of the court of common pleas, said to have been worth 500l. per annum, and also became a master in chancery. He was also parliamentary treasurer for the county of Berkshire, and in 1654 was named one of the commissioners for the ejection of scandalous and inefficient ministers, in which capacity he is accused by his enemies of using undue severity and of proving a vexatious persecutor of the clergy. By the means which he had acquired from his different offices he was able to purchase the fee-farm rent of the manor of Sunning, Berkshire, and other estates, as it is said on easy terms. He sat in the Convention parliament of 1658; but on the Restoration he fled the kingdom and settled at Aachen, where he died in 1668.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (ed. Bliss), ii. 97; Noble's Lives of English Regicides, i. 95; Coates's Hist. of Reading, 1802, p. 433.]
BLAGRAVE, JOHN (d. 1611), mathematician, was the son of John Blagrave of Bullmarsh, near Sunning, Berkshire, by Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Hungerford of Down-Ampney, Gloucestershire, knight. He was born at Reading, but the date of his birth is unknown. He received his early education in his native town, and afterwards entered St. John's College, Oxford. He did not, however, take a degree, but retired to his patrimony at Southcote Lodge, Reading, and devoted himself to his favourite study of mathematics, being esteemed, as Anthony Wood declares, 'the flower of mathematicians of his age.' He published four works, viz.: 1. 'The Mathematical Jewel, shewing the making and most excellent use of a singular instrument so called, in that it performeth with wonderfull dexteritie whatever is to be done either by Quadrant, Ship, Circle, Cylinder, Ring, Diall, Horoscope, Astrolabe, Sphere, Globe, or any such like heretoforth devised,' 1585. 2. 'Baculum Familliare Catholicon sive Generale: a booke of the making and use of a Staffe newly invented by the Author, called the Familiar Staffe, as well for that it may be made usually and familiarlie to walke with, as for that it performeth the Geometrical mensurations of all Altitudes,' &c., 1590. 3. 'Astrolabium Uranicum Generale: a necessary and pleasaint solace and recreation for Navigators in their long jorneying,' 1596. 4. 'The Art of Dyalling, in two parts,' 1609.
In private life Blagrave was distinguished for his charity. His father settled upon him in 1591 the lease for ninety-nine years of lands in Southcote, which he in turn bequeathed to his nephews and their descendants, of whom as many as eighty are said to have benefited. To his native town of Reading he left certain legacies, one of which provided annually the sum of twenty notes to be competed for by three maid servants of good character and five years' service under one master, to be selected by the three parishes of the town. The whimsical conditions of this bequest required that the maids should appear on Good Friday in the town-hall before the mayor and aldermen, and there cast lots for the prize. The losers had the right of competing a second and third time. Blagrave died on 9 Aug. 1611, and was buried, in the same grave as his mother, in the church of St. Lawrence, wherein an elaborate monument of himself, surrounded by allegorical figures, was erected. He married a widow, whose daughter is named in his will, but he left no issue.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (ed. Bliss), ii. 96; Ashmole's Antiq. of Berkshire, 1723. ii. 371; Coates's Hist. of Reading, 1802, p. 430; Biog. Britannica; Chalmers's Biog. Dict.]
BLAGRAVE, JOSEPH (1610–1682), astrologer, was born in the parish of St. Giles, Reading, in 1610; he was probably a nephew of John Blagrave, the mathematician [q. v.], from whom he appears to have inherited a small estate in Swallowfield, five miles from his native towm. Of his personal history we have no knowledge beyond what is to be gleaned from a perusal of his books. His youthful years were spent in the study of astronomy and astrology, afterwards in philosophy and the practice of physic, upon which he writes: 'Without some knowledge in astronomy one can be no astrologer, and without knowledge in astrology one can be no philosopher and without knowledge both in astrology and philosophy one can be no good physician, the practice of which must be laid upon the five substantial pillars of time, virtue, number, sympathy, and antipathy' (Astrological Practice of Physick, Preface). His first appearance as an author was in a series of: 1. 'Ephemerides, with Rules for Husbandry for the years 1658, 1659, 1660, and 1665,' London, 8vo; no copy of the 'Ephemeris' for 1658 is now preserved to us, as we learn from the volume for 1660 that 'it came into but few hands, by reason of the slackness of the printer before it came forth.' Copies for the years 1659 and 1660 are in the British Museum library, and one for the year 1665 in the Bodleian library at Oxford. The next work ascribed to him, and probably with justice, is (2) 'The Epitome of the Art of Husbandry, by J. B., gent.,' London, 1669, 8vo. That this work is by Blagrave seems to be proved by the fact that it was edited by his nephew, Obadiah Blagrave, a bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, who
