Clement Sankey 1633/4-1707
Clement SANKEY 1633/4-1707
Biographical Note
Son of Walter Sankey, gentleman, of London. BA Magdalene College, Cambridge 1652, MA 1655, DD 1668. Rector of St Clement Eastcheap, London 1666-1707, of Settrington, Yorkshire 1667, of Whitchurch, Shropshire 1684; canon of York 1669. Mentioned several times in Pepys's diary (who knew him at Cambridge) as a convivial companion, and "reckoned a great minister here in the City". A consistory court case of 1704 involving accusations against Sankey's housekeeper Jane Haines, to whom he left £200 in his will, in which she was accused of immoral behaviour with Sankey's curates and others, suggests that there were tensions between him and his parish.
Books
Sankey's will has no specific reference to books and much of his estate was left to various of his servants. His books were bought from his executors for £305 by Jane Egerton, Dowager Countess of Bridgewater and given by her to the church at Whitchurch as a parish library "for ever for the use of the rectors". A contemporary catalogue of the donation lists ca.2250 volumes; the collection was added to during the 19th century and was kept at the church until the 1960s, when it was moved to Shropshire County Library and then to the Shropshire Record Office.
Sources
- Anderton, P. Whitchurch divided: conforming and nonconforming ... 1526-1720, Whitchurch, 2011.
- Latham, R. & W. Matthews (eds), The diary of Samuel Pepys, vol 8, 1974, 151, and other references to Sankey in the Index volume.
- Perkin, M. A directory of the parochial libraries of the Church of England. London, 2004.
- Venn, J. & J. A. Alumni Cantabrigienses. Cambridge, 1922.