Darley Waddilove

Robert Darley Waddilove (born Robert Darley; known after 1762 as Darley Waddilove; November 1736 – 18 August 1828) was Dean of Ripon. Waddilove was born in November 1736, was son of Abel Darley of Boroughbridge. This branch of the Darley family had lived for four generations at Ripley in Yorkshire, but the Waddilove's father migrated to Scoreby in East Riding. He was educated at Westminster School and Clare Hall, Cambridge, of which society he became a scholar, but was unable to take a fellowship, having inherited landed property at Boroughbridge from his uncle, Robert Waddilove (d. 1762), president of Barnard's Inn, whose name he assumed. He graduated BA in 1759, and MA in 1762. He was curate of Wotton in Surrey, and in 1767 rector of Whitby. From 1771 to 1779 he was chaplain to Thomas Robinson, 2nd Baron Grantham, ambassador to the Court at Madrid, during which time he exchanged Whitby for Topcliffe, and appointed himself rector of Cherry Burton, both in Yorkshire. In 1780 he became prebendary of Ripon, 1782 prebendary of York, and in 1786 Archdeacon of the East Riding. He was chaplain to Robert Hay Drummond and William Markham, Archbishops of York, and in 1791 became Dean of Ripon. He received the degree of LLD from John Moore (Archbishop of Canterbury). He held the deanery of Ripon with the archdeaconry until his death. During his residence in Spain Waddilove became friends with Abbe Bayer, tutor to the Spanish court, and had access to the library of the Escorial, where he collated the manuscript of Strabo for Thomas Falconer's edition (Clarendon Press, 2 vols. fol. 1807), and obtained much useful information for Robertson's History of America, which the historian gratefully acknowledges in the preface. He also wrote remarks on the pictures in the king of Spain's collection which had formerly belonged to Charles I of England, translated Mengs's Essay on Painting (2 vols. London, 1796), and received from Infante Gabriel of Spain a copy of the translation of Salluse made by the prince. In 1775, while in Spain, he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, for which he wrote several papers, among them 'An Historical and Descriptive Account of Ripon Minster' (Archæologia, vols. xvi. and xvii.) At his death he left to the library of York Minster a magnificent copy of Falconer's 'Strabo,' and of the rare work Bibliotheca Arábica del Escurial.