# Humfrey Dyson

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{{Short description | London scrivener and notary}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2017}}

'''Humfrey Dyson''' (c. 1582–1633) was a London [scrivener](/source/scrivener) and [notary](/source/notary),<ref name="wood54">{{cite book |first=H. R. |last=Woudhuysen |authorlink=Henry Woudhuysen |title=Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts, 1558–1640 |place=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1996 |isbn=0198129661 |page=54 }}.</ref> and notable early [book collector](/source/book_collector) in [England](/source/England). He was the son of, Christopher Dyson, a  [wax-chandler](/source/Worshipful_Company_of_Wax_Chandlers) of the [parish](/source/parish) of [St Alban](/source/St_Alban%2C_Wood_Street) in central London. Humfrey himself may also have been a member of the wax-chandlers' company.<ref name="wood54"/> Some accounts also identify him as a [clerk](/source/Clerk_of_the_Parliaments) of the [Parliament](/source/Parliament_of_England) of his day, though this is subject to doubt.<ref>"Humphrey Dyson", in E. A. B. Barnard, ''New Links with Shakespeare'' (Cambridge University Press, 1930) h,.VI, pp. 74–88, p. 86.</ref>

Dyson is remembered as an early book collector,<ref>Alan H. Nelson, ''The Library of Humphrey Dyson'' (Oxford Bibliographical Society, forthcoming).</ref> catering to the emerging market for political and historical information.<ref>Woudhuysen 1996, p. 389.</ref> His notebooks for 1610–1630 furnish a rare source for the study of tracts and books, and pricing in the book trade of that period.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/the_library_the_transactions_of_the_bibliographical_society/v007/7.1peacey.html |first=Jason |last=Peacey |title=Sir Thomas Cotton's Consumption of News in 1650s England |journal=[The Library](/source/Bibliographical_Society) |series=7th ser. |volume=7 |issue=1 |year=2006 |pages=3–24 (4) |doi=10.1093/library/7.1.3 |s2cid=161288138 }}</ref>

His collecting was focused on plays, tracts, broadsides, and proclamations. In 1618 he published, in [folio](/source/folio), ''A Book containing all such Proclamations as were published during the Raigne of the late Queene Elizabeth''.<ref>Barnard 1930, p. 75.</ref><ref>Frederic A. Youngs, ''The Proclamations of the Tudor Queens,'' CUP Archive, 1976, pp. 6ff.</ref>

He wrote out the [will](/source/Will_(law)) of [Henry Condell](/source/Henry_Condell) (13 December 1627), and also witnessed the will and [codicil](/source/Codicil_(will)) which [Nicholas Tooley](/source/Nicholas_Tooley), the [actor](/source/actor) in [Shakespeare's company](/source/King's_Men_(playing_company)), made on 3 June 1623.<ref>Barnard 1930, p. 73.</ref> His association with these two notarial acts have suggested Dyson may have had links to [William Shakespeare](/source/William_Shakespeare)’s circle. His father's will, of 1608, refers to two daughters, Humfrey's sisters, respectively named Judith and Susanna.<ref>Barnard 1930, p. 76.</ref> These happen to be also the names Shakespeare gave to two of his own daughters ([Judith Quiney](/source/Judith_Quiney), twin sister of [Hamnet Shakespeare](/source/Hamnet_Shakespeare), and [Susanna Hall](/source/Susanna_Hall)). The Dyson household, in [Wood Street](/source/Wood_Street%2C_London), was not far from Silver Street, where Shakespeare was lodging in 1604.<ref>Barnard 1930, pp. 13, 75.</ref> He was buried on 18 January 1632/3 at [St Olave Old Jewry](/source/St_Olave_Old_Jewry), London.<ref>Parish Register accessed on Ancestry.Com 19 July 2013</ref>

== Manuscripts ==
*Dyson, Humfrey. "Catalogue of all such Bookes touching as well the State Ecclesiastical as Temporall of the Realme of England." MS 117, Codrington Library, All Soul’s College, Oxford.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{Cite encyclopedia|first=Nigel |last=Ramsay |title=Dyson, Humfrey (d. 1633) |encyclopedia=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |publisher=Oxford University Press |orig-year=2004 |year=2005 |edition=online |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/37380 }} {{subscription required}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dyson, Humphrey}}
Category:1580s births
Category:1633 deaths
Category:English book and manuscript collectors
Category:English collectors

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