Francis Douce

Francis Douce (DOWS; 1757 – 30 March 1834) was a British antiquary and museum curator.

Biography

Douce was born in London. His father was a clerk in Chancery. After completing his education he entered his father's office, but soon quit it to devote himself to the study of antiquities. He became a prominent member of the Society of Antiquaries, and from 1799 to 1811 served as Keeper of Manuscripts in the British Museum, but was compelled to resign owing to a quarrel with one of the trustees.

Francis attended a school in Richmond, where he became proficient in Latin and made some progress with Greek, before suddenly relocating to a French academy. After his schooling, he entered the Gray's Inn in 1779 and was admitted an attorney of the King's Bench. In the same year, Francis was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and in 1781 was admitted to use the British Museum Library.

In 1807 he published his Illustrations of Shakespeare and Ancient Manners (2 vols. 8vo), which contained some curious information, along with a great deal of trifling criticism and mistaken interpretation. An unfavourable notice of the work in The Edinburgh Review greatly irritated the author, and made him unwilling to venture any further publications. He contributed, however, a considerable number of papers to the Archaeologia and The Gentleman's Magazine. In 1833 he published a Dissertation on the various Designs of the Dance of Death, the substance of which had appeared forty years before.

In 1807 the British Museum recruited him to the Department of Manuscripts, where in the same year he succeeded Robert Nares as Keeper. His relationship with the museum was uneasy from the start, so that after only five years' service he resigned in 1811.