Petyt, William (1636 -1707)

William Petyt the antiquary was the eldest son of William Petyt of Skipton in Yorkshire. He was educated at Skipton School, and Christ's College Cambridge, where he matriculated 26 April 1660. He was admitted to the Middle Temple 8 June 1660, and passed to the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar 12 February 1670, “for his service done in asserting and defending the rights and privileges of this society”, and was autumn reader in 1694 and treasurer in 1701. He became Keeper and Cataloguer of the Public Records, then kept in the Tower of London, a list of the records being published in Catalogus Manuscriptorum Angliae. He presented a number of books to the Middle Temple in 1698, but his manuscripts were left in trust with instructions that they should be preserved in their integrity, and a sum of £150 was left to build a room for them. However, they were eventually deposited in the library of the Inner Temple. The arms and crest were granted to him in 1688.