Edward Hooker d.1707

From Book Owners Online

Edward HOOKER d.1707

Biographical Note

Of Lincolnshire. BA Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 1644, MA 1648. Beyond this, the only biographical information is that which can be deduced from his will, made shortly before his death, which refers to being a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, aged about 90, living as a pensioner in Sutton's Hospital, i.e. the Charterhouse in London. This suggests that he practised as a physician in London, without achieving fellowship status, and that in old age he was in sufficiently reduced circumstances to be taken into that almshouse.

Books

Hooker's lengthy will includes numerous bequests of specific items, including medical instruments, rings, walking sticks, a hammock, and many books. It also refers to his "Bibliotheck commonly tho corruptly called a library" having been depleted by fire and robbery. Individual bequests were: to Sir John Bendysh, works by Jacob Bohme (in the inside cover of one of which were some verses); to the Master of the Charterhouse and his successors, Ptolemy's works in Greek, Isaacson's Saturni ephemerides and Foxe's Acts and monuments; to the physician and his successors, the works of Daniel Sennert and Hooker's manuscript Adversaria medica; to the chaplain and his successors, Hooker's Ecclesiastical polity, the sermons of Lancelot Andrewes, and the Conference between Laud and Fisher; to the reader and his successors, Theologia mystica; to the schoolmaster and his successors, Vossius's Opus grammaticum; to the school, Erasmus's Epistles; to the head scholar and his successors, a psalter and prayer book in Greek, "bound up ... with strings"; to the head scholar of the lower school his "pack of grammatical cards"; to Brook Tulyday, "Scultetus Chirurgery with cuts"; and to Charles Bridges, "such books and papers as are mentioned in a note I gave him". He directed that a copy of Gerard's Herbal be chained in the upper hall, and of Edward Philips's English dictionary, The new world of words, similarly chained in the lower hall. All the rest of his books, together with any other residue of his estate, was to go to his executrix Mary Beridge, daughter of John Reynolds late Archdeacon of Norwich.

Whether or not these bequests were implemented, enough was left for Hooker's library to be sold by retail sale in London in 1708; no catalogue survives but the continuation of the sale was advertised in The Daily Courant as starting on 10 May 1708, "being a curious collection of books in Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, English and Dutch".

Characteristic Markings

None of Hooker's books have been identified.

Sources