SPEED, JOHN English historian and cartog rapher, was the son of a London tailor, and followed his father's trade, being admitted member of the Merchant Taylors Company in 1580. He settled in Moorfields, where he built himself a house. He was enabled to devote himself to antiquarian pursuits through the kindness of Sir Fulke Greville, whom Speed calls the "procurer of my present estate," and through his patron's interest he also received a "waiter's room in the custom-house." His important works are : Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine (i6I a series of fifty-four maps (with descriptive matter) of different parts of England, which had already appeared separately, and in which he was helped by Christopher Saxton, John Norden and William White; and History of Great Britaine under the Con quests of the Romans . to . . . King James (I6I I). Speed brought some historical skill to bear on the arrangement of his history; in preparing it he received help from Sir Robert Cotton, William Smith, Henry Barkham and Sir Henry Spelman. Speed
brought some historical skill to bear on the arrangement of his work, and although he repeated many of the errors of older chroniclers he added on the whole a substantial contribution of valuable material for the history of his country. He died in Lon don on July 28, 1629.
Other maps of his, beside those in the Theatre, are in the British Museum. Another edition of the Theatre is Theatrum Magase Britanniae latine, redditum a P. Holland (London, folio, 1616). He wrote Genealogies Recorded in Sacred Scriptures (16IT), and a similar work, A Cloud of Witnesses (1616). These passed through numerous editions, and were frequently prefixed to copies of the Bible. An account of Speed's descendants is to be found in Rev. J. S. Davies's History of Southampton (1883), which was founded on ms. material left by John Speed (1703-1781).