Benjamin Wiffen

Benjamin Barron Wiffen (1794–1867) was an English Quaker businessman, bibliophile and biographer of early Spanish Protestant reformers.

Early life The second son of John Wiffen, ironmonger, and his wife Elizabeth (née Pattison), he was born at Woburn, Bedfordshire; his elder brother was Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen. He followed his brother to Ackworth school in 1803; on leaving in 1808 he went into his father's business. His mother Elizabeth was left widowed with a young family. Wiffen remained in business at Woburn till 1838, when his health failed, and he retired to Mount Pleasant, Aspley Guise, near Woburn, with his mother and two unmarried sisters.

Anti-slavery and Spain Early in 1840 Luis de Usoz came to London from Madrid, and was introduced by George Borrow to Josiah Forster. When Wiffen came to the Friends' meeting in Whitweek, Forster told him that Usoz had inquired after his late brother as a translator of Spanish poetry. At Forster's request he called on Usoz in Jermyn Street, beginning a lifelong friendship. Wiffen attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in June as a delegate. In late 1840 or early 1841 Wiffen made his first visit to Spain with George William Alexander, as a deputation to forward the abolitionist cause there.

In 1842 Wiffen accompanied Alexander a second time to Spain and Portugal. Bergnes had first been visited in 1833 by William Allen and Stephen Grellet. Contact was renewed through Santiago Usoz, brother to Luis. Bergnes became a publisher for British abolitionist material in Spain. In 1843 Wiffen made another research trip with Alexander, to the Netherlands and Denmark in particular.

The Reformistas antiguos españoles series Wiffen knew Richard Thomas How of Aspley Guise, owner of a library collected by his father Richard How (1727–1801) who had edited Rachel Russell, Lady Russell's Letters. How hinted at an old work, by Juan de Valdés, which represented essentially the Quaker principles of George Fox. It was in the summer of 1841, during a visit of Usoz to Mount Pleasant, that they decided to publish works of the early Spanish reformers.

As his travels allowed, Wiffen began book-hunting. Besides buying rare works he copied others, or obtained transcripts. Betts was a friend of Wiffen and Usoz.

Death Wiffen died, unmarried, at Mount Pleasant on 18 March 1867, and was buried in the Friends' graveyard at Woburn Sands on 24 March. He always wore Quaker garb, and was strict in observances. His interest in Francisco de Enzinas led to contact with Abraham Kuyper who was studying John a Lasco; it is presumed to have happened through Frederik Muller.

In early life, and again later, Wiffen wrote verse. His Warder of the Pyrenees appeared in William Finden's Tableaux of National Character (1845), edited by his sister, Priscilla Maden Wiffen (Zillah), who had married Alaric Alexander Watts.

Warder of the Pyrenees was reprinted in the selection of his poems, mostly then unpublished, in The Brothers Wiffen (1880), edited by Samuel Rowles Pattison. Richard Thomas How is portrayed in Wiffen's poem The Quaker Squire. It formed part of an unpublished manuscript memorial, from 1840.

Wiffen's papers went to Wadham College, Oxford.