Francis Wise

Francis Wise (3 June 1695 – 5 October 1767) was an academic, archivist, librarian and antiquarian at the University of Oxford.

Life Francis Wise was born in Oxford on 3 June 1695. His father, Francis Wise, was a mercer. After being educated at New College School he matriculated at the University of Oxford as a member of Trinity College in 1711. He became a fellow of the college in 1718 and was ordained deacon and priest in 1721. Within the university, he served as under-keeper of the Bodleian Library from 1719, trying but failing to become Bodley's Librarian in 1729 and President of Trinity College in 1731. He did, however, win the election for the position of Keeper of the Archives in 1726, in which he was the only Whig candidate. He carried out no new work with the archives, unlike his predecessors. His final success was to become the first librarian of the Radcliffe Library in 1748 – a sinecure post, since it was an institution that at the outset had "few books and even fewer readers".

Selected publications Francis Wise, Further Observations on the White Horse and other Antiquities in Berkshire (Oxford: Thomas Wood, 1742) Francis Wise, A history of English coinage to A.D. 1660, bibliography, and list of tradesmen's tokens (Oxford, Bodleian Library Manuscripts, 1750) Francis Wise, Nummorum antiquorum scriniis Bodleianis reconditorum catalogus (Sheldonian Theatre, 1750)