Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Paver, William

1084597Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 44 — Paver, William1895Gordon Goodwin

PAVER, WILLIAM (1802–1871), genealogist, born in 1802, was in 1867 acting as registrar of births and deaths at 4 Rougier Street, York (White, Directory for North and East Ridings, 1867, p. 425). He died at Rishworth Street, Wakefield, on 1 June 1871, aged 69 (register of deaths at Somerset House).

Paver's method of genealogical construction caused his pedigrees to be condemned as worthless by genealogists of repute. Consequently he never received any encouragement to publish his collections; but he sought to attract attention to them in a pamphlet called ‘Pedigrees of Families of the City of York, from a Manuscript entitled “The Heraldic Visitations of Yorkshire consolidated,”’ 8vo, York, 1842, and by a list of Yorkshire pedigrees in his possession, furnished to the ‘New England Historical and Genealogical Register’ for July 1857 (pp. 259–71). He also issued part i. of ‘Original Genealogical Abstracts of the Wills of Individuals of Noble and Ancient Families now or formerly resident in the County of York, with Notes,’ 4to, Sheffield, 1830, the contents of which were superseded by the four volumes of ‘Testamenta Eboracensia,’ printed by the Surtees Society.

In 1874 Paver's extensive collections relating to Yorkshire were acquired by the trustees of the British Museum, where they are catalogued as Additional MSS. 29644–703. His consolidation of the Yorkshire ‘Visitations’ of 1584, 1612, and 1665, containing about nine hundred pedigrees, occupies three folio volumes, and is indexed. But by far the most valuable portion of the Paver MSS. is the transcripts of marriage licenses, commencing in 1567, formerly preserved in the registry of York, as the originals have disappeared. These transcripts have been printed, with notes, by the Rev. C. B. Norcliffe in the ‘Yorkshire Archæological and Topographical Journal,’ beginning in vol. vii.; but it is to be regretted that Paver has not given the day of the month as well as the year. His son, Percy Woodroffe Paver, also an industrious antiquary, made ‘Extracts from his Father's Yorkshire Collections,’ 1852 (Addit. MS. 29692, f. 49); ‘Extracts out of Torre's MSS. at York,’ 1848 (Addit. MS. 29689); and a useful general ‘Index to York Collections’ (Addit. MS. 29691).

[Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. ii. 387, 5th ser. i. 360, x. 248, 336, 8th ser. viii. 444; Cat. of Addit. MSS. Brit. Mus. (8vo, 1877), ii. 687–93, cf. Addit. MS. 24873, f. 29.]