John Cade, was born in January 1734, at Darlington, co. Durham, where he was educated at the Free Grammar school of Queen Elizabeth, now the Sixth Form College. He began his commercial career working for a wholesale linendraper in London and within a few years had been  promoted to the first position in the counting-house. He was subsequently made a partner in a branch of the concern in Dublin.

It was after his retirement in around 1784, having secured his financial independence, that he devoted himself to antiquarian studies. He is best known today for his identification of a Roman road from York to Newcastle (RR80), often known as Cade’s Road, first mentioned in his paper ‘Conjectures concerning some undescribed Roman Roads, and other Antiquities in the County of Durham’ published in Archaeologia, the journal of the Society of Antiquaries of London, in 1785. The rather difficult and rambling style of this paper has all too often led to it being misinterpreted as describing a road from Brough on Humber via Stamford Bridge and Easingwold then north to Newcastle, whereas he actually described a road which started in York.

He contributed many papers to Archaeologia, and corresponded with many renowned antiquaries including Thomas Reynolds, Richard Kaye and Richard Gough but doesn’t seem to have ever been truly accepted by his peers and was never made a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

He died at Gainford on the 10th Dec. 1806, and was buried at Darlington.

John Cade (1734 - 1806)