Definition of "welcomer"

At this Point of Time my Host, as I may call my sage Welcomer, directed a Kind of Procession, which tho’ not grand, nor very regular, appeared to be calculated as a high Compliment to me […]

1764, Sir Humphrey Lunatic (pseudonym of Francis Gentleman), A Trip to the Moon, London: S. Crowder, 2nd edition, 1765, Volume I, Chapter 2, p. 21

On their arrival the station was lively with straw-hatted young men, welcoming young girls who bore a remarkable family likeness to their welcomers, and who were dressed up in the brightest and lightest of raiment.

1895, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure‎, Part Six, Chapter 1

It transpired that my welcomers, without whose kindness I should now have been in tears, had made me an honorary member of the Sind Club, a palace of comfort, good food, and eternal drinks, set in a compound of flowering trees, where I found myself in possession of a suite of three rooms and the usual offices.

1933, Robert Byron, First Russia, Then Tibet‎, Part II, Chapter 2

...but I never thought that my first "welcomer" to the sea would be a pilot whale.

2006, William Pinkney, As Long as it Takes: Meeting the Challenge, page 83

Farewell, thou woful welcomer of glory!

c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]

Bloodroot in the leafless wood, Companion of gray Solitude, When the birds begin to sing, Thou, frail welcomer of Spring, Dost thy whitcray'd star unfold, With its seedheart of green'gold, And remindest us how Faith Blooms victorious over Death.

1915, Paul Shivell, Stillwater Pastorals: And Other Poems, page 25

The window - sign of human life, wink to the passerby, eye of the building allowing one to gaze at the outside world without being seen, welcomer of the daylight and the sun's ray highlighting surfaces and objects, source of fresh air and sometimes place of exchange of words and smells . . but also a break in the wall's structural continuity, and thus place of vulnerability, fragility, thermal sensitivity, leakage.

2013, Pierre von Meiss, Elements of Architecture: From Form to Place, page 3