Edward Lightfoot gained his BA in 1584 and his MA in 1588. Little else is known about him.

Bequest to the Library

Lightfoot apparently left his whole library to St John's and over 30 volumes appear to have come from him. These consist chiefly of 16th-century classical editions, but also cover a range of other subjects including mathematics, agriculture, and alchemy. Several of the volumes given by Lightfoot also bear 16th-century blind-tooled bindings, one by Garrett Godfrey.

Provenance markings

The books given by Lightfoot bear a simple book label in Latin, dated 1635. Translated it reads:

This, and all that he left, Edward Lightfoot of London, Master of Arts, bequeathed by his will to St John's College, of which he was once a scholar, in the year of our Lord 1635.