Edward Agberowe d.1680

Edward AGBEROWE d.1680

Biographical Note

Agberowe is first traced as a captain in the royalist army in the late 1640s. After the Restoration he was appointed pricker of the Steelyard in London, a post he continued to hold while moving around other places. He was in Wales in the early 1660s helping to raise a militia regiment in Caernarvonshire, and during much of the 1660s and 70s he was in Ludlow, where in 1673 he married Theophila Cornewall (1644-1731), daughter of Humphrey Cornewall, MP for Leominster.

Books

About 20 books with Agberowe's inscription are known today, widely distributed across many libraries. Most of them are English plays of the 1660s and 70s, when they were probably acquired. It is not certain when they were dispersed, but they may have remained with the family until the 19th century (a number of the books have 19th-century ownership markings). Agberowe's will, in which everything was left to his wife, has no mention of books.

Characteristic Markings

Agberowe generally inscribed his books on the titlepages, "Ed: Agberowe".

Sources

• David McInnis, 'Ed: Agberowe, seventeeth-century collector of Restoration playbooks, The Library 7th ser 25 (2024), 175-95.