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Kl64 Report Sponsored by Uber '2020 Friends of the National Libraries **1** ## **CONTENTS** |**CONTENTS**|| |---|---| |Administrative Information|2| |A Tribute to Dr Frances Harris (1951-2021)|4| |Annual Report for 2020|6| |Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase|14| |Trustees’ Report|108| |Financial Statements|124| **2** Friends of the National Libraries ## **Administrative Information** **Friends of the National Libraries** **Founded 1931 | Registered Charity Number: 313020** **Royal Patron:** **Chairman:** **Honorary Treasurer:** **Secretary:** **Membership Accountant:** **Honorary Expert Adviser:** **PO Box 4291, Reading, Berkshire RG8 9JA** **www.fnl.org.uk** L **[ @FNL313 ] admin@fnlmail.org.uk** HRH The Prince of Wales Mr Geordie Greig Mr Charles Sebag-Montefiore FSA, FCA Mrs Nell Hoare MBE FSA FMA FIIC Mr Paul Celerier FCA Dr Matthew Payne FSA Administrative Information **3** ## **Trustees** ## **Ex-officio** Mr Pedr ap Llwyd Librarian, National Library of Wales Dr Jessica Gardner University Librarian, University of Cambridge Mr Roland Keating Chief Executive, British Library Dr Emma Markiewicz Secretary, Historical Manuscripts Commission Dr Richard Ovenden OBE FSA Bodley’s Librarian, Bodleian Libraries Dr John Scally National Librarian, National Library of Scotland ## **Scottish Representative** Dr Iain Gordon Brown FSA FRSE ## **General Council** Mr Philip Ziegler CVO Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE ## **Independent Auditors** Knox Cropper LLP 65 Leadenhall Street, London EC3A 2AD ## **Investment Advisers** Cazenove Capital Management 1 London Wall Place, London EC2Y 5AU ## **Principal Bankers** ## **Elected** Mr Felix de Marez Oyens Mr Stephen Clarke Mrs Natalie Livingstone Mr Peter Mimpriss Mrs Alexandra Sitwell Mr Mark Storey Mr Christopher Whittick FSA FRHistS Mrs Joan Winterkorn FSA Dr Christopher Wright OBE FSA CAF Bank Limited 25 King’s Hill Avenue, West Malling, Kent ME19 4JQ ## **Design** 72ptdesign.com **4** Friends of the National Libraries ## **A Tribute to Frances Harris (1950-2021)** Honorary Secretary of the Friends of the National Libraries 2013-2018 By Dr Christopher Wright Image courtesy of Johan Zeman. When Frances Harris took over from Michael Borrie as Honorary Secretary of the Friends in 2013, she succeeded a much-loved figure who had held the post for twenty years. In other circumstances, this could have been a daunting proposition. In fact, she was able to rely on Michael’s enthusiastic support. They had known one another as colleagues at the British Library and held each other in high mutual regard. Indeed, it was Michael who had recommended her for the role. By birth Frances was an Australian, growing up at Burwood in the suburbs of Melbourne. She came to Britain in 1967 when she was 17 to join her father, a civil servant who had been posted to the High Commission in London. After completing her education at London University, she made her life here. After a brief spell working at the British Library on the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, she joined the Library’s Department of Manuscripts in 1979. By the time she retired in 2010 she had risen to be Head of Modern Historical Manuscripts. **5** What made her an especially inspired choice to be Secretary of the Friends was not only her head for business but the fact that much of her later time in the Department of Manuscripts was spent as the British Library’s expert advisor to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport on the export of manuscripts. This was a vital role in trying to ensure that the most important examples of Britain’s manuscript heritage remained in this country. It brought her into close and often daily contact with many of the libraries, museums and archives in the United Kingdom. No better preparation for the grant-giving work of the Friends could be imagined. She was, however, not only an excellent administrator but also a most distinguished scholar. Her particular field of expertise was Late Stuart history on which she published widely, including three major works, A Passion for Government, a biography of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, in 1991, Transformations of Love, a study of John Evelyn’s relationship with Margaret Blagge, in 2002, for which she was awarded a Wolfson History Prize in 2004, and, in 2017, while she was Secretary of the Friends, The General in Winter, an account of the relationship between Marlborough and his great friend and ally the Lord Treasurer, Sidney Godolphin. After she handed over as Secretary to Nell Hoare in 2018, she continued actively to research. Her friends wondered if another book might be in the offing. Sadly, she was admitted to hospital just before Christmas 2020, diagnosed with myeloma, failed to respond to treatment and died on 17 February, 2021. There is to be a memorial service in Central London in autumn 2021 (details will be announced) when Friends and friends will be able to celebrate her life and achievements. Her books are, of course, her true memorial. **6** Friends of the National Libraries ## **Annual Report for 2020** The Friends of the National Libraries made or committed 39 grants during the year, totalling over £200,000, which enabled the acquisition of collections with a gross value of over £750,000. In addition, FNL was able to use its status as a body listed on Schedule 3 of the Inheritance Act 1984 to facilitate the gift of the 15th-century Book of Lismore from the Chatsworth Settlement to University College Cork; more details on this important donation, valued at £500,000, are given on page 16. Above: Photograph of Cardinal Newman. Left: Letter from Charles Kingsley to Sir Charles Lyell, 28 April 1863. Images courtesy of the University of Edinburgh (see page 52). Annual Report for 2020 **7** ## **GRANTS FROM THE OPERATING FUND** Among the grants awarded for the acquisition of collections of scientific interest was the award of £10,000 to the University of Edinburgh for a **collection of family papers of Sir Charles Lyell** . This follows the acquisition of Lyell’s notebooks in 2019, also with support from FNL. The family papers constitute a valuable addition to Edinburgh University Library’s archive of Lyell materials, which began with a substantial donation from the Lyell family in 1927. Cambridge University Library (CUL) received a grant of £5,040 towards their acquisition of **letters from Professor Sir Nevill Mott and Yvette Cauchois** from 1948 to 1996. Mott was a Nobel prize-winning physicist and Cauchois was a very eminent fellow physicist. The collection adds to CUL’s significant holdings of Mott papers and also complements the Library’s outstanding holdings of scientific archives in physics. A grant of £8,000 helped the Royal Engineers Museum to acquire the **Steer Webster Collection relating to the Mulberry Harbour** . This is an important archive of photographs, documents, medals and models relating to the design of the Mulberry Harbours owned by one of the principle designers. The University of Strathclyde received a grant of £600 towards its acquisition of **four albums of photographs created by the Andersonian Naturalists’ Society** in the late 19th century and turn of the 20th century; this was one of the earliest of the University’s student societies and the albums fill a clear gap in the university’s collections. Finally, Winchester College was awarded a grant of £3,500 towards their acquisition of **Qâdi Zâda Al-Rûmî, Shareh Mulakhas Al-Jaghmini fi al-Hay’a** (Commentary on the Compendium of Cosmology), dating from the late 15th century. **8** Friends of the National Libraries County archives, record offices and local collections were helped with a series of grants allowing the purchase of locally significant records. The earliest manuscript acquired with FNL’s help in 2020 was **Sulpicius Severus,** _**Life of St. Martin**_ , a cutting from a 12th century manuscript, bought with the help of a grant of £2,000 by the St Albans Museum: this cutting was made in the scriptorium of the Benedictine Monastery of St Albans. Durham County Record Office acquired the _**Journal of a Cruise on the Schooner Yacht Nereid,**_ **1870, by Edward Backhouse,** a prominent Quaker businessman and philanthropist from Sunderland, where it enriches the Record Office’s Quaker collections. North Yorkshire Record Office acquired **the rental roll for Hackness in North Yorkshire for the years 1622-1639.** A grant of £350 helped Northumberland Archives to acquire the **letters of Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of Tankerville** (1743-1822) relating to a dispute that led to his dismissal as Postmaster General. South West Heritage Trust was able to acquire **the manuscript account and commonplace book (c.1650-60) for the Walrond family** of Bradfield, Devon, with the help of a grant of £2,000. The Devon Family History Society acquired **material relating to the North Devon Infirmary** which will, in due course, be deposited at the North Devon Record Office, part of the South West Heritage Trust. The Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre acquired **Letters Patent issued by Charles I under the Great Seal, 20 July 1626** , a document whose importance in terms of understanding Swindon’s development as a town through the ages cannot be understated. A full grant enabled East Sussex Record Office to acquire the **Catalogue of the library of George Campion Courthope of Whiligh in Ticehurst, 1850** continuing the Record Office’s magnificent labours over more than 20 years to re-assemble the dispersed Courthope papers. The Heritage Hub, Hawick, received a grant of £2,400 towards their acquisition of the **records of Peter Scott & Co.** , a local hosiery manufacturer, which builds on their already strong collection on the textile industry. Another textile-related acquisition was the **Memorandum Book of a Yorkshire wool merchant (1772-1773)** , which was added to the collections of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society thanks to a grant of £3,126. Annual Report for 2020 **9** A grant was awarded to the Chapter of York to cover the full cost of volume of some 110 pieces of **printed ephemera relating to special services at York Minster, c.1880-1904** , for the archives of York Minster. Such records are of prime importance for the study of the Minster’s history so this collection has high research value. Another full grant was awarded for the **manuscript diary of an unidentified member of The Salvation Army, Maldon, Essex, 1891-1901** acquired by the Salvation Army Heritage Centre. The Centre owns several diaries written by officers of the corps but none by ordinary members and few from the 19th century, so this acquisition fills a significant gap. A number of the grants from the B.H. Breslauer Foundation, summarised on pages 12-13, returned volumes to their former homes. Another example was _**Aesopi Phrygis Fabellae Graece & Latine**_ , 1524 acquired by Queen’s College, Cambridge, with the help of a grant of £1,000. This beautifully annotated copy of Aesop’s fables was probably used and read at the college nearly five hundred years ago and represents a formidable addition to the unique collection of humanist texts already held in Queens’ College’s Old Library. A grant of £900 allowed Balliol College to add to their collection of papers relating to alumni by acquiring **notes on John Muirhead’s lectures on Mental and Moral Philosophy and on Ethics, 1889-1890** . Muirhead was important figure amongst Balliol’s alumni, one who exemplified the tenor of its thought in the latter half of the 19th century. Table of Virtues, from Emily Atkinson’s lecture notes (see page 20). Courtesy of Balliol College. **10** Friends of the National Libraries In addition, four acquisitions that were supported with grants in 2019, and accounted for in that year’s Annual Report, were finalised during 2020. Three of these grants were made from the Operating Fund. A grant of £15,000 helped Pembroke College, Cambridge, to acquire **the archive of Barrie Cook** , artist and friend of Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney. Cooke’s circle of poets and artists has been memorably described as a rival Bloomsbury, only with more fishing! Bangor University received a grant of £10,000 in support of its acquisition of a collection of **manuscripts and books by R. S. Thomas** . Meanwhile, **the archaeological archive of Alan Sorrell** (1904-1974) was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum with the aid of a grant of £5,000. Murder of Thomas a Becket, Canterbury Cathedral, 1190, from the Alan Sorrell archive. Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum. Annual Report for 2020 **11** Seamus Heaney, ’The Guttural Muse’, illustration by Barrie Cooke, limited edition lithograph (2009). Courtesy of Pembroke College. **12** Friends of the National Libraries ## **GRANTS FROM THE B.H. BRESLAUER FOUNDATION FUND** Seven grants were made from this Fund in 2020; in addition an acquisition supported with a grant in 2019 (and accounted for in that year) was completed in 2020. A grant of £15,000 helped the British Library to acquire the late 15th-century **Lewis of Caerleon manuscript** , preserved in its original blind-stamped binding, which had been the subject of an export stop. A grant of £15,000, awarded in 2019, helped the British Library to acquire the pre-eminent **Melford Hall manuscript of works by John Donne** (1572 - 1631), which was also subject to export regulations. The University of St Andrews acquired the second (1612) and third (1613) editions of **Josuah Sylvester’s** _**Lachrimae Lachrimarum**_ bound together in one volume, thanks to a grant of £6,000. The second volume contains the first printing of ‘Look to me, Faith; and look to my Faith, God’, by John Donne. A grant of £6,000 helped the University of Birmingham to acquire **Matthew Boulton’s Baskerville family Bible** (1763). The Bible boasts a superb binding, making this arguably one of Baskerville’s most important volumes due to the quality of the binding and the use of his endpapers. Two grants enabled the repatriation of volumes back to their original libraries. The first was a rare first edition of **William Cowper’s** _**Poems**_ , published in 1782. This volume was likely to have been consulted by Jane Austen when it was in the library of her brother Edward Knight, and was acquired by Chawton House with the aid of a grant of £5,000. Meanwhile a grant of £10,812 enabled Thomas Plume’s Library, in Maldon, to acquire **ten 16th and 17th-century volumes from Plume’s Library** that went missing from the library in the early 20th century. Annual Report for 2020 **13** Title page and portrait of the author from James Shirley’s, _Poems_ , etc (1646). Courtesy of Trustees of Thomas Plume’s Library. Benjamin Schultze, _Mores vitamque Christiano dignum delineantes regulae centum_ (Tranquebar, 1721). First page of the text in Tamil. Courtesy of Cambridge University Library. The copy of **Benjamin Schultze,** _**Mores vitamque Christiano dignum delineantes regulae centum**_ (Tranquebar, 1721) is a rare early example of printing in the Tamil language and an outstanding addition to Cambridge University Library’s collections, made with a grant of £2,000 from the B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund. Another grant to Cambridge University Library helped it to acquire the first volume of **Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations** . This is not a rare edition but is of great research value thanks to the 180 pages of manuscript notes made by a student attending lectures by Malthus and interleaved within the volume. We are indebted to the President and officers of the B.H. Breslauer Foundation, whose generous grants have funded awards by FNL totalling nearly £362,000 since 2012. These grants have made possible the acquisition of items with a gross value of over £11.5m, benefitting collections throughout the UK. ## **GRANTS FROM THE PHILIP LARKIN FUND** No grants were made from the Philip Larkin Fund in 2020. **14** Friends of the National Libraries ## **Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase** The acquisitions that grants from Friends of the National Libraries made possible in 2020 are described below. Firstly, though, we focus on an exceptional gift from the Chatsworth House Settlement to University College Cork, a donation that was made possible by FNL’s status as one of a very limited number of bodies listed in Schedule 3 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984. _The Book of Lismore_ opening at f. 122 The Travels of Marco Polo. Courtesy of University College Cork. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **15** ## **THE BOOK OF LISMORE AND FNL’S SCHEDULE 3 STATUS** During the year FNL received an exceptional, restricted gift in kind, with a value of £500,000, from the Chatsworth Settlement in the form of _The Book of Lismore_ , a 15th century medieval Irish decorated manuscript and considered one of the Great Books of Ireland. The Book was compiled for Fínghin Mac Carthaigh, the Lord of Carbery from 1478 to 1505. It consists of 198 large vellum folios containing some of medieval Irish literature’s greatest masterpieces. Crónán Ó Doibhlin discusses _the Book of Lismore_ ’s significance on page 16. Since the 1640s _The Book of Lismore_ has belonged to the Cavendish family, Dukes of Devonshire, and their ancestors: it was kept at Lismore Castle, Co. Waterford, and more recently at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. The Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement donated the Book to University College Cork in recognition of academic and curatorial expertise at the university, and in appreciation of a very long and fruitful partnership between the Cavendish family and the University. FNL was involved because it is one of a very limited number of bodies listed in Schedule 3 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984. As such FNL can facilitate gifts to eligible institutions of previously exempted works of art without giving rise to a tax charge on the donor family, and it can enable acquisitions by eligible institutions of artefacts accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax. FNL received the manuscript as a restricted gift and gave it in turn to the UCC Educational Foundation, a UK registered charity established for the benefit of University College Cork. FNL last used its Schedule 3 status in 2015 when it was awarded an exceptional grant of £583,920 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund in order to facilitate the acquisition by the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, of the original Brontë family dining table: FNL then paid that sum to the vendor of the table. The Trustees of FNL are delighted to have been asked to play their part in enabling the Chatsworth Settlement to make a gift of _The Book of Lismore_ to University College Cork. **16** Friends of the National Libraries _**The Book of Lismore,**_ **or** _**The Book of Mac Carthaigh Riabhach**_ **(known in Irish as** _**Leabhar Mhic Cárthaigh Riabhaigh**_ **), a late 15th-century Irish vellum manuscript, which was written in West Cork, Ireland for Fínghin Mac Carthaigh Riabhach at some time between his accession to the Lordship of Carbery in 1478 and the death of his wife, Caitilín, in 1506.** _**The Book of Lismore**_ **contains some of the greatest masterpieces of medieval Irish literature. Donated to University College Cork by the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement through the Friends of the National Libraries.** _Crónán Ó Doibhlin, Head of Research Collections, writes: The Book of Lismore, or The Book of Mac Carthaigh Riabhach_ , created in the late 15th century, is a major medieval manuscript, created at Kilbrittain, Co. Cork, in a golden age of Irish literature, and is rightly considered as one of the Great Books of Ireland. It consists of 198 large vellum folios, and contains important texts, many drawn from Irish tradition and others that are translations of contemporary European works. The Book reflects an Ireland that was deeply engaged with the contemporary European culture of the time. It begins with religious-themed material, mainly lives of the Irish saints and apocryphal tales associated with them, before passing on to material in translation: the History of the Lombards and the Conquests of Charlemagne. The Book also contains the only surviving translation in Irish of the travels of Marco Polo, which adds to the exotic, outward-looking ambience of the manuscript. Marco Polo is followed by a collection of native, secular texts dealing with the theme of Kingship. The Book concludes with the exploits of the popular mythological hero Fionn mac Cumhaill and the Fianna, as told in the lengthy tale known as _Agallamh na Seanórach_ . Its contents are comprehensive in their representation of both religious and secular learning in the Irish language as preserved and promoted by the elite learned classes of late medieval Ireland. In its design and execution, and in its combination of native and European tradition, _The Book of Lismore_ is a library of literature that makes a self-assured statement about aristocratic literary taste in autonomous Gaelic Ireland in the late 15th century. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **17** _The Book of Lismore_ will eventually be displayed in a _Treasures Gallery_ that University College Cork (UCC) plans to develop in its Boole Library. This publicly accessible gallery will display items from the University collections, serving as an attractive destination for visitors to the region. The Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement have made the very generous decision to donate _The Book of Lismore_ to UCC in recognition of academic and curatorial expertise at the university, and in appreciation of a very long and fruitful partnership between the Cavendish Family and UCC. University College Cork is Ireland’s leading centre for the study of the materiality of the literary artefacts of Gaelic Ireland. _The Book of Lismore_ will now be the centrepiece of a large collection of Gaelic manuscripts at UCC’s Library, and the donation of the manuscript to UCC marks a further stage in the commitment of the Cavendish Family to the scholarship of _The Book of Lismore_ . Below: The Conversation of the Old Men, Acallam na Senórach, folio 201r. **18** Friends of the National Libraries The spectroscopic study in UCC of vellums and inks in Irish manuscripts has recently received national recognition through a substantial Advanced Laureate award to Professor Pádraig Ó Macháin from the Irish Research Council. This is frontier research into which _The Book of Lismore_ , with its vellum and Gaelic script, will fit perfectly as a research target, further enhancing the research infrastructure and output of Modern Irish studies in the University. At the levels of the undergraduate and postgraduate student, therefore, and at the level of the senior researcher, the donation of T _he Book of Lismore_ to UCC by the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement is already revolutionising humanities research and teaching in the University. _The Book of Lismore_ encapsulates an important part of the cultural heritage of Cork, Munster and Ireland. Like other surviving manuscripts in Irish, it illustrates the multi-layered histories and traditions of our past. The manuscript is also significant for its place in the Irish manuscript and scribal traditions. This unique book illustrates how an object can be subject to the cultural, social, and political interactions between two neighbouring countries, in this case, Ireland and Great Britain. University College Cork and The Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement would like to recognise the generous support of the Friends of the National Libraries in making the donation to UCC possible. _The Book of Lismore_ will now form the foundation for the co-ordinated study of the Gaelic manuscript – text, script and structural components – in UCC at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The beginning of the Life of Patrick, Beatha Phádraig, folio 42r. All images courtesy of University College Cork. IF1Thè)piI IAI141lJii￿lik.ACcon4ry LFI 1107ywII è4n 114Fiiiintr.i.IkiS. L.lJl.11.11.41) '1111IF44?71411i Ill ie:T*liè'i131 . i4imijiie- 14prD 11)iV.4rkb4rall'1¥ rnfrbFYI lllD zvi5 IAn&h eiimbazy er Wiifo¢-T41 , rill5 114lirl6i￿Pits.T.1[I IAI14 IifvtyN.ofi)•T.?14z411i."fd.,b i) b11ik 2V;IIiF?14 4rL4lli ! zo&lip￿) ITW,C41b Areon ?i.IFr114lroib&111 IIIDI14TilibiT 7Dlili￿ 4cm-&￿￿￿.I Tl G714r4. 