William Cole (antiquary)
Encyclopedia
William Cole was a Cambridgeshire
clergyman and antiquary.
Cole was born in Little Abington
, Cambridgeshire, the son of a well-to-do farmer. He was educated at Eton
, where he developed a lifelong friendship with Horace Walpole
, and Cambridge University
, first at Clare College
and then at King's College
.
Having inherited a substantial estate on his father's death, Cole was not obliged to earn a living and stayed for 18 years at King's College, collecting historical information on the county of Cambridgeshire. He visited nearly all the churches in the county, making sketches of them and taking notes of monumental inscriptions and coats of arms (as well as local gossip); he made extensive transcriptions of the registers of the Bishops of Ely
, court rolls, registers of wills, and other manuscripts relating to the county. He made a six-month voyage to Lisbon
, Portugal
, on his doctor's advice to recover his spirits following a disappointment, and also travelled to France
, Flanders
and Scotland
.
In 1753 Cole became rector of Bletchley and turned his attention to the history of Buckinghamshire
, but 13 years later he returned to Cambridgeshire and became curate of Waterbeach
. In 1770 he left the church and moved to Milton
, where he was to stay for the rest of his life. He rented a small farm from King's College and continued his work on the history of the Cambridgeshire. Cole never married, but lived with his manservant Tom Wood, a maidservant, and a number of animals including 2 horses and a pony, a dog, a cat, and a parrot. He enjoyed entertaining and lived well. During his later years he suffered from gout.
Cole died in 1782, aged 68. He left money for a new tower to be built at St Clement's church, Cambridge, where he was buried. He had published little, and left his manuscript volumes - over 100 of them - to the British Museum
, where they have proved invaluable to people writing about the history of Cambridgeshire. Cole had kept a diary between 1765 and 1770, and in 1931 two volumes - one relating to a trip to France, and one to his time at Bletchley - were published. A nineteenth-century biographer described Cole as "one of the most learned men of the eighteenth century in his particular line, and the most industrious antiquary that Cambridgeshire has ever had, or is likely to have", while the verdict of a contemporary, Professor Michael Lort, was "..with all his oddities, he was a worthy and valuable man".
Thompson Cooper
wrote an entry for William Cole in the 1887 Dictionary of National Biography
, the text of which follows.
, and widow of Charles Apthorp. The son was born at Little Abington, a village near Baberham, on 3 August 1714, and received his early education in private schools at Cambridge, Linton
, and Saffron Walden
. From Saffron Walden he was removed to Eton
, where he remained for five years on the foundation. His principal friend and companion there was Horace Walpole, who used even at that early period to make jocular remarks on his inclination to Roman Catholicism. While yet a boy he was in the habit of copying monumental inscriptions, and drawing coats of arms in trick
from the windows of churches. On leaving Eton he was admitted a pensioner of Clare College, Cambridge
, 24 January 1733, and in April 1734 he obtained one of the Freeman scholarships in that college; but in 1735, on the death of his father, from whom he inherited a handsome estate, he entered himself as a fellow-commoner of Clare Hall, and the next year migrated to King's College
, where he had a younger brother, then a fellow.Addit. MS. 5808, f. 58 In April 1736 he travelled for a short time in French Flanders with his half-brother, Dr. Stephen Apthorp, and in October of the same year he took the degree of B.A. In 1737, in consequence of bad health, he went to Lisbon for six months, returning to college in May 1738.
, lord-lieutenant of the county, appointed him one of his deputy-lieutenants, and in the same year he commenced M.A. In 1743, his health being again impaired, he took another trip through Flanders, described in his manuscript collections. During his travels on the continent he formed lasting friendships with Alban Butler
and other catholic ecclesiastics. On Christmas Day 1744 he was ordained deacon, and for some time officiated as curate to Dr. Abraham Oakes, rector of Withersfield
, Suffolk. In 1745, after being admitted to priest's orders, he was appointed chaplain to Thomas Hay, 7th Earl of Kinnoull, in which office he was continued by the succeeding earl, George.ib. 5808, f. 73b He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London
in 1747. In 1749 he was residing at Haddenham
in the Isle of Ely
, and on 25 Aug. in that year he was admitted to the freedom of the city of Glasgow
.ib. 6402, f. 132 In the same year he was collated to the rectory of Hornsey
, Middlesex, by Bishop Thomas Sherlock
. "Sherlock," says Cole, "gave me the rectory of Hornsey, yet his manner was such that I soon resigned it again to him. I had not been educated in episcopal trammels, and liked a more liberal behaviour; yet he was a great man, and I believe an honest man." The fact, however, was that Cole was inducted on 25 Nov.; but as he found that the parsonage-house required rebuilding, and understood that the bishop insisted upon his residing, he sent in his resignation within a month. This the bishop refused to accept, because Cole had rendered himself liable for dilapidations and other expenses by being instituted to the benefice. Cole continued, therefore, to hold the rectory till 9 January 1751, when he resigned it in favour of Mr. Territ. During this time he never resided, but employed a curate, the Rev. Matthew Mapletoft. In 1753 he quit the university on being presented by his early friend and patron, Browne Willis
, to the rectory of Bletchley, Buckinghamshire.
