John Le Neve

John Le Neve (1679–1741) was an English antiquary, known for his Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, a work of English church biography that has seen several subsequent editions.

Life

He was born on 27 December 1679 in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London, only son of John Le Neve, by his second wife, Amy, daughter of John Bent, merchant and tailor, of London. John's mother died on 12 December 1687, when he was eight years old, and he was sent to Eton College as an oppidan when he was twelve. His father, who died on 20 July 1693 when John was fourteen, was, like both his wives, buried in Westminster Abbey. John succeeded to a little property, and his kinsman Peter Le Neve, whose exact relationship has not been traced, became one of his guardians; another was his first cousin, John Boughton whose sister he married in 1699. From Eton he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1694 and matriculated in 1696, but left without a degree.^[1]

All his works were loss-making, and he fell into difficulties. He took holy orders, aged 41, and was presented by his patron William Fleetwood to the Lincolnshire rectory of Thornton-le-Moor in January 1722. His creditors pursued him, and he was imprisoned to insolvency in Lincoln gaol in December 1722. The day of his death is unknown, but before 23 May 1741.

Works

His first work seems to have been issued in 1712-14^[2] This was probably suggested to him by his kinsman Peter, whose collections were at his service.

Le Neve's major work, his Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, or an Essay towards a regular Succession of all the principal Dignitaries, &c., appeared in 1716 in folio. It used White Kennett's Collections, but depended also on original research. Before the end of the century twenty copies that had been annotated and brought up to date by other antiquaries existed. John Gutch was urged to edit a new edition. In 1854, Thomas Duffus Hardy issued at Oxford his expanded edition, in three volumes, in which Le Neve's 11,051 entries were extended to thirty thousand.

In 1716 Le Neve also issued the Life of Dr. Field, Dean of Gloucester, London (on Richard Field); of this he is only known to have written the preface. In 1717 he published Monumenta Anglicana^[3] He quotes largely from MSS. P. L. (Peter Le Neve MS. Diary), later printed in part in the Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society. Many of the inscriptions were communicated by the monumental masons who set them up. In his preface he states that he was prompted by John Weever's 'Funerall Monuments,' published in 1631. In 1718 he issued separately two more volumes, covering the periods 1650-1679 and 1680-1699. In 1718 appeared a fourth volume, covering the period 1600-49, and he announced that he was making collections of the same sort, beginning at the year 1400, but these collections were never printed. Later in that year he issued a fifth volume, containing a supplement of monuments between 1650 and 1718. In 1720 he published in two parts The Lives and Characters … of all the Protestant Bishops of the Church of England since the Reformation.

Family

His grandfather, another John Le Neve, was first of Cavendish, Suffolk, and then of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, London. His father's first wife was Frances Monck, first cousin to George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle. One of his father's brothers, Richard, a sea-captain, died in action against the Dutch in 1673, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, while another of his uncles, Edmund (d. 1689), was a barrister of the Middle Temple.

Le Neve married by license, dated 25 January 1698-9, at St. George's, Southwark, his first cousin, Frances, second daughter of Thomas Boughton of Kings Cliffe, Northamptonshire, and Elizabeth Le Neve, sister of the bridegroom's father. By his wife Le Neve had eight children.

Notes

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Le Neve, John". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.  Check date values in: |date= (help)