Main Entry

Disney, John, 1746-1816.

Title

Correspondence and associated items, 1773-1845.

Physical Description

10 items

1 artist’s proof

Historical/Biographical Note

Unitarian clergyman and antiquary, Disney was vicar of Swinderby in Lincolnshire, but in 1782 he threw up his preferments and joined the Unitarians. From 1806 he resided at the estate he inherited from the prominent dissenter, Thomas Brand Hollis (the Hyde at Ingatestone in Essex). Disney published numerous sermons and pursued antiquarian interests. He provided a preface for Michael Dodson’s Life of Sir Michael Foster (1811) and saw it through the press of Nichols and Son in London.

Scope and Contents

The collection includes four ALS from Disney to the printers John Nichols & Sons in 1810 regarding the reprinting of Michael Dodson’s life of the jurist Sir Michael Foster. Disney provided a preface and took a close interest in the typography, paper and general appearance of the book. Also: one ALS from 1773 concerning the entry for his grandfather, clergyman John Disney (1677-1730), for the second volume of James Granger’s Biographical History of England (ultimately completed by Mark Noble). An ALS from 1815 to the Nichols firm acknowledges receipt of the last volume of the second edition of John Hutchins’s History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset. Other miscellaneous material includes printed accounts from unidentified sources about Thomas Brand Hollis and the eccentric antiquary Browne Willis and an unfinished proof for an engraving of Willis.

Names

Brand Hollis, Thomas, ca. 1719-1804.

Dodson, Michael 1732-1799. Life of Sir Michael Foster. 1811.

Granger, James, 1723-1776. Biographical History of England.

Nichols, John, 1745-1826, correspondent.

Nichols, J. B. (John Bowyer), 1779-1853, correspondent.

Willis, Browne, 1682-1760.

Willis, Browne, 1682-1760. Portraits.

Genres

Artists’ proofs. England. 18^th century.

Location

Grolier Club, 47 East 60^th Street, New York, NY 10022-1098.