BRIGGS, William 1 (fl.1784) — London
Globemaker.
Employed by Robert Sayer and John Bennett 2 (see BME 2011). Briggs testified in 1784 concerning Bennett’s mental health issues that, “Bennett had ordered one hundred globes from him and thirty pairs of mahogany globe stands from another craftsman. Briggs took pains to explain that both orders were ‘most uncommon and unusual, as it is not probable from the nature of the business that such globes and globe stands could have been disposed of for many years’” (Torbert). He was presumably the father of William Briggs 2, in which case he may have been the William Briggs of the parish of St. Bride who married Mary Ive at St. Sepulchre 15 Jan 1780, and possibly the William Briggs buried at St. Bride 19 Jan 1790 aged thirty-eight, but this is tentative.
Torbert.