Richard Izacke

Richard Izacke (16241698) of Devon was an antiquarian and lawyer who served as Chamberlain of the City of Exeter. His history, Antiquities of the City of Exeter, was first published in 1677.

Biography Baptised on 8 February 1624 at Ottery St Mary, he was the eldest son of Samuel Izacke of Exeter, who was apparently a lawyer and member of the Inner Temple (1617).

On 20 April 1641, Izacke was admitted as commoner to Exeter College, Oxford, but left the university at the end of 1642 because of the Civil War. In November 1641 he entered the Inner Temple and was called to the bar in 1650. On 25 October 1653 he became Chamberlain of Exeter and on 15 December 1681 Town Clerk of Exeter.

The largest section of the first edition consists of 180 pages of "Memorials": short descriptions of events related to Exeter, ordered by year from 1200 to 1676. Research has shown that the entries up to 1590 were substantially copied from a manuscript chronicle in the city archives that had been written by John Hooker, the first Chamberlain of Exeter, who had died in 1601. Izacke's unacknowledged and sometimes inaccurate plagiarism of Hooker's work, as well as the errors that he himself made, have caused his History to be subjected to much criticism.

However, despite its faults, the book was republished seven times up to 1757. After a reprint of the first edition in 1681, there was a gap of over forty years before the second edition was published by Izacke's son Samuel. Following this there were five more reissues, all with unchanged text, but slightly different title pages.

Izacke's manuscript history of 1665 provided the content for another book, first published in 1736 by his grandson (also named Samuel). This was about legacies left to the poor. Four further editions were published under various titles, the last in 1820.

Published editions Izacke, Richard, (improved and continued to the year 1724 by Samuel Izacke), Remarkable Antiquities of the City of Exeter, 3rd Edition, London, 1731