Andrew Coltée DucarelFSA Scot (9 June 1713 – 29 May 1785) was aFrench-Englishantiquary,librarian, andarchivist. He was also a lawyer practisingcivil law (a "civilian"), and a member of theCollege of Civilians.^[1]

Andrew Coltée Ducarel
Ducarel in 1746, from a portrait bySoldi
Born	9 June 1713 Paris
Died	29 May 1785 South Lambeth
Nationality	French-English
Education	Eton College, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge
Occupation(s)	Antiquary, Librarian, Archivist, Lawyer
Known for	Contributions to antiquarian studies, Lambeth Palace Library
Spouse	Sarah Desborough (m. 1749)
Parent(s)	Jacques Coltée Ducarel and Jeanne Crommelin
Awards	Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

Ducarel was born on 9 June 1713 inParis. His parents, Jacques Coltée Ducarel (1680–1718) and Jeanne Crommelin (1690–1723), wereHuguenots fromNormandy.^[2] Jacques was a banker and merchant, who achieved ennoblement in 1713 with the title Marquis de Chateau deMuids.^[3] He died in 1718, just as a new wave of Huguenot persecution was beginning, and in 1719 Jeanne fled with her three infant sons first toAmsterdam, and then, in 1721, to England. They settled inGreenwich, where Jeanne married her second husband, Jacques Girardot, another Huguenot.

In 1728, Andrew was sent to be educated atEton. The following year he suffered a serious accident there in which he lost one eye: he spent three months under the medical care of SirHans Sloane. In 1731 he matriculated at Oxford fromTrinity College, but transferred shortly afterwards toSt John's. In 1734, while still undergraduates, he and his brother werenaturalized.^[2] Ducarel graduated in 1738 with aBachelor of Civil Law, and then moved toTrinity Hall, Cambridge.^[4] He was createdDoctor of Civil Law in 1742, and graduated as a "grand compounder" on 21 October 1748.^[5] He was admitted a member of the College of Advocates atDoctors' Commons on 3 November 1743, and afterwards served as librarian there 1754–7, and as treasurer 1757–61.^[2]

Ducarel was appointed "commissary orofficial" (i.e. an ecclesiastical judge) of theroyal peculiar ofSt Katharine's by the Tower by ArchbishopThomas Herring in 1755; of the city and diocese of Canterbury by ArchbishopThomas Secker in December 1758; and of the sub-deaneries of South Malling, Pagham, and Tarring in Sussex, by ArchbishopFrederick Cornwallis, on the death of Dr. Dennis Clarke, in 1776.^[2]

In 1756, on the outbreak of theSeven Years' War, he was appointed to theHigh Court of Admiralty to take depositions forprize ships.

On 22 September 1737, Ducarel was elected a fellow of theSociety of Antiquaries of London, and he was one of the first fellows of the society nominated by the president and council on its incorporation in 1755. He was also elected a member of the Society of Antiquaries atCortona on 29 August 1760, was admitted a fellow of theRoyal Society of London on 18 February 1762, became an honorary fellow of the Society of Antiquaries ofCassel in November 1778, and of theSociety of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1781.

In 1755, he failed to obtain the post of sub-librarian at theBritish Museum; but in 1757 he was appointed keeper ofLambeth Palace Library byArchbishop Hutton. His predecessors in this post (who had includedHenry Wharton,Edmund Gibson andDavid Wilkins) had all been clergymen who treated the post as a part-time responsibility and as a stepping-stone to more lucrative ecclesiastical preferments. Ducarel, by contrast, remained in post for nearly thirty years, under five archbishops (Herring,Hutton,Secker,Cornwallis, andMoore), until his death.^[6]

He greatly improved the catalogues both of the printed books and the manuscripts at Lambeth, and made a digest, with a general index, of all the registers and records of theprovince of Canterbury.^[7] He was assisted by his friend,Edward Rowe Mores, the Rev. Henry Hall (his predecessor in the office of librarian), and the engraverBenjamin Thomas Pouncy, who was for many years his clerk and deputy librarian. Ducarel's contribution was seriously impeded by his complete blindness in one eye, and the weakness of the other. Besides the digest preserved among the official archives at Lambeth, he formed another personal manuscript collection in forty-eight volumes: after his death this passed to the antiquaryRichard Gough, and in 1810 was bought for theBritish Museum library.

