Interesting provenances

Numerous items in the special collections at St John's bear marks of ownership that indicate their association with notable historical figures. A selection of some of the more interesting provenances is given below. Those names marked with an asterisk are members of St John's.

If you would like to see any of the early printed books or manuscripts mentioned in the index, please contact the Special Collections Librarian (tel. 01223-339393).

Monarchs & Nobility

Anne (Queen of Great Britain)
Josephine, vicomtesse de Beauharnais (Empress of France, consort of Napoleon Bonaparte)
Charles I (King of England & Scotland)
Charles II (King of England & Scotland)
Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn (Prince-Bishop of Wurzburg)
Edward VI (King of England)
Elizabeth I (Queen of England) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Henry, Prince of Wales (Eldest son of James I)
Henry VIII (King of England)
James I (King of England & Scotland)
Louis XIV (King of France)
Philip the Fair (Habsburg Duke of Burgundy & King of Spain)
William IV of Orange (Stadthouder of the United Provinces)

Statesmen & political figures

Sir Charles Bagot (Diplomat & Governor of British North America)
Thomas Egerton, Viscount Brackley (Lord Chancellor to Elizabeth I & JamesI)
William Cecil, Lord Burghley* (Chief minister to Elizabeth I)
John Stuart, Earl of Bute (British Prime Minister)
Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield (British diplomat, statesman & wit)
Thomas Cromwell (Chief minister to Henry VIII)
Sir Edward Dering (M.P., controversialist & antiquary)
George Agar-Ellis, Baron Dover (Politician & art patron)
John Carteret, Earl Granville (Politician, Secretary of State for Ireland)
George Grenville (British Prime Minister)
Frederick North, Earl of Guilford (Governor of Ceylon & founder of the Ionian Academy)
John Somerset Pakington, Baron Hampton (Politican, First Lord of the Admiralty)
Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke (Lord Chancellor)
John Lilburne (Leveller leader)
George Lockhart (Jacobite politician)
Lorenzo de Medici (Florentine statesman & art patron)
Richard Morison (English Ambassador to Charles V)

Titus Oates* (Political troublemaker & inventor of the 'Popish Plot')
Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford (Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, & book-collector)
Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston* (British Prime Minister)
William Penn (Quaker leader and founder of Pennsylvania)
William Douglas, Duke of Queensberry (Scottish politician)
George Carew, Earl of Totnes (Soldier & administrator in Ireland)
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford* (Lord Lieutenant of Ireland & Charles I's chief councillor)
Sir Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick (Privateer, colonialist & Parliamentarian naval commander)
Samuel Whitbread* (Head of Brewing dynasty & radical politician)
William Wilberforce* (Politician & leading abolitionist)
William Windham (Secretary at War)
Charles Yorke (Lord Chancellor)
Arthur Young (Agricultural reformer & experimenter)

Theologians & religious figures

Theodore Beza (Calvinist theologian & biblical scholar)
Heinrich Bullinger (Swiss reformer & theologian)
Thomas Cartwright* (Puritan controversialist)
Clement X (Pope)
Thomas Cranmer (English reformer & Archbishop of Canterbury)
Leonor d'Etampes de Valencay (Archbishop of Rheims)

John Foxe (Martyrologist)
Henry Francis Lyte (Hymn-writer)
George Major & other Wittenberg theologians (German reformers)
Tobias Matthew (Elizabethan bishop & archbishop)
Reginald Pole (Cardinal, Archbishop of Canterbury to Mary I, & papal candidate)

Literary figures

William Alabaster (Composer of sonnets & religious waverer)
John Donne (Metaphysical poet)
Ben Jonson (Dramatist)
John Drinkwater (Poet, playwright & founder member of Birmingham Repertory Company)
Sir Thomas Hoby* (Translator of Castiglione's Il cortegiano)

Thomas Shadwell (Poet laureate, target of Dryden's MacFlecknoe)
Tallemant des Reaux (17th cent. biographer & portraitist, author of Les Historiettes)
Horace Walpole (Gothic novelist & politician)
William Wordsworth* (Romantic poet)

Scholars & scientists

Roger Ascham* (Tutor to Elizabeth I & English prose stylist)
Pierfrancesco di Piero Bardi (Florentine merchant, scholar & visionary)
Joshua Barnes (Greek scholar & antiquarian)
Thomas Brushfield (Lunacy specialist)
Hugh Broughton* (Theologian & Hebraic scholar)
Sir John Cheke* (Tutor to Edward VI & humanist scholar)
Sir Walter Chetwynd (politician & historian of Staffordshire)
John Dee* (Polymath, humanist & spiritualist)
Bartholomew Dodington* (Greek scholar)
Henry Ellacombe (Campanologist)
Robert Fludd (Physician & alchemist)

Edward Gibbon (Historian)
William Gilbert* (Royal physician & author of pioneering work on electricity)
Pierre-Daniel Huet (Scholar, scientist, fideist)
David Hume (Philosopher & historian)
John Locke (Empiricist philosopher)
Sir Peter Manwood (Judge, antiquary, M.P.)
Hugh Morgan (Apothecary, botanist)
William Oliver (Physician & philanthropist)
Jacques Auguste de Thou (French statesman & historian)
Walter Ralegh (Courtier to Elizabeth I, explorer & historian)

Collectors & patrons

Lady Elizabeth Germain (Art collector, courtier to Queen Anne & hostess)
John Ker, Duke of Roxburghe (Courtier to George III & book collector)
John, Lord Lumley (Collector & conspirator against Elizabeth I)

Tobias Rustat (Courtier to Charles II & benefactor)
Joseph Smith (British consul to Venice, patron of Canaletto, & book collector)
Ralph Sheldon (Antiquarian & book collector)

Sportsmen & artists

Hugh Cecil Lowther, Earl of Lonsdale (Bon viveur, explorer & president of several sporting associations)
William Morris (Designer, author and socialist)

William Bell Scott (Artist, poet & associate of the Rossettis)

Businessmen

Sir Arthur John Dorman (Steel manufacturer)

*Attended St John's.

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