Difference between revisions of "Francis Maire d.1747"
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Francis MAIRE d.1747
Biographical Note
Son of Thomas Maire, of Lartington and Hardwick, County Durham, a member of a long-established Roman Catholic gentry family there. Little is recorded, biographically, of Francis, other than his marriage to Anne Clavering in 1726 and the fact that they lived at Hardwick. He died 5 years before his father, shortly after the house was attacked and sacked by an anti-Catholic mob.
Books
Maire used an engraved armorial bookplate (Franks 19490). The extent of his library is not known, but his will is unusually detailed in specifying its disposal, and gives some impression of its contents. Gentry wills of this time are commonly silent on books, which were treated as part of the overall personal effects that went with houses, but Maire added a codicil to his will in which he distributed his books across friends and family members, often with an expressed wish that they would be tokens of remembrance.
12 individual beneficiaries are listed, a mixture of siblings, relations by marriage and friends (he had no children). Many of them were left one or more specified titles, often multi-volume works whose format was mentioned as "in folio", "in eight pocket volumes", etc. His brother John Maire received all his law books, together with a collection of voyages and travels, and his nephew Ralph Clavering had all his geography and geometry books, together with mathematical instruments. A striking number of the books listed by title are in French, and include many historical titles. There are several references to maps and prints. After all the specific bequests were dealt with, all the rest of his books went to his brother Thomas Maire.
Sources
- Forster, A., The Maire family of county Durham, Recusant History 10 (1969-70), 332-46.
- Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903.
- Durham County Record Office, D/HH 7/1/10, will of Francis Maire.