William Killigrew Wait was born on 21st December 1826 at Cote.  His father was W.K Wait who was an Alderman and Sheriff of Bristol in 1837.  He was a grain merchant at the Granary, Welsh Back.   He was educated at Bristol College and first became a town councillor at the age of 41 in 1867 and was appointed Mayor in 1869.  He became an Alderman in 1886 but resigned in 1891.  President of the Dolphin Society in 1867; MP for Gloucester in 1873; re-elected in 1874 and defeated in 1880 and 1885.  He lived at St Vincent's Hall, Clifton Park and was a member of the Carlton Club (source: Bristol Biographes 1898).

He was a benefactor of the Children's Hospital and the north porch of Bristol Cathedral was built at his cost.  In 1873, the committee of the Children's Hospital appointed Dr Eliza Walker as house surgeon.  The remainder of the medical staff secured her resignation by resigning as a body.  In a letter to a public meeting Mr Wait declared this action had converted him to the principle of female suffrage. ('At the Port of Bristol Volume 1', W,G. Neale 1968)       

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