John Marsham 1602-1685

Sir John MARSHAM 1602-1685

Biographical Note

Of Whome’s Place, Cuxton, Kent; son of Thomas Marsham (1556-1625). BA St John’s College 1623, MA 1625, admitted to the Middle Temple in 1628. Travelled widely on the continent from 1625 to 1627 and again in 1629. He was appointed one of the six clerks in Chancery in 1638. His estates were sequestrated during the civil war, though he compounded for them and was able to return to Cuxton. MP for Rochester in 1660, created a baronet in 1663. An antiquarian and respected scholar, he was the author of the Diatriba chronologica (1649), the Chronicus canon (1665, 1672) and wrote the preface to the first volume of William Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum (1655).

Books

Two early bookplates are attributed to Marsham, one of which was also used as an engraving in a book of 1649. His brief will has no mention of books, or other goods, merely appointing his sons as executors of his estate; the extent of his library is not known.

Sources

• Will of Sir John Marsham, The National Archives PROB 11/380/175.
• History of Parliament.
• Black, Shirley Burgoyne. "Marsham, Sir John, first baronet (1602–1685), antiquary." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903, 19825.
• Lee, B. N. British bookplates: a pictorial history. Newton Abbot, 1979, 9.