In 1765 he made a lengthened tour in France with Horace Walpole. Cole's intention was to find out some quiet and cheap spot in Normandy or elsewhere to which he might eventually retire. It has been conjectured, with great appearance of probability, that this scheme of settling permanently in France originated in a wish to openly join the Roman church, for in his manuscripts he takes little or no pains to conceal his partiality for the catholic religion and his contempt for the English and German reformers. But he was dissuaded from carrying out his design of self-banishment chiefly by the earnest representations of Walpole, who pointed out to him that under the droit d'aubaine the king of France would become the possessor of all Cole's cherished manuscripts, which even at this period consisted of no fewer than forty folio volumes. "They are," he wrote to Walpole (17 March 1765), "my only delight—they are my wife and children—they have been, in short, my whole employ and amusement for these twenty or thirty years; and though I really and sincerely think the greatest part of them stuff and trash, and deserve no other treatment than the fire, yet the collections which I have made towards an History of Cambridgeshire, the chief points in view of them, with an oblique or transient view of an Athenæ Cantabrigienses, will be of singular use to any one who will have more patience and perseverance than I am master of to put the materials together. These therefore I should be much concerned should fall into the hands of the French king's officers." Moreover in the course of his travels he was shocked at the prevailing spirit of irreligionEllis, Original Letters, 2nd series, iv. 483Walpole, Letters, ed. Cunningham, iv. 329 He therefore determined not to make France his home. There is a journal of his tour in vol. xxxiv. of his collections.
He left Bletchley in November 1767, and on Lady day in the following year he very honourably resigned the rectory in favour of Browne Willis's grandson, the Rev. Thomas Willis, merely because he knew it was his patron's intention so to bestow the living if he had lived to effect an exchange. Cole now went into a hired house at Waterbeach
, five miles from Cambridge. This house, little better than a cottage, was very uncomfortable.Addit. MS. 5824, f. 36b To make matters worse, he discovered that he had got into a parish which abounded with fanatics of almost all denominations. Writing about this period to his friend Father Charles Bonaventure Bedingfeld, a Minorite friar, he says: "My finances are miserably reduced by quitting the living of Bletchley, and by half my own estate being under water by the breaking of the Bedford river bank at Over
after the great snow in February was twelvemonth;" and he proceeds to remark: "Yet I am not disposed to engage myself in any ecclesiastical matters again, except greater should be offered than I am in expectation of. I have already refused two livings, one in Glamorganshire, the other in Oxfordshire
; for I have no inclination to the duty and do not love to be confined." He still had a hankering after a semi-monastic life, for he wrote to Bedingfeld on 20 April 1768: "Could I have my books and conveniences about me, I should nowhere like better than to finish my days among my countrymen in a conventual manner," though not, he takes care to explain, as a monk or friar, because he had no religious vocation.ib. 5824, f. 41b A second overflow of the Hundred Foot river at Over still further diminished the value of his estate, and on 18 February 1769 he wrote to the Rev. John Allen: "I hardly ever now really enjoy myself for three days together, as the continued wet weather alarms me constantly; so that I am come to a resolution to sell my estate and purchase elsewhere, or buy an annuity."ib. f. 51 b At Michaelmas 1769 he had his first attack of gout, which complaint afterwards caused him severe and frequent suffering. About May 1770 he removed from Waterbeach to a small house at Milton
,near Cambridge. Here he spent the remainder of his days, and was familiarly distinguished as "Cole of Milton," though he was sometimes spoken of jocularly as "Cardinal Cole." In May 1771, by Lord Montfort's favour, he was put into the commission of the peace for the borough of Cambridge. In the following year Bishop Keene, without any solicitation, sent him an offer of the vicarage of Madingley
, but he civilly declined it. He was, however, on 10 June 1774 instituted by Dr. John Green
, bishop of Lincoln, on the presentation of Eton College, to the vicarage of Burnham, Buckinghamshire
, vacant by the cession of his uterine brother, Stephen Apthorp, D.D. He still continued to reside at Milton, where he died on 16 December 1782, his constitution having been shattered by repeated attacks of gout. He lies buried in St. Clement's Church, Cambridge, under the steeple, which bears on its front his motto, Deum Cole. On the right hand of the entrance to the church is a monument, with an inscription stating that the steeple was erected with money left by him for the purpose,
A half-sheet print of Cole, from a drawing by Thomas Kerrich
, was engraved by Facius. A portrait of him was also published in Malcolm's collection of Letters to Mr. Granger, 1805, and is reproduced in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes.
