County Histories

Date range: 18th-19th centuries

Medium: Printed

Number of items: 500 items (dispersed).

The Library holds a fine collection of 18th- and 19th-century county histories, which are an important source for studies of local history and topography, antiquities, agriculture and commerce, the aristocracy and gentry, ecclesiastical history, and genealogy.

They include:

• The first and second editions of Edward Hasted’s History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (Canterbury: The author, 1778–99); 2nd edn (Canterbury: W. Bristow, 1797–1801);
• Owen Manning and William Bray’s History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey (London: J. White, 1804–14);
• Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s Ancient History of South and North Wiltshire (London: W. Miller, 1812–19) and History of Modern Wiltshire (London: J. Nichols, 1822–44);
• Three editions of John Hutchins’s History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset (London: W. Bowyer and J. Nichols, 1774); 2nd edn (London: John Nichols, 1796–1815); 3rd edn (Westminster: J. B. Nichols and Sons, 1861–70);
• The first and second editions of Francis Blomefield’s An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk ([Fersfield]: [n. pub.], 1739–75); 2nd edn (London: W. Miller, 1805–10), published in five and eleven volumes respectively;
• John Cussans’s History of Hertfordshire (London: Chatto, 1870–81);
• George Baker’s History and Antiquities of the County of Northampton (London: J. B. Nichols and Son, 1822–41);
• John Nichols’s History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester (London: John Nichols, 1795–1811);
• The Rev. Stebbing Shaw’s History and Antiquities of Staffordshire (London: J. Nichols, 1798-1801);
• George Ormerod’s History of the County Palatine and City of Chester (London: Lackington Hughes Harding Mavor and Jones, 1819) and the 1882 edn, rev. by Thomas Helsby (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1882);
• Edward Baines’s History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster (London: Fisher Son & Co., 1836) and the new, rev. and improved edn, ed. by John Harland (London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1868–70);
• Robert Surtees’s History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham (London: J. B. Nichols and Son, 1816–40).

There are all the editions of John Stow’s A Survey of London, from 1598 to 1633; the first edition of William Maitland’s History of London: From its Foundation by the Romans, to the Present Time (London: Samuel Richardson, 1739), and a grangerized copy of Thomas Pennant’s Some Account of London (London: Faulder, 1805).

Many of the volumes are extra-illustrated with the coats of arms hand-painted.

Further information:

Recorded in Library Search.

Location:

• The John Rylands Library, Deansgate  [Map]
• Find out how to use the reading rooms in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library