Hunter, Joseph, 1783-1861

English antiquary and editor.

English antiquary.

Joseph Hunter, antiquary and Presbyterian minister, was born in Sheffield England and trained for the ministry at a college in York. In 1809, he became the minister of a Presbyterian congregation at Bath. He lived there 24 years during which time he continued the antiquarian work begun in his youth. He published Hallamshire in 1819 which was the history of his native town. In 1833, Hunter was appointed sub-commissioner of the public records. He moved to London and in 1838 he was appointed assistant keeper of the first class with special responsibility for compiling a calendar of the Queen's remembrancer records. He is best known for his New illustrations of the life, studies and writings of Shakespeare (1845). He was a fellow, and for many years a vice-president, of The Society of Antiquaries.

British historian.

Sir Thomas Phillipps was an English antiquary and collector whose library of manuscripts, housed in his estate at Middle Hill, Worcestershire, eventually numbered over 60,000 items. The Shakespearean scholar James Orchard Halliwell married Phillipps's eldest daughter against her father's wishes. Phillipps found this document in the papers of the antiquary Joseph Hunter, whose library he had purchased in December 1861, and it seems to have reinforced his dislike of Halliwell.