, Dr. Michael Lort
, George Steevens
, Dr. Richard Farmer
, Dr. William Bennet
, John Nichols
, Richard Gough
, and Alban Butler
. Although he published no separate work of his own, he rendered substantial assistance to many authors by supplying them either with entire dissertations or with minute communications or corrections. He wrote the account of the School of Pythagoras
at Cambridge in Francis Grose
's Antiquities; and he was a major contributor to James Bentham
's History of Ely, 1771, writing the lives of the bishops and deans, and the description of the Ely tablet.Athenæ Cantab. B. pt. i. f. 113Davis, Olio of Biographical Anecdotesthe Gentleman's Magazine
lxxxiv. pt. ii. pp. 307, 413 He also contributed largely to Masters's History of Corpus Christi College. Having a large collection of engraved portraits, he was able to assist James Granger
in preparing his Biographical History of England. To Andrew Ducarel
he sent a complete list of the chancellors of Ely, and afterwards several hints respecting his Tour in Normandy. To Gough's Anecdotes of British Topography he contributed in 1772 some remarks; as he afterwards did respecting the Sepulchral Monuments; and when the Memoirs of the Gentlemen's Society at Spalding were printed in 1780, he supplied anecdotes of the early members. He was a frequent writer in the Gentleman's Magazine
, and he gave John Nichols biographical hints and corrections for A Select Collection of Miscellaneous Poems, Anecdotes of Hogarth and History of Hinckley. He transcribed Browne Willis's History of the Hundreds of Newport and Cotslow in Buckinghamshire, and organized them in ten folio volumes from the originals in four volumes, which Willis had delivered to him a few weeks before his death. Cole's transcript is in the British Museum, and Willis's original copy is preserved, with his collections for the whole county, in the Bodleian Library
, OxfordNichols, Lit. Anecdotes, i. 667 n. His notes on Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses are printed in Bliss's edition of that work. Finally he collected all the materials for Horace Walpole's Life of Thomas Baker
, the Cambridge antiquary. Cole's chief literary monument, however, is the magnificent collection of manuscripts, extending to nearly a hundred folio volumes, in his own handwriting, which are deposited in the British Museum
. He began to form this vast collection while at college, beginning with fifteen volumes, which he kept in a lock-up case in the university library, where he examined every book likely to yield information suitable to his purpose, besides transcribing many manuscript lists and records. The principal interval from this labour was during his residence at Bletchley (1752–67), but even there, with the aid of his own books and those he could borrow from his neighbours, he proceeded with his great undertaking, and on his frequent journeys he added to his topographical collections, illustrating them with neat copies of armorial bearings and rough but faithful drawings of churches and other buildings. At Waterbeach and Milton, where he was within an easy distance of Cambridge, he resumed his labour of love with renewed ardour, and in addition to dry historical matters, he carefully transcribed all his literary correspondence, and minutely chronicled all the anecdotes he heard respecting his contemporaries at the university. Some idea of his industry as a transcriber may be gathered from this passage in a letter to Walpole (12 September 1777): "You will be astonished at the rapidity of my pen when you observe that this folio of four hundred pages [Baker's History of St. John's], with above a hundred coats of arms and other silly ornaments, was completed in six weeks; for I was called off for above a week to another manuscript, which I expected would be demanded of me every day; besides some days of visiting and being visited." Again he remarks in a letter to Allen: "I am wearing my eyes, fingers, and self out in writing for posterity, of whose gratitude I can have no adequate idea, while I neglect my friends, who I know would be glad to hear from me." As he freely jotted down his inmost thoughts as to the merits or demerits of his acquaintances, he took care that no one, with the exception of two or three intimate friends, should see his manuscripts, either during his lifetime or within twenty years after his death. On the occasion of his sending the History of King's College to Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill
, he wrote (2 March 1777) with reference to his manuscripts: "No person except Dr. Lyne and Mr. John Allen of Trinity College ever looked into them. Indeed, you are the only person that I should think a moment about determining to let them go out of my hands: and, in good truth, they are generally of such a nature as makes them not fit to be seen, for through life I have never artfully disguised my opinions, and as my books were my trusty friends, who have engaged never to speak till twenty years after my departure, I always, without guile, entrusted them with my most secret thoughts, both of men and things; so that there is what the world will call an ample collection of scandalous rubbish heaped together." As an example of his strong prejudices, and his occasionally violent style of expressing them, the subjoined characteristic passage, which he added to his History of King's College only a few months before his death, may be cited: "Here I left off this work in 1752, and never began it again, quitting college that year for the rectory of Blecheley in Buckinghamshire, at the presentation of Browne Willis, esq., and so lost fifteen years of the best part of my life for disquisitions of this sort, and never having a relish to recommence this work when I retired into my native county again in 1767, when I made of an old dilapidated cottage at Milton near Cambridge, a decent gentleman's house, laying out upon the premises at least ₤600, the annual rent being only £17 per annum, hired of the college, and no lease till my time; yet after six years' occupancy Cooke, the snotty-nosed head of it, soon after his election, had the rascality, with Paddon, a dirty wretch, and bursar suitable to him, to alter my lease, and put new terms in it. But from such a scoundrel, and I am warranted to call him no other, and would call him so to his face the first time I see him, with the addition of a liar and mischief-maker through life, no other than dirty treatment can be expected. I write this 9 June 1782."Addit. MS. 5817, f. 194
As late as 1778 Cole was perplexed as to the disposal of his manuscripts. "To give them to King's College," he wrote, "would be to throw them into a horsepond," the members of that society being "generally so conceited of their Latin and Greek that all other studies are barbarous." At one time he thought of Eton College and of Emmanuel College
, Cambridge, but eventually he resolved to bequeath his collections to the British Museum on condition that they should not be opened until twenty years after his death. Accordingly they did not become accessible to the public until 1803. Vol. xvii. never reached the Museum; it is conjectured to have contained a History of Queens' College. The multifarious contents of Cole's collections are described in great detail in the Index to the Additional MSS., with those of the Egerton Collection, acquired in the years 1783-1835, London, 1849, folio. There are also three thick volumes of Cole's own indexes in the reading-room of the Museum.Addit. MSS. 5799, 5800, 5801 The most important sections of the manuscripts are:
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...
clergyman and antiquary.
