Ives, John

, was the only son of one of the most eminent merchants at Yarmouth, where he was born in 1751. He was entered of Caius college, Cambridge, where he did not long reside; but, returning to Yarmouth, became acquainted -with that celebrated antiquary Thomas Martin of Palgrave, and caught from him that taste for antiquities which he pursued during the short period of his life. He was elected F. S. A. 1771, and F. R. S. 1772; and, by favour of the earl of Suffolk, in him the honour of Suffolk herald extraordinary was revived; an office attended with no profit, but valuable to him by the access it gave to the Mss. muniments, &c. of the heralds college, of which he thereby became an honorary member. His first attempt at antiquarian publication was by proposals (without his name) in 1771, for printing an account of Lothingland hundred in Suffolk; for which he had engraved several small plates of arms and monuments in the churches of Friston, Gorleston, Loud, Lowestoffe, and Somerliton, from his own drawings. His next essay was the short preface to Mr. Swinden’s “History and Antiquities of Great Yarmouth, in the county of Norfolk, 1772,” 4to. Mr. Svvinden, who was a schoolmaster in Great Yarmouth, was a most intimate friend of Mr. Ives, who not only assisted him with his purse, and warmly patronized him while living, but superintended the book for the emolument of | the author’s widow, and delivered it to the subscribers .*

In 1772 he caused to be cut nine wooden plates of old Norfolk seals, entitled “Sigilla antiqua Norfolciensia. Impressit Johannes Ives, S. A. S.” and a copper-plate portrait of Mr. Martin holding an urn, since prefixed to Martin’s “History of Thetford.” On Aug. 16, 1773, by a special licence from the archbishop of Canterbury, he was married at Lambeth church to Miss Kett (of an ancient family in Norfolk), and afterwards resided at Yarmouth.

In imitation of Mr. Walpole (to whom the first number was inscribed), Mr. Ives began in 1773 to publish “Select Papers” from his own collection; of which the second number was printed in 1774, and a third in 1775. Among these are “Remarks upon our English Coins, from the Norman invasion down to the end of the reign of queen Elizabeth,” by archbishop Sharp; sir W. Dugdale’s “Directions for the Search of Records, and making use of them, in order to an historical Discourse of the Antiquities of Staffordshire” with “Annals of Gonvile and Caius college, Cambridge” the “Coronation of Henry VII. and of queen Elizabeth,” &c. &c. In 1774 he published, in 12 mo, “Remarks upon the Garianonum of the Romans the scite and remains fixed and described;” with the ichnography of Garianonum, two plates, by B. T. Pouncey; south view of it, Roman antiquities found there, map of the river Yare, from the original in the corporation chest at Yarmouth, and an inscription on the mantletree of a farm-house. He died of a deep consumption, when he had just entered his twenty-fifth year, June 9, 1776. Considered as an antiquary, much merit is due to Mr. Ives, whose valuable collection was formed in less than five years. His library was sold by auction, March 3 6, 1777, including some curious Mss. (chiefly relating to Suffolk and Norfolk) belonging to Peter Le Neve, T. Martin, and Francis Blomefield. His coins, medals, ancient paintings, and antiquities, were sold Feb. 13 and 14, 1777. Two portraits of him have been engraven. 1

|