John Bargrave

John Bargrave (1610 – 11 May, 1680), was an English author and collector and a canon of Canterbury Cathedral.

Bargrave was born in Kent in 1610, the son of Captain John Bargrave and Jane Crouch. His father had fought in the war between the English and the Spanish and had returned to Bridge to raise a family. The Bargraves had recently come to be considered local gentry and this had resulted in the marriage of Bargrave Snr. and the daughter of London haberdasher, Giles Crouch, who later built and impressive family home known as Bifrons at nearby Patrixbourne. Bargrave (Jnr.) was a nephew of Isaac Bargrave, Dean of the Canterbury Cathedral.

Bargrave was first educated at The King's School, Canterbury and then at St. Peter's College at Cambridge. Bargrave became librarian there and then a fellow of the college in 1637. Bargrave's uncle Isaac was a strong supporter of the monarchy and thus the Cavaliers and at the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 he was imprisoned. He was released the following year but died soon after and John Bargrave was ejected from the fellowship of the college.

Thereafter, Bargrave devoted his time chiefly to travelling across the European continent. In 1646 and 1647 he was in Italy with his nephew, John Raymond, author of an itinerary in which Bargrave is supposed to have had a considerable hand. He was again at Rome in 1650, 1655, and 1659–60 and observed the mechanisations (though not in any official capacity) of the papal conclave of 1655.

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