Cole was born in Little Abington
Abington, Cambridgeshire
The Abingtons are a community in South Cambridgeshire consisting of two villages: Little Abington and Great Abington, south east of Cambridge.-History:...
, Cambridgeshire, the son of a well-to-do farmer. He was educated at Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
, where he developed a lifelong friendship with Horace Walpole
Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford was an English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician. He is now largely remembered for Strawberry Hill, the home he built in Twickenham, south-west London where he revived the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors,...
, and Cambridge University
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, first at Clare College
Clare College, Cambridge
Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1326, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. Clare is famous for its chapel choir and for its gardens on "the Backs"...
and then at King's College
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
.
Having inherited a substantial estate on his father's death, Cole was not obliged to earn a living and stayed for 18 years at King's College, collecting historical information on the county of Cambridgeshire. He visited nearly all the churches in the county, making sketches of them and taking notes of monumental inscriptions and coats of arms (as well as local gossip); he made extensive transcriptions of the registers of the Bishops of Ely
Bishop of Ely
The Bishop of Ely is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Ely in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese roughly covers the county of Cambridgeshire , together with a section of north-west Norfolk and has its see in the City of Ely, Cambridgeshire, where the seat is located at the...
, court rolls, registers of wills, and other manuscripts relating to the county. He made a six-month voyage to Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, on his doctor's advice to recover his spirits following a disappointment, and also travelled to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
.
In 1753 Cole became rector of Bletchley and turned his attention to the history of Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
, but 13 years later he returned to Cambridgeshire and became curate of Waterbeach
Waterbeach
Waterbeach is a large fen-edge village located 6 miles north of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire in England, and belongs to the administrative district of South Cambridgeshire. The parish covers an area of 23.26 km².- Village :...
. In 1770 he left the church and moved to Milton
Milton, Cambridgeshire
Milton is a village just north of Cambridge, England. It has a population of approximately 4,300 with 3,200 being on the electoral register. It expanded considerably in the late 1980s when two large housing estates were built between the bypass and the village resulting in a doubling of the...
, where he was to stay for the rest of his life. He rented a small farm from King's College and continued his work on the history of the Cambridgeshire. Cole never married, but lived with his manservant Tom Wood, a maidservant, and a number of animals including 2 horses and a pony, a dog, a cat, and a parrot. He enjoyed entertaining and lived well. During his later years he suffered from gout.
Cole died in 1782, aged 68. He left money for a new tower to be built at St Clement's church, Cambridge, where he was buried. He had published little, and left his manuscript volumes - over 100 of them - to the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, where they have proved invaluable to people writing about the history of Cambridgeshire. Cole had kept a diary between 1765 and 1770, and in 1931 two volumes - one relating to a trip to France, and one to his time at Bletchley - were published. A nineteenth-century biographer described Cole as "one of the most learned men of the eighteenth century in his particular line, and the most industrious antiquary that Cambridgeshire has ever had, or is likely to have", while the verdict of a contemporary, Professor Michael Lort, was "..with all his oddities, he was a worthy and valuable man".
Thompson Cooper
Thompson Cooper
Thompson Cooper was an English journalist, man of letters, and compiler of reference works. He became a specialist in biographical information, and is noted as the most prolific contributor to the Victorian era Dictionary of National Biography, for which he wrote 1423 entries.-Life:Thompson Cooper...
wrote an entry for William Cole in the 1887 Dictionary of National Biography
Dictionary of National Biography
The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...
, the text of which follows.
Early life and education
Cole was descended from a family of respectable yeomen, who lived for several generations in that part of Cambridgeshire which borders on Essex. The antiquary's father, William Cole of Baberham, Cambridgeshire, married four times, his third wife, the mother of the antiquary, being Elizabeth, daughter of Theophilus Tuer, merchant, of CambridgeCambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, and widow of Charles Apthorp. The son was born at Little Abington, a village near Baberham, on 3 August 1714, and received his early education in private schools at Cambridge, Linton
Linton, Cambridgeshire
Linton is a village in rural Cambridgeshire, England, on the border with Essex. It has been expanded much since the 1960s and is now one of many dormitory villages around Cambridge. The railway station was on the Stour Valley Railway between Cambridge and Colchester, now closed. The Rivey Hill...
, and Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden is a medium-sized market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. It is located north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and approx north of London...
. From Saffron Walden he was removed to Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
, where he remained for five years on the foundation. His principal friend and companion there was Horace Walpole, who used even at that early period to make jocular remarks on his inclination to Roman Catholicism. While yet a boy he was in the habit of copying monumental inscriptions, and drawing coats of arms in trick
Tricking (heraldry)
The system of heraldry has two main methods to designate the tinctures of arms: hatching and tricking, i. e. designation of tinctures by means of abbreviations or signs.- Origin :...
from the windows of churches. On leaving Eton he was admitted a pensioner of Clare College, Cambridge
Clare College, Cambridge
Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1326, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. Clare is famous for its chapel choir and for its gardens on "the Backs"...
