John Raunce d.ca.1716

John RAUNCE d.ca.1716?

Biographical Note

Physician, and Quaker, in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. He surfaces in various accounts of Quaker activities there in the later 17th century, particularly as a dissenter from other Quaker views of the time, and a critic of the prominent Quaker author Thomas Ellwood. He published several contentious pamphlets and broadsides on Quaker matters around the turn of the 18th century (ESTC n470643, r470637); it is not clear whether some earlier astrological writings by "John Raunce sometime a practitioner in astrologie, and student in the magick art" (ESTC r206349) are the same man, or perhaps his father?

Books

Raunce's library was sold by retail sale in London, beginning 18.7.1716; no catalogue survives, but the sale was advertised in the Daily Courant as "a very curious and valuable collection of Greek, Latin, and English books".

Sources

• Alston, R. C., Inventory of sale catalogues ... 1676-1800, St Philip, 2010.
• Eland, G., A meeting-place of the early Quakers in Buckinghamshire, Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society.
• Victoria County History, Buckinghamshire vol.3 (High Wycombe).