Samuel Rudder (c. 1726 – 15 March 1801)Nicholas Herbert, ‘Rudder, Samuel (bap. 1726, d. 1801)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 7 Jan 2012
/ref> was a

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

topographer, printer and

antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

who was born at

Uley Uley is a village and civil parish in the county of Gloucestershire, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Elcombe and Shadwell and Bencombe, all to the south of the village of Uley, and the hamlet of Crawley to the north. The village i ...

and baptised 5 December 1726. He was the son of Roger Rudder (c. 1687–1771), a shopkeeper and pig-killer. Rudder ran a printing and bookselling business in

Cirencester Cirencester (, ; see below for more variations) is a market town in Gloucestershire, England, west of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswolds. It is the home of ...

in the 1750s and wrote and published several works on the history of Gloucestershire. Samuel married Mary Hinton (1724–1800) on 22 June 1749, the daughter of a maltster, and it has been speculated that Mary might have been related to the Cirencester printer Thomas Hinton.

''A New History of Gloucestershire''

Rudder's ''A New History of Gloucestershire'' was compiled from printed questionnaires, which he said made him very troublesome to his friends, Sir Robert Atkyns' ''Ancient and Present State of Glostershire'' (1712), and an unpublished manuscript history of the City of Gloucester by the Rev.

Richard Furney Richard Furney (1694-1753) was an Anglican priest and antiquary. Life Furney was born in Gloucester and was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1715 and M.A. He was ordained in 1718 and became curate at St Michael, Gloucester ...

. The work was well received by critics and

Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician. He had Strawb ...

described it as "the most sensible history of a county that we have had yet". The work had taken him twelve years to complete during which time a competing work had been published and Rudder was forced to deny rumours that he had abandoned the work. His later works on Cirencester (1780) and

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

(1781) were extracted from his ''New History''. Some of the other works published by Rudder were of a less serious nature.

Selected publications

*''The History of Fairford Church, in Gloucestershire''. (1763) *
A New History of Gloucestershire
'. (1779) (free download) *''The History and Antiquities of Cirencester''. (1780) *
The History and Antiquities of Gloucester
'. (1781) (free download)

Other works printed by Rudder

*By an impartial hand. ''The Cirencester contest. : Containing all the letters, papers, verses, songs, &c. relative to the election, that have been printed on all sides, from the beginning of the opposition to this time. And some originals. Connected and disposed in the same order they came out; and each paper connected with the preceding one, in such manner as to make the whole a compleat narrative of the most material passages on that occasion. With an introductory preface, and a few remarks and observations.'' c. 1750. *Anonymous. ''A new fortune-book. Being a new art of courtship, open'd for young men and maids, widows widowers and batchelors, instructions for young men and maids''. c. 1770 *Anonymous. ''The new art and mystery of gossiping. Being a genuine account of all the women's club's in and about the city and suburbs of London, with the manner of their club orders.'' c. 1770. *Graham, Dougal. ''The comical sayings of Pady from Cork. Being an elegant conference between English Tom, and Irish Teague''. c. 1780.

''A New History of Gloucestershire''

Selected publications

Other works printed by Rudder

See also

References

Further reading