1'Ti4 rrabiilo 1&51011i iii i0llQl"V1411 .74.tr7)eC4 **20** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD** **The Publication Archive of Alan Sorrell (1904 – 1974). Bought from the Sorrell family for £20,000 with the aid of a grant of £5,000 from the Friends of the National Libraries.** _Dr Paul Roberts, Sackler Keeper of Antiquities, writes:_ The Ashmolean Museum is very grateful to FNL for its generous grant towards the purchase of the Alan Sorrell Publication Archive. This remarkable resource comprises 265 book illustrations (from volumes including Imperial Rome, Prehistoric Britain, Norman Britain and illustrations for an edition of the Holy Bible), 195 working drawings,102 sketches, 38 sketchbooks, 34 diaries and 80 letters. The archive is multi- and inter-disciplinary, traversing archaeology, art, and the historiography of the archaeological discipline. Sorrell trained formally at the Royal Academy of Art, but it was his two years at the British School at Rome, surrounded by the city’s art, architecture and archaeology and fellow students in all these disciplines and more, that were so formative for his career. From the 1930s to the mid-1970s, Sorrell’s evocative and pioneering illustrations, usually the product of extensive research and conversations between Sorrell, excavators and other specialists, were central to archaeological research and dissemination. His view of the past shaped the perception of generations of scholars and public alike and, helped inspire many (like me!) to enter the field. The archive still has huge relevance and resonance today, seen very well against the backdrop of the wide-ranging collections at the Ashmolean Museum. In the Department of Antiquities, Sorrell’s illustrations are pertinent to holdings from Roman Britain, Imperial Rome, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval England, ancient Greece, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt and Sudan. In the context of the Department of Western Art, the Sorrell archive underlines how contemporary artists, including John Piper and Henry Moore, were influenced by contemporary depictions of historic landscapes, ruins, and heritage. The archive also supplements and complements very important excavation archives including those of Sir Arthur Evans and E.T. Leeds, as well as two other graphic archives, namely the facsimiles of ancient Egyptian tomb scenes made by Nina Davies and the reconstructions by Piet de Jong of Greek sites, including Knossos. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **21** Sorrell’s illustrations, diaries and correspondence provide a window into the collaborative creative process between Sorrell and principal British archaeologists of the 20th century, and illuminate the development of archaeological illustration into a discipline in its own right. Sorrell’s work, in combination with our archives, our collections, and archives elsewhere in the University of Oxford (the Institute of Archaeology and the Griffith Institute) will be key to any future study on the historiography of archaeological illustration, reconstruction and interpretation. The University of Oxford was, and is, a centre of disciplinary development in archaeology, so the Ashmolean Museum is a natural home for such an archive. We wish to share this archive as widely as possible. The physical material will be freely available to all through display (in line with Conservation best practice) in permanent galleries, through facilitated access in our Von Bothmer Study Centre, or through loans to temporary national and international exhibitions. The extension of digitisation and the provision of images, professionally supplied by our Picture Library, will widen access still further and create essential tools for long-term public access to this unique and valuable archive. Huge gratitude is owed to FNL for helping to make all of this a possibility. Ancient Mediterranean: Reconstruction of the Circus Maximus, Rome. Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum. **22** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD** **Muirhead (John Henry), Mental and Moral Philosophy. Ethics. [Lecture Notes]. Egham, Surrey: Oct 8th 1889 - May 1st 1890. Bought from Blackwell’s Rare Books for £1,200 with the aid of a grant of £900 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Stewart Tiley, Librarian, writes:_ Emily A. Atkinson sat in a lecture hall 131 years ago assiduously taking notes on mental and moral philosophy. She was one of the first cohort of students to pass through Royal Holloway College, founded three years before, in 1886, for the education of women. The lecturer was John Henry Muirhead, freshly appointed to the post, in an early step in a long teaching career. The notes form a small volume bound in marbled paper, signed by Atkinson inside the front cover. Covering topics such as “Ethics”, “Plato’s Republic” and “Butler’s Sermons on Human Nature” they date from 8 October 1889 until 8 May 1890. In early 2020 the notebook appeared for sale in the Rare Books Department in Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford. With generous support from FNL, Balliol College was able to purchase this item for their collection of papers relating to alumni. Muirhead had attended Balliol in 1875 as a Snell Exhibitioner, a scholarship founded in the 17th century to enable members of the University of Glasgow to attend Balliol, as had Muirhead’s mentor at Glasgow, Edward Caird, who would later become Master of the College. Caird, and subsequently Muirhead, were profoundly influenced by Hegel, and, together with other notable Balliol alumni, R.L. Nettleship and T.H. Green, formed a kernel of the British idealist movement in philosophy. Muirhead himself was more interested in applying that philosophy rather than a theoretical perspective, and was a committed teacher and social reformer. Whilst lecturing at Holloway, he was also working at Bedford College for women and the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching, before setting off to transform Mason College in Birmingham into that city’s university, the first civic university in the country. When the notes were taken he had just begun editing the _Library of Philosophy_ , the first series he was involved in to promote broader interest in philosophy. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **23** The support received in purchasing this item means that this appealing record of engagement with the activities of an important figure amongst Balliol’s alumni, one who exemplified the tenor of its thought in the latter half of the 19th century, is now housed along with papers including those of his mentors and colleagues in the College’s Historic Collections Centre. It will be invaluable for teaching 19th century ideas in Oxford, and demonstrating the networks and exchange of these at the time. Syllabus and suggested reading for a course in Moral Philosophy recorded by Emily Atkinson in her notebook. Courtesy of Balliol College. **24** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR BANGOR UNIVERSITY, THE R.S. THOMAS RESEARCH CENTRE** **A substantial collection of manuscript and typescript material by the poet R.S. Thomas (1913-2000). Bought from a private collector for £40,000, with the aid of a grant of £10,000 from Friends of the National Libraries.** Professor Tony Brown, Co-Director of the R.S. Thomas Research Centre, writes: The R.S. Thomas Research Centre at Bangor University, the poet’s alma mater, houses a unique collection of manuscripts, letters, journals and memorabilia of and relating to R.S. Thomas (1913-2000). The archive has been built up over the last two decades and, in normal times, receives many visitors from the UK and abroad. The present purchase represents a major addition to our already substantial holdings. We believe it to be, in fact, the most significant collection of R.S. Thomas material which remained in private hands. The collection includes manuscripts and drafts of unpublished and published poems from various stages of Thomas’s long career, early unpublished prose, unpublished letters to editors, and a collection of 172 manuscript letters (1966-76) to a ‘Miss Davidson’. Three poems R.S.Thomas sent to Cyril Connolly for publication in _Horizon._ They were not accepted and remain unpublished. Courtesy of Bangor University. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **25** Particularly noteworthy is the material from the beginning of Thomas’s career, in the 1940s, a period from which very little manuscript material has survived. One prose piece, ‘Fairy Story’, indeed dates from 1935, when Thomas was still a young curate and shows an imagination akin to the earliest, unpublished poetry and quite different from the poetry of the Welsh hills which first made his name. As well as some other early prose pieces, the present collection includes, for instance, three typescripts of previouslyunknown poems sent in c.1940 to Cyril Connolly at Horizon; one of these Thomas notes in a covering letter ‘seems precariously near Dylan Thomas’, a rare (and accurate) reference to his already well-known Welsh contemporary. Another, much later, manuscript poem entitled ‘Eightieth Birthday’ was written to his wife, the distinguished artist Mildred ‘Elsi’ Eldridge (1909-1991), many of whose letters, journals and notebooks are also housed in the Centre at Bangor. A deeply personal poem in its own right, it was significantly revised, probably in the light of Thomas’s reading of the fourteenth-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, and published only after Thomas’s death as the fine late poem ‘Luminary’ _(Uncollected Poems)_ . R.S. Thomas engaged in few extended correspondences, which makes the cache of letters at the heart of this collection especially remarkable. There are 172 handwritten letters, dating from 1966-1976, to a Miss Davidson, of whom we have virtually no other record. It is possible that she was a former parishioner; now resident in Liverpool, she is evidently an educated woman– references in Thomas’s letters include Tillich, Kierkegaard, Tolstoy and Keats – and evidently suffered bouts of ill health, and the letters show Thomas at times in a reflective and pastoral role. The correspondence ends somewhat mysteriously with Miss Davidson, with evident affection, returning all of the letters prior to her leaving Liverpool to live with, and apparently to tend to, the homeless in London. This is a relationship that will, manifestly, reward further research. This collection represents the most important single acquisition that the Centre has made in many years and the Co-Directors, Professor Jason Walford Davies and myself, are extremely grateful for the financial support from the Friends of the National Libraries that has made this possible. **26** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM, CADBURY RESEARCH LIBRARY** **Matthew Boulton’s Bible (1763; printed by John Baskerville, Cambridge). Bought at Forum Auctions (26 March 2020, Lot 68) for £13,000, with the aid of a grant of £6,000 from FNL (B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund).