Joseph Hunter (antiquarian)

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For other persons named Joseph Hunter, see Joseph Hunter (disambiguation).

Joseph Hunter (6 February 1783–9 May 1861) was a Unitarian Minister and antiquarian best known for his publications Hallamshire. The History and Topography of the Parish of Sheffield in the County of York and the two-volume South Yorkshire (a history of the Deanery of Doncaster), still considered among the best works written on the history of Sheffield and South Yorkshire^[1].

He was born in Sheffield on 6 February 1783^[2] to Michael and Elizabeth Hunter in a house on the north side of New Church Street (a site now occupied by the Town Hall), and studied theology at New College in York. In 1809 he moved to Bath to take up a post as a Unitarian Minister, there he met and married Mary Hayward.^[3] In 1833 he moved to London to work at the Records Commission as Assistant Keeper of Public Records. He died in 1861 and is buried at Ecclesfield Parish Church in Sheffield.

The Hunter Archaeological Society, which was formed in 1912 "to study and report on the archaeology, history and architecture of South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire", was named in his honour.

[edit] List of publications

Hallamshire. The History and Topography of the Parish of Sheffield in the County of York, (1819)
South Yorkshire (a history of the Deanery of Doncaster), Volume I, (1828)
The Hallamshire Glossary, (1829)
South Yorkshire (a history of the Deanery of Doncaster), Volume II, (1831)
Familiae Minorum Gentium, transcribed and published in 1894-6 by The Harleian Society
The Diary of Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S

[edit] References

^ Wood, Michael (1999). "Tinsley Wood", In Search of England Journeys Into the English Past. University of California Press, pp.203–221. ISBN 0-520-23218-6.
^ The Society. The Hunter Archaeological Society. Retrieved on 2006-11-29.
^ Hunter, Sylvester Joseph (1861). A brief memoir of the late Joseph Hunter, with a catalogue of his publications. John Edward Taylor.