Ambrose Atfield d.1684

Ambrose ATFIELD -1684

Biographical Note

BA Balliol College, Oxford 1651, MA 1654, fellow 1655; DD (Cambridge) 1665. Vicar of St Leonard, Shoreditch 1666, Rector of St Mary Somerset, London 1676, prebendary of St Paul's 1683. President of Sion College 1679-80, when he was involved in the acquisition for the College of a seized Jesuit library.

Books

Atfield's library, together with that of John Cooth (1691), was auctioned in London by Edward Millington, 25 May 1685. The sale contained 2,943 lots, plus 53 tract/pamphlet vols and 65 bundles of pamphlets (of the main lots, 1477 Latin and 1,466 English); the catalogue does not distinguish which books came from which source. his funeral sermon, printed shortly after his death, does not contain any references to his library.

Characteristic Markings

A book in the Plume Library has Atfield's name on the flyleaf, and a note if the purchase price "in rough leather". This book was lot 106 on p.37 of the sale catalogue.

Atfield's inscription: Plume Library M.2.29, J. Mayor, Many commentaries into one, 1647

Sources

• J. Venn, Biographical history of Gonville & Caius College. Cambridge, 1897; Catalogue variorum librorum...Rev. Doct. Amb. Atfield, 1685
• (ESTC r5907); R. Pearson, A sermon preached at the funeral of ... Ambrose Atfield, 1684 (ESTC r23231); E. H. Pearrce, Sion College and Library, Cambridge, 1913, 250-1, 345.