John Warburton (officer of arms)

John Warburton (1682–1759) was an antiquarian, cartographer, and Somerset Herald of Arms in Ordinary at the College of Arms in the early 18th century.

Life

He was the son of Benjamin and Mary Warburton. In early life John was an exciseman and then a supervisor, being stationed in 1718–19 at Bedale in Yorkshire. He was admitted F.R.S. in March 1719, but was ejected on 9 June 1757 for nonpayment of his subscription. His election as F.S.A. took place on 13 January 1720, but he ceased to be a member before January 1754. On 18 June 1720 he was appointed to the office of Somerset Herald in the College of Arms.[1]

Warburton's first wife was Dorothy, but they separated in 1716. He later married a widow with children, and is said to have married her son, when a minor, to one of his daughters. By his second wife he had a son called John. Warburton died at his apartments in the College of Arms, London, his usual place of residence, on 11 May 1759, and was buried in the south aisle of St Benet Paul's Wharf, London.[1]

Works

Warburton published in 1716 from actual survey a map of Northumberland in four sheets, and during the next few years brought out similar maps of Yorkshire, Middlesex, Essex, and Hertfordshire.[1]

He brought out in 1749 a "Map of Middlesex" in two sheets of imperial atlas, which came under the censure of John Anstis the Younger. Warburton had given on the border of this map five hundred engraved arms, and the earl marshal, supposing many of them to be fictitious, ordered that no copies should be sold until the right to wear them had been proved. Warburton endeavoured to vindicate himself in London and Middlesex illustrated by Names, Residence, Genealogy, and Coat-armour of the Nobility, Merchants, &c. (1749).[1]

In 1753 he published Vallum Romanum, or the History and Antiquities of the Roman Wall in Cumberland and Northumberland, the survey and plan of which were made by him in 1715. William Hutton applauded him as "the judicious Warburton, whom I regard for his veracity".[2]

John Nichols printed in 1779 in two volumes from the collections of Warburton and Ducarel Some Account of the Alien Priories, but the compilers' names were not mentioned. This omission was rectified in many copies issued in 1786 with a new title-page.[1]

Collections

He was an avid collector of old book and manuscripts, but often careless. After much drinking and attempting to "muddle" Humfrey Wanley, he sold in July 1720 to the Earl of Oxford many valuable manuscripts on Wanley's own terms.[1] On another occasion, he left a pile of drama manuscripts in the kitchen. When he came looking for them a year later, nearly all were gone. His cook, Betsy Baker, had used over fifty manuscripts as scrap paper while cooking—either for lighting fires or for lining the bottoms of pie pans while baking pies.

Notwithstanding his carelessness, he left behind him a huge collection of books, manuscripts, and prints, which were sold by auction in 1766. Many of his topographical manuscripts are in the Lansdowne collection at the British Museum.[1]

A complete list of the destroyed play manuscripts

In addition, "A Play by William Shakespeare" (with no elaboration given) was also lost, as well as a copy of Sir John Suckling's "Works," possibly a printed edition.

Survivals

Warburton listed only three plays which escaped destruction: The Second Maiden's Tragedy (which he assigned to George Chapman, but now usually considered by scholars to be the work of Thomas Middleton), The Queen of Corsica (a tragedy by Francis Jaques), and The Bugbears (a comedy by John Jeffere).

Not every play destroyed by Warburton's cook was irretrievably lost. Five of them have been preserved through separate sources. These include Believe as You List, The Fair Favorite, The Governor, The Inconstant Lady, and The Parliament of Love. The prologue and epilogue to Thomas Jordan's Love Hath Found His Eyes are also still extant, published in Jordan's poetry collection Royal Arbor of Loyal Poesy (1663). It is possible that a few of the remaining plays have also been preserved, under different titles; Shakespeare's Duke Humphrey, for example, may have been a version of Henry VI, part 2, in which Humphrey plays a major part.

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Warburton, John" entry in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 59
  2. ↑ William Hutton, Roman Wall, ed. 1813, pref. p. xxvii

References

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