70 Bishop Tanner, Ids Family and Writings. 



scarce : a large number of the copies having been destroyed by a 

 fire at Messrs. Nichols's printing office. Another (now scarce) work 

 of Bishop Tanner's, based on a MS. of Leland's " De Scriptoribus 

 Britannicis," occupied the Bishop for full 40 years, and was pub- 

 lished 1748, under the title " Bibliotheca Britannico Hibernica.-" 

 It has been made much use of, by various compilers of Biographical 

 Dictionaries. One little scheme of the Bishop, when Chancellor of 

 Norwich, to entice the Clergy into parochial investigations is worthy 

 of mention, and conveys a hint which our Bishops would do well to 

 act upon. 1 To urge the clergy to write Parochial History, without 

 opening to them gratuitously, the Registry of the Diocese, where 

 only they can find Glebe Terriers and Endowments, Faculties, 

 Transcripts of Registers, (even when the originals are lost,) and those 

 valuable sources of local information, Wills of old parishioners, is, in 

 effect, to bid them make brick, without the needful allowance of 

 straw. Besides John, the Bishop had another clerical brother, 

 "William ; well beneficed like his brethren by the Bishop of Norwich. 2 

 One feels anxious to know whether this William was the Rev. 

 William Tanner, a non- Juror, who died at Norwich, 1733. Sarah, 

 the Bishop's sister, married (as before stated) Mr. Barnes; his 

 sister Grace, as appears by Blomefield's Pedigree of the Bishop, 

 married Mr. Symonds. She died at Lowestoft, in 1759, and was 

 buried in the North Aisle of the Church. John and William died 

 without issue. The Bishop had two other brothers ; Joseph, born, 

 1676 ; and Benjamin, born, 1686 : of these, unless I could examine 

 the Wills office, I can obtain no information. 3 It is just possible, 



Writing to Dr. Rawlinson, Oct. 2, 1735, about Blomefield's forthcoming 

 History of Norfolk, he says " I will give him a Plate, and assist him what I can, 

 out of my own collections which were chiefly as to the ecclesiastical state ; for 

 having a little fee out of every Institution when I was Chancellor there, I 

 thought to earn it by going thro' the Registers, and making a Series of the 

 Incumbents and Patrons, in the manner of Mr. Newcourt's " Repertorium." 



2 His preferments had been, successively Vicar of Girston 1713, Stanford 1718. 

 In 1723 he was appointed to Topcroft, which in 1724 he held together with 

 Redenhall and Harleston, Co. Norfolk 



3 It appears from the Catalogue of Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian that the 

 Bishop's Brother Joseph Tanner was a Surgeon. There is amongst the MSS. a 

 letter to the Bishop giving an account of his Journey in France and Germany, 



