Humfrey Wanley
Around 1687, he was apprenticed to a draper called Wright at Coventry, and remained with him until 1694, but he spent every vacant hour in studying old books and documents and copying the various styles of handwriting.
His skill in unravelling ancient writing became known to William Lloyd, the bishop of Lichfield, who at a visitation sent for him, and ultimately obtained his entrance, as a commoner, at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, where the theologian John Mill, was principal.
At the end of that year, he received a special gift from the library of £10, and, in the beginning of 1700, a donation of £15 "for his pains about Dr. Bernard's books".
The dedication (dated 28 August 1704) to Robert Harley, acknowledging the benefits received from him, was written in English and translated into Latin by Edward Thwaites.
Wanley had been introduced by Hickes to Harley, on 23 April 1701, with the highest praise for "the best skill in ancient hands and manuscripts of any man, not only of this [...] but of any former age".
The post of assistant to the secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, offered to him through the influence of Robert Nelson, on 16 December 1700, with a salary of £40 per year, was "thankfully accepted".
Three letters from him relating to the society are printed in John Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, and to promote its objects he translated from the French J. F. Ostervald's Grounds and Principles of the Christian Religion (1704, 7th edit.
Through Harley he became known to Alexander Pope, who used to imitate his ‘"tilted turns of phraseology and elaboration of manner," and addressed two letters to him in 1725.
His collection of bibles and prayer-books is set out in the Gentleman's Magazine (1816); it was purchased in 1726, shortly before his death, by the dean and chapter of St. Paul's.
Several volumes at the British Museum have copious notes in his handwriting; his additions to Anthony Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses are contained in a copy in the library of the Royal Institution.
Wanley often suffered from ill-health, and died of dropsy at Clarges Street, Hanover Square, London, on 6 July 1726.
He married, at St Swithin, London Stone, on 1 May 1705, Anna, daughter of Thomas Bourchier of Newcastle upon Tyne, and widow of Bernard Martin Berenclow.
His second wife was Ann, who afterwards married William Lloyd of St James's, Westminster, and was buried in Marylebone church, a monument to her memory being placed against the north wall at the eastern end.
Seu Humphredi Wanleii ... cum totius thesauri linguarum septentrionalium sex indicibus, was of paramount importance in the field.
According to Neil Ripley Ker, Wanley was a "great paleographer....His catalogue of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts is a book which scholars will continue to use, or neglect at their peril.
