Francis Willoughby 1635-1672

Francis WILLOUGHBY or WILLUGHBY 1635-72

Biographical Note

Of Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire; member of a long-established gentry family that included another Francis Willoughby (1614-65). Entered Trinity College, Cambridge as a fellow-commoner in 1653. BA 1655-6, MA 1659. Willoughby was a noted naturalist and associate of John Ray; the pair travelled across England, Wales and the continent together, studying local animals and plants and gathering specimens. Willoughby was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society in 1661. He married Emma (1644–1725), daughter of Sir Henry Barnard in 1668. They had three children, Francis (1668–1688), Cassandra (1670–1735), and Thomas Willoughby, 1st Baron Middleton (1672-1729). Willoughby was created a baronet in 1677. After Willoughby's death in 1672 Ray published the work they had done together. He published the Ornithology in Latin in 1676 and in English in 1678, and published Historia piscium, prepared from Willughby's papers, in 1686. Ray planned to complete Willughby's 'History of insects' but died before he could do so; it was later edited by William Derham and published on behalf of the Royal Society in 1710.

Books

The Willoughby family library was continuously developed from the 14th century onwards (some of the medieval manuscripts survive and are today in Nottingham University Library). The library was reorganised and catalogued at Wollaton in the 1690s by Willoughby’s son, Thomas Willoughby).

Sources

• Birkhead, T., The wonderful Mr Willughby, London, 2018.
• Boulger, G. S., and Michael Hunter. '"Willughby, Francis (1635–1672), naturalist."' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• Hanna, R. & T. Turville-Petre (eds), The Wollaton medieval manuscripts, 2010.