returned to parliament for the venal borough of St. Albans in Hertfordshire, and sat for it until the dissolution in 1768. From that year until his death he represented the constituency of Boroughbridge in Yorkshire. He was appointed joint secretary to the treasury in 1741, and held that office until 1762, when his patron the Duke of Newcastle obtained for him a pension of 2,000l. per annum. Many of his letters are among the Newcastle manuscripts at the British Museum. From 1746 to 1772 he was recorder of Poole (Sydenham, Poole, p. 242). On 5 April 1758 he became recorder of St. Albans, and from 23 Nov. 1759 he was high steward of that borough. The country seat of West was at Alscott, Preston-on-Stour, Gloucestershire, and his town house was at the west end of the Piazza in King Street, Covent Garden. There he gathered around him a marvellous library and curiosities of all kinds. He died on 2 July 1772. In 1738 he married Sarah (d. 1799), daughter and, on the death of her only brother, heiress of Sir Thomas Stevens, timber merchant at Southwark and of Eltham in Kent; with her he had a large fortune in houses at Rotherhithe. They had issue a son, James (d. 1795), and two daughters: Sarah (d. 1801), the wife of Andrew, second and last lord Archer; and Henrietta (d. 1815).
West revived, says Dibdin, the ‘love of black-letter lore and of Caxtonian typography’ (Bibliomania, 1876, pp. 376–84, where a summary of his library is given). His manuscripts, including many which had previously belonged to Bishop Kennett, were sold to Lord Shelburne, and now form part of the Lansdowne manuscripts at the British Museum. The total realised by the sale of his books, which occupied Langford twenty-four days in March and April 1773, was 2,927l. 1s., and the prices appear at the present time very low; but Horace Walpole thought that the books were ‘selling outrageously’ (Letters, ed. Cunningham, v. 455). Gough bought many of the items, particularly those with Kennett's annotations, and they afterwards went to the Bodleian Library (Sale Cat. by Samuel Paterson). The sale of the prints and drawings lasted thirteen days, the coins and medals seven days, both beginning on 19 Jan. 1773. The plate and curiosities took seven days from 27 Feb. 1773, and the pictures, with other collections, four days from 31 March. Horace Walpole records that the prints sold for a ‘frantic sum’ (ib. v. 439).
West greatly assisted James Granger [q. v.] in his biographical work on portraits (cf. Granger, Letters, 1805, pp. 33–6). He subscribed for Hearne's books, gave him a plate for Domerham's ‘Glastonbury’ (1727), and assisted in Walter Hemingford's ‘History of Edward I, II, and III,’ 1731 (cf. Brydges, Restituta, i. 65–91).
[Gent. Mag. 1772 p. 343, 1799 i. 438; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Cooke's Benchers of Inner Temple, p. 76; Admissions at Lincoln's Inn, i. 145; Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, ii. 160, 468–9, iii. 619, v. 263–8, 350–1, 429, vi. 119, 344–5, 642–3, ix. 657; Nichols's Lit. Illustrations, iii. 701–2, iv. 152, 166, 789–94, vi. 701; Weld's Royal Soc. ii. 49, &c., 559–60; Blore's Rutland, p. 101; Burke's Landed Gentry, 4th ed.; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xi. 101–2, 162.]
WEST, JANE (1758–1852), author, was born on 30 April 1758 in the building which afterwards became St. Paul's Coffee-house, London. When she was eleven years old her father removed to Desborough in Northamptonshire. She was entirely self-educated, and began to write verse at thirteen. In a letter to Bishop Percy, dated 1800, she said, ‘The catalogue of my compositions previous to my attaining twenty would be formidable. Thousands of lines flowed in very easy measure. I scorned correction, and never blotted’ (Nichols, Literary Illustrations, viii. 329–31). She married Thomas West, a yeoman farmer of Northamptonshire. He was related to Vice-admiral Temple West [q. v.] and to Gilbert West [q. v.] His maternal ancestors had been rectors of Little Bowden in an unbroken chain for 150 years (cf. Gent. Mag. 1823, i. 183). Mrs. West attended to the household and dairy, but was by no means in the lowly position sometimes attributed to her (cf. Nichols, Literary Illustrations, vii. 88–9). Before 1800 she had published a half-dozen volumes of poems, two tragedies, a comedy, and two novels, ‘The Advantages of Education; or the History of Maria Williams’ (1793; 2nd edit. 1803), and ‘A Tale of the Times’ (1799). In 1800 she wrote to Percy, asking him to recommend her works to readers, in order to enable her to make better provision for her children (ib. viii. 326–7). He responded with a warm commendatory review in the ‘British Critic’ (1801). Percy told how her novels were greatly in demand at the three circulating libraries of Brighton (cf. Gent. Mag. 1852, ii. 100). In 1801 she published in three volumes some edifying ‘Letters to a Young Man.’ They were really addressed to her son, and were dedicated to her friend, the bishop of Dromore. A second edition appeared the next year, and by 1818 the book was in a sixth. It was also in 1801 that she began a correspondence with Mrs.
