Borlase

Borlase, WILLIAM, antiquary, was born at Pendeen, Cornwall, February 2, 1695. Educated at Tiverton and Exeter College, Oxford, he was presented in 1722 to the living of Ludgvan, near Penzance, and to the vicarage of his native parish of St Just in 1732. He devoted himself to a study of the natural history and antiquities of Cornwall, and in 1754 published his Observations on the Antiquities of Cornwall. His account of the Scilly Isles three years later drew from Dr Johnson the praise of being 'one of the most pleasing and elegant pieces of local inquiry that our country has produced.' His Natural History of Cornwall appeared in 1758. Soon after he presented his entire collections to the Ashmolean Museum. He had already been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1750, and in 1766 his university gave him the diploma of Doctor of Laws. Borlase was one of Pope's correspondents, and furnished the poet with most of the curious fossils of which the Twickenham grotto was composed. He died August 31, 1772.