James Fawckner Nicholls

James Fawckner Nicholls (26 May 1818 – 19 September 1883) was an English antiquarian and librarian.

From a Cornish background, he was born on 26 May 1818 at Sidmouth in Devon, the son of a builder there; his mother was a daughter of Captain James Fawkner of Plymouth.

He was then taken into the drapery business, and after a short period bought an establishment for himself at Benwick in the Isle of Ely.

He next kept a school at Ramsey; and then moved to Manchester, where he was traveller for a firm of paper-stainers.

In 1860 he settled in Bristol, where he ran a paper-staining business for eight years.

Bristol City Library, King Street, in 1876 , illustration from James Fawckner Nicholls and John Taylor , Bristol Past and Present (1882)