Henry Pierrepont 1607-1680

Henry PIERREPONT, Marquis of Dorchester 1607-80

One of the armorial stamps of Henry Pierrepont

Biographical Note

Son of Robert Pierrepont, Earl of Kingston upon Hull. Matriculated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge 1624, but did not graduate; he was elected MP for Nottingham in 1627. He became a leading supporter of the royalist cause during the Civil War and was made Marquis of Dorchester in 1645. In 1651 he entered Gray's Inn and became a barrister the following year; he also studied medicine, and maintained a botanical garden. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1663. He was a privy councillor after the Restoration, and had some involvement with state affairs.

Books

Pierrepont developed an extensive library of ca.2000 books, which was bequeathed to the Royal College of Physicians where much of it remains today.

Characteristic Markings

Many of Pierrepont's books are marked with one of a number of armorial bindings stamps, based on the family crest of a fox.

Sources

• British Armorial Bindings.
• Fulton, J. The library of Henry Pierrepont, Journal of the History of Medicine 14 (1959), 89-90.
• Payne, L. & C. Newman, The Dorchester Library, Journal of the Royal College of Physicians 4 (1970), 234-45.
• Purcell, M. The country house library. New Haven & London, 2017, 95.
• Seddon, P. R. "Pierrepont, Henry, marquess of Dorchester (1607–1680), royalist nobleman." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• Dorchester's collection at the RCP.