Robert Wiseman 1609/10-1684

Sir Robert WISEMAN 1609/10-1684

Biographical Note

Born at Rivenhall, Essex, son of Sir Thomas Wiseman. LL.B Trinity Hall, Cambridge 1634 (fellow 1631-53), LL.D 1639. Commissioner of policies and assurances in London, 1645. Advocate-General 1660, knighted 1661. Admitted to Doctors’ Commons 1663 (President, 1672). Official-principal of the court of Canterbury, Dean of the Arches 1672; Deputy judge of the Admiralty 1673; Commissary of the peculiar of Monks Risborough, Buckinghamshire 1681.

Books

Wiseman’s law books were sold in London by Robert Scott in 1686. The catalogue lists 634 lots (including many multi-volume sets), predominantly Latin works (531 lots), with a small proportion of French ones (94) and hardly any in English (9). The contents cover all aspects of the law (criminal, civil, ecclesiastical) but not other subjects and we do not know how widely Wiseman’s library may have ranged beyond this. In his will, he bequeathed his civil and criminal law commonplace books ("all of my own collection and writing") to Sir Richard Lloyd, his successor as Dean of the Arches; beyond this, there are no specific references to books, and all the residue of his goods and estate was left to his wife.

Characteristic Markings

None of Wiseman’s books have been identified.

Sources

• Alston, E. C., Inventory of sale catalogues ... 1676-1800, St Philip, 2010.
• Catalogus librorum juridicorum Roberti Wyseman, 1686, ESTC R233749.
• Jones, N. G. "Wiseman, Sir Robert (1609/10–1684), judge and jurist." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.