Mark Masterman-Sykes

He was eldest son of Sir Christopher Sykes, 2nd Baronet of Sledmere House, Yorkshire, by his wife Elizabeth (d. 1803), daughter of William Tatton of Withenshaw, Cheshire.

[2] On 14 May 1807 Sykes was returned Member of Parliament for the city of York, and retained his seat until 1820, when he retired on account of ill health.

[2] Sykes was famous as a bibliophile, and possessed a major private library, rich in editiones principes, incunabula, and Elizabethan poetry.

The editio princeps of Livy, by Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweynheim (Rome, 1469), with painted arms of the Borgia family, is the only copy on vellum extant, and after Sykes's death passed to Thomas Grenville who bequeathed it to the British Museum.

He also collected pictures, bronzes, coins, medals, and prints (with a complete set of Francesco Bartolozzi's engravings, comprising his proofs and etchings).