Background
He was the son of Nathaniel Wanley, born on 21 March 1672 at the Vicarage House adjoining Jesus Hall, Coventry.
He was the son of Nathaniel Wanley, born on 21 March 1672 at the Vicarage House adjoining Jesus Hall, Coventry.
He was the first keeper of the Harlein Library, now the Harleian Collection. Starting out as a draper in his home town, he soon tired of this and moved to Oxford University to study in 1695 thanks to his patron William Lloyd, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. There he worked as an assistant at the Bodleian Library until 1700, when he moved to London, where he gained temporary jobs as secretary to the SPCK and assistant to Hans Sloane (Sloane was secretary to the Royal Society, and Wanley was elected a Fellow of it in 1706), before landing a settled job with the Harleys which he held to the end of his life.
Wanley married twice.
He died of dropsy on 6 July 1726 and was buried at Street Marylebone Church. Wanley"s contributed to the scholarship of Old English literature.
His 1705 catalog of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, Antiquae literaturae septentrionalis liber alter. Seu Humphredi Wanleii.. cum totius thesauri linguarum septentrionalium sex indicibus, was of paramount importance in the field
According to Neil Ripley Ker, Wanley was a "great paleographer..His catalogue of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts is a book which scholars will continue to use, or neglect at their peril.".
Royal Society.
