William Cole (antiquary)

William Cole
Born	3 August 1714 The Abingtons, England, Great Britain
Died	16 December 1782(1782-12-16) (aged 68) Milton, England, Great Britain
Burial place	Cambridge, England, United Kingdom

William Cole FSA (3 August 1714 – 16 December 1782), was a Cambridgeshire clergyman and antiquary, known for his extensive manuscript collections on the history of Cambridgeshire and of Buckinghamshire.

He published little, but left his manuscript volumes (over 100 of them) to the British Museum, where they have proved invaluable to people writing about the history of Cambridgeshire. He kept a diary between 1765 and 1770, and two volumes – one relating to a trip to France, and one to his time at Bletchley – were published in 1931.^[1]

A nineteenth-century biographer described Cole as "one of the most learned men of the eighteenth century in his particular line, and the most industrious antiquary that Cambridgeshire has ever had, or is likely to have", while the verdict of a contemporary, Professor Michael Lort, was "... with all his oddities, he was a worthy and valuable man".^[1]