** _Martin Killeen, Head of Rare Books & Special Collections Engagement (retired),_ writes: In addition to being leading figures in the Midland Industrial Enlightenment the inventor and manufacturer Matthew Boulton (1728–1809) and the entrepreneur printer and typographer John Baskerville (1707–75) were personal friends. A mark of their mutual esteem is the magnificent copy of Baskerville’s celebrated 1763 Cambridge Bible which was in the Boulton family library at their home in Great Tew, Oxfordshire until it came into the possession Birmingham Assay Office in 1986. Due to be auctioned by the Assay Office on 26 March 2020, it was secured for the Cadbury Research Library by funds raised from several institutions, the Friends of National Libraries and a host of individuals, through a consortium of The Baskerville Society, Centre for Printing History & Culture, the Cadbury Research Library, Birmingham Museums Trust, Birmingham Civic Society and the Lunar Society. Three distinctive binding features confirm that this superb copy came from Baskerville’s own Easy Hill workshop: pastedowns and endpapers in Baskerville’s own watercolour marbled paper, use of a specific floral rolltool on the edges of boards, and spine labels lettered in Baskerville type. Sumptuously bound in bright red morocco leather, its boards have floral borders and fan-shaped corner decorations tooled in gilt. Six raised spine bands separate compartments with elaborate gilt designs and one panel for the black morocco label. Its Boulton provenance comprises contemporary ink manuscript family history including births and deaths found on the Apocrypha verso blank leaf facing the New Testament title page. Another loosely inserted note incorporates an early nineteenth-century list of the Boulton children’s illnesses and vaccinations. The future permanent home of the Boulton Baskerville Bible will be the Cadbury Research Library at the University of Birmingham, where it will be added to the existing Baskerville Collection. The original gift of this collection, Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **27** presented in 1954 by John Hely-Hutchinson (a well-known book collector and member of the Roxburghe Club) in memory of his brother Victor (Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham 1934-1944), comprised 86 items, representing almost all the books for which Baskerville was responsible; most are in fine condition and many have distinctive individual features of note. The Boulton Bible will join four Hely-Hutchinson copies of the 1763 Cambridge edition, all in splendid bindings the best being in red morocco leather by Derome Lejeune, the greatest contemporary French binder. A fifth copy was donated by Benjamin Tillett Davis, a forensic pathologist at the University of Birmingham, medical historian and lifelong discriminating book collector. The provenance of this copy is also iconic, as it has the bookplate of Sarah Baskerville as well as being associated, after her death in 1788, with the Ryland family who recorded their family history in this copy exactly as the Boultons did in theirs (in 1873 Louisa Anne Ryland donated the land of Cannon Hill Park to the people of Birmingham). Sarah’s copy uses Baskerville’s marbled paper and has a Baskerville lettered spine label; however, in contrast to the Boulton copy, the binding is a plain undecorated blind stamp design. The new total at the Cadbury Research Library of six copies of Baskerville’s print masterpiece is now the largest in UK institutions; the only other library in the world with six copies listed is the famous Houghton Library at the University of Harvard. The Cadbury Research Library is proud and delighted to welcome this wonderful addition to its holdings and we eagerly anticipate a time when we can fully share in celebrating its retention in Birmingham with all of our fellow Baskerville scholars and enthusiasts. The Baskerville Bible, with its sumptuous binding. Courtesy of the University of Birmingham. **28** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY** **Autograph manuscript: the second portion of a draft of Mary Shelley’s story ‘The Invisible Girl’, July 1832. Bought from Maggs Brothers Ltd. for £57,000 with the aid of a grant of £15,000 from the Friends of the National Libraries.** _Susan Thomas, Head of Archives & Modern Manuscripts, writes:_ The Bodleian Libraries is grateful to FNL for its support towards our purchase of a manuscript fragment of Mary Shelley’s short story ‘The Invisible Girl’. The story was first published in _The Keepsake_ annual of 1833, where it is described as being ‘by the Author of Frankenstein’. The manuscript is the second of what is presumed to be four original fair copy bifolia, sent to the editor of The Keepsake, Frederic Mansel Reynolds, in July 1832; the fourth and final bifolium – capturing the story’s conclusion - is held at the New York Public Library as part of the Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle. The whereabouts of the presumed first and third portions of the total manuscript of ‘The Invisible Girl’ are unknown, making the two extant portions of particular importance. The survival of an original author’s manuscript for a published work is relatively unusual for this period when manuscripts were not usually retained beyond publication. Whilst this manuscript is likely to be a fair copy rather than an early draft, it includes over 50 emendations (one being the name of the heroine), giving the opportunity to compare it with Mary Shelley’s other writing and editing. The contrast between the writing of the young Mary Shelley with Percy Bysshe Shelley by her side and Mary Shelley as an independent and accomplished author is also of note. The story’s autobiographical tones are also interesting, particularly the importance to the plot of the forbidding father-in-law who frowned upon his son’s choice of wife. Shelley’s own relationship with her father-in-law, Sir Timothy Shelley, was known to be difficult right up until his death in 1844. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **29** As the author of one of the 19th century’s most enduring and influential works, the manuscripts of Mary Shelley are particularly valuable, and the support of the Friends of the National Libraries was critical to this purchase. The manuscript is a significant acquisition for the Bodleian Libraries, where it will sit alongside our Abinger Papers, an important collection of family papers of the Shelley, Godwin, and Wollstonecraft families, which includes the drafts for Mary Shelley’s seminal work, _Frankenstein_ (the acquisition of which was also supported by the Friends of the National Libraries in 2004), as well as drafts for Shelley’s novella _Mathilda_ (written 1819-1820, but published posthumously in 1959) and working notebooks containing drafts of short stories, part of the story of Samuel, and notes for the historical novel _Valperga_ (published 1823). **----- Start of picture text -----**
The manuscript has already been
digitised, allowing immediate access
for researchers and the public.
Folio from the autograph manuscript fragment
of Mary Shelley’s short story ‘The Invisible Girl’,
1832. Courtesy of the Bodleian Libraries.
**----- End of picture text -----**
**30** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE BRITISH LIBRARY** ## **i. Lewis of Caerleon manuscript, late 15th century. Bought for £300,000 under export regulations, with the aid of a grant of £15,000 from the Friends of the National Libraries (B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund)** . _Julian Harrison, Lead Curator of Medieval Historical and Literary Manuscripts, writes:_ The British Library is delighted to have acquired an important medieval manuscript, with the generous assistance of the Friends of the National Libraries. Made around the year 1500, this manuscript contains the most complete collection of the works of Lewis of Caerleon, an astronomer and physician to the household of King Henry VII of England. Loyal to the Tudor cause, Lewis had been imprisoned in the Tower of London by Richard III. This manuscript includes his astronomical observations, some of which were made from the Tower itself. The manuscript came to the British Library’s attention when a case was brought before the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art in March 2020. Acting on expert advice, Caroline Dinenage, Minister of State for Digital and Culture, placed a temporary ban on the export of this item, on the grounds that it was of high national significance. This enabled the Library to raise the matching funding to purchase it on behalf of the nation, although the process was more complicated than usual, due to the constraints of the first national lockdown. On this occasion, we were unable, for example, to apply to the National Heritage Memorial Fund, as would usually have been the case, as their funds were being reallocated to support institutions in financial difficulties. We are extremely grateful that so many public and private funders came to our assistance, allowing us to meet the fundraising target with weeks to spare. The Lewis of Caerleon manuscript had been in private hands ever since it was made. The first recorded owner was the historian and antiquary Sir Henry Spelman (d. 1641), and it had eventually made its way into the collection of the Earls of Macclesfield at Shirburn Castle. Until now, the manuscript had not been accessible to researchers, many of whom were unaware of its existence. It was evidently produced as a presentation copy for some important patron or institution, and it is notable for containing texts by Lewis of Caerleon that are not attested elsewhere. The manuscript also survives in its original medieval binding, and is an excellent example of manuscript production from the early Tudor period. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **31** Lewis of Caerleon is one of the most important astronomers from late medieval England. His works were indebted to his study of earlier Arabic texts, and he bridges the gap between medieval English science and his early modern successors. The Library has already digitised the manuscript, and it will become available to readers when conditions permit. Many researchers have already expressed an interest in examining the manuscript in more detail, and it is already being used to support a project at Cambridge University investigating Lewis of Caerleon’s works and career. A page containing Lewis of Caerleon’s astronomical calculations (Add MS 89442, p. 31). Courtesy of the British Library Board. **32** Friends of the National Libraries ## **ii. The Melford Hall Manuscript of John Donne poetry, c1625. Bought for £397,800 under export regulations, with the aid of a grant of £15,000 from the Friends of the National Libraries (B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund).** _This grant was awarded in 2019 and accounted for in that year, but the purchase was not announced until 2020._ _Dr Alexander Lock, Curator of Modern Archives and Manuscripts, writes:_ John Donne (1572–1631) was one of the most popular poets of the late 16th and early 17th centuries and is considered to be one of the greatest Renaissance writers in the English canon. The Melford Hall Manuscript is one of the largest surviving near contemporary manuscript collections of Donne’s poetry covering the entire range of his poetical output. Until its discovery at Melford Hall in 2018 it was unknown to scholarship and, until its acquisition, was probably the last (and most significant) 17th-century manuscript collection of Donne’s poetry to remain in private hands. The manuscript was initially sold to a foreign buyer at Sotheby’s in December 2018 and shortly thereafter the Culture Minister placed a temporary export bar on the item. Examining the manuscript, the Independent Reviewing Committee considered the volume to be ‘one of the five most significant and largest collections of Donne’s works ever to be identified and the most important to emerge in almost half a century.’ The placement of a temporary export bar on the manuscript gave the British Library the opportunity to fundraise for the acquisition and we are grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for their contribution towards this. The Melford Hall Manuscript is particularly exciting as it provides new evidence for the study of Donne’s work and the literary culture in which it was created. John Donne famously eschewed print publication and disseminated (or ‘published’) his poetical work almost entirely in manuscript amongst a select circle (or coterie) of privileged friends and potential patrons. These readers would, in turn, have Donne’s lines copied to keep in their own private collections which they may share with their own close friends. Only one English poem survives written in Donne’s hand and so much of what we know about his poetical output comes from these manuscript copies made for, and by, his ‘coterie’ of readers. The Melford Hall Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **33** Detail from the ‘Melford Hall Manuscript’ of John Donne poetry (Egerton MS 3884). Courtesy of the British Library Board. Manuscript, therefore, is of outstanding literary significance because it provides substantial new, and contemporary, evidence as to how Donne’s poetry was written, copied, circulated, and received. The volume also contains scribal copies of poems by Donne’s contemporaries such as Francis Beaumont (1584–1616), Thomas Carew (1595–1640), and Richard Corbet (1582–1635), amongst others, as well as late 17th-century notes on a series of sermons and some mid-18th-century songs. Taken together this volume also offers scholars a rich seam of new evidence for the study of early modern manuscript culture more broadly. The Melford Hall Manuscript will be available in perpetuity at the British Library, enabling researchers to consult it alongside other pre-eminent early modern literary collections housed at the Library, including other scribal copies of Donne’s poetry, the only surviving play script annotated by William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and autograph works by Ben Jonson (1572–1637). Access will be provided in the Library’s Manuscripts Reading Room and the volume has been fully digitised for readers to access freely online. Interpretative material will be made available online and the volume may be displayed in the Library’s Treasures Gallery. **34** Friends of the National Libraries Detail from the ‘Melford Hall Manuscript’ of John Donne poetry (Egerton MS 3884 ff055v_056r). Courtesy of the British Library Board. Acqulsitlons by Gift and Purchase 35 -,/¥.¥/¢.yfv +A¢ *44 .Ipt A. Vjtj él¢ 144 ky 14TéAT' ij •yP i[4 wyi 1 44P 4 •* f J¢.r¢. 4-•Jl .' •* )*J.J **36** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY** **i. Benjamin Schultze,** _**Mores vitamque Christiano dignum delineantes regulae centum**_ **(Tranquebar, 1721), printed in the Tamil language. Bought from Bernard Quaritch for £3,950, with the aid of a grant of £2,000 from the Friends of the National Libraries (B.H. Breslauer Foundation Fund).** _Will Hale, Rare Books Specialist, writes:_ Cambridge University Library is very grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for contributing half the purchase price of a scarce tract printed at the Danish Mission in Tranquebar (Tharangambadi) in 1721, an early example of printing in the Tamil language. The earliest Western printing press in India was established by Jesuits in Goa in 1556, but few of its products survive. The Protestant Mission in the Danish colony of Tranquebar had been established by Lutheran clergy from Halle in 1706, led by Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1683–1719). In 1712 the Mission was equipped with a press, supplied by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in London. The first printing in Tamil from this press followed a year later, using types cast in Halle. With this equipment the mission set about printing the New Testament in Tamil, in Zeigenbalg’s translation, but the Halle type was found too large for this undertaking and a new, smaller fount was cast, using the lead covers of Cheshire cheeses sent over by the SPCK. It is probably this type which is used in the present work. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **37** The text is _Mores vitamque Christiano dignam delineantes regulae centum_ , a collection of Christian rules for living translated into Tamil. The author is Benjamin Schultze (1689–1760), a native of Halle, who had arrived in Tranquebar in 1719 and was to complete Ziegenbalg’s translation of the Old Testament after the latter’s early death. Schultze became an authority on Indian languages and would publish a version of the same work in Telugu in 1747, after his return to Halle. No other copy of this text is recorded in the UK, and only three worldwide, of which two are in Halle and one in Geneva. The book survives in what is probably its original parchment binding, typical of the products of this press. **----- Start of picture text -----**
The only other products of the Danish
Mission press in the University Library are
three editions of parts of the Bible, in the
version revised and completed by Schultze
after Ziegenbalg. The first of these bears a
date of 1722, but was probably completed
in 1724. This acquisition is therefore the
earliest book from the Tranquebar press in
Cambridge, and of course the earliest book
printed in any Indian language here. There
is considerable current research interest on
early printing in India, a field in which the
Library’s existing collections are notably
strong. Products of the Danish Mission press
are currently not well represented however,
and this was a welcome opportunity to
acquire an exceptionally scarce example.
Front cover of Benjamin Schultze, Mores vitamque Christiano dignum delineantes regulae centum (Tranquebar, 1721).
Courtesy of Cambridge University Library.
**----- End of picture text -----**
**38** Friends of the National Libraries **ii. Adam Smith,** _**An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations**_ **(London, 1811) interleaved, with manuscript notes taken by a student at a lecture by Malthus, 1817. Bought from Forum Auctions (19 November 2020, Lot 303) for £13,000, with the aid of a grant of £6,500 from the Friends of the National Libraries (B.H. Breslauer Foundation Fund).** _Dr Emily Dourish, Deputy Keeper of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts, writes:_ Cambridge University Library is very grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for their generous grant of half the acquisition price of this fascinating volume. The book in itself is not a rare edition of Smith; the value for research lies in the presentation of the copy. It is interleaved and contains over 180 pages of manuscript notes by a student attending a series of lectures given by Robert Malthus to students at the Haileybury East India College, which trained administrators for the Honourable East India Company. Malthus was speaking on the text of _The Wealth of Nations_ . The notes each comprise a question about Smith’s text, and a transcription or summary of Malthus’s answer. The University Library’s collections already include a copy of a later edition of _The Wealth of Nations_ with similar but much briefer annotations by J. D. Inverarity, another student at Haileybury. He transcribed primarily the questions, with only a few of Malthus’s answers. The Inverarity notes have already been used as a source for Malthus’s interpretation of Smith. This new acquisition gives the opportunity to study two parallel sets of notes made at the same time, to make a direct comparison not only of what Malthus said, but also of the interpretation of it by his students. The two students appear to have taken interest in different parts of the lecture series, with more and less detailed transcriptions in different sections. The addition of this work to our collections enables the analysis of these contrasting notes and will provide a greater depth of understanding of these two fundamental economic thinkers. Student notes on an interleaved copy of Adam Smith’s ‘The Wealth of Nations’, from a lecture on the text by Robert Malthus. Courtesy of Cambridge University Library. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **39** ## **iii. Professor Sir Nevill Francis Mott (1905–1996), extensive series of letters to Yvette Cauchois (1908–1999). Bought from Sotheby’s (8 December 2020, Lot 55) for £12,600, with the aid of a grant of £5,040 from the Friends of the National Libraries.** _Dr Jill Whitelock, Head of Special Collections, writes:_ Cambridge University Library is very grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for its generous grant towards the acquisition of a collection of autograph letters from the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Professor Sir Nevill Francis Mott (Director of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, and Master of Gonville & Caius College) to Yvette Cauchois, a highly eminent physicist who became the second woman (after Marie Curie) to be President of the French Society for Physical Chemistry. The letters cover the period 1948– 1996 and provide a richly detailed portrait of Mott writing on his scientific work, especially relating to semi-conductors, scientific administration, personal life, and his intense relationship with Cauchois. The University Library already holds the principal collection of Mott’s papers and correspondence, some 500 items, with papers on lectures and publications, and family correspondence the most substantial components. The Mott–Cauchois correspondence represents a rich and remarkably detailed complement to this. There are some 750 letters, 48 postcards, six greetings cards and 35 telegrams, covering the period 1948–1996. There are also a small number of retained drafts, copies, and unsent letters by Cauchois, one letter by Mott’s wife, a typescript lecture given at Great St Mary’s, Cambridge, and a small number of other typescripts and other scientific material, and letters relating to Mott after his death. The letters far outnumber the existing papers held at the Library and provide a granular view of Mott’s daily life. At the height of their correspondence, Mott wrote two or three letters a day to Cauchois, so the letters act as a journal of sorts, and are an unmined source of information for researchers across of a range of subjects in the history of twentieth-century science in the post-WWII period, scientific collaboration, science education, and gender and science. The letters also complement the University Library’s outstanding holdings of scientific archives in physics, including the papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1831– 1879), Sir George Stokes (1819–1903), Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) and the official papers of the Cavendish Laboratory held as part of the University Archives. **40** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR CHAWTON HOUSE, HAMPSHIRE** ## **William Cowper,** _**Poems**_ **(1782), from the library at Godmersham Park. Bought from a private seller for £6,750, with the aid of a grant of £5,000 from Friends of the National Libraries (B.H. Breslauer Foundation Fund).** _Emma Yandle, Curator and Collections Manager, writes:_ This rare first edition of William Cowper’s _Poems_ , published in 1782, once belonged to Jane Austen’s brother Edward Austen Knight and was very likely read by Austen herself during her visits to her brother’s Kent estate. Edward inherited the estates of Chawton in Hampshire and Godmersham Park from wealthy relatives of his father; when he was made heir he took the name of Knight. Jane Austen visited her brother at Godmersham Park on six occasions over a 15-year period, from 1798 to 1813, staying there for a total of about ten months. She regularly used the library, her favourite room: ‘I am now alone in the Library’, she wrote to Cassandra in 1813, ‘Mistress of all I survey’. In 1809 Jane, her mother and sister were given a home at Chawton Cottage, in the grounds of Chawton House, by her brother. William Cowper, _Poems_ , 1782. Red crayon underlinings in William Cowper’s _Poems_ , 1782. Images © Ewan Galvin, Solent News. