, where he had resided for upwards of twenty years. In 1820 Wolmer’s Pen, adjoining Camp, was purchased by the authorities in order to secure a better water-supply for Camp. Although a bill was brought into the House of Assembly to give effect to the will in June 1731, and the matter was again revived in 1734, it was not till 1736, and then after many amendments and conferences between the Assembly and the Council, that a law was passed and the Trust put upon a firm basis. The marble to his memory in the church was erected “as a monument of public gratitude,” sixty years after his death.