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Ayloffe English interest. But the first number, which was published on 11 June 1752, obtained such scanty support, and was so severely handled in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' (xxii. 46), that the project was immediately abandoned. Some years previously Ayloffe had induced Joshua Kirby, a well-known draughtsman of Ipswich, to prepare a number of engravings of the chief buildings and monuments in Suffolk, and twelve of them were published with descriptive letterpress by Ayloffe in 1748. It was Ayloffe's intention to introduce Kirby's drawings into an elaborate history of the county upon which he was apparently engaged for the succeeding fifteen years. In 1764 he had made so much progress in collecting and arranging his materials that he published a lengthy prospectus for the publication of an exhaustive 'Topographical and Historical Description of Suffolk,' but unfortunately he here again received too little encouragement to warrant him in pursuing his elaborate plan. Subsequently he contributed several memoirs to 'Archæologia,' the journal of the Society of Antiquaries, which were highly valued at the time. On 25 Feb. 1763 he 'communicated' an interesting 'Copy of a Proclamation (1563) relating to Persons making Portraits of Queen Elizabeth' (ii. 169-170). In 1773 and 1774 there appeared in 'Archæologia' (iii. 185-229,2.39-272, 376-413) three papers by Ayloffe, describing (1) a picture at Windsor of the famous interview in 1520 between Henry VIII and Francis I; (2) four pictures at Cowdry near Midhurst, the property of Lord Montague, illustrating Henry VIII's wars in France in the latter part of his reign; and (3) the opening of the tomb of Edward I at Westminster in 1774, an exhumation that Ayloffe with Daines Barrington superintended. Another paper prepared for the Society of Antiquaries, 'On Five Monuments in Westminster Abbey,' was published separately, with engravings, in 1780. An account of the chapel on London Bridge, by Ayloffe, was published with a drawing by George Vertue in 1777.

In 1772 Ayloffe published the work by which he is still known to historical students. It is entitled 'Calendars of the Antient Charters. . .and of the Welch and Scottish Rolls now remaining in the Tower.' In a lengthy introduction the author impresses on historians the necessity of scholarly research among the state papers. The book was begun by the Rev. Philip Morant, who was at one time employed at the State Paper Office, and was published at first anonymously. But in 1774 a new issue gave Sir Joseph Ayloffe's name on the title-page. Ayloffe also revised for the press new editions of Leland's 'Collectanea' (1771) and of the 'Liber Niger Scaccarii' (1771), and added valuable appendices of original illustrative documents. He saw through the press John Thorpe's 'Registrum Roffense,' which was published in 1769 by the compiler's son. Ayloffe's ' Collections relative to Saxon and English Laws and Antiquities' remain in manuscript at the British Museum (Addit. MS. 9051). We have been unable to trace the whereabouts of his other manuscript collections, which were clearly very numerous, and are stated by contemporaries to have been invaluable so far as they related to the abbey and city of Westminster. His library was sold by Leigh and Sotheby soon after his death.

[Annual Register for 1781; Gent. Mag. for 1781; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes and Illustrations of Literature; Burke's Extinct Peerage, p. 30; Morant's History of Essex; Brit. Mus. Cat.]  AYLOFFE, WILLIAM (d. 1585), judge of the Queen's Bench, was descended from a very ancient family settled originally in Kent and subsequently in Essex, whose origin has been traced to Saxon times. On 14 Feb. 1553-4 he was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn, where two other near relatives, bearing the same name, distinguished themselves in the sixteenth century, and in 1560 he was called to the bar. After being appointed 'reader' at his inn of court in Lent term, 1571, he was made serjeant-at-law in 1577, at the same time as Sir Edmund Anderson, afterwards the well-known lord chief justice of the Common Pleas. A notice of a banquet in the Middle Temple hall, given by Ayloffe with other barristers upon whom a similar distinction had just been conferred, to celebrate their promotion, is preserved among the Ashmolean MSS. at Oxford (Ashm. MS. 804, ii. 1). No record is known of Ayloffe's elevation to the bench, but he is found acting as judge in the court of Queen's Bench in 1579 (Calendar of State Papers, 1547-1580, p. 637), and his judgments are reported by Dyer, Coke, and Savile after that date, which may therefore be regarded as the probable year of his appointment. He was present in 1581 at the trial of Edmund Campion and other seminary priests, and special attention is called to the part he played on that occasion in a pamphlet published by English catholics at Pans shortly afterwards, and bearing the title 'An Epistle of Comfort to the Reverend Priestes and to the Honorable, Worshipful and other of the Laye sort restrayned in Durance for the Catholike Fayth,'