The John Bargrave Collection
Samuel Colepress ( - d. 1669)
Medical student, collector, and clergyman, whose home was near Plymouth. In a letter to Robert Boyle dated 19 March 1666-7, Colepresse promises a box of minerals for Boyle himself or, perhaps, the Royal Society's Repository:I hope you have received by this time a box of ores, which by Sir William Strode's order I sent away from Brent, March 1. principally intended for present experiments, not for your mineral repository; for which I am daily solicitous to prepare a box of mine own collection of the diversities of ores, weeds or marchasites, clays, and earths, our mines and country afford, together with a discourse of the art of training, digging, dressing, and blowing of metals, as an addition to what I formerly (though hastily) presented your honour on the like subject. (EE Correspondence. doi.org/10.13051/ee:doc/boylroPC0030301a1c)Michael Hunter et al. (eds.) note that "Boyle presented a collection of minerals to the Royal Society at his death" (citing Royal Society MS 200). Grew identifies four mineral specimens donated by Colepresse.
Almost a year later, in another letter addressed to Robert Boyle, on on 28 January 1667-8, Oldenburg writes,
We had also the view of 4 or 5 douzen particular sorts of mineral, sent to me for the Society's repository by Mr Colepresse, which pleased very well; among which there was a kind of Earth, pretended to be a Terra sigillata, and an Iron-oar, mix't with another matter, which, though so mixed, was yet sensible enough of the Load-stone. Sir William Strode's son is here, and, I believe, another such collection for you, if you could but come to receive it. (EE Correspondence. https://doi.org/10.13051/ee:doc/boylroPC0040015a1c)The "Terra sigillata" does not appear in Grew, but the "Iron-oar" might be Grew_16240.
Other biography: www.e-enlightenment.com.cyber.usask.ca/item/boylroPC0030210a1c/nts/001 Relevant locations: Residence at Plymouth
People linked to person: Samuel Colepress was a donor to Royal Society (-)