Thomas Fairfax 1612-1671
From Book Owners Online
Thomas FAIRFAX, 3rd Baron Fairfax 1612-71
Biographical Note
Born at Denton, Yorkshire, 1st son of Ferdinando Fairfax, 2nd Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1584-1648). Matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge in 1626; entered Gray's Inn in 1628. A parliamentary general in the Civil War, he led the army to victory at Naseby in 1645. Created MP for Cirencester in 1649, West Riding in 1654 and Yorkshire in 1659 and 1660. An active reader and writer, and collector of coins and engravings as well as books.
Books
Noted for having protected the Bodleian Library from looting when the Oxford was captured; bequeathed 129 medieval manuscripts to the Bodleian, and the manuscripts collections which were left to him by Roger Dodsworth.
Sources
- British Armorial Bindings.
- History of Parliament.
- Gentles, Ian J. "Fairfax, Thomas, third Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1612–1671), parliamentarian army officer." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- Philip, I. The Bodleian Library in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Oxford, 1983, 57.