Author: EDMONDSON (Joseph):
Title: An Historical and Genealogical Account of the Noble Family of Greville, to the time of Francis, the present Earl Brooke, and Earl of Warwick Including the History and Asuccession of the Several Earls of Warwick since the Norman Conquest; and Some Account of Warwick Castle.
Description: London, Printed MDCCLXVI 1766 FIRST EDITION. Tall 8vo, 245 x 152 mms., ,pp. [ii], 108, engraved frontispiece, engraved title-page, 9 engraved plates (5 folding), engraved vignettes within text, uncut, later boards (soiled), crudely rebacked with cloth. The herald and coach-painter Josph Edmondson (bap. 1732, d. 1786) started his working life as barber, but made a transition to a painter of arms on coaches, which possibly led to his interest in heraldry; he painted Queen Charlotte's coach some time before 1763. Having accumulated some capital, "he bought the great manuscript collection of peers' pedigrees known as the Baronagium genealogicum, very probably compiled by Simon Segar, great-grandson of Sir William Segar, Garter king of arms. His proposal to update and publish this work engendered the rivalry of the heralds at the College of Arms, who resolved to produce their own peerage genealogies. Their attempt fell through and in 1764 Edmondson began the publication of his Baronagium. It was originally published in numbers, and when completed sold for 25 guineas. It was followed by a sixth volume of subsequent creations. It brought him to the attention of the nobility, many of whom asked him to compile or revise their pedigrees.... In 1764 Edmondson also published his small tract Tables of Precedency, and in 1766 his Historical and Genealogical Account of the Noble Family of Greville, dedicated to Francis Greville, earl of Warwick, appeared. It was followed ten years later by his Companion to the Peerage of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1780 he produced his most famous work, A Complete Body of Heraldry, in two volumes..." (Oxford DNB).

Keywords: genealogy family history prose


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