, 24 January 1733, and in April 1734 he obtained one of the Freeman scholarships in that college; but in 1735, on the death of his father, from whom he inherited a handsome estate, he entered himself as a fellow-commoner of Clare Hall, and the next year migrated to King's College
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
, where he had a younger brother, then a fellow.Addit. MS. 5808, f. 58 In April 1736 he travelled for a short time in French Flanders with his half-brother, Dr. Stephen Apthorp, and in October of the same year he took the degree of B.A. In 1737, in consequence of bad health, he went to Lisbon for six months, returning to college in May 1738.
Clergyman and Dairist
In 1739, Cole was put into the commission of the peace for Cambridgeshire, in which capacity he acted for many years. In 1740 his friend Henry Bromley, 1st Baron MontfortHenry Bromley, 1st Baron Montfort
Henry Bromley, 1st Baron Montfort , was a British landowner and politician.Bromley was the only son of John Bromley and the grandson of John Bromley, both Knights of the Shire for Cambridgeshire. His mother Marcy died in childbed. He was educated at Clare College, Cambridge...
, lord-lieutenant of the county, appointed him one of his deputy-lieutenants, and in the same year he commenced M.A. In 1743, his health being again impaired, he took another trip through Flanders, described in his manuscript collections. During his travels on the continent he formed lasting friendships with Alban Butler
Alban Butler
Alban Butler , English Roman Catholic priest and hagiographer, was born at Appletree, Northamptonshire.He was educated at the English College, Douai, where on his ordination to the priesthood in 1735 he held successively the chairs of philosophy and divinity...
and other catholic ecclesiastics. On Christmas Day 1744 he was ordained deacon, and for some time officiated as curate to Dr. Abraham Oakes, rector of Withersfield
Withersfield
Withersfield is a village and civil parish in the St Edmundsbury district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located around a mile north of Haverhill, in 2005 its population was 430....
, Suffolk. In 1745, after being admitted to priest's orders, he was appointed chaplain to Thomas Hay, 7th Earl of Kinnoull, in which office he was continued by the succeeding earl, George.ib. 5808, f. 73b He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London
Society of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...
in 1747. In 1749 he was residing at Haddenham
Haddenham, Cambridgeshire
Haddenham is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. In the 2001 census the parish had a population of 3,228.It has several shops and a regular bus service to the cathedral city of Ely, which is about north-east of the village....
in the Isle of Ely
Isle of Ely
The Isle of Ely is a historic region around the city of Ely now in Cambridgeshire, England but previously a county in its own right.-Etymology:...
, and on 25 Aug. in that year he was admitted to the freedom of the city of Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
.ib. 6402, f. 132 In the same year he was collated to the rectory of Hornsey
Hornsey
Hornsey is a district in London Borough of Haringey in north London in England. Whilst Hornsey was formerly the name of a parish and later a municipal borough of Middlesex, today, the name refers only to the London district. It is an inner-suburban area located north of Charing Cross.-Locale:The ...
, Middlesex, by Bishop Thomas Sherlock
Thomas Sherlock
Thomas Sherlock was a British divine who served as a Church of England bishop for 33 years. He is also noted in church history as an important contributor to Christian apologetics.-Life:...
. "Sherlock," says Cole, "gave me the rectory of Hornsey, yet his manner was such that I soon resigned it again to him. I had not been educated in episcopal trammels, and liked a more liberal behaviour; yet he was a great man, and I believe an honest man." The fact, however, was that Cole was inducted on 25 Nov.; but as he found that the parsonage-house required rebuilding, and understood that the bishop insisted upon his residing, he sent in his resignation within a month. This the bishop refused to accept, because Cole had rendered himself liable for dilapidations and other expenses by being instituted to the benefice. Cole continued, therefore, to hold the rectory till 9 January 1751, when he resigned it in favour of Mr. Territ. During this time he never resided, but employed a curate, the Rev. Matthew Mapletoft. In 1753 he quit the university on being presented by his early friend and patron, Browne Willis
Browne Willis
Browne Willis was an antiquary, author, numismatist and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1705 to 1708.-Early life:...
, to the rectory of Bletchley, Buckinghamshire.
In 1765 he made a lengthened tour in France with Horace Walpole. Cole's intention was to find out some quiet and cheap spot in Normandy or elsewhere to which he might eventually retire. It has been conjectured, with great appearance of probability, that this scheme of settling permanently in France originated in a wish to openly join the Roman church, for in his manuscripts he takes little or no pains to conceal his partiality for the catholic religion and his contempt for the English and German reformers. But he was dissuaded from carrying out his design of self-banishment chiefly by the earnest representations of Walpole, who pointed out to him that under the droit d'aubaine the king of France would become the possessor of all Cole's cherished manuscripts, which even at this period consisted of no fewer than forty folio volumes. "They are," he wrote to Walpole (17 March 1765), "my only delight—they are my wife and children—they have been, in short, my whole employ and amusement for these twenty or thirty years; and though I really and sincerely think the greatest part of them stuff and trash, and deserve no other treatment than the fire, yet the collections which I have made towards an History of Cambridgeshire, the chief points in view of them, with an oblique or transient view of an Athenæ Cantabrigienses, will be of singular use to any one who will have more patience and perseverance than I am master of to put the materials together. These therefore I should be much concerned should fall into the hands of the French king's officers." Moreover in the course of his travels he was shocked at the prevailing spirit of irreligionEllis, Original Letters, 2nd series, iv. 483Walpole, Letters, ed. Cunningham, iv. 329 He therefore determined not to make France his home. There is a journal of his tour in vol. xxxiv. of his collections.
