Michael Geddes ca.1647-1713

Michael GEDDES ca.1647-1713

Biographical Note

Born in Scotland, son of Robert Geddes, probably of Cornhill, Aberdeenshire, gentleman. MA University of Edinburgh 1668, moved to Oxford 1669, where he studied at Gloucester Hall and Balliol College. He was awarded a Lambeth Ll.D in 1695. Chaplain to the English factory at Lisbon 1678; rector of Farmington, Gloucestershire 1688, of Compton Bassett, Wiltshire 1693. Chancellor of the diocese of Salisbury, 1691. Rector of East Hendred, Berkshire 1710, where he began a charity school. His publications were largely focused around vilification of Roman Catholicism, sometimes built around observations of overseas affairs; they included The history of the church of Malabar (1694), The church-history of Ethiopia (1696) and The Council of Trent no free assembly (1697).

Books

Geddes divided his estate, in his will, largely between his wife and two sons, but also directed that Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, should have the choice of six books from his study. His library was sold in London by fixed price sale, 10 May 1714, together with that of “a gentleman lately come from travelling deceas’d”. The catalogue included 921 lots, divided between Latin books (121), Spanish books (147), Italian Books (123), French books (100), voyages and travels (108), miscellaneous English (308) and books of maps, charts and prints (14). The sale also included “many more volumes of sermons [and] a collection of lexicons, dictionaries, grammars, etc” which were listed in a separate written catalogue. It is not possible to know how ownership of the various lots was divided (assuming that the gentleman traveller was not a fiction).

Characteristic markings

None of Geddes’s books have been identified.

Sources

• A catalogue of the libraries of … Michael Geddes [etc], 1714, ESTC t13007.
• Smolenaars, Marja. '"Geddes, Michael (c. 1647–1713), Church of England clergyman."' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.