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **41** Cowper was Jane Austen’s favourite poet according to her brother Henry, who wrote in his “Biographical Notice” that her ‘favourite moral writers were Johnson in prose, and Cowper in verse’. She mentioned him in her letters and repeatedly referenced him in her novels, most famously in Mansfield Park, which she wrote during stays at Godmersham. The protagonist Fanny Price passionately reacts to the proposed felling of an avenue of trees on a neighbouring estate: ‘Cut down an avenue! What a pity! Does not it make you think of Cowper? “Ye fallen avenues, once more I mourn your fate unmerited”’. What is so significant about this copy is that it was in the Godmersham Library at a time when Jane Austen visited. The present volumes appear in the 1818 Godmersham Park library catalogue compiled by Edward Knight (South Case, col 1 shelf 3) and contains the bookplate of Jane Austen’s great-nephew George Montagu Knight, whose father merged the Godmersham and Chawton libraries when he moved the family to the Chawton estate. It has been carefully read, and numerous passages marked, especially in the poems quoted by Austen, though presumably not by Austen herself. As well as being a first edition, this particular copy contains the notoriously rare suppressed Preface by John Newton, the reformed slave trader and writer of the Christian hymn “Amazing Grace”. This first edition of the two volumes of Cowper’s poems, bearing the Knight family shelfmark and the later bookplate of Montagu George Knight, is perhaps one of the most important books originally in Edward Austen Knight’s library at Godmersham Park to have been separated from the rest of that library, now held at Chawton House. Given the amount of time that Jane Austen spent at Godmersham, and what we know of her use of the library there, this important edition of her favourite poet is a vibrant link between poet and novelist. Information about the efforts being made to trace and, where possible, recover books from the Godmersham library that Austen knew so well can be found in the www.readingwithausten.com website. **42** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR DEVON FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY** **North Devon Infirmary: list of benefactors and subscribers & Annual Reports, 1846 -1900. Bought from Patrick Pollack Rare Books for £1,200, with the aid of a grant of £1,000 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Maureen Selley, Secretary, writes:_ The North Devon Record Office in Barnstaple, Devon, holds some material relating to the North Devon Infirmary, but it has no list of subscribers or benefactors in its collections. The infirmary, at the end of Litchdon Street in Barnstaple, was founded in 1824 and paid for by public subscription; it closed in 1978. The Reports list all the benefactors and subscribers, with abodes and annual payments made. The majority of names are from the North Devon area, but a small number lived elsewhere in Devon, or out of county. Depending on the amount subscribed, individuals could nominate themselves or others for treatment as in- or out-patients. Annual accounts, Secretaries’ reports, the Resident Medical Officer’s Report, together with amounts collected from several churches, chapels and local Unions are also included. Detail of the report for 1846. Courtesy of the Devon Family History Society. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **43** The Secretary’s Report for 1846 mentions a “ _melancholy event_ ” and continues: “ _We regret to find that the affairs of the Institution are not in so satisfactory a state… In the absence of a sufficient supervision … considerable laxity appears to have occurred both in the collection of the income of the Institution and the payment of its expenditure…..Large arrears of subscriptions have been suffered to accumulate, and a serious amount in trademen’s bills, with which the accounts had been debited, remain unpaid._ ” This veiled statement is made clearer by an account in the North Devon Journal, which stated that J. Knox, the Secretary and House Surgeon of the North Devon Infirmary, committed suicide with cyanide on the day his accounts were to be examined. By the year 1900, the number of in-patients since the foundation in 1824, was recorded as 34,309 and the number of outpatients as 105,208. Devon Family History Society (DFHS) was particularly interested in this publication, as it contains an uninterrupted run of Annual Reports over 54 years, with many local names among the annual lists of benefactors and subscribers. However, at £1,500, the cost of this large book was beyond the Society’s purchasing budget, even when the bookseller’s discount reduced it to £1,200. We were delighted to be offered a grant of £1,000 by FNL, leaving us with just £200 to raise locally. DFHS has digitised the reports at its research Centre in Exeter and will organise a project to transcribe the names and other information within the reports. The images and indexes will be made available to social, local and family history researchers. The Reports will be given, as an unconditional gift, to the North Devon Record Office in Barnstaple, to add to the other records for the Infirmary. DFHS appreciates the generous assistance given by the Friends of the National Libraries, which enables this unique document to remain in Devon, where it will benefit a large number of researchers. **44** Friends of the National Libraries **FOR DEVON HERITAGE CENTRE (SOUTH WEST HERITAGE TRUST) Manuscript account book of the Walrond family of Bradfield, Devon, c.1647 – 1660. Bought from Graham York Rare Books for £3,750, with the aid of a grant of £2,000 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Dr Janet Tall, Head of Archives and Learning, writes:_ The account book belonged to William Walrond (1610-c.1667), a member of the Walrond family of Bradfield House, near Uffculme in mid Devon, and provides an unusually detailed insight into the operation of a significant country estate during the years following the English Civil War. The account book comprises 192 pages and is closely written throughout in a clear legible hand. The volume’s original leather cover and binding are in excellent condition. The cover bears the arms of the Walrond family and is monogrammed with William Walrond’s initials. The volume’s early pages are mainly taken up with a range of Latin quotations and aphorisms and an indication that it first came into William Walrond’s possession in 1634. However, the main series of estate accounts begin in 1650, and most of the rest of the book records the daily business of an English rural estate during the Interregnum. The accounts include details of repairs and upgrading work carried out on estate properties, such as ‘what it cost me to repaire Woodhouse, since my father suffered it to bee ruined’. This precedes a detailed account of the renovation of part of the house in the years following 1647, including payments for such items as lead, nails and linseed oil, and money paid to masons, carpenters and plasterers. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **45** The volume also provides insight into the individuals who lived and worked on the estate. Entries record wages paid to estate employees, and rent received from tenants, as well as money paid out for a wide range of estate and personal expenses. These include parochial poor rates and tithes and aspects of livestock management. There are frequent references to the estate’s fulling and grist mills, which were important to Devon’s economy, as well as details of crops and rents. There is the additional inclusion of a survey of the Bradfield estate, undertaken by Edmund Crosse of Kentisbeare in February 1650. Personal family purchases are also listed, including for furniture (‘payd for a side Table at Tyverton’) and clothing (‘payd for a hatt at Exon’). Several collections at the Devon Heritage Centre include material relating to the Walrond family, but most of this relates to later periods, so the volume adds to our knowledge of the family during the mid-17th century and complements records held relating to Bradfield House, most of which have later origins. We are grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for enabling us to purchase this fine account book. Survey of the Bradfield estate by Edmund Crosse of Kentisbeare, 1650 (see also cover images). Courtesy of the South West Heritage Trust. **46** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR DORSET HISTORY CENTRE** ## **The Gregory Stevens Cox Thomas Hardy Collection. Bought from Maggs Brothers Ltd, London for £50,000, with the aid of a grant of £18,234 from the Friends of the National Libraries** _Sam Johnston, Service Manager for Archives, writes:_ Thomas Hardy, Dorset’s literary icon, is one of the nation’s most recognisable and well-loved novelists. This collection was acquired to complement the principal Hardy archive, which is now on deposit at Dorset History Centre. It represents a major addition to the publicly-accessible Hardy archives and provides a fascinating insight into Hardy’s professional circle, his personal circumstances and his views and beliefs on a range of subjects. The material is made up of 46 separate elements, some of which contain multiple items. The bulk of the material was acquired between 1920 and 1970 and held as a single collection until this sale. The collection illustrates the life and connections of Hardy. It ranges from his youth in the middle of the 19th century to the years just after his burial in 1928. There are family items – two schoolbooks used by his brother Henry and sister Katherine and Thomas Hardy’s own manuscript design for a memorial to his father as well as other personal items. Secondly, there are books, some used by Hardy – in particular the annotated Latin text of Horace which he owned by 1860 at the latest. Hardy has underlined the text “Concurritur: horae momento cita mors venit, aut Victoria laeta” or “The fight begins: on the instant comes swift death or joyous victory”. Hardy used this quotation as the title of chapter 53 of _Far from the Madding Crowd_ . There are also volumes from Hardy’s Max Gate library, including his copy of ‘A Village Tragedy’ by Margaret Woods. Several of the volumes have presentation inscriptions, including one from Siegfried Sassoon. Hardy’s own copy of Pouncy’s _Dorsetshire Photographically Illustrated_ is included. Pouncy was a notable photographer who, through his work, documented many of the locations that Hardy featured in his novels. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **47** Thirdly, there are letters from Hardy – to editors, a tenant (apologising for the poor state of repair the rented property had fallen into), local historians, and friends. Several are important expressions of Hardy’s views, for example, his concern for the welfare of animals. Another decries the ‘fake’ opinions ascribed to him in a made-up newspaper interview. There are also numerous letters from his second wife, Florence Dugdale, and a poem that Hardy penned relating to the embarkation of soldiers for service in the Boer War, “The Going of the Battery”. Fourthly, there are typescripts: Thomas Hardy’s speech delivered at a school named after his ancestor with manuscript insertions by him regarding his ancestors, the Hardye family, in Dorset in the 16th century. There are also the proofs of a story by Florence Dugdale about Blue Jimmy (a thief hanged at Ilchester Gaol) with manuscript insertions by Hardy. The collection is a true miscellany; the result of a collector’s fascination with Hardy, appealing both because of its eclecticism but also the light it sheds upon Hardy, demonstrating his importance both to Dorset, but also the wider world. Dorset History Centre would like to express its gratitude for the vital support provided by FNL without which this purchase would not have been possible. **----- Start of picture text -----**
Correspondence and Christmas card
penned by Thomas Hardy 1926-27.
Courtesy of Dorset History Centre.
