William Upcott

William Upcott, engraving from 1818 by T. Bragg from a portrait by William Behnes William Upcott (1779–1845) was an English librarian and antiquary.

Life Born in Oxfordshire, he was the illegitimate son of Ozias Humphry by Delly Wickens, daughter of an Oxford shopkeeper, called Upcott from the maiden name of Humphry's mother. His father bequeathed to him his miniatures, pictures, drawings, and engravings, as well as correspondence with many leading figures.

Upcott was initially a bookseller, at first an assistant of Robert Harding Evans of Pall Mall, and then of John Wright of Piccadilly. While at Wright's shop he attracted the attention of John Ireland, William Gifford, and the writers of the Anti-Jacobin who met there, and he witnessed the scuffle there between Gifford and John Wolcot, helping to eject Wolcot. In imitation of the plan adopted by William Oldys, he fitted up a room with shelves and a hundred receptacles into which he dropped cuttings on different subjects. The Guildhall Library originated in a suggestion by him, and in 1828 he superintended the arrangement of the books in it. The sketch-books of Ozias Humphry (Add MSS 15958–15969) were purchased by Thomas Rodd at the sale, but were at once resold to the British Museum.

The main parts of Upcott's collections which were not acquired by the British Museum consisted of the correspondence of Ralph Thoresby (which was edited by Joseph Hunter) and of Emanuel da Costa. A large series of autograph letters from Upcott's stores was purchased by Captain Montagu Montagu, R.N., and left by him at his death in 1863 to the Bodleian Library. Many of Humphry's works passed at Upcott's death to his friend, Charles Hampden Turner.

In 1836 Upcott privately printed a brief catalogue of his letters, manuscripts, and state papers, in the hope that they might be bought for some public institution. One of his major finds was the original manuscript of Thomas Chatterton's extravaganza Amphitryon, which he chanced upon in the shop of a city cheesemonger. It was purchased by the British Museum in 1841.

Works Upcott published in 1818, in three volumes, a Bibliographical Account of the Principal Works relating to English Topography. It was later largely superseded by the British Topography (1881) of John P. Anderson, who refers in his preface to Upcott's "excellent catalogue". Upcott revised for the press the first edition of John Evelyn's Diary, brought out by William Bray in 1818, and for the edition of 1827 he collated the copy with the original manuscript at Wotton and made corrections. In 1825 he further edited Evelyn's Miscellaneous Writings. He reprinted in 1814 Andrew Borde's Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, and in 1819 Edmund Carter's History of the County of Cambridge.

Robert Southey was indebted to Upcott for the transcript of Thomas Malory's King Arthur (1817), and Upcott corrected it for the press. He took an active part in the publication of the Garrick Correspondence, and in the preparation of the Catalogue of the London Institution; and assisted in compiling the Biographical Dictionary of 1816.