Thoresby, Ralph ___ 1647-1724 ___ British ___ antiquary

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Thoresby, the son of a cloth merchant, received some education in Holland, but declined to follow his father's trade. He inherited just enough money to allow himself to indulge an interest in religion, travel, architecture and history. In 1683, he was prosecuted as a non-conformist, but, later, after becoming acquainted with various high-level clerics, abandoned any connection with the dissenters. Throughout his life, Thoresby inspected buildings and earthworks, researched family trees, and collected manuscripts, coins and curiosities. He wrote about the history, churches and topography of Leeds. He also founded a museum in Leeds. It was not, though, long lived, and the collection was dispersed by 1764. A diary was later found neglected in a garret, and it is thought that other volumes were probably lost.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1667-1724 ___ religious travel self architecture

WEB TEXT LINKS
googlebooks
about and extracts

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Yorkshire Archaeological Society and York Minster Archives
The Thoresby Society

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Diary of Ralph Thoresby
 

May 2005, August 2008
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.