Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mores, Edward Rowe
MORES, EDWARD ROWE (1731–1778), antiquary, born on 13 Jan. 1730, was son of Edward Mores, rector of Tunstall, Kent, and author of 'The Pious Example, a discourse occasioned by the death of Mrs. Anne Mores,' London, 1725; he married Miss Windsor, the sister of an undertaker in Union Court, Broad Street, and died in 1740 (Nichols, Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, i. xvii.-xx. 58). In the same year Edward Rowe entered Merchant Taylors' School (Register, ed. Robinson, ii.96), and proceeded thence to Oxford, matriculating as a commoner of Queen's College on 25 June 1746 (Foster, Alumni Oxon., 1715-1886, iii. 978), and graduating B.A. in 1750, and M.A. in 1753. At Oxford he attracted attention by the extraordinary range and depth of his knowledge and the eccentricities of his conduct. His father wished him to take orders, but whether he did so is uncertain. In 1752 he was elected F.S.A., being the first new member after the grant of a charter to the society in November 1751; and in 1754 he was one of a committee for examining the society's minute books, with a view to selecting papers worthy of publication. After travelling abroad for some time he took up his residence at the Heralds' College, intending to become a member of that society, but about 1760 he retired to an estate left him by his father at Low Leyton, Essex. There he built a whimsical house, called Etlow Place, on a plan of one which he had seen in France. He used to mystify his friends by declaring that he had been created D.D. at the Sorbonne, and attired himself in some academical costume which he called that of a Dominican friar. He considered Latin the only language adapted to devotion and for universal use, and composed a creed in it, with a kind of mass on the death of his wife, of which he printed a few copies in his own house, under the disguised title of 'Ordinale Quotidianum, 1685. Ordo Trigintalis.' Of his daughter's education he was particularly careful. From her earliest infancy he talked to her principally in Latin. She was sent to a convent at Rouen for further training, and was there converted to Romanism, at which he pretended to be very angry.
The Society for Equitable Assurances, which had been first suggested by James Dodson [q. v.], owes its existence to Mores. He applied for a charter in 1761, but, failing of success, he, with sixteen more of the original subscribers, resolved to establish their society by deed. It was arranged that Mores should be perpetual director, with an annuity of 100l. In order to float the society, he published in 1762 'A Short Account of the Society for Equitable Assurances, &c.,' 8vo (7th edit. 1767), in 1766 'The Statutes' and 'Precedents of sundry Instruments relating to the Constitution and Practice of the Society,' 8vo, and in 1768 the 'Deed of Settlement . . .with the Declaration of Trust,' 8vo, and a 'List of the Policies and other printed Instruments of the Society,' 8vo; but some disputes arising between him and the original members, he declined to act further (see Papers relating to the Disputes with the Charter Fund Proprietors in the Equitable Society, 1769).
Towards the close of his life Mores fell into negligent and dissipated habits. He died at Low Leyton on 28 Nov. 1778, and was buried by his wife in Walthamstow churchyard. By his marriage with Susannah Bridgman (1730-1767), daughter of a Whitechapel grocer, he had a son, Edward Rowe Mores, who married in 1779 a Miss Spence, and a daughter, Sarah, married in 1774 to John Davis, house decorator of Walthamstow. His large collections of books, manuscripts, engravings, and printing types were dispersed by sale in August 1779. 'The more valuable portion of his books and manuscripts was purchased by Richard Gough [q. v.], and is now in the Bodleian Library. The remainder was chiefly acquired by Thomas Astle [q. v.] and John Nichols [q. v.]
While at Oxford in 1746 Mores assisted in correcting an edition of Calasio's 'Concordance,' projected by Jacob Ilive [q. v.], the printer, and published in 1747, 4 vols. fol. In 1749 he printed in black letter 'Nomina et Insignia Gentilitia Nobilium Equitumque sub Edvardo Primo Rege militantium. Accedunt classes exercitus Edvardi Tertii Regis Caletem obsidentis,' 4to, Oxford. He also printed a few copies, sold after his death, of an edition of Dionysius of Halicarnassus's' De claris Rhetoribus,' with vignettes engraved by Green; the preface and notes were not completed. He applied, without success, to several continental scholars for assistance in the notes. An imperfect reissue is dated 1781, 8vo.
