The John Bargrave Collection

[Burton] is known beyond doubt to have transferred ownership of his collection of Yorkshire manuscripts to William Constable in September 1769. A printed catalogue of these manuscripts" survives at Burton Constable, bearing - at the foot of the final page - a written agreement, signed by Burton himself, stating that, in return for the documents, William Constable was to pay 'an Annuity of Fifty five pounds' to Burton's widow. In view of the fact that many of the ex-Thoresby specimens which came to Burton Constable are known to have been acquired by a Dr Burton following Thoresby's death, and that the manuscript collection of Dr John Burton of York (almost certainly the same personage) was also acquired by that wide-ranging dilettante William Constable, it seems reasonable to assume that Dr John Burton ... did, indeed, represent the intermediary by whom part of Thoresby's collection arrived at Burton Constable (36).