Stow, JOHN

Stow, JOHN, one of the earliest and most diligent collectors of English antiquities, was born in London in the year 1525. He was brought up to his father's trade of a tailor in Cornhill, but about his fortieth year abandoned it for antiquarian pursuits with a noble devotion which ought to have ensured him an old age of ease and honour, but which brought him instead only want and beggary. In his eightieth year he was rewarded with letters-patent from James I. authorising him to become a mendicant, or, as it is expressed, 'to collect amongst our loving subjects their voluntary contributions and kind gratuities.' He died 5th April 1605, and was buried in the parish church of St Andrew Undershaft, where his monument of terra-cotta, erected at the expense of his widow, may still be seen. Stow's reverence for the institutions of the past caused him to be suspected of a secret leaning toward popery. The principal works of Stow are his Summary of English Chronicles, first published in 1561, and subsequently reprinted every two or three years, with a continuation to the date of each new publication; Annals, or a General Chronicle of England (1580); and, most important of all, the invaluable Survey of London and Westminster (1598), an account of the history and antiquities of the two cities for six centuries, together with their municipal institutions and forms of government. Besides these original works Stow assisted in the continuation of Holinshed's Chronicle, Speght's edition of Chaucer, &c. His invaluable Memoranda to Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles was printed with the text of these by James Gairdner for the Camden Society in 1881. There is a memoir prefixed to the compendious edition of the Survey (1842) by W. J. Thoms.