Thomas Hearne (July, 1678 - June 10, 1735), English antiquarian, was born at Littlefield Green in the parish of
White Waltham, Berkshire.
Having received his early education from his father, George Hearne, the parish clerk, he showed such taste for study that a
wealthy neighbour, Francis Cherry of Shottesbrooke (c.
1665-1713), a celebrated non-juror, interested himself in the boy, and sent him to the school
at Bray "on purpose to learn the Latin tongue." Soon Cherry took
him into his own house, and his education was continued at Bray until Easter 1696, when he
matriculated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. At the university he attracted the
attention of Dr John Mill (1645-1707), the principal of St Edmund Hall, who employed him to
compare manuscripts and in other ways. Having taken the degree of B.A. in 1699 he was made
assistant keeper of the Bodleian Library, where he worked on the catalogue of books,
and in 1712 he was appointed second keeper. In 1715 Hearne was elected architypographus and esquire bedell in civil law in the
university, but objection having been made to his holding this office together with that of second librarian, he resigned it in
the same year. As a nonjuror he refused to take the oaths of allegiance to King
George I, and early in 1716 he was deprived of his librarianship. However, he continued to reside in Oxford, and occupied
himself in editing the English chroniclers. Hearne refused several important academic positions, including the librarianship of
the Bodleian and the Camden professorship of ancient history, rather than take the oaths. He died on 10th June 1735.
Hearne's most important work was done as editor of many of the English chroniclers, and until the appearance of the
Rolls Series his editions were in many cases the only ones extant. Very carefully prepared,
they were, and indeed are still, of the greatest value to historical students. Perhaps the most important of a long list are:
He also edited
- John Leland's Itinerary (1710-1712) and the same author's Collectanea
(1715)
- W. Camden's Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha
(1717)
- Sir John Spelman's Life of Alfred (1709)
- W. Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More (1716).
He brought out editions of
Among his other compilations may be mentioned:
- Ductor historicus, a Short System of Universal History (1704, 1705, 1714, 1724)
- A Collection of Curious Discourses by Eminent Antiquaries (1720)
- Reliquiae Bodleianae (1703).
Hearne left his manuscripts to William Bedford, who sold them to Dr Richard Rawlinson, who in his turn bequeathed them to the Bodleian. Two volumes of extracts from his
voluminous diary were published by Philip Bliss (Oxford, 1857), and afterwards an enlarged
edition in three volumes appeared (London, 1869). A large part of his diary entitled Remarks and Collections, 1705-1714,
edited by C. E. Doble and D. W. Rannie, has been published by the
Oxford Historical Society (1885-1898). Bibliotheca Hearniana, excerpts from the catalogue of Hearne's library, has been
edited by B. Botfield (1848).
References
- Impartial Memorials of the Life and Writings of Thomas Hearne by several hands (1736)
- William Dunn Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library (1890).
- Hearne's autobiography in W. Huddesford's Lives of Leland, Hearne and Wood (Oxford,
1772)
- T. Ouvry's Letters addressed to Thomas Hearne, privately printed (London, 1874)
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