He also took a more general interest in the ecclesiastical antiquities of theprovince of Canterbury, and, with Mores, compiled a history ofCroydon Palace and of the town ofCroydon. This was completed and presented to Archbishop Herring in manuscript in 1755, and published in 1783. However, the work led to a virulent rift between the two friends, when Mores, who had made significant contributions to it, discovered that he was not named on the title page.^[2][8]

In 1763, Ducarel was appointed by the government, with SirJoseph Ayloffe andThomas Astle, to sort and catalogue the records of thestate paper office atWhitehall, and afterwards those in theaugmentation office.

On the death ofArchbishop Secker in 1768 Ducarel applied for the post of secretary to the new archbishop,Frederick Cornwallis, but without success.

For many years Ducarel used to go in August on an antiquarian tour through different parts of the country, in company with his friendSamuel Gale, and attended by a coachman and footman. They travelled about fifteen miles a day, and put up at inns. After dinner, while Gale smoked his pipe, Ducarel transcribed his topographical and archaeological notes. In an engraving ofLondon Bridge Chapel byGeorge Vertue, the figure measuring is Ducarel, and that standing is Gale.^[9]

In 1752, with a friend,Thomas Bever, he undertook a tour ofNormandy. Through his publicationsTour through Normandy in a letter to a Friend (1754), later greatly expanded and illustrated asAnglo-Norman Antiquities Considered (1767), he effectively put the Duchy on the map for the late 18th-century English traveller.^[10] He was one of the first Englishmen to see and appreciate the significance of theBayeux Tapestry, and included an account of it written by his late friendSmart Lethieullier – the first detailed description in English – as an appendix toAnglo-Norman Antiquities.

Francis Grose described Ducarel in scathing terms:

The Doctor was a very weak man, and ignorant, though he was ambitious of being thought learned. Among the many publications which bear his name, none were really written by him; most of them were done by SirJoseph Ayloffe, and theRev. Mr. Morant, author of theHistory of Essex; to whom the Doctor applied on every emergency. He was so very illiterate, that on receiving a Latin letter from a foreign university, he took his chariot, and went down toColchester, where Mr. Morant then lived, and got him to write an answer.^[11]

Grose further wrote:

The Doctor was a large black man,^[12] with only one eye, and that of a focus not exceeding half an inch; so that whatever he wished to see distinctly he was obliged to put close to his nose. ... [He] always was a great lover of the ladies as well as his glass; the latter grew on him so much, that he was constantly drunk every day, a little before his death: his liquor was generallyport, or as he called it, "kill priest".^[13]

Horace Walpole similarly formed a negative opinion of him:

Dr. Ducarel was a poor creature. He was keeper of the library at Lambeth; and I wanted a copy of that limning there, which is prefixed to myRoyal and Noble Authors. Applying to the Doctor, I found nothing but delays. I must purchase his works, and take some of his antiques at an exorbitant price, &c. Completely disgusted, I applied to the Archbishop himself, who immediately permitted a drawing to be taken.^[14]

According toJohn Nichols, who knew him well:

Though he never ate meat till he was 14, nor drank till he was 18, yet it was a maxim which he religiously observed that as Ducarel himself often maintained, "he was anold Oxonian, and therefore never knew a man till he had drunk a bottle of wine with him." His entertainments were in the true style of the old English hospitality; and he was remarkably happy in assorting the company he not infrequently invited to his table.^[15]

Ducarel was a fit and athletic man, who believed that he would live to a great age.^[16] The immediate cause of his final illness was the shock of receiving a letter at Canterbury informing him that his wife was at the point of death. He hurried home to South Lambeth, took to his bed, and died three days later, on 29 May 1785. He was buried on the north side of the altar in the church ofSt Katharine's by the Tower. In the event, Mrs Ducarel survived him more than six years, dying on 6 October 1791.^[17]

His coins, pictures, and antiquities were sold by auction on 30 November 1785, and his books, manuscripts, and prints in April 1786. The greater part of the manuscripts passed into the hands of Richard Gough andJohn Nichols.

In 1749 Ducarel married Sarah Desborough (1696–1791). She was a widow seventeen years his senior, who had previously been his housekeeper.^[2] He is said to have married her out of gratitude, after being nursed by her through a severe illness. In Grose's view, these circumstances "tended greatly to his future establishment, Mrs. Ducarrel being a sober, careful woman".^[13] There were no children of the marriage.

