Joseph Ayloffe

Sir Joseph Ayloffe, 6th Baronet FRS, FSA (1708 – 19 April 1781, London) was an English antiquary.

He was the great-grandson of Sir William Ayloffe, 1st Baronet, through his third wife (Alice, daughter of James Stokes of Stoke near Coventry), their first son was Joseph Ayloffe, of Gray's inn. His has a son, Joseph Ayloffe, barrister-at-law of Gray's Inn and sometime recorder of Kingston upon Thames, who died in 1726 and was this man's father.

Joseph was born in Sussex, and became 6th Baronet Ayloffe, of Braxted Magna; on his death, his baronetcy became extinct. Ayloffe was educated at Westminster School, was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn in 1724, and spent some time at St John's College, Oxford, before 1728. In December 1730 he succeeded, as sixth in succession, to the family baronetcy on the death of his unmarried cousin, the Rev. Sir John Ayloffe, a descendant of the first family of the original holder of the title.

Sir Joseph seems very early in life to have manifested an interest in antiquities, which received at once the recognition of the learned, although for many years he was merely collecting information and published nothing. On 10 February 1731-2 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and on 27 May of the same year a fellow of the Royal Society. Seven years later he became a member of the well-known literary club—'the Gentlemen's Society at Spalding.' But he did not confine himself altogether to antiquarian research. In 1736-7 he was appointed secretary to the commission superintending the erection of Westminster Bridge; in 1750 he was auditor-general of the hospitals of Bethlehem and Bridewell; and in 1763, on the removal of the state archives from Whitehall and the establishment of a State Paper Office at the Treasury, he was nominated one of its three keepers. In 1751 Ayloffe took a prominent part in procuring a charter of incorporation for the Society of Antiquaries, of which he was for many years a vice-president, and at its meetings he very frequently read papers.

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