Abraham Hartwell

A student of Trinity College, Cambridge, he graduated BA in 1571 and M.A. in 1575, and was incorporated M.A. at Oxford in 1588. At Trinity College, Hartwell apparently attracted the notice of John Whitgift, who made him his secretary, reported in this capacity in 1584. A notary public, he was MP for East Looe in 1586 and Hindon in 1593. Hartwell is recorded in 1587 as one of the proctors of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Court of Audience. Hartwell met Richard Hakluyt, who urged him successfully to translate Odoardo Lopez's account of Africa. Hartwell later wrote that he did so "...to help our English Nation, that they might knowe and understand many things, which are common in other languages, but utterly concealed from this poore Island". He was buried at Lambeth on 17 December 1606. ==Works==

Three translations by him from the Italian are dedicated to Whitgift, 'at your Graces in Lambith.' He published: • 'The History of the Warres betweene the Turkes and the Persians. Written in Italian by Iohn-Thomas Minadoi, and translated by Abr. Hartwell' (licensed 1588). The volume contained 'a new Geographicall Mappe.' Minadoi's 'Epistle to the Reader' is translated by Hartwell with the title 'the Author's,’ and has given rise to the notion that Hartwell was a traveller. Two short papers which he wrote for the society are printed in Thomas Hearne's 'Curious Discourses,’ London, 1771; they are entitled 'Of Epitaphs' (ii. 375), and 'Of the Antiquity, Variety, and Reason of Motts with Arms of Noblemen and Gentlemen in England' (i. 278), and were both read before the society in 1600. Two of Hartwell's letters to Whitgift written in Latin survive in the Cambridge University Library. ==Notes==