J.G. Nichols

John Gough Nichols (1806–1873) was an English printer and antiquary, the third generation in a family publishing business with strong connection to learned antiquarianism.

The eldest son of John Bowyer Nichols, he was born at his father's house in Red Lion Passage, Fleet Street, London, on 22 May 1806. Richard Gough was his godfather. He went to a school kept by a Miss Roper at Islington, where, in 1811, Benjamin Disraeli, his senior by eighteen months, was a schoolfellow. From 1814 to 1816 he was educated by Thomas Waite at Lewisham grammar school, and in January 1817 he was placed at Merchant Taylors' School.

In 1824 Nichols left school for the counting-house in the printing offices of his father and grandfather. In 1830 he visited Robert Surtees in Durham, and made a Scottish tour. On the foundation of the Surtees Society in 1834 he was elected one of the treasurers. In 1835 he became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and was later its printer. The following year he was chosen a member of the committee of the Royal Literary Fund. He was one of the founders of the Camden Society (1838), and edited many of its publications; in 1862 he printed a Descriptive Catalogue of the 86 volumes then issued.

In 1841 Nichols made an antiquarian tour on the continent. He was an original member of the Archæological Institute (1844).

Nichols died at his house, Holmwood Park, near Dorking, Surrey, after a short illness, on 14 November 1873, aged 67.

Nichols at an early age kept antiquarian journals and copied inscriptions and epitaphs. He went with his father to the meetings of the Royal Society and Society of Antiquaries, and corresponded with Isaac D'Israeli. His first literary work was on the Progresses of James I of his grandfather John Nichols, which he completed in 1828.

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