WILLIAM

See also:

• WILLIAM BORLASE (1695–1772)

BORLASE (1695–1772)  , English antiquary and naturalist, was born at Pendeen in Cornwall, of an ancient family, on the 2nd of February 1695 . He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, and in 1719 was ordained . In 1722 he was presented to the rectory of Ludgvan, and in 1732 he obtained in addition the vicarage of St Just, his native parish . In the parish of Ludgvan were rich copper works, abounding with mineral and metallic fossils, of which he made a collection, and thus was led to study somewhat minutely the natural history of the county . In 1750 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society; and in 1754 he published, at Oxford, his Antiquities of Cornwall (2nd ed., London, 1769) . His next publication was Observations on the Ancient and Present State of the Islands of Scilly, and their Importance to the Trade of Great Britain (Oxford, 1756) . In 1758 appeared his Natural History of Cornwall . He presented to the Ashmolean museum, Oxford, a variety of fossils and antiquities, which he had described in his works, and received the thanks of the university and the degree of LL.D . He died on the 31st of August 1772 . Borlase was well acquainted with most of the leading literary men of the time, particularly with Alexander Pope, with whom he kept up a long correspondence, and for whose grotto at Twickenham he furnished the greater part of the fossils and minerals . Borlase's letters to Pope, St Aubyn and others, with answers, fill several volumes of MS . There are also MS. notes on Cornwall, and a complete unpublished treatise Concerning the Creation and Deluge .

Some

account of these MSS., with extracts from them, was givenin the Quarterly Review, October 1875 . Borlase's memoirs of his own life were published in Nichol's Literary Anecdotes, vol. v .