Richard Middleton Massey 1678-1743

Richard Middleton MASSEY 1678-1743

Biographical Note

Son of Edward Massey, of Rostherne, Cheshire. Matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford 1697, but did not graduate; he was later awarded an MD by the University of Aberdeen in 1720. He became an extra-licenciate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1706 (honorary fellow, 1726), and began practising as a physician in Wisbech. Around 1720 he moved to Stepney and towards the end of his life retired to Rostherne. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1712, and of the Society of Antiquaries in 1718.

Books

Massey compiled and published a catalogue of the town library of Wisbech in 1718, and a manuscript catalogue of the library of the Royal College of Physicians in 1727. he used an engraved armorial bookplate (Franks 19929), made ca.1720; the extent and disposition of his library is not known. Some of his correspondence, and other manuscript material, survives in the Sloane Manuscripts in the British Library.

Sources

• Fellows of the Royal Society.
• Munk's Roll, Royal College of Physicians.
• Arthur, J. (ed), Medicine in Wisbech and the fens, 1985.
• A catalogue of books in the library at Wisbech, [Cambridge?], 1718, ESTC t14356.
• Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903.