He left Bletchley in November 1767, and on Lady day in the following year he very honourably resigned the rectory in favour of Browne Willis's grandson, the Rev. Thomas Willis, merely because he knew it was his patron's intention so to bestow the living if he had lived to effect an exchange. Cole now went into a hired house at Waterbeach
Waterbeach
Waterbeach is a large fen-edge village located 6 miles north of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire in England, and belongs to the administrative district of South Cambridgeshire. The parish covers an area of 23.26 km².- Village :...
, five miles from Cambridge. This house, little better than a cottage, was very uncomfortable.Addit. MS. 5824, f. 36b To make matters worse, he discovered that he had got into a parish which abounded with fanatics of almost all denominations. Writing about this period to his friend Father Charles Bonaventure Bedingfeld, a Minorite friar, he says: "My finances are miserably reduced by quitting the living of Bletchley, and by half my own estate being under water by the breaking of the Bedford river bank at Over
Over, Cambridgeshire
Over is a large village near the River Great Ouse in the English county of Cambridgeshire, just east of the Prime Meridian.The parish covers an area of approximately...
after the great snow in February was twelvemonth;" and he proceeds to remark: "Yet I am not disposed to engage myself in any ecclesiastical matters again, except greater should be offered than I am in expectation of. I have already refused two livings, one in Glamorganshire, the other in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
; for I have no inclination to the duty and do not love to be confined." He still had a hankering after a semi-monastic life, for he wrote to Bedingfeld on 20 April 1768: "Could I have my books and conveniences about me, I should nowhere like better than to finish my days among my countrymen in a conventual manner," though not, he takes care to explain, as a monk or friar, because he had no religious vocation.ib. 5824, f. 41b A second overflow of the Hundred Foot river at Over still further diminished the value of his estate, and on 18 February 1769 he wrote to the Rev. John Allen: "I hardly ever now really enjoy myself for three days together, as the continued wet weather alarms me constantly; so that I am come to a resolution to sell my estate and purchase elsewhere, or buy an annuity."ib. f. 51 b At Michaelmas 1769 he had his first attack of gout, which complaint afterwards caused him severe and frequent suffering. About May 1770 he removed from Waterbeach to a small house at Milton
Milton, Cambridgeshire
Milton is a village just north of Cambridge, England. It has a population of approximately 4,300 with 3,200 being on the electoral register. It expanded considerably in the late 1980s when two large housing estates were built between the bypass and the village resulting in a doubling of the...
,near Cambridge. Here he spent the remainder of his days, and was familiarly distinguished as "Cole of Milton," though he was sometimes spoken of jocularly as "Cardinal Cole." In May 1771, by Lord Montfort's favour, he was put into the commission of the peace for the borough of Cambridge. In the following year Bishop Keene, without any solicitation, sent him an offer of the vicarage of Madingley
Madingley
Madingley is a village near Coton and Dry Drayton on the western outskirts of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.Known as Madingelei in the Domesday Book, the village's name means "Woodland clearing of the family or followers of a man called Mada"....
, but he civilly declined it. He was, however, on 10 June 1774 instituted by Dr. John Green
John Green (bishop)
John Green was a British clergyman and academic.Green was born at Beverley in Yorkshire in 1706.Having been schooled in his home town, he was admitted to St John’s College, Cambridge in 1724. Green graduated B.A. in 1728 and was awarded a fellowship in 1730.Green joined the priesthood in 1731 and...
, bishop of Lincoln, on the presentation of Eton College, to the vicarage of Burnham, Buckinghamshire
Burnham, Buckinghamshire
Burnham is a village and civil parish that lies north of the River Thames in the South Bucks District of Buckinghamshire, and sits on the border with Berkshire, between the towns of Maidenhead and Slough. It is served by Burnham railway station in the west of Slough on the main line between London...
, vacant by the cession of his uterine brother, Stephen Apthorp, D.D. He still continued to reside at Milton, where he died on 16 December 1782, his constitution having been shattered by repeated attacks of gout. He lies buried in St. Clement's Church, Cambridge, under the steeple, which bears on its front his motto, Deum Cole. On the right hand of the entrance to the church is a monument, with an inscription stating that the steeple was erected with money left by him for the purpose,
A half-sheet print of Cole, from a drawing by Thomas Kerrich
Thomas Kerrich
Thomas Kerrich was a clergyman, principal Cambridge University librarian , antiquary, draughtsman and gifted amateur artist. He created one of the first catalogue raisonnés ....
, was engraved by Facius. A portrait of him was also published in Malcolm's collection of Letters to Mr. Granger, 1805, and is reproduced in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes.
Accomplishments
He numbered among his friends and correspondents some of the most learned men of his time, including Horace Walpole, who called him his "oracle in any antique difficulties," Thomas GrayThomas Gray
Thomas Gray was a poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University.-Early life and education:...
, Dr. Michael Lort
Michael Lort
-Life:The descendant of a Pembrokeshire family living at Prickeston, he was eldest son of Roger Lort, major of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, who married Anne, only child of Edward Jenkins, vicar of Fareham, Hampshire...
, George Steevens
George Steevens
George Steevens was an English Shakespearean commentator.He was born at Poplar, the son of a captain and later director of the East India Company. He was educated at Eton College and at King's College, Cambridge, where he remained from 1753 to 1756...
