Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dade, William
DADE, WILLIAM (1740–1790), antiquary, born at Burton Agnes in the East Riding of Yorkshire about 1740, was son of the Rev. Thomas Dade, vicar of that parish, by his wife, Mary Norton, and grandson of the Rev. John Dade, vicar of Stillington, near York, whose wife was descended from the Wrights of Ploughland in Holderness, famous for having furnished two of the conspirators engaged in the gunpowder plot. He was educated under Mr. Cotes of Shipton, Mr. Bowness in Holderness, and Mr. Newcome at Hackney, and then, it is stated, he went to St. John's College, Cambridge, but left the university without taking a degree. In 1763 he received holy orders from Archbishop Drummond, and he became successively rector of St. Mary's, Castlegate, York, curate of the perpetual curacy of St. Olave's, Moregate, without Bootham Bar in that city; and rector of Barmston, near Bridlington. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1783. He published in that year ‘Proposals for the History and Antiquities of Holderness,’ in one volume folio, with a number of copper-plates, at a subscription of two guineas, to go to press as soon as he had obtained 240 subscribers. Portions of the work were printed at York in 1784, with engravings, and the proof-sheets of these fragments, with the author's manuscript notes and corrections, are preserved in the British Museum (cf. Lowndes, Bibl. Man. ed. Bohn, p. 579). Ill-health and other perplexities prevented the completion of the undertaking, and long after Dade's death, which took place at Barmston on 2 Aug. 1790, his manuscripts were placed in the hands of George Poulson, the historian of Beverley, who rearranged the matter, added considerably to the details, and published ‘The History and Antiquities of the Seignory of Holderness, in the East Riding of the County of York, including the Abbies of Meaux and Swine, with the Priories of Nunkeeling and Burstall; compiled from authentic charters, records, and the unpublished manuscripts of the Rev. William Dade, remaining in the library of Burton Constable,’ 2 vols. Hull, 1840–1, 4to. There was also published ‘A Series of seventeen Views of Churches, Monuments, and other Antiquities, originally engraved for Dade's “History of Holderness,”’ Hull, 1835, fol. These plates were originally published in ‘Poulson's Holderness’ when issued in parts, but were afterwards cancelled, new plates being engraved for the complete work; the old ones were sold separately with the above title (Boyne, Yorkshire Library, pp. 152–6). Dade also compiled an ‘Alphabetical Register of Marriages, Births, and Burials of considerable Persons in the county of York,’ a manuscript in several volumes.
[Gent. Mag. lx. (ii.) 767, 1196; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 687, 688, viii. 474; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. vi. 377, 387; Cooper's Memorials of Cambridge, ii. 128; Preface to Poulson's Holderness; Ross's Celebrities of the Yorkshire Wolds, p. 53.]