Joseph Strutt (1749–1802)

Strutt, Joseph 1749-1802, author, artist, antiquary, and engraver. In 1771 he became a student in the reading-room of the British Museum, whence he drew the materials for most of his antiquarian works. His first book, ‘The Regal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of England,’ appeared in 1773. For it he drew and engraved from ancient manuscripts representations of kings, costumes, armor, seals, and other objects of interest, this being the first work of the kind published in England. He spent the greater part of his life in similar labors, his art becoming little more than a handmaid to his antiquarian and literary research Although the amount of Strutt's work as an engraver is small, apart from that appearing in his books, it is of exceptional merit and is still highly esteemed. In the study of those branches of archæology which he followed he was a pioneer, and all later work on the same lines has been built on the foundations he laid."