Name Robert Thyer | ||
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Robert Thyer (1709–1781) was an English librarian and literary editor, known for his connection with Chetham's Library.
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Life
Son of Robert Thyer, a silk weaver, by his wife Elizabeth Brabant, he was born in Manchester, and baptised on 20 February 1709. Educated at Manchester grammar school, he obtained an exhibition in 1727 to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. on 12 October 1730.
Returning to Manchester, Thyer was elected librarian of the Chetham library in February 1732, and continued in post until 3 October 1763. He was a close friend of John Byrom, and on good terms with the Egertons of Tatton Park, Cheshire; he was a legatee under the will of Samuel Egerton, M.P.
Thyer died on 27 October 1781, and was buried with his ancestors in Manchester collegiate church.
Legacy
Some of Thyer's manuscripts went to the Chetham Library, and many of his letters, as well as a specimen of his verse, were printed in Byrom's Remains.
Works
Thyer annotated and published in 1759 The Genuine Remains in Verse and Prose of Samuel Butler, 2 vols., and contemplated a new annotated edition of Hudibras. He was working with papers left by Butler to William Longueville, patron and literary executor, and now in the British Library (Add. MS. 32625). Samuel Johnson was complimentary, while William Warburton and others criticised Thyer. A new edition of the Remains came out in 1827. Thyer was also one of the scholars who supplied notes to Thomas Newton for his edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost.
Family
Thyer married, on 9 December 1741, Silence, daughter of John Wagstaffe of Glossop, Derbyshire and Manchester, and widow of John Leigh of Middle Hulton in Deane, Lancashire. Their children all predeceased him.