Thomas Macro 1682-1744
Thomas MACRO 1682-1744
Biographical Note
Son of Thomas Macro of Bury St Edmunds, grocer and alderman there. BA Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge 1705, fellow 1707-21, MA 1708, DD 1722. Curate of St Edmund's, Cambridge 1710, vicar of Babraham 1716, rector of Hockwold and Wilton, Norfolk 1720, minister of St Nicholas, Great Yarmouth 1722-43 (where he died). He was Librarian of the University of Cambridge 1718-21 (having stood unsuccessfully for the post in 1712); his tenure there was largely taken up with planning space for the intake of John Moore's library. Two of his sermons were printed in the 1730s.
Books
Macro used an engraved armorial bookplate (Franks 19436), incorporating his initials as a monogram. The extent of his library is not known; in his will, he left "my library of books both manuscript and printed with my cabinet of gold and silver coins" to his son Thomas, to be delivered to him at age 21. He was only 17 when the will was made in 1740, but 22 when his father died, so the legacy was presumably immediately received, but Thomas the son died a few years later in 1746. Blatchly states that Macro gave over 200 books to St Nicholas, Great Yarmouth, for a parish library, but there is no mention of this by Perkin . Macro's younger brother Cox Macro (1683-1767) was a noted antiquary and manuscript collector.
Characteristic Markings
Blatchly reproduces an example of Macro's inscription found adjacent to the bookplate in a surviving book.
Sources
- Will of Thomas Macro, The National Archives PROB 11/733/92.
- Blatchly, J., Some Suffolk and Norfolk ex-libris, London, 2000, p.19.
- Brewer, Sarah. "Macro, Cox (bap. 1683, d. 1767), antiquary and Church of England clergyman." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- Gambier Howe, E. R. J., Franks bequest. Catalogue of British and American book plates, London, 1903.
- McKitterick, D. Cambridge University Library: a history, vol. 2, Cambridge, 1986, p.167-8.
- Perkin, M., A directory of the parochial libraries of the Church of England, London, 2004, p.182.
- Venn, J. and J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge, 1922.