Thomas Astle

He was articled to an attorney, but did not take up his profession and went to London, where he was employed to make an index to the catalogue of the Harleian manuscripts, printed in 1759, 2 vols, folio.

[1] Astle was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1763, and about the same time George Grenville employed him in arranging papers and other matters that required a knowledge of ancient handwriting, and nominated him, with Sir Joseph Ayloffe and Andrew Coltée Ducarel, as members of a commission to superintend the regulation of the public records at Westminster.

In 1765 Astle was made receiver-general of sixpence in the pound on the civil list, and on 18 December of the same year he married Anna Maria, the only daughter and heiress of the Rev.

He was nominated "as a Gentleman greatly Conversant in the study of the Antiquities of this kingdom" by Charles Lyttelton, Bishop of Carlisle, Ayloffe, Ducarel, Charles Lloyd, Gowin Knight, Matthew Maty, Peter Collinson, Owen Salusbury Brereton and Henry Baker.

[3] In the same year, Astle was consulted by a committee of the House of Lords on the subject of printing the ancient records of Parliament.

Thomas Astle is buried in St Mary's Church, Battersea, which has a monument to him designed by the London sculptor Charles Regnart.

[1] His printed books, chiefly collected by Morant, were purchased from his executors in 1804 for the sum of £1,000, by the founders of the Royal Institution.

The collection of manuscripts was left by will to the Marquis of Buckingham, in token of the testator's regard for the Grenville family, on payment of a nominal sum of £500.

in the Cottonian Library... with an account of the damage sustained by fire in 1731 and a catalogue of the charters preserved was published by Samuel Hooper in 1777, with a dedication to Astle.