Reginald Bainbrigg 1545-1613

Reginald BAINBRIGG 1545-1613

Biographical Note

Born at Hilton, near Appleby, Westmorland, son of Christopher Bainbrigg, yeoman farmer. BA Queen’s, Oxford 1576, MA 1579. Licensed as schoolmaster at the Free Grammar School, Appleby 1580, where he remained until his death, erecting a new school building in 1602. His notes on the Roman Wall, which he sent to William Camden who described him as “a very learned gentleman”, are preserved in Cotton and Lansdowne manuscripts.

Books

Bequeathed his books to Appleby School, with the stipulation that the collection should not be sold or broken up. A catalogue of the school library made in 1656 lists 295 items from Bainbrigg’s bequest, of which 158 survive today (now in Newcastle University Library). The books include works on grammar, logic, dialectic and rhetoric in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Oxford was clearly a significant purchasing source as at least 50 of the books have contemporary Oxford bindings.

Sources

• Hinchcliffe, E. Catalogue of the Bainbrigg Library of Appleby Grammar School, 1977.
• Ovenden, R. The manuscript library of Lord William Howard of Naworth, in J. Willoughby and J. Catto (eds), Books and bookmen in early modern Britain, Toronto, 2018, 278-318, 300-1.
• Winchester, Angus J. L. "Bainbrigg, Reginald (1544/5–1612/13), schoolmaster and antiquary." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.