Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cole, William (d.1701)

by Thompson Cooper

COLE, WILLIAM (d. 1701), naturalist, was surveyor of customs at Bristol, and the owner of an estate at Bradfield, in the parish of Hullavington, Wiltshire, where he died on 30 Aug. 1701. There are in the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 18598, 18599) two folio volumes of letters, chiefly upon subjects of natural history, addressed to him by Sir Robert Southwell, president of the Royal Society and principal secretary for Ireland, and by his eldest son Edward Southwell, with drafts of Cole's letters in reply.

[Aubrey and Jackson's Wiltshire, p. 249; Additions to the MSS. in Brit. Mus. (1848-53), 119.]

T. C.