HOARE, Sir Richard Cobb (1758-1838), Bart.,English antiquary, eldest son of Sir Richard Hoare, the first baronet, an eminent banker, was born 9th December 1758. Having been accustomed in his youth to apply himself to business, the diligent habits which he then acquired induced him afterwards to relieve the tedium of his life by the study of topography and antiquities. In 1783 he married the eldest daughter of Lord Lyttelton, and on her death in 1785 he made a tour on the Continent, visiting France, Italy, and Switzerland. He succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his father in 1787, and in the following year he left England on a second Continental tour. The record of his travels was originally published by him in four volumes, and these were afterwards condensed into two, which appeared in 1810 under the title A Classical Tour through Italy and Sicily. Travelling on the Continent having been rendered insecure on account of the war with France, he next resolved to make a tour in Wales, taking Giraldus Cambrensis (de Barri) as his guide, and in 1808 he published a translation of Giraldus, with notes, illustrations, and a life of the author, in two splendid quarto volumes. In 1807 he visited Ireland; and he also published an account of this excursion. His most important contribution to antiquarian science was, however, his history of his native county, Wiltshire. In 1821 he completed in two volumes folio the History of Ancient Wiltshire, after which he commenced the History of Modern Wiltshire, and confining his attention to South Wiltshire was able with the help of several coadjutors almost to finish the work before his death. The first part—the history of the hundred of Mere—appeared in 1822, and the last part in 1843. Hoare died at Stourhead, May 19, 1838. For a ...