Stephen Watkins

Stephen WATKINS -1673?

Biographical Note

BA Trinity College, Cambridge 1637, MA 1640. Rector of Staplehurst, Kent 1645, vicar of East Grinstead, Sussex 1646, chaplain of St Saviour’s, Southwark 1647, ejected 1660. In 1664 he was teaching at a school in Lee, Kent, where he was living when he made his will in 1673.

Books

Watkins’s library, together with that of Thomas Sherley (1638-78) and others unnamed (“atque alterius cujusdam hominis docti dudum decessi”), was sold by auction in London by William Cooper, 2 June 1679. The sale catalogue lists a little over 2500 lots, including Latin theology (528), Latin philology, history and miscellaneous (602), books in oriental languages (95), Latin medicine, chemistry, mathematics and natural history (278), physick in English (79), and miscellaneous English books (907). It also included “Plays” (3), “Catalogues of libraries, and auctions, 8 in number”, and 12 manuscripts. It is not possible to determine which were Watkins’s books within the whole. [Need to see his will – “sentence” – in PCC]

Characteristic Markings

None of Watkins’s books have been identified.

Sources

• Catalogus librorum … Stephani Watkins, 1679 (ESTC R233001).
• Matthews, A. G. Calamy revised. Oxford, 1934.