Humfrey Wanley (21 March 1672 – 6 July 1726) was an English librarian, palaeographer and scholar of Old English, employed by manuscript collectors such as Robert and Edward Harley. He was the first keeper of the Harleian Library, now the Harleian Collection.
Early life and education
Wanley was born at Coventry on 21 March 1671/2 and baptised on 10 April, the son of Nathaniel Wanley. Around 1687, he was apprenticed to a draper called Wright at Coventry, and remained with him until 1694, but he spent every vacant hour in studying old books and documents and copying the various styles of handwriting. His studies are said to have begun with a transcript of the Anglo-Saxon dictionary of William Somner.
His skill in unravelling ancient writing became known to William Lloyd, the bishop of Lichfield, who at a visitation sent for him, and ultimately obtained his entrance, as a commoner, at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, where the theologian John Mill, was principal. He matriculated there on 7 May 1695, but next year moved to University College, on the persuasion of the college master, Arthur Charlett, with whom he lived. He took no degree at Oxford, but gave Mill much help in collating the text of the New Testament.
Antiquarian career
Wanley's talents were first publicly shown, when he was twenty-three, in compiling the catalogues of the manuscripts at King Henry VIII School, Coventry and the Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick, which are inserted in Edward Bernard's Catalogue of Manuscript (1697, ii. 33–4, 203–6), and he drew up "the very accurate but too brief" index to that work. In February 1695–6 he obtained, through Charlett's influence, the post of assistant in the Bodleian Library at a salary of £12 per year. At the end of that year, he received a special gift from the library of £10, and, in the beginning of 1700, a donation of £15 "for his pains about Dr. Bernard's books". This second contribution was for selecting from Bernard's printed books such as were suitable for purchase on behalf of the library. The selection led to a disagreement with Thomas Hyde, the head librarian, which was, however, soon reconciled. By 1698 Hyde wished Wanley to be appointed as his successor. But he had no degree, and without one he was ineligible. About 1698, he was preparing a work on diplomacy. The account of the Bodleian Library in Edward Chamberlayne's State of England (1704) is by him.
During 1699 and 1700, Wanley was engaged by George Hickes in searching through various parts of England for Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, and this led to his drawing up the catalogue of such manuscripts published in 1705 as the second volume of the Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus of Hickes. The dedication (dated 28 August 1704) to Robert Harley, acknowledging the benefits received from him, was written in English and translated into Latin by Edward Thwaites. Wanley had been introduced by Hickes to Harley, on 23 April 1701, with the highest praise for "the best skill in ancient hands and manuscripts of any man, not only of this [...] but of any former age". This introduction and dedication later on procured Wanley's advancement.
Wanley desired in December 1699 to be deputy-librarian to Bentley at the king's library, but this was denied him. The post of assistant to the secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, offered to him through the influence of Robert Nelson, on 16 December 1700, with a salary of £40 per year, was "thankfully accepted". He was promoted on 5 March 1701/2 to be secretary, with an annual salary of £70, and he retained the post until on or about 24 June 1708. Three letters from him relating to the society are printed in John Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, and to promote its objects he translated from the French J. F. Ostervald's Grounds and Principles of the Christian Religion (1704, 7th edit. 1765).