John Brand was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 antiquarian

Antiquarian

An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...

.

Born in Washington

Washington, Tyne and Wear

Washington is a town in the City of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear, England. Historically part of County Durham, it joined a new county in 1974 with the creation of Tyne and Wear...

, County Durham

County Durham

County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

, he was educated at the Royal Grammar School

Royal Grammar School, Newcastle

Royal Grammar School Newcastle upon Tyne, known locally and often abbreviated as RGS, is a long-established co-educational, independent school in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It gained its Royal Charter under Queen Elizabeth I...

 and Lincoln College, Oxford

Lincoln College, Oxford

Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is situated on Turl Street in central Oxford, backing onto Brasenose College and adjacent to Exeter College...

. He wrote Observations on the popular antiquities of Great Britain: Including the Whole of Mr. Bourne's Antiquitates Vulgares (1777), generally referred to as Popular Antiquities. (The incorporated work was the Popular Antiquities of Henry Bourne

Henry Bourne (historian)

Henry Bourne was an English historian. He was the son of a tailor and it was planned by his father that he would be apprenticed as a glazier; however his promise was such that he was sent to the Royal Free Grammar School where he flourished, winning a scholarship to Cambridge under the tutelage of...

, published 1725, with Brand's own extensive annotations). Material from it was afterwards broadly incorporated into William Hone

William Hone

William Hone was an English writer, satirist and bookseller. His victorious court battle against government censorship in 1817 marked a turning point in the fight for British press freedom.-Biography:...

's Every Day Book, Year Book, etc., and in Chambers' Book of Days, which had wide popular circulation. The Popular Antiquities were further revised and enlarged by Sir Henry Ellis

Henry Ellis (librarian)

Sir Henry Ellis was an English librarian.He was born in London and educated at the Mercers' School and St John's College, Oxford, where he acted as an assistant at the Bodleian Library...

. The expression "popular antiquities" was overtaken in the 19th century by "folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

". Brand was appointed Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of London

Society of Antiquaries of London

The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...

in 1784 and was annually re-elected until his death.

Further reading

• The Popular Antiquities of Great Britain By Brand and Ellis, Largely Extended, Corrected, Brought Down To The Present Time, and Now First Alphabetically Arranged. London: Reeves and Turner, 1905.