William Sterne
William STERNE d.1657
Biographical Note
Son of Simon Sterne of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and elder brother of Richard Sterne. BA Trinity College, Cambridge 1613, MA 1616. Vicar of Little Horwood, Buckinghamshire 1621, of Trumpington, Cambridgeshire 1625; rector of Glooston, Leicestershire 1633 until his death. Although his theological sympathies were Laudian and he was described as insufficient and scandalous by parliamentary commissioners in 1650, he was not deprived during the Civil War.
Books
Sterne's will has no specific mention of books, but they would have passed to his brother Richard as part of the residue of his estate. The size of his library is not known but a number of his books went eventually to his nephew Simon, who left books to Halifax parish library. Ca. 260 volumes, including a number of William's, survive today (now in York University Library), but an unknown number have been lost over the years. Examples: York UL Halifax C38.3 MAY, MA115.9 AUL, C30.2 BEL, MQ142.
Characteristic markings
Sterne regularly inscribed his name and was also an extensive annotator of his books, not only via notes in margins and endleaves, but also through the use of his own indexing system, which assigned numbers to each of his books, using them for cross-referencing in marginal notes. Extant numbers suggest that his library ran to over 700 items. The annotations in his copy of Constitutions and canons ecclesiasticall (1604) have been examined in some detail by Andrew Cambers to demonstrate Sterne’s own theological position, and the teaching which he evidently extended to his parishioners.
Sources
- Will of William Sterne, The National Archives PROB 11/265/81.
- Cambers, A., ‘Pastoral Laudianism? Religious politics in the 1630s: a Leicestershire rector’s annotations’, Midland History 27 (2002), 38-51.
- Cambers, A., Godly reading, Cambridge, 2011, p. 146.
- Perkin, M., A directory of the parochial libraries of the Church of England, London, 2004, 225-7.
- Venn, J. and J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge, 1922.