Richard Middleton Massey 1678-1743

Richard Middleton MASSEY 1678-1743

Biographical Note

Son of Edward Massey, of Rostherne, Cheshire. Matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford 1697, but did not graduate; he was later awarded an MD by the University of Aberdeen in 1720. He became an extra-licenciate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1706 (honorary fellow, 1726), and began practising as a physician in Wisbech. Around 1720 he moved to Stepney and towards the end of his life retired to Rostherne. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1712, and of the Society of Antiquaries in 1718.

Books

Massey compiled and published a catalogue of the town library of Wisbech in 1718, and a manuscript catalogue of the library of the Royal College of Physicians in 1727. he used an engraved armorial bookplate (Franks 19929), made ca.1720. Some of his correspondence, and other manuscript material, survives in the Sloane Manuscripts in the British Library.

Sources

• Fellows of the Royal Society.
• Munk's Roll, Royal College of Physicians.
• A catalogue of books in the library at Wisbech, [Cambridge?], 1718, ESTC t14356.
• Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903.