Richard Rawlinson

Richard Rawlinson FRS (3 February 1690 – 6 April 1755) was an English clergyman and antiquarian collector of books and manuscripts, which he bequeathed to the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Richard Rawlinson was a younger son of Sir Thomas Rawlinson (1647–1708), Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1705-6, and a brother of Thomas Rawlinson (1681–1725), the bibliophile who ruined himself in the South Sea Company, at whose sale in 1734 Richard bought many of the Orientalia. He was educated at St Paul's School, at Eton College, and at St John's College, Oxford. In 1714, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, where he was inducted by Newton. In 1716, he was ordained, but as he was a nonjuror (see Nonjuring schism) and Jacobite, the ceremony was performed by a non-juring bishop, Jeremy Collier.

Rawlinson then travelled in England and on the continent of Europe, where he passed several years, making very diverse collections of manuscripts, coins and curiosities, his books alone forming three libraries, English, foreign and Classical. In 1728 he became a bishop among the nonjurors, but he hardly ever appears to have discharged episcopal functions, preferring to pass his time in collecting books and manuscripts, pictures and curiosities. He died at Islington, London.

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