1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dodsworth, Roger

DODSWORTH, ROGER (1585–1654), English antiquary, was born near Oswaldkirk, Yorkshire. He devoted himself early to antiquarian research, in which he was greatly assisted by the fact that his father, Matthew Dodsworth, was registrar of York cathedral, and could give him access to the records preserved there. He married the widow of Laurence Rawsthorne of Hutton Grange, where he subsequently resided till his death in August 1654. At various times in his life he was enabled to study the records in the library of Sir Robert Cotton, in Skipton Castle, and in the Tower of London. He collected a vast store of materials for a history of Yorkshire, a Monasticon Anglicanum, and an English baronage. The second of these was published with considerable additions by Sir William Dugdale (2 vols., 1655 and 1661). The MSS. were left to Thomas, third Lord Fairfax, who by his will bequeathed them (160 volumes in all) to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Portions have been printed by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society (Dodsworth’s Yorkshire Notes, 1884) and the Chetham Society (copies of Lancashire post-mortem inquisitions, 1875–1876).