• A Tour through Normandy, described in a letter to a friend (anon.) (London, 1754); republished in a greatly enlarged form (and under Ducarel's name) asAnglo-Norman Antiquities considered, in a Tour through part of Normandy, illustrated with 27 copperplates (London, 1767)
• De Registris Lambethanis Dissertatiuncula (London, 1766)
• A Series of above 200 Anglo-Gallic, or Norman and Aquitain Coins of the antient Kings of England (London, 1757)
• Some Account ofBrowne Willis, Esq., LL.D. (London, 1760)
• A Repertory of the Endowments of Vicarages in the Diocese of Canterbury (London, 1763; 2nd edn, 1782)
• A Letter to William Watson, M.D., upon the early Cultivation of Botany in England; and some particulars aboutJohn Tradescant, gardener to Charles I (London, 1773); appeared originally inPhilosophical Transactions, vol. 63, p. 79
• Account ofWilliam Stukeley, in vol. 2 of Stukeley'sItinerary (1776)
• A List of various Editions of the Bible, and parts thereof, in English; from the year 1526 to 1776 (London, 1776) (enlarged from a manuscript originally prepared byJoseph Ames)
• Some Account of the Alien Priories, and of such lands as they are known to have possessed in England and Wales, collected byJohn Warburton,Somerset Herald, and Ducarel, 2 vols (London, 1779; 2nd edn 1786)
• History of the Royal Hospital and Collegiate Church of St. Katharine, near the Tower of London (1782)
• Some Account of the Town, Church, and Archiepiscopal Palace of Croydon (1783) [written with Edward Rowe Mores]
• History and Antiquities of the Archiepiscopal Palace of Lambeth (1785); inBibliotheca Topographica Britannica, vol. 2

  This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Cooper, Thompson (1888). "Ducarel, Andrew Coltee". InStephen, Leslie (ed.).Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 16. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

• William Thomas Lowndes'sBibliographer's Manual (Bohn), p. 680
• John Cave-Browne,Lambeth Palace and its associations (1883), preface, pp. ix, xi, 66–8, 105, 106

• Grose, Francis (1792).The Olio. London. pp. 139–42.
• Jones-Baker, Doris Whipple (1995). "A Huguenot scholar, antiquary, and Lambeth Palace Librarian, Andrew Coltée Ducarel, 1713–85".Proceedings of the Huguenot Society.26:330–41.
• Lisle, Gerard de; Myers, Robin, eds. (2019).Two Huguenot Brothers: letters of Andrew and James Coltée Ducarel 1732–1773. London: Garendon Press.ISBN 9781527237223.
• Myers, Robin (1996). "Dr Andrew Coltée Ducarel (1713–1785), pioneer of Anglo-Norman studies". In Myers, Robin; Harris, Michael (eds.).Antiquaries, Book Collectors and the Circles of Learning. Winchester: St Paul's Bibliographies. pp. 45–70.ISBN 1-873040-29-6.
• Myers, Robin (1999). "Dr Andrew Coltée Ducarel, Lambeth Librarian, Civilian, and Keeper of the Public Records".The Library. 6th ser.21 (3):199–222.doi:10.1093/library/s6-21.3.199.
• Myers, Robin (2008) [2004]. "Ducarel, Andrew Coltée (1713–1785)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8126.(Subscription orUK public library membership required.)
• Myers, Robin (2018). "Dr Ducarel and his books: was André Coltée Ducarel a bibliomaniac?".The Library.19 (2):203–25.doi:10.1093/library/19.2.203.S2CID 166188057.
• Myers, Robin; Burnett, Andrew; Satterley, Renae (2023).'I do not eat the bread of idleness': essays on Dr Andrew Coltée Ducarel 1713–1785. Leicester: Garendon Press.ISBN 978-1-3999-0567-1.
• Nichols, John (1812). "Dr. Andrew Ducarel".Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century; comprizing biographical memoirs of W. Bowyer, and many of his learned friends. Vol. 6. London: Nichols, Son, and Bentley. pp. 380–405.
• Slatter, M. D. (1957). "A. C. Ducarel and the Lambeth MSS".Archives.3:97–104.

• Andrew Ducarel Record at the Royal Society