Mary, third daughter of Archbishop Potter, and died on 11 March 1786 (Gent. Mag. 1786, i. 269). When John Loveday visited the bishop of St. Asaph in July 1732, his house was kept by his sister, ‘a widow lady’ (Tour, Roxburghe Club, pp. 65–8), but he married in May 1733 as his third wife Elizabeth Scottowe of Thorpe by Norwich. She was an heiress, and married as her second husband Robert Britiffe, recorder of Norwich and M.P. for that city. She died on 1 May 1771, aged 77.
Tanner was the author of two well-known works. The first of them, ‘Notitia Monastica, or a Short History of the Religious Houses in England and Wales,’ was published at Oxford in 1695. His letter to Samuel Pepys, with a copy of the volume, is in the collection of Mr. J. E. Hodgkin (Hist. MSS. Comm. 15th Rep. App. ii. 182). By September 1709 he had a second edition ready ‘with considerable improvements,’ but it did not come out, and the original volume became very scarce. It was reprinted, at the expense of the society for the encouragement of learning, in 1744, under the editorial care of his brother, John Tanner, vicar of Lowestoft and precentor of St. Asaph Cathedral (bur. 26 Dec. 1759; cf. Nichols, Lit. Anecdotes, viii. 402–3), and was much enlarged, partly from the bishop's collections, but mainly by the editor. A third edition, with many additions, was edited by James Nasmith [q. v.] in 1787, and a copy of it at the British Museum contains many notes by Sir Henry Ellis, mostly taken from Hearne's annotated copy of the first edition at the Bodleian Library. From this work Sir Richard Colt Hoare printed at Shaftesbury in 1821 a volume of twenty-five copies only, entitled ‘Monasticon Wiltonense: a List of the Religious Houses in North and South Wiltshire.’
Tanner's other great work was the ‘Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica’ (1748), which was also printed at the cost of the society for encouraging learning. He had laboured at it for forty years, and at his death left the manuscripts to his brother John, instructing him to select, with the aid of two other divines, a competent antiquary for the editorship, and then to submit their choice to the approval of Bishop Gibson. The result was the appointment of the Rev. David Wilkins [q. v.], who drew up a preface. Tanner's aim was to give an account of all authors that flourished within the three kingdoms to the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the merits of his work were far in advance of any of its predecessors. With all its defects, it long remained ‘the highest authority to which the inquirer can refer’ (Hardy, Descriptive Cat. of Materials, vol. i. pt. p. xlii).
Some coins were given by Tanner to the Bodleian Library in 1733, and by his will, dated 22 Nov. 1733, he bequeathed to it his manuscripts and such printed books not already there as the curators and librarian should select. His books, more than nine hundred in number, included many of very great value, but unfortunately during the course of their journey by water when he moved from Norwich to Oxford the barge sank at Bensington lock, near Wallingford (11 Dec. 1731). They were submerged for twenty hours, and the effects are still visible. The largest portion of the manuscripts, nearly three hundred out of about 470, consist of papers formerly the property of Archbishop Sancroft, and the most valuable of them relate to the time of the civil war. Selections were published by the Rev. Henry Cary, and they formed the substance of Gutch's ‘Collectanea Curiosa’ (1782). A catalogue of the whole collection by the Rev. Alfred Hackman was published in 1860 as vol. iv. of the general catalogue of manuscripts at the Bodleian. It is asserted by Dr. Jessopp that among the rolls in the Tanner collection are ‘more than one which the bishop must have removed from the archives of Ely’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. ix. 392). Many letters to and from him are preserved in the public libraries, and several are printed in Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes,’ iv. 146, 356–7, Nichols's ‘Illustrations of Literary History,’ iii. 402–35, ‘Letters of Eminent Persons’ (1813), i. 300–4, ii. 103–13, 164–74, and Bishop Nicolson's ‘Correspondence’ (1809).
Tanner assisted John Ray in his works, Robert Hawes in his compilation on Framlingham, and Samuel Knight in his lives of Colet and Erasmus. He also helped the publication of the English works of Sir Henry Spelman (1722). Two folio volumes by him in the diocesan registry at Norwich were much used by Blomefield (Hist. MSS. Comm. 1st Rep. App. p. 87), who dedicated the ‘History of Norfolk’ to his memory. Wake when archbishop of Canterbury, and Gibson as bishop of London, frequently consulted him.
The bust of Tanner by Sir Henry Cheere is among those of former fellows of All Souls' in its library.
Tanner contributed towards the cost of new buildings at Queen's College in 1707, and towards the erection of a new hall at All Souls'. The arms which he assumed were those of the Tanner family in Cornwall,
