William James Joseph Drury
[2] John Allen Giles, who knew Drury later, commented "He belonged to a family of scholars, mostly connected with Harrow, all of them wits, but not economists and therefore poor like Sheridan.
[7] In February of that year, newspaper reports related the defalcation on debts of his father, and his son John, who had left Harrow unexpectedly.
[10] By 1828, as related in a letter from Scrope Berdmore Davies to Francis Hodgson, Drury had at least 70 pupils in a school in Brussels, then in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
[12] Alumni Oxonienses states that Drury held a post as British Chaplain in Brussels for the rest of his life.
[14] From about 1840, the situation was of three Anglican priests including Drury who held services on the boulevard de l'Observatoire (Église Évangélique); the other services were in the rue du Musée (Chapelle Royale, high church) and the rue Belliard in the Quartier Léopold (evangelical).
A Particular Baptist observer found Drury to be "attentive to his congregation" and "a contrast to the priesthood at home" but his sermon in "want of great and vital truths".
[15][16] Douglas Straight commented favourably in the 1860s on the atmosphere at Sunday matins created by Drury, after attending the service with Frank Newman.
[20] Kendall relies on memoirs of Charles Mackay (born 1814) to deduce that Jay's school, by 1821 in Brussels, was bought by Drury.
[30] While the brothers were in Brussels, for ten months and under the oversight of Adolphe Quetelet, tutoring by Drury was one of their influences, and letters from him were added to their autograph collection.
[13] Drury then officiated at the Église Chrétienne et Évangélique, on the boulevard de l'Observatoire; this church was shared, and services in French were held there also.
[40] (That entry flags an ambiguity over which Evan Jenkins was the Trinity College graduate, which is resolved by the Edinburgh Annual Register.
)[23] In August 1862 Drury accompanied the Duke of Brabant (the future Leopold II) on a visit to the United Kingdom, on the SS Diamant, starting from Ostend.
[42][43] A letter of 1864 from Charles Lever to John Blackwood related an alleged anecdote of Drury, the improvident husband and father, saying: "When I have dined heartily and well, and drunk my little bottle of light Bordeaux ... where Mrs Drury or the children are to get their supper tonight, or their breakfast tomorrow, I vow to God I don't know, and I don't care.
