James Beauclerk 1709-1787

James BEAUCLERK or BEAUCLERCK 1709-1787

Beauclerk's later bookplate (British Museum Franks Collection 1945)

Biographical Note

Born at Windsor, younger son of Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans. BA Queen's College, Oxford 1730, MA 1733, BD and DD 1744. He was a canon of Windsor in the 1740s and was made Bishop of Hereford in 1746, where he spent the rest of his career. He was assiduous in his episcopal duties, and unusually attentive to administrative details and clerical standards.

Books

Beauclerk used two engraved armorial bookplates, an earlier one (Franks 1944) labelled The Rt. Honourable Lord James Beauclerck and a later anonymous one (Franks 1945) with the family arms impaled with those of the see of Hereford. In his will, he left all his books, together with 500 guineas, to his secretary Richard Jones, except "my folio Bible printed by Field bound in red Turkey leather with the arms of the Earl of Oxford on the covers", left to his nephew Henry Beauclerk. His library was auctioned in London, beginning 15 March 1788, as part of a mixed sale in which Beauclerk was identified only as "a nobleman".

Sources

• Will of James Beauclerk, The National Archives PROB 11/1157/282.
• Alston, R. C., Inventory of sale catalogues ... 1676-1800, St Philip, 2010.
• A catalogue of a very extensive and curious collection of books, including the libraries of a nobleman, [London, 1788].
• Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903-4.
• Marshall, William."Beauclerk, James (1709–1787), bishop of Hereford." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.