Baxter, William, 1650-1723

Person

Baxter, William, 1650-1723

• Baxter, Willielmus, 1650-1723

William Baxter (1650-1723), classicist and antiquary, was born in Llanllugan, Montgomeryshire. He attended Harrow School for five years from the age of eighteen. He worked as a schoolmaster in Hitchin, 1676-1679, Stoke Newington, 1689-1694, and Tottenham High Cross, 1694-1710, and was headmaster of the Mercer's School, London, 1710-1721. On 16 July 1689 Baxter married Sarah Cartwright of Hillingdon, Middlesex, and they had five children. He died at Hillingdon on 31 May 1723 following a long illness. Baxter's first published work was the Latin grammar, De Analogia (London: R. Everingham, 1679, Wing B1457). This was followed by editions of Anacreon in 1695, Horace in 1701 and his most famous work the Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum (London: W. Bowyer, 1719, ESTC T40850). Various other works, including his commentary on Juvenal, were left unpublished or unfinished at his death. Due to Baxter's failing health the Glossarium had been published with the help of the Welsh scholar Moses Williams (1685-1742). Williams later published some of Baxter's unfinished works as Reliquiæ Baxterianæ; sive, Willielmi Baxteri Opera Posthuma (London: [William] Bowyer, 1726, ESTC T144349). He also published Proposals for Printing by Subscription D. Gulielmi Baxteri Quæsupersunt Enarrationes & Notæ in D. Junii Juvenalis Satyras (London: [William] Bowyer, 1732, ESTC T135764) but no edition was forthcoming.