William Burton (antiquary, died 1645)

[3] On 20 May 1603 he was called to the bar, but soon afterwards, owing to weak health, he retired to the village of Falde in Staffordshire, where he owned an estate.

In 1597 he published with Thomas Creede a translation of Cleitophon and Leucippe from the Greek of Achilles Tatius, with a dedication to the Earl of Southampton.

Burton knew Spanish and Italian, and studied the emblem-writers, but his interest lay chiefly in heraldry and topography.

In 1602 he issued a corrected copy, printed at Antwerp, of Christopher Saxton's map of the county of Leicester.

In 1777 there was published by subscription a folio edition which claimed to be enlarged and corrected; the information contained in the Description was incorporated in Nichols's Leicestershire.

In 1612 Thomas Purefoy of Barwell in Warwickshire bequeathed at his death to Burton the original manuscript of John Leland's Collectanea.

Anthony Wood says Burton needlessly expanded this work; but Thomas Hearne, in the preface to his edition of the Collectanea, denies that.