John Pridden

The eldest son of John Pridden, a bookseller of Ludgate Hill and friend of Joseph Brasbridge, by his wife Anne, daughter of Humphrey Gregory of Whitchurch, Shropshire, he was born in London on 3 January 1758.

[1][2][3] Pridden was successively afternoon lecturer at Tavistock Chapel, London (1782), minor canon of St Paul's Cathedral (November 1782), and vicar of Heybridge, Essex (July 1783).

He was curate (from 1783 to 1803) of St. Bride's, Fleet Street, where the rector was non-resident; vicar of Little Wakering, Essex (1788); chaplain to Earl Powlett (1789); priest in ordinary of his majesty's Chapel Royal (1795); and minor canon of Westminster Abbey.

To the Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica he contributed Appendix to the History of Reculver and Herne (1787) and drawings, particularly illustrating the Leicestershire collections of his father-in-law John Nichols.

His major antiquarian achievement was the continuation of the index and glossary to the Rolls of Parliament, which had been started by John Strachey.

Cranham Hall , 1789 drawing by John Pridden, before it was rebuilt