William Phillimore Watts Phillimore; (formerly Stiff, changed by royal licence 1873) MA BCL (b. Nottingham

Nottingham

Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...

 27 October 1853, d.Torquay 9 April 1913) was a solicitor

Solicitor

Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...

, genealogist and publisher.

Genealogy and education

Phillimore was the eldest son of Dr William Phillimore Phillimore (formerly Stiff) M.B. Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng., of Stenton Nottingham and Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Benjamin Watts of Bridgen Hall Bridgnorth

Bridgnorth

Bridgnorth is a town in Shropshire, England, along the Severn Valley. It is split into Low Town and High Town, named on account of their elevations relative to the River Severn, which separates the upper town on the right bank from the lower on the left...

.

He studied at The Queen's College, Oxford

The Queen's College, Oxford

The Queen's College, founded 1341, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Queen's is centrally situated on the High Street, and is renowned for its 18th-century architecture...

 being awarded a 2nd in Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...

 in 1876.

Phillimore married Jane Graham in 1887 and they left one surviving son, Wilfred Henderson Phillimore.

County record offices

From 1888 he advocated the formation of Local Record Offices

Public Record Office

The Public Record Office of the United Kingdom is one of the three organisations that make up the National Archives...

 and to achieve that prepared bills to be put before Parliament.

National record societies

Phillimore initiated:

• British Record Society
  British Record Society
  The British Record Society is a British learned society that focuses on publishing historic records, or, more specifically, indexes to such records...
  
   (then The Index Library) 1887
• Scottish Record Series (afterwards Scottish Record Society
  Scottish Record Society
  The Scottish Record Society was founded at Edinburgh in 1897 and since then has published numerous volumes of calendars and indices of public records and private muniments relating to Scotland....
  
  ) 1896
• Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire
  Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire
  The Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire is Nottinghamshire’s principal historical and archaeological society.It was established in 1897, and takes its name from Dr Robert Thoroton who published the first county history of Nottinghamshire in 1677...
  
   1897
• Canterbury and York Society 1904, publishers of English medieval ecclesiastical records
• Irish Record Society 1909

USA

Phillimore was a Corresponding Member of:

• New England Historic Genealogical Society
  New England Historic Genealogical Society
  The New England Historic Genealogical Society is the oldest and largest genealogical society in the United States, founded in 1845. A charitable, nonprofit educational institution, NEHGS is located at 99-101 Newbury Street, in Boston, Massachusetts, in an eight-story archive and research center....
  
  ,
• Virginia Historical Society
  Virginia Historical Society
  The Virginia Historical Society , founded in 1831 as the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society and headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, is a major repository, research, and teaching center for Virginia history...
  
  ,
• Chicago Historical Society

Publications

• The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers
• Nottinghamshire Church Bells 1872
• How to Write the History of a Family 1887
• Pedigree Work 1900
• The Family of Middlemore 1901
• The Family of Holbrow 1901
• Heralds' College and Coats of Arms regarded from a Legal Aspect 1904
• Law and Practice of Grant of Arms
  Grant of Arms
  A grant of arms is an action by a lawful authority, such as an officer of arms, conferring on a person and his or her descendants the right to bear a particular coat of arms or armorial bearings...
  
   1905
• Changes of Name 1906
• The Family of Phillimore was incomplete at his death - aged 59. It was completed by his kinsman Lord Phillimore
  Walter Phillimore, 1st Baron Phillimore
  Walter George Frank Phillimore, 1st Baron Phillimore PC , known as Sir Walter Phillimore, 2nd Baronet, from 1885 to 1918, was a British lawyer and judge.-Biography:...
  
  , and published in 1922

Edited

• the 1297 Coram Rege Roll
• Rotuli Hugonis de Welles, episcopi Lincolniensis 1209-1235
• Irish Will Calendars
  Calendar (disambiguation)
  A calendar is a catalogue, list or table. The word is most commonly used for a table of days, months, years etc.Calendar may also refer to:* Course calendar or course catalogue...
  
  
• County Pedigrees: Nottinghamshire
• upwards of 200 volumes of Parish Register
  Parish register
  A parish register is a handwritten volume, normally kept in a parish church or deposited within a county record office or alternative archive repository, in which details of baptisms, marriages and burials are recorded.-History:...
  
  s, Inquisitions
  Inquisitorial system
  An inquisitorial system is a legal system where the court or a part of the court is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case, as opposed to an adversarial system where the role of the court is primarily that of an impartial referee between the prosecution and the defense...
  
  , Will Calendars (chronological lists of wills) etc.

Other details

• Recreation - Cycling
• Address 124 Chancery Lane WC (London)
• resided in Berkhampstead then Gerrard's Cross

Sources

• Who Was Who 1897-1916; A & C Black Ltd 1920
• The Genealogist, Vol XXX October 1913