Men of Kent and Kentishmen/Edward Hasted
Edward Hasted
HISTORIAN OF KENT,
To whom the County of Kent is so much indebted, was (as he himself tells us in the "Gentleman's Magazine," vol. 82), the son of Edward Hasted, of Hawley, barrister-at-law, and was descended on his father's side from the noble family of Clifford, and maternally from the Dingsleys of Woolverton, in the Isle of Wight. … In the latter part of his life he felt the pressure of adverse fortune, and dwelt some time in obscurity in the environs of London. A few years before his death he was presented by the Earl of Radnor to the Mastership of Corsham Hospital, in Wiltshire, where he died in 1812. "Mr. Hasted" (remarks the Editor of the "Gentleman's Magazine") "combined the classical attainments of a scholar, the refined and polished manners of a gentleman without affectation, and the piety of a sincere Christian without bigotry. His "History of Kent" will be a lasting record of his indefatigable researches into the history and antiquities of his native county. It is a work which will bear comparison with the valuable labours of Dugdale, Thoresby, Blomefield, Hutchins, Manning, and Nichols in the same department of literature." It was published in 4 vols., folio, between 1788 and 1799, but the labour of preparing it extended over a period of forty years. Mr. Hasted contributed a paper concerning Chestnut Trees to the "Philosophical Transactions," 1771.
[See "Gentleman's Magazine," 1812.]