, Dr. Richard Farmer
Richard Farmer
Dr Richard Farmer was a Shakespearean scholar and Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He is known for his Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare , in which he maintained that Shakespeare's knowledge of the classics was through translations, the errors of which he reproduced.-Life:He was born at...
, Dr. William Bennet
William Bennet (bishop)
William Bennet was Bishop of Cloyne, Ireland, and an antiquary. He was born in the Tower of London and educated at Harrow School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was senior tutor for many years...
, John Nichols
John Nichols (printer)
John Nichols was an English printer, author and antiquary.-Early life and apprenticeship:He was born in Islington, London to Edward Nichols and Anne Wilmot. On 22 June 1766 he married Anne Cradock daughter of William Cradock...
, Richard Gough
Richard Gough (antiquarian)
Richard Gough was an English antiquarian.He was born in London, where his father was a wealthy M.P. and director of the British East India Company. In 1751 he entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he began his work on British topography, published in 1768...
, and Alban Butler
Alban Butler
Alban Butler , English Roman Catholic priest and hagiographer, was born at Appletree, Northamptonshire.He was educated at the English College, Douai, where on his ordination to the priesthood in 1735 he held successively the chairs of philosophy and divinity...
. Although he published no separate work of his own, he rendered substantial assistance to many authors by supplying them either with entire dissertations or with minute communications or corrections. He wrote the account of the School of Pythagoras
School of Pythagoras
The School of Pythagoras is the oldest building in St John's College, Cambridge, and the oldest secular building in Cambridge, England. To the north is Northampton Street....
at Cambridge in Francis Grose
Francis Grose
Francis Grose was an English antiquary, draughtsman, and lexicographer. He was born at his father's house in Broad Street, St-Peter-le-Poer, London, son of a Swiss immigrant and jeweller, Francis Jacob Grose , and his wife, Anne , daughter of Thomas Bennett of Greenford in Middlesex...
's Antiquities; and he was a major contributor to James Bentham
James Bentham
James Bentham was an English clergyman and historian of Ely.-Life:From a clerical family, he was the fourth son of the Rev. Samuel Bentham, vicar of Witchford near Ely, and brother of Edward Bentham. From Ely grammar school, he was admitted 26 March 1727 to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he...
's History of Ely, 1771, writing the lives of the bishops and deans, and the description of the Ely tablet.Athenæ Cantab. B. pt. i. f. 113Davis, Olio of Biographical Anecdotesthe Gentleman's Magazine
The Gentleman's Magazine
The Gentleman's Magazine was founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term "magazine" for a periodical...
lxxxiv. pt. ii. pp. 307, 413 He also contributed largely to Masters's History of Corpus Christi College. Having a large collection of engraved portraits, he was able to assist James Granger
James Granger
James Granger was an English clergyman, biographer, and print collector. He is now known as the author of the Biographical History of England from Egbert the Great to the Revolution .-Life:...
in preparing his Biographical History of England. To Andrew Ducarel
Andrew Ducarel
Andrew Coltee Ducarel , was an English antiquary. He was also member of the College of Civilians who practiced civil law...
he sent a complete list of the chancellors of Ely, and afterwards several hints respecting his Tour in Normandy. To Gough's Anecdotes of British Topography he contributed in 1772 some remarks; as he afterwards did respecting the Sepulchral Monuments; and when the Memoirs of the Gentlemen's Society at Spalding were printed in 1780, he supplied anecdotes of the early members. He was a frequent writer in the Gentleman's Magazine
The Gentleman's Magazine
The Gentleman's Magazine was founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term "magazine" for a periodical...
, and he gave John Nichols biographical hints and corrections for A Select Collection of Miscellaneous Poems, Anecdotes of Hogarth and History of Hinckley. He transcribed Browne Willis's History of the Hundreds of Newport and Cotslow in Buckinghamshire, and organized them in ten folio volumes from the originals in four volumes, which Willis had delivered to him a few weeks before his death. Cole's transcript is in the British Museum, and Willis's original copy is preserved, with his collections for the whole county, in the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
, OxfordNichols, Lit. Anecdotes, i. 667 n. His notes on Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses are printed in Bliss's edition of that work. Finally he collected all the materials for Horace Walpole's Life of Thomas Baker
Thomas Baker (antiquarian)
Thomas Baker , English antiquarian, was the grandson of Colonel Baker of Crook, Durham, who won fame in the English Civil War by his defence of Newcastle upon Tyne against the Scots. Thomas was educated at the free school at Durham, and went on to St John's College, Cambridge, where he later...
