(b Soulby, Westmorland [now Cumbria] ?1585; d London, 1639). English agent. He was principal agent to the celebrated English collector and patron Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel, perhaps gaining an early taste for antiquities through his acquaintance with such northern antiquarians as Lord William Howard (1563–1640) and Reginald Bainbridge. In 1604 Petty went up to Christ’s College, Cambridge, and held a fellowship at Jesus College from 1612 to 1624. There he came to the notice of Arundel through his own contacts with the circle of Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, Arundel’s father-in-law, whose family had been among the most distinguished patrons of Cambridge during the Renaissance. In 1613–14 Petty accompanied Arundel and Inigo Jones on their journey to Italy. Nothing is known of his activities there, and following his return Petty was employed by Arundel as tutor to his children. In September 1624 Arundel wrote to Sir Thomas Roe, Ambassador to Turkey, asking him to buy antiquities for Arundel House in London and to help ‘Mr William Petty, a man of very good learning and other parts, who hath long been in my house’, further requesting Roe to ‘give him all favour for he doth not only love antiquities extremely, but understands them very well’. Intermittently, Petty spent ten years in Greece and Asia Minor working for Arundel. His methods were unscrupulous, but he was prodigiously successful. He spirited away inscriptions destined for ...