Mores made a few collections for a history of Merchant Taylors' School. In 1752 he printed in half a quarto sheet some corrections made by Francis Junius [q. v.] in his own copy of his edition of Ceedmon's 'Saxon Paraphrase of Genesis,' and other parts of the Old Testament (Amsterdam, 1655), and in 1754 he issued in quarto fifteen of the drawings from the manuscript of Cædmon in the Bodleian, the plates of which were purchased by Gough and deposited in that library. He is stated in Pegge's 'Anonymiana' (cent. vi. No. 14) to have commenced a transcript of Junius's dictionaries, with a design of publishing them. He formed considerable collections for a history of Oxford, and especially that of his own college, whose archives he arranged and calendared. He commissioned B. Green to execute many drawings of Oxford and the neighbourhood, which were included in Gough's bequest. His manuscripts relating to Queen's, with his collections about All Souls', fell into the hands of Astle, who presented the former to John Price of the Bodleian.
Mores assisted John Bilson in his burlesque on All Souls', a folio sheet printed in 1752, entitled 'Preparing for the Press ... a complete History of the Mallardians,' to which he contributed the prints of a cat said to have been starved in the library, and of two grotesque busts carved on the south wall of the college.
In 1759 he circulated queries for a 'Parochial History of Berkshire,' but made little progress. His collections were printed in 1783 in Nichols's 'Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica,' vol. iv. No. xvi, together with his 'Account of Great Coxwell, Berkshire,' vol. iv. No. xiii, where his family had been originally seated, and his excellent ' History of Tunstall, Kent,' vol. i. No. 1, with a memoir of him by R. Gough.
In the latter part of his life Mores projected a new. edition of Ames's ' Typographical Antiquities.' On the death of John James of Bartholomew Close, the last of the old race of letter-founders, in June 1772, Mores purchased all the old portions of his immense collection of punches, matrices, and types which had been accumulating from the days of Wynkyn de Worde. From these materials he composed his valuable 'Dissertation upon English Typographical Founders and Founderies,' of which he printed eighty copies. John Nichols, who purchased the whole impression, published it with a short appendix in 1778, 8vo. He also included Mores's 'Narrative of Block Printing' in his ' Biographical Memoirs of William Ged,' &c., 8vo, 1781.
His manuscript, 'Commentarius de Ælfrico Dorobernensi Archiepiscopo,' which Astle bought, was published under the editorship of G. J.Thorkelin in 1789, 4to, London. In the British Museum are the following manuscripts by Mores: 1. Epitome of Archbishop Peckham's 'Register,' 1755 (Addit. MSS. 6110, 6111, 6112, 6114). 2. Kentish Pedigrees by him and Edward Hasted (Addit. MS. 5528). 3. List of rectories and vicarages in Kent (Addit. MS. 6408). 4. Copies of his letters to John Strype, 1710 (Addit. MS. 5853), and to Browne Willis, 1749, 1751 (Addit. MS. 5833). 5. Monuments of the Rowe family (Addit. MS. 6239). 6. Letters to Edward Lye, 1749-61 (Addit. MS. 32325). He wrote also part of Addit. MS. 5526 (copy of John Philpott's 'Visitation of Kent,' 1619) and of Addit. MS. 5532 (copy of Robert Cook's 'Visitation of Kent,' 1574), and assisted Andrew Coltee Ducarel [q. v.] in his abstract of the archiepiscopal registers at Lambeth (Addit. MSS. 6062-109).
A whole-length portrait of Mores was engraved by J. Mynde after a picture by R. van Bleeck.
[Gough's Memoir referred to; Rawl. MS. J. fol. 18, pp. 115-16; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. v. 389-405, and elsewhere; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit.; Addit. MSS. 5841 f. 294, 6401 f. 10; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, vol. ii.; notes kindly furnished by the provost of Queen's College, Oxford.]