George Wilmer ca.1583-1626
George WILMER ca.1583-1626
Biographical Note
Son of George Wilmer, of West Ham, Essex, and a member of a successful gentry family. BA Trinity College, Cambridge 1601. Admitted at the Inner Temple, 1602. Became a Collector of the Petty Customs for the Port of London, and a JP for Middlesex; at the time of his death he was resident at Stratford le Bow, Middlesex.
Books
ca.1610, Wilmer gave 39 medieval manuscripts to Trinity College, mostly of monastic provenance (e.g. Christ Church and St Augustine's, Canterbury), covering subjects from theology to chronicles, science and English poetry (notably a 14th-century text of Piers Plowman). Gaskell described it as "a consciously antiquarian collection of fine books from various sources", and guessed that Wilmer may have inherited it en bloc. The manuscripts have early 17th-century bindings decorated with Wilmer's arms, and printed books with several variant arms blocks of his also survive in various libraries. His will has no specific reference to books, but directed that the residue of his estate should be divided between his children. Inscriptions in some of these books suggest that his books may have descended to his great great granddaughter Anne (d.1780), wife of William Gossip of Thorp Arch (1704-72). Examples: CUL Rel.d.60.6, Rel.d.60.8; NAL CLE TT2, CLE NN19; Folger STC 7138.
Characteristic Markings
The books in Cambridge UL each have Wilmer's name inscribed on the titlepage and flyleaves, sometimes in the form "George Wilmer 6 ---", as well as an armorial stamp on the bindings.
Sources
- British Armorial Bindings.
- Gaskell, P. Trinity College Library: the first 150 years, Cambridge, 1980,82-3.
- Venn, J. & J. A. Alumni Cantabrigienses. Cambridge, 1922.