Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Batteley, Nicholas
BATTELEY, NICHOLAS (1648–1704), antiquary, younger brother of Archdeacon John Batteley [q. v.], was born at St. Edmundsbury in 1648. He went to Cambridge, and was admitted on 30 March 1665 a pensioner of Trinity College, where his tutor was the same Mr. Pulleyn in whose hands his brother had been. Nicholas took the degree of B.A. in 1668, and, moving afterwards to Peterhouse, proceeded M.A. in 1672. On 15 Oct. 1680 he was presented by the Earl of St. Albans to the rectory of Nowton, and became afterwards vicar of Beakesbourne, alias Livingsbourne, in Kent, to which living he was presented by Archbishop Sancroft on 24 Aug. 1685. At the same time he held the rectory of Ivychurch. In 1703 Batteley published a folio volume of the ‘Antiquities of Canterbury, or a Survey of that ancient City with its Suburbs, Cathedral, &c., sought out and published by the good will and industry of William Somner; the second edition revised and enlarged by Nicholas Batteley, M.A. Also Mr. Somner's discourse, called Chartham News, a relation of some strange bones found at Chartham in Kent; to which are added some observations concerning the Roman Antiquities of Canterbury, and a preface, giving an account of the works and remains of the learned antiquary, Mr. William Somner, by N. B. The second part is called Cantuaria Sacra, or the Antiquities (i.) of the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church; (ii.) of the Archbishopric; (iii.) of the late Priory of Christchurch and of the present Collegiate Church founded by King Henry VIII, with a catalogue of all the Deans and Canons thereof; (iv.) of the Archdeaconry of Canterbury; (v.) of the Monastery of St. Augustine and of the parish churches, hospitals, and other religious places, &c. &c., enquired into by N. B.’ The work was illustrated. Batteley also left in manuscript a history of Eastbridge Hospital, which, after having been partially printed in Strype's ‘Life of Whitgift,’ was published in Nichols's ‘Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica,’ vol. i. (1780). Some valuable notes by Batteley in an interleaved copy of Dugdale's ‘Monasticon’ were used by Lewis in his ‘History of Faversham,’ 1727. Batteley died on 19 May 1704, and a memorial was erected to him in Beakesbourne Church. His son, Oliver Batteley, born in 1697, was educated at Westminster School; proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1716; took the degrees of B.A. 1720, M.A. 1723, and B.D. 1734; became rector of Iron Acton, Gloucestershire, in 1736, and prebendary of Llandaff in 1757; and died in 1766. He edited in 1745 the works of his uncle John Batteley [q. v.]
[Hasted's History of Kent, iii. 500, 719; Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, iv. 92; Gage's Thingoe Hundred; Gough's Brit. Topogr. i. 452, 468; Welch's Alumni Westmon. (1852), 268.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.18
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 417 | i | 10-7 f.e. | Batteley, Nicholas: for 1650 read 1648 |
| ii | 3 | for Newton read Nowton |