Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Swinden, Henry
SWINDEN, HENRY (1716–1772), antiquary, born in 1716, was a schoolmaster and afterwards a land-surveyor at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where he became an intimate friend of John Ives [q. v.] His antiquarian tastes led him to spend twenty years in collecting material for a history of Yarmouth, in which he was assisted both with money and material by his friend. It was a laborious compilation replete with documents, but is not exhaustive and has no literary value. He died while the last sheet was in the press, on 11 Jan. 1772, and the work was brought out by Ives for the benefit of Swinden's widow. Ives also erected a mural tablet in St. Nicholas Church, Yarmouth, to Swinden's memory. Besides the ‘History and Antiquities of the Ancient Burgh of Great Yarmouth,’ Norwich, 1772, 4to, Swinden published in 1763 a broadsheet showing all the officers of Yarmouth at the time, and giving other topographical information. This is extremely scarce, a copy of the original edition being the property of the town council. It was reprinted in 1863. A map or plan of the town by him was also published in 1779.
[Blomefield's Norfolk, xi. 392; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. v. 63, 175; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 198, ix. 428; Reuss's Reg. of Living Authors; Addit. MS. 23013, a volume of Swinden's manuscript collections, formerly the property of Dawson Turner, esq.; Brit. Mus. Cat., books and maps; Dawson Turner's Sepulchral Reminiscences, 1848, p. 81 n.; Nall's Great Yarmouth, 1866, p. 9.]