Stephen Camborne 1640/1-1704

Stephen CAMBORNE 1640/1-1704

Biographical Note

Born at Whitton, Suffolk, son of Robert Camborne, rector of Campsea-Ashe there. BA Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge 1660, MA 1663. Curate of Weetling, Norfolk ca.1665, rector of Great Fakenham 1667, of Lawshall, Suffolk 1691.

Books

Camborne bequeathed his “library of books to my successor in this living of Lawshall to continue here for ever”, directing that two catalogues be made, one to be kept by the churchwardens and one by the incumbent, and that “there may be no diminution of the said library but that it may continue for ever”. The manuscript catalogue of 1709 lists 127 volumes, mostly theology and classics, with a preponderance of 17th-century imprints (4 STC books, 63 Wing ones). Some of the books were inherited from his father. The books remained at Lawshall rectory until the 1950s when the house was sold; they were removed initially to the University of London Library and are now deposited in Suffolk Record Office.

Characteristic Markings

Camborne typically inscribed his name on titlepages, and added titles to the spines.

Sources

• Brooke, C., A history of Gonville and Caius College, 1985, 160-1;
• Fitch, M., Suffolk parochial libraries, 1977, p.xv.
• Perkin, M., A directory of the parochial libraries of the Church of England, London, 2004, p.263.
• Venn, J. and J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge, 1922.