Jeanne Shami; Jennifer Farooq; Hannah Wood
ODNB (Article: 23192); AO (Foster)
Richard Rawlinson was born on 3 January 1690 in the Old Bailey, St Sepulchre’s London, to Sir Thomas Rawlinson (c.1647-1708), vintner and lord mayor of London, and his wife Mary Taylor. He was educated at St Paul’s School (1697) and Eton College (1702) before matriculating at St John’s College, Oxford in 1708; he graduated B.A. in 1711, proceeded M.A. in 1713, and was made DCL in 1719. While a student he began to collect volumes of classics, English history, topography, and drama, and developed an interest in antiquarian studies. After 1711 he took up rooms in the Middle Temple and then Gray’s Inn, lending his talents to editing antiquarian books. He published his own “The English topographer, or, An historical account of all the pieces that have been written relating to the natural history or topographical description of any part of England” in 1720. In 1713 he became a governor of Bridewell and Bethlem hospitals in London and was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1714. A Jacobite and non-juror, Rawlinson was ordained deacon and priest in the non-juring Church of England in 1716. In 1719 he travelled to the Continent, enrolling as a student at the universities of Leiden and Utrecht that same year and at Padua in 1722. He was admitted as a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1727; in 1732 he became master of the freemason lodge in Ludgate street and warden of a second lodge, serving as grand steward in 1734. In 1728 he was consecrated non-juring bishop, and was instrumental in preserving the records of the non-jurors. He devoted the last decades of his life to collecting books, manuscripts, and historical materials and compiling biographical information about Oxford men. He died on 6 April 1755 at Islington; his body was buried in St Giles’ Church in Oxford and his heart in the chapel of St John’s College. He endowed a chair in Anglo-Saxon studies and gifted many books and portraits to the Bodleian library in life, and upon his death bequeathed all of his manuscripts, charters and seals, and a selection of printed books to the Bodleian.