, the Cambridge antiquary. Cole's chief literary monument, however, is the magnificent collection of manuscripts, extending to nearly a hundred folio volumes, in his own handwriting, which are deposited in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. He began to form this vast collection while at college, beginning with fifteen volumes, which he kept in a lock-up case in the university library, where he examined every book likely to yield information suitable to his purpose, besides transcribing many manuscript lists and records. The principal interval from this labour was during his residence at Bletchley (1752–67), but even there, with the aid of his own books and those he could borrow from his neighbours, he proceeded with his great undertaking, and on his frequent journeys he added to his topographical collections, illustrating them with neat copies of armorial bearings and rough but faithful drawings of churches and other buildings. At Waterbeach and Milton, where he was within an easy distance of Cambridge, he resumed his labour of love with renewed ardour, and in addition to dry historical matters, he carefully transcribed all his literary correspondence, and minutely chronicled all the anecdotes he heard respecting his contemporaries at the university. Some idea of his industry as a transcriber may be gathered from this passage in a letter to Walpole (12 September 1777): "You will be astonished at the rapidity of my pen when you observe that this folio of four hundred pages [Baker's History of St. John's], with above a hundred coats of arms and other silly ornaments, was completed in six weeks; for I was called off for above a week to another manuscript, which I expected would be demanded of me every day; besides some days of visiting and being visited." Again he remarks in a letter to Allen: "I am wearing my eyes, fingers, and self out in writing for posterity, of whose gratitude I can have no adequate idea, while I neglect my friends, who I know would be glad to hear from me." As he freely jotted down his inmost thoughts as to the merits or demerits of his acquaintances, he took care that no one, with the exception of two or three intimate friends, should see his manuscripts, either during his lifetime or within twenty years after his death. On the occasion of his sending the History of King's College to Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill
Strawberry Hill House
Strawberry Hill is the Gothic Revival villa of Horace Walpole which he built in the second half of the 18th century in what is now an affluent area of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in Twickenham, London...
, he wrote (2 March 1777) with reference to his manuscripts: "No person except Dr. Lyne and Mr. John Allen of Trinity College ever looked into them. Indeed, you are the only person that I should think a moment about determining to let them go out of my hands: and, in good truth, they are generally of such a nature as makes them not fit to be seen, for through life I have never artfully disguised my opinions, and as my books were my trusty friends, who have engaged never to speak till twenty years after my departure, I always, without guile, entrusted them with my most secret thoughts, both of men and things; so that there is what the world will call an ample collection of scandalous rubbish heaped together." As an example of his strong prejudices, and his occasionally violent style of expressing them, the subjoined characteristic passage, which he added to his History of King's College only a few months before his death, may be cited: "Here I left off this work in 1752, and never began it again, quitting college that year for the rectory of Blecheley in Buckinghamshire, at the presentation of Browne Willis, esq., and so lost fifteen years of the best part of my life for disquisitions of this sort, and never having a relish to recommence this work when I retired into my native county again in 1767, when I made of an old dilapidated cottage at Milton near Cambridge, a decent gentleman's house, laying out upon the premises at least ₤600, the annual rent being only £17 per annum, hired of the college, and no lease till my time; yet after six years' occupancy Cooke, the snotty-nosed head of it, soon after his election, had the rascality, with Paddon, a dirty wretch, and bursar suitable to him, to alter my lease, and put new terms in it. But from such a scoundrel, and I am warranted to call him no other, and would call him so to his face the first time I see him, with the addition of a liar and mischief-maker through life, no other than dirty treatment can be expected. I write this 9 June 1782."Addit. MS. 5817, f. 194
As late as 1778 Cole was perplexed as to the disposal of his manuscripts. "To give them to King's College," he wrote, "would be to throw them into a horsepond," the members of that society being "generally so conceited of their Latin and Greek that all other studies are barbarous." At one time he thought of Eton College and of Emmanuel College
Emmanuel College
Emmanuel College may refer to one of several academic institutions:in Australia* Emmanuel College, University of Queensland, part of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia...
, Cambridge, but eventually he resolved to bequeath his collections to the British Museum on condition that they should not be opened until twenty years after his death. Accordingly they did not become accessible to the public until 1803. Vol. xvii. never reached the Museum; it is conjectured to have contained a History of Queens' College. The multifarious contents of Cole's collections are described in great detail in the Index to the Additional MSS., with those of the Egerton Collection, acquired in the years 1783-1835, London, 1849, folio. There are also three thick volumes of Cole's own indexes in the reading-room of the Museum.Addit. MSS. 5799, 5800, 5801 The most important sections of the manuscripts are:
- Parochial Antiquities of Cambridgeshire, illustrated with drawings of Churches, Monuments, Arms, &c.
- Collections for an Athenæ Cantabrigienses, alphabetically arranged, Addit. MSS. 5862-85, 5954, 5955. These collections, though they have proved very serviceable to biographers, consist for the most part only of references to printed works, and do not contain connected narratives of the lives of Cambridge authors. Some extracts, relating for the most part to persons with whom Cole was personally acquainted, are printed in Samuel Egerton BrydgesSamuel Egerton BrydgesSir Samuel Egerton Brydges, 1st Baronet was an English bibliographer and genealogist. He was also Member of Parliament for Maidstone from 1812 to 1818....
's Restituta. - History of King's College, Cambridge, 4 vols., Addit. MSS. 5814-17.
- Collections relating to the University of Cambridge.
- Extraneous Parochial Antiquities, or an account of various Churches in different Counties in England, with drawings, Addit. MSS. 5806, 5811, 5836.
- Topographical, Genealogical, and Miscellaneous Collections.
- Parochial Antiquities for the County of Bucks, with drawings, Addit. MSS. 5821, 5839, 5840.
- Parochial Antiquities for the County of Huntingdon, with drawings, Addit. MSS. 5837, 5838, 5847.
- Transcript of Baker's History of St. John's College, Cambridge, with additions, Addit, MS. 5850.
- Literary correspondence, chiefly in Addit. MS. 5824.