John Collins d.1682

John COLLINS d.1682

Biographical Note

Born in Suffolk, the son of John Collins, of Carlton Colville, gentleman. Matriculated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge 1664, LL.B 1670; admitted at Gray’s Inn, 1668. No other details of his career are known.

Books

Collins's brief will, in which he describes himself as "of Gray's Inn", has no mention of books, but left all his estate to his wife. “A curious collection of law-books, ancient and modern, consisting of the libraries of John Collins, Esq;, late of Gray’s-Inn, deceased. And of another fam’d practitioner of the law” was auctioned in London by Edward Millington, 2 July 1683. The sale was also augmented with law books from other sources and it is not possible to establish what proportion of the whole belonged to Collins. The sale contained 596 lots, plus 228 pamphlets in 13 bundles, all legal material, mostly 17th-century English imprints with some 16th-century items (of the 596, 500 were English, 96 Latin). The preface to the catalogue describes the contents as “the compleatest collection of the common and statute law books, ancient and modern, that hath been hitherto published”.

Characteristic Markings

None of Collins’s books have been identified.

Sources

• Millington, E., A curious collection of law-books, 1683 (Wing C5370).
• Venn, J. & J. A. Alumni Cantabrigienses. Cambridge, 1922.