Philip Luckombe

Philip Luckombe (baptised 1730 – died 1803) was an English printer and author.

Philip Luckombe

Life

He was born at Exeter, the son of John Luckombe, a tailor. He worked as a printer there, and then moved to London, where he was employed as a writer.[1][2]

The editor of dictionaries and encyclopædias, Luckombe also wrote books on printing, and made a study of conchology. His collection of shells was considerable, and his learning brought him the acquaintance of Thomas Percy.[1]

Luckombe died in September 1803.[1]

Works

Luckombe's main works are:[1]

• A Tour through Ireland in Several Entertaining Letters, 1748, with William Rufus Chetwood[2]
• A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing, 1770.
• The History and Art of Printing, 2 parts, 1771.
• A Tour through Ireland, 1780. This work depended on plagiarism, for instance from Richard Twiss.[2] Other works it draws on were the early Tour with Chetwood, the Hibernia Curiosa (1769) of John Bush of Tunbridge Wells, and Thomas Campbell's Philosophical Survey (1777).[3]
• The Traveller's Companion, or a New Itinerary of England and Wales, 1789.
• England's Gazetteer, 3 vols. 1790.
• The Tablet of Memory, 8th edit. 1792.

Notes

1. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1893). "Luckombe, Philip" . Dictionary of National Biography. 34. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
2. Baigent, Elizabeth. "Luckombe, Philip". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/17146. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3. Susan M. Kroeg, Philip Luckombe's "A Tour through Ireland" (1780) and the Problem of Plagiarism, Eighteenth-Century Ireland / Iris an dá chultúr Vol. 19 (2004), pp. 126–137, at p. 126. Published by: Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30071022

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1893). "Luckombe, Philip". Dictionary of National Biography. 34. London: Smith, Elder & Co.