AKA Anthony Wood

Born: 17-Dec-1632
Birthplace: Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Died: 29-Nov-1695
Location of death: Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male
Religion: Anglican/Episcopalian
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Historian

Nationality: England
Executive summary: Oxford historian

English antiquary, was the fourth son of Thomas Wood, B.C.L. of Oxford, where Anthony was born on the 17th of December 1632. He was sent to New College school in 1641, and at the age of twelve was removed to the free grammar school at Thame, where his studies were interrupted by civil war skirmishes. He was then placed under the tuition of his brother Edward, of Trinity College; and, as he tells us, "while he continued in this condition his mother would alwaies be soliciting him to be an apprentice which he could never endure to heare of." He was entered at Merton College in 1647, and made postmaster. In 1652 he amused himself with ploughing and bell-ringing, and "having had from his most tender years an extraordinary ravishing delight in music", began to teach himself the violin, and was examined for the degree of B.A. He engaged a music-master, and obtained permission to use the Bodleian, "which he took to be the happiness of his life." He was admitted M.A. in 1655, and in the following year published a volume of sermons by his late brother Edward. He began systematically to copy monumental inscriptions and to search for antiquities in the city and neighborhood. He went through the Christ Church registers, "at this time being resolved to set himself to the study of antiquities." John Wallis, the keeper, allowed him free access to the university registers in 1660; "here he layd the foundation of that book which was fourteen years afterwards published, viz. Hist, et Antiq. Univ. Oxon." He also came to know the Oxford collections of Brian Twyne to which he was greatly indebted. He steadily investigated the muniments of all the colleges, and in 1667 made his first journey to London, where he visited Dugdale, who introduced him into the Cottonian library, and Prynne showed him the same civility for the Tower of London records. On October 22, 1669, he was sent for by the delegates of the press, "that whereas he had taken a great deal of paines in writing the Hist. and Antiq. of the Universitie of Oxon, they would for his paines give him an 100 li. for his copie, conditionally, that he would suffer the book to be translated into Latine." He accepted the offer and set to work to prepare his English manuscript for the translators, Richard Peers and Richard Reeve, both appointed by Dr. Fell, dean of Christ Church, who undertook the expense of printing. In 1674 appeared Historia et antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis, handsomely reprinted "e Theatre Sheldoniano", in two folio volumes, the first devoted to the university in general and the second to the colleges. Copies were widely distributed, and university and author received much praise. On the other hand, Bishop Barlow told a correspondent that "not only the Latine but the history itself is in many things ridiculously false" (Genuine Remains, 1693, p.183). In 1678 the university registers which had been in his custody for eighteen years were removed, as it was feared that he would be implicated in the Popish plot. To relieve himself from suspicion he took the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. During this time he had been gradually completing his great work, which was produced by a London publisher in 1691-92, 2 vols. folio, Athenae Oxonienses: an Exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford from 1500 to 1690, to which are added the Fasti, or Annals for the said time. On the 29th of July 1693 he was condemned in the vice-chancellor's court for certain libels against the late earl of Clarendon, fined, banished from the university until he recanted, and the offending pages burnt. The proceedings were printed in a volume of Miscellanies published by Edmund Curll in 1714. Wood was attacked by Bishop Gilbert Burnet in a Letter to the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (1693, 4to), and defended by his nephew Dr. Thomas Wood, in a Vindication of the Historiographer, to which is added the Historiographer's Answer (1693), 4to, reproduced in the subsequent editions of the Athenae. The nephew also defended his uncle in An Appendix to the Life of Bishop Seth Ward, 1697, 8vo. After a short illness he died on the 28th of November 1695, and was buried in the outer chapel of St. John Baptist (Merton College), in Oxford, where he superintended the digging of his own grave but a few days before.

He is described as "a very strong lusty man", of uncouth manners and appearance, not so deaf as he pretended, of reserved and temperate habits, not avaricious and a despiser of honors. He received neither office nor reward from the university which owed so much to his labors. He never married, and led a life of self-denial, entirely devoted to antiquarian research. Bell-ringing and music were his chief relaxations. His literary style is poor, and his taste and judgment are frequently warped by prejudice, but his two great works and unpublished collections form a priceless source of information on Oxford and her worthies. He was always suspected of being a Roman Catholic, and invariably treated Jacobites and Papists better than Dissenters in the Athenae, but he died in communion with the Church of England.

Wood's original manuscript (purchased by the Bodleian in 1846) was first published by John Gutch as The History and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls in the University of Oxford, with a continuation (1786-90, 2 vols. 4to), and The History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford (1792-96, 3 vols. 4to), with portrait of Wood. To these should be added The Antient and Present State of the City of Oxford, chiefly collected by A. à Wood, with additions by the Rev. Sir J. Peshall (1773, 4to; the text is garbled and the editing very imperfect). An admirable edition of the Survey of the Antiquities of the City of Oxford, composed in 1661-66 by Anthony Wood, edited by Andrew Clark, was issued by the Oxford Historical Society (1889-99, 3 vols. 8vo). Modius Salium, a Collection of Pieces of Humour, chiefly ill-natured personal stories, was published at Oxford in 1751, 12mo. Some letters between Aubrey and Wood were given in the Gentleman's Magazine, 3rd series. Wood consulted Dr. Hudson about getting a third volume of the Athenae printed in Holland, saying, "When this volume comes out I'll make you laugh again." This was included in a second edition of the Athenae published by R. Knaplock and J. Tpnson in 1721 (2 vols. folio), "very much corrected and enlarged, with the addition of above 500 new lives." The third appeared as "a new edition, with additions, and a continuation by Philip Bliss" (1813-20, 4 vols. 4to). The Ecclesiastical History Society proposed to bring out a fourth edition, which stopped at the Life, edited by Bliss (1848, 8vo). Dr. Bliss's interleaved copy is in the Bodleian, and Dr. Griffiths announced in 1859 that a new edition was contemplated by the Press, and asked for additional matter. Wood bequeathed his library (127 manuscripts and 970 printed books) to the Ashmolean Museum, and the keeper, William Huddesford, printed a catalogue of the manuscripts in 1761. In 1858 the whole collection was transferred to the Bodleian, where 25 volumes of Wood's manuscripts had been since 1690. Many of the original papers from which the Athenae was written, as well as several large volumes of Wood's correspondence and all his diaries, are in the Bodleian.

We are intimately acquainted with the most minute particulars of Wood's life from his Diaries (1657-95) and autobiography; all earlier editions are now superseded by the elaborate work of Andrew Clark, The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, Antiquary, of Oxford, 1632-1695, described by himself (Oxford Historical Society, 1891-1900, 5 vols. 8vo).

Father: Thomas Wood (b. 1580, d. 1643)
Brother: Edward Wood (b. 1627, d. 1655)

    University: MA, Merton College, Oxford University (1655)

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