Thomas Grey d.1692

Thomas GREY d.1692

Biographical Note

Son of Thomas Grey, rector of Cavendish, Suffolk, and founder of the grammar school there. BA Clare College, Cambridge 1674, MA 1677. Vicar of Dedham, Essex 1679-92, where he was a popular preacher.

Books

In his will, Grey made a number of specific bequests of books: his “quarto Bible of Cambridge print” to his mother, Thomas Comber's paraphrases on the Book of Common Prayer in four volumes to his sister Frances, and Symon Patrick's Mensa mystica and Christian sacrifice to another sister. Two maps "hanging in the gallery" were left to his brother Henry. Otherwise, his "library with the globes and maps" was bequeathed to his elder son James, or to his younger son Thomas should James die, the whole being kept by his father while the children were in their minority. His father was to have any books he liked for his own use during his lifetime, and two catalogues of the library were to be made, one to be kept by his father and the other by his friend Joseph Powell, rector of St Mary's, Colchester.

Despite these instructions, Grey's library was in fact sold by auction in London two years after his death, in February 1694. Both his sons lived long enough to go to university (James matriculated at Jesus, Cambridge in 1697, and Thomas at the same college in 1706, though he died the following year) and his father remained in post at Cavendish until his death in 1705. The preface to the auction catalogue, referring to the range of the collection where "the English part is the best and largest hitherto published; wherein he seemed to attempt the completing of the works of all our English divines" seems a little extravagant, as the library is more typical than extraordinary in the context of sales of this period. The catalogue contains 1561 lots, divided between Latin theology (345), Latin miscellaneous (533), English divinity (305) and English history and miscellaneous (378).

Characteristic Markings

None of Grey's books have been identified.

Sources

• Will of Thomas Grey, The National Archives PROB 11/409/385.
• Bibliotheca Greyana, 1694, ESTC r177695.
• Alston, R. C., Inventory of sale catalogues ... 1676-1800, St Philip, 2010.
• Venn, J. and J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge, 1922.