Ely Hargrove (1741–1818) was an English bookseller and local historian.
Born at Halifax, Yorkshire, on 19 March (O.S.) 1741, he was the son of James Hargrove of Halifax, by his wife Mary, daughter of George Gudgeon of Skipton-in-Craven. In February 1762 he settled at Knaresborough, as a bookseller and publisher. A few years later he was able to open a branch business at Harrogate.[1]
Hargrove died at Knaresborough on 5 December 1818, and was buried in the churchyard there.[1]
In 1769, according to William Boyne in the Yorkshire Library, there appeared anonymously the first edition of Hargrove's History of the Castle, Town, and Forest of Knaresborough, with Harrogate and its Medicinal Waters, which was frequently republished, later with the compiler's name on the title-page. The York edition of 1798 had plates and woodcuts by Thomas Bewick. To the sixth edition, Knaresborough, 1809, was appended an Ode on Time, reprinted in William Hargrove's York Poetical Miscellany (1835).[1]
Hargrove also compiled:[1]
Under the signature of "E. H. K.", Hargrove contributed papers to the Gentleman's Magazine, and wrote an account of Boroughbridge to the fifth volume of Rees's Cyclopædia. His manuscript collections on Yorkshire history filled sixteen volumes.[1]
Hargrove married, first, Christiana (d. 1780), daughter of Thomas Clapham of Firby, near Bedale, Yorkshire, by whom he had issue twelve children; and secondly, Mary, daughter of John Bower of Grenoside Hall, near Sheffield; she died at York in April 1825, and was buried at Knaresborough, leaving a son, William Hargrove.[1]