**----- End of picture text -----**
**48** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR DURHAM COUNTY RECORD OFFICE** ## **Edward Backhouse, Journal of a Cruise on the Schooner Yacht Nereid, 1870. Bought from Modern First Editions for £3,750, with the aid of a grant from the Friends of the National Libraries of £1,830.** _Liz Bregazzi, County Archivist, writes:_ Durham County Record Office is grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for facilitating the purchase of this beautiful journal, having originally failed to acquire it at auction, when it sold for £1,900 at auction (Reeman Dansie, 20 November 2019). The Friends of Durham County Record Office generously gave match-funding. Edward Backhouse (1808-1879), prominent member of the well-known Quaker family, was born in Darlington but moved to Sunderland in 1816. His is one of a number of significant Darlington Quaker families whose personal and business activities are well-represented in our collections. He was a partner in the family banking business, Backhouse & Co (a founding company of Barclays Bank), but mainly engaged in philanthropic activities, supporting Sunderland Infirmary and founding the Sunderland Echo in 1873. Edward wrote ‘Early Church History’ and other religious works and built up significant zoological, botanical and ethnographic collections, now in Sunderland Museum. Above: Edward on deck in a rolling sea on the morning of the 29th June 1870. Left: A smoky Highland Cottage near Portree, Isle of Skye, 14 July 1870. D/X 2217/1. © Durham County Record Office. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **49** This journal forms part of a series of diaries Edward kept, during family cruises on the Schooner Yacht Nereid around Scotland and Scandinavia, and European travels. Others in the series had previously been gifted to the record office by Quaker relatives and another, of a voyage to Norway, is held by the National Library of Norway. A well-published artist and author, Edward’s diaries are illustrated with photographs, watercolours and humorous sketches, giving readers a deeper insight into his nineteenth-century trips and inspiring lectures given back home. This journal describes two voyages from Sunderland to Scotland, in July and August 1870. Beginning 28 June 1870, it comprises a handwritten account, interspersed with lively watercolours, drawings and small professionally produced albumen photographs. He describes and illustrates the Nereid being towed out of Sunderland’s ‘Extension Dock’ and sailing up the Northumbrian coast through the Farne Islands, visiting Edinburgh, Perth, Inverness, Fort Augustus, Invergassy Castle, Fort William, Glencoe, Achantreachtan, Skye, Eigg, Raasay including Duart Castle, Arrochar, and Loch Lomond. As well as describing these locations, Edward voices opinions on Presbyterianism (‘distasteful to me. How legal and Jewish, and far from the liberty of the Gospel of Christ’), and the poor living and housing conditions in the Western Isles (giving a vignette of a ‘Highland Cottage near Portree… The only window was the pane of glass at the end’). While sketching the cottage ‘there was a cry of Whale! A Whale!’, duly sketched thereafter. This superb addition to our Quaker collections was offered at auction together with 1871 plans for the Grade II listed Dryderdale, Shull in the township of Bedburn, for Edward’s brother, Alfred Backhouse. Though its listing attributes the building to prominent Quaker architect, Alfred Waterhouse, these plans were prepared by George Gordon Hoskins JP, FRIBA (1837-1911), previously Clerk of Works to Waterhouse while building Jonathan Backhouse and Company’s new bank premises in Darlington in 1864. **50** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR EAST SUSSEX, BRIGHTON AND HOVE RECORD OFFICE** ## **Catalogue of the library of George Campion Courthope of Whiligh in Ticehurst, 1850. Bought from Forum Auctions (25 September 2020, Lot 61) for £500 and presented by the Friends of the National Libraries.** _Anna Manthorpe, Archivist writes:_ We were very glad to get the support of the Friends of the National Libraries for the purchase of the library catalogue of George Campion Courthope of Whiligh in Ticehurst, 1850. Such catalogues sometimes attract great attention from American institutions, so we were delighted to obtain this to add to the Courthope archive. There was added satisfaction in that the purchase added to a family archive which had been scattered in quite recent times. The estate archive of the Courthopes of Whiligh is reasonably intact and was deposited with the Sussex Archaeological Society from whence it was transferred to ESRO in the 1980s. But the story of the family papers, correspondence and photographs is not a happy one. In 1835 George Campion Courthope (1811-1895) inherited Whiligh along with the Sprivers Estate in Horsmonden, Kent. In 1841 he married Anna Deacon, the eldest of the ten children of the evangelical banker John Deacon and his wife Sophia, of Mabledon, Tonbridge, Kent. George and Anna also had a large family of eight children. George and Anna’s eldest son George John Courthope married Elinor (‘Lina’) Loyd, in 1876 and brought up their family of eight children at the Sprivers Estate. Their son and heir, George Loyd, (created a Baronet in 1925 and elevated to the peerage as Baron Courthope in 1945) sold Sprivers to his brother Robert in 1937. On his death in 1966 Robert Courthope left Sprivers to the National Trust, with the proviso that his sister Joan could remain there until her death, which occurred in 1974. At some point after her death the massive amount of Courthope papers at Sprivers were dispersed by the dealer called in by the Trust to clear them. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **51** Since then, the East Sussex Record Office (now East Sussex Brighton and Hove Record Office) has been extremely active in attempting to re-assemble the diaspora of papers. A considerable portion was purchased from a book dealer in 2004. Then a swathe of Anna Courthope’s correspondence was bought from a philatelic auction in 2005, and in 2017 we received on deposit an enormous tranche of letters, diaries and photographs which had been purchased privately by an individual who had hoped to publish them, and subsequently given to the present owner of the Whiligh Estate by his widow. We have also purchased smaller items which have come up for sale. The library catalogue is compiled and indexed in George Campion Courthope’s distinctive hand, with later additions, probably by another family member. It is divided into the subjects Theology, Classics, History, Literature, Philosophy, Poetry, Science and Political Economy, Biography and Correspondence, and Travels and Voyages, reflecting the wide range of interests of its well-read author. Above: George Campion Courthope (in top hat) with his wife Anna and family members at Whiligh, c1870 (ESBHRO ACC 12833/15/1/1). Right: Title-page of the catalogue (ESBHRO ACC 13694). Images courtesy of East Sussex, Brighton and Hove Record Office. **52** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY** **Collection of 118 letters to Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) and family, 1805-1899, bought from the 19th-Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop for $22,000, with the aid of a grant of £10,000 from the Friends of the National Libraries.** _Daryl Green, Head of Special Collections, Deputy Head of the Centre for Research Collections, writes:_ Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) is one of the most influential scientists of the last two centuries. His ground-breaking _Principles of Geology_ (1830-33) showed that the earth is not shaped by sudden catastrophic events but by slow-moving forces, like erosion and sedimentation, that we can still see in action today. By illuminating our planet’s gradual transformation over unimaginably vast stretches of time, he not only opened new vistas for the earth sciences, but also laid the framework for the evolutionary theories of his friend and protégé Charles Darwin. Lyell’s development of geology into a professional science established a reputation at home and overseas, which was boosted by his public lectures, his very popular books, and his constant travels throughout Britain, Europe, and North America. This collection was neatly tipped into a large album by the Lyell family for preservation and display. Nearly half of the letters are addressed to Sir Charles Lyell himself. Besides documenting Lyell’s wide-ranging activities including the publication of his books, his academic work at Cambridge University, and his geological research trips, they provide vivid evidence of contemporary reaction to his revolutionary ideas. Three letters to Sir Charles Lyell from the Rev. Canon Kingsley, with an engraving of his portrait opposite. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **53** Particularly significant items include: - Letters concerning the date of Creation from Benjamin Jowett, an influential theologian who advocated reinterpretation of the Bible in light of discoveries in geology and philology. - Letters from novelist, clergyman and reformer Charles Kingsley, a major populariser of Darwinism, who seeks Lyell’s aid in establishing a Natural Science Society and a national history museum. - Letters from philologist and Orientalist Max Müller, whose work on the evolution of language inspired Lyell’s own thoughts on the evolution of species. Müller states that he has drawn, in turn, from Lyell’s work and from Darwin’s concepts of Natural Selection and Struggle for Life. - A letter from the American Transcendentalist and reformer Theodore Parker, praising Lyell’s writings for their ‘scientific spirit’, ‘wide knowledge’, and ‘humane and religious tendency’. - Letters from philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer, coiner of the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’, asking Lyell to lend his name to a circular to secure subscribers for a planned series of popular science books. - A letter from philosopher scientist William Whewell, outlining his research into ocean tides. Whewell’s encouraged thousands of international volunteers to study ocean tides, one of the first citizen science projects which ultimately resulted in a global chart of tides being published in 1836. Lyell’s other correspondents include philosophers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Martineau, clergymen and theologists like Cardinal Newman, Henry Ward Beecher, and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, and educational reformers like Richard Dawes and Frederic Farrar. **54** Friends of the National Libraries The remainder of the correspondence is addressed to other members of Lyell’s extended family, including his wife Mary (an accomplished biologist and conchologist in her own right), his sister-in-law Katharine Murray Lyell (a distinguished botanist and editor of Sir Charles Lyell’s life and letters), his father Charles (botanist and Dante scholar), Mary’s father Leonard Horner (merchant, geologist, and education reformer), and her uncle Francis Horner (Whig politician and political economist). Significant correspondents of the Lyell-Horner clan include philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, clergymen John W. Colenso and Thomas Chalmers, philologists John Jamieson and Joseph Blanco White, scholars H. H. Milan and Francis W. Newman, and the famed wits Sydney Smith and Samuel Parr. These letters illustrate the Lyell-Horner’s family intense engagement with the burning social issues of the day, particularly abolitionism, female suffrage, and educational reform. The 118 letters are accompanied by 57 portraits of the Lyell-Horner family’s correspondents, comprising 40 albumen print photographs, 16 engravings, and one lithograph. A letter to Sir Charles Lyell from author John Sterling. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **55** Following the acquisition of Sir Charles Lyell’s notebooks in 2019, again with generous assistance from the Friends of the National Libraries, this collection constitutes a valuable addition to Edinburgh University Library’s archive of Lyell materials, which began with a substantial donation from the Lyell family in 1927. We look forward to making all of our Lyell materials increasingly physically and digitally available for research and public engagement. Letter from Benjamin Jowett to Sir Charles Lyell, 6 April 1872. All images courtesy of the University of Edinburgh. **56** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE HERITAGE HUB, HAWICK** ## **The records of Peter Scott & Co. 1905-1958. Bought from Chris Barker for £5,000, with the aid of a grant of £2,400 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Paul Brough, Archive Manager, writes:_ Thanks to the support of the Friends of the National Libraries, the Heritage Hub (which is part of Live Borders) was able to acquire a set of volumes relating to the Dispatch Department that operated out of Peter Scott & Co. Ltd. Wilton Path factory, their main factory, was at Buccleuch Street, Hawick, less than half a mile away. Since 2006 records have been transferred from Peter Scott to the Heritage Hub on several occasions (three in 2006 and two more in 2017). The acquisition of these volumes builds on an already strong collection of textilerelated materials that is distributed across three sites at Hawick – Wilton Lodge Park Museum, the Borders Textile Towerhouse, and the Heritage Hub. It also builds to a more specific collection strength, that of Peter Scott & Co. (18782016), hosiery manufacturers, for many years trading under the brand Pesco. Amongst the collections already held are articles of Peter Scott & Co. clothing, held at Wilton Lodge Park Museum and records from the head office and main factory at Buccleuch Street, Hawick, held at the Heritage Hub. The records comprise the papers of the business (the Limited Company) such as minutes, reports, accounting, shareholder and personnel records (employee cards from 1878-) and of production and marketing (yarn and design books, shade cards, price lists and a wide range of other advertising material covering the whole of the 20th Century). The latter includes work of notable commercial artists such as Thomas Curr (1887-1958), Scottish painter, commercial artist and cartoonist and Enid Margaret Warne-Browne (1893-1971), artist and illustrator. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **57** What had been lacking hitherto from this substantial archive was material from the packing and dispatch function at Wilton Mills and in fact these records were thought to have been lost. These volumes will add this missing piece. They will improve understanding of the work of a major hosiery and knitwear company that operated from Hawick 1878-2016. It will also add to the records held on Wilton Path factory, which only operated for a relatively short time and of which little is known. Our knitwear collection has received attention over the years from students and academics. They have researched the collections for dissertations, papers, Masters projects, and books in an effort to understand the industry further. We have already added these items to our online catalogue and look forward to re-opening so that individuals can come and use them for research. The company, and the hosiery and knitwear industry, are an important part of the town’s social and cultural history; these additions to our collection will open up new possibilities for understanding and presenting the story of the in the Scottish Borders. Our thanks to the Friends of the National Libraries. Above: Peter Scott & Co, spines of volumes. Left: Peter Scott & Co, array of volumes. Courtesy of Live Borders Ltd. **58** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR HULL UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES** ## **The papers of the Baines family (15th-19th centuries). Bought from the estate of John Hewley Baines for £13,000 and presented by Friends of the National Libraries.** _Sarah Pymer, Archivist, writes:_ We are delighted that a grant from Friends of the National Libraries has allowed us to purchase the papers of the Baines family of Bell Hall, Naburn, which has been on long-term loan with Hull University Archives since 1974. The collection forms part of our extensive holdings of family and estate papers relating to the historic East Riding of Yorkshire, and provides an unusually complete picture of a family in the 19th century as well as property records dating from the 15th century onwards. The deeds and property records in the collection relate to a number of towns and villages in all three historic ridings of Yorkshire, as well as further afield, with Naburn and the neighbouring village of Deighton the best represented. They complement our other holdings of estate papers, giving researchers the opportunity to investigate the history of land and property across Yorkshire. Sketch of Byland Abbey, Ryedale, by Hewley John Baines while a pupil at Haxby School, August 1837 [U DDBH/27/3]. Courtesy of Hull University Archives. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **59** The collection is unusual amongst our holdings in containing a series of correspondence from children at school to their parents dating from 18781889; there are also a smaller number of letters from earlier generations of children. Children’s voices and personal histories are under-represented in our collections, and this series provides an opportunity for research into the day-to-day lives of young people of a particular class and time in a way which is not matched by any of our other holdings. The full series of family correspondence spans 1760-1918 and provides a rich resource for researchers, including as it does comments on a range of subjects from cholera outbreaks to hair fashions. The Baines papers also contain material relating to New Zealand in the mid19th century, as William Mortimer Baines lived there for several years from around 1850. The items include his diary recording his journey to New Zealand and his first impressions of the country; recollections of life and conditions for early settlers in New Zealand; and letters received by Baines while he was in New Zealand. These items are unique within our collections in giving insight into life in New Zealand during its early years as a Crown colony. There are more personal, not to say unusual, items within the archive too. There are instructions for knitting a cap and boots from around 1809, the cuff from a baby’s dress, and a book of Chinese puzzles. There are also a number of locks of hair taken from family members through much of the 19th century, carefully tucked into envelopes recording the owner’s name. The Baines papers offer a rich opportunity to investigate the lives of a minor land-owning family in the 19th century, as well as the history of the villages represented in the property records. We are very grateful that we can continue to care for this collection and make it available. **60** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER, JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY** **The papers of C.A. and Anthony Lejeune. Bought from the estate of Anthony Lejeune, via Bernard Quaritch, for £20,000, with the aid of a grant of £5,000 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Jessica Smith, Creative Arts Archivist, writes:_ The John Rylands Library, University of Manchester is very grateful to have received the generous support of the Friends of National Libraries in our endeavour to acquire the Lejeune papers. Caroline Alice Lejeune (1897-1973) is an important figure in the history of film criticism, and in the history of women of renown from Manchester. While archives relating to the production of a particular film or the work of specific directors have occasionally appeared at auction, very few archives analogous to the present one have appeared on the open market. Lejeune was one of the most prominent film critics of her generation, one of the earliest to have a newspaper column in The Observer from 1928, though she covered films among other things for the Manchester Guardian from 1922, and probably the earliest professional female critic in Britain. She was a pioneer in her field, one of the first to treat cinema as an art-form worthy of criticism in the same way as art or music, and to recognise that the audience for films was not just middle-class white men. The C.A. Lejeune papers cover an enormous range of films from throughout Lejeune’s career, from the late 1920s to the late 1950s. The files, arranged alphabetically, contain film adverts, film summaries, some handwritten notes and annotations, publicity bulletins, cast lists, photographs, publicity booklets, and newspaper cuttings. They are an invaluable resource for the study of film and film critique. There are an additional small set of personal papers, including letters to her mother, an honorary degree, amateur dramatics photo albums, scripts, a school notebook and stories by C.A. Lejeune. Edward Anthony Lejeune (1928-2018), the son of C.A. Lejeune and the journalist Edward Roffe Thompson, followed his mother into the world of the press, as a journalist and political commentator, culminating in columns in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine and the conservative American publication, the National Review. More so than in his native land, he became a household name Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **61** in South Africa as a result of his weekly broadcast under the title ‘London Letter’, produced for the South African Broadcasting Corporation for nearly 30 years, 1965-95. He was also the author of several detective novels, and a historian of London’s gentlemen’s clubs; and he edited a selection of his mother’s reviews. The core of the Anthony Lejeune archive is a very extensive collection of Lejeune’s journalistic work, organised into envelopes, each devoted to a single article and containing corrected typescripts, research notes, and occasionally related correspondence. Also included are the original typescripts of Lejeune’s ‘London Letters’, almost certainly the only printed record of these broadcasts. The next largest component of the archive is correspondence, many hundreds of letters covering approximately the 1940s to the 1980s. The two Lejeune collections have great potential for interdisciplinary research, and have received the enthusiastic support of the University of Manchester’s Drama and Screen Studies department, with plans to utilise the C.A. Lejeune papers in teaching seminars, and as the basis of applications for research funding. The C.A. Lejeune Reader. Reproduced with permission from Carcanet Press. A small part of the collection on its arrival at the John Rylands Library. Courtesy of the University of Manchester. **62** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND** **Four letters and poem of Robert Burns. Bought at Lyon and Turnbull (17 June 2020, Lots 179, 181, 183, 187, and 191) for a total £48,400, with the aid of a grant of £6,600 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Ralph McLean, Manuscripts Curator (Long 18th Century Collections), writes:_ The National Library of Scotland was successful in obtaining four letters and a poem of Robert Burns. The purchases were made with help from Friends of the National Libraries and the Soutar Trust. The purchases comprise the following manuscripts: ## Burns to Thomas Sloan. This letter is enclosed in a 1787 edition of Burns’s Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. The volume also contains letters relating to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe and Robert Chambers (both of whom are also represented in the Library’s collections). It was sold at Sotheby’s in 1891 and part of it was copied before appearing in the Burns Chronicle in 1894. ## Burns to David Staig. It was originally published in J. DeLancey Ferguson’s Letters of Robert Burns (1931). However, it was taken from a transcript of the original letter. It has remained in private ownership since then, and this will be the first time that the letter has been made publicly available. ## Burns to Captain Francis Grose. This is the covering letter that Burns sent to Grose along with the poem “Tam O’Shanter”, although the poem no longer accompanies the letter. The letter was listed as being in private ownership in G. Ross Roy’s Letters (1985) before being sold at Christie’s in 2014. ## Part of a sonnet of Robert Burns. This contains nine lines of the sonnet that Burns composed for his friend Robert Riddell of Glenriddell on Riddell’s death in 1794. It was originally published in the Dumfries Journal (1794) but this version contains a few variants and evidence of the poet’s re-working of the manuscript. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **63** Burns to James Smith. The letter discusses Burns’s future wife Jean Armour at a time when he was about to emigrate to Jamaica. The letter was once part of the sale of John Gribbel’s manuscripts (it was Gribbel who donated the Glenriddell MSS to what was to become the National Library of Scotland) and was listed as being in private ownership in Roy’s Letters (1985). The Library has an established collecting interest in Robert Burns as one of the key literary figures of 18th-century Scotland and a poet with a global reputation. It has one of the most comprehensive collections of Burns manuscripts to be found anywhere in the world, and the addition of these manuscripts greatly complements our collections. As most of these manuscripts (Acc.14167-14171) have not been seen since at least the 1930s; their addition to the Library’s collections are timely both to recent scholarly projects, which seek to bring out new editions of Burns’s works, but also to the wider public, as a recent report to the Scottish government highlighted the impact of Burns to the Scottish economy. We are very grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for helping us to purchase these manuscripts for the National Library of Scotland. Sonnet of Robert Burns (Acc.14170). Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. AGc.141É8:* . f,, f7"-/ .7fv i/_Z_ •A4 .' -+~ts_?.,*J; -)Z_. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **65** Opposite: Robert Burns to James Smith. The letter discusses Burns’s future wife Jean Armour at a time when he was about to emigrate to Jamaica. Robert Burns to Captain Francis Grose December 1790. This is the covering letter that Burns sent to Grose along with the poem “Tam O’Shanter”. Images courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. **66** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES** ## **A substantial collection of letters of the artist, engraver and poet David Jones (1895-1974). Bought from Bonhams (19 August 2020, Lot 232) for £39,835, with the aid of a grant of £10,400 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Rhys Jones, Assistant Manuscripts Librarian, writes:_ On 19 August 2020, with generous assistance from the Friends of the National Libraries, the National Library of Wales purchased at auction 126 letters of the artist, engraver and poet David Jones to his friend Valerie Wynne-Williams (née Price). When they first met in 1958 Jones was in his early sixties and Price nearly forty years his junior. Whilst their relationship was entirely platonic, Jones was undoubtedly besotted with Valerie and the letters are certainly, in part, love letters to her. He addresses her throughout by her pet name ‘Elri’, occasionally decorating her name with illustrations of flowers and birds. His infatuation continued long after Valerie married her fiancée Michael Wynne-Williams in early 1960. The letters concern his usual preoccupations such as his declining health, his living conditions in successive lodgings in Harrow-on-the-Hill and Harrow and his struggles with his art, but also his deep interest in Wales, the Welsh language and Welsh history. In this last regard Valerie was an ideal correspondent, being a Welsh speaker and a supporter of, and later a parliamentary candidate for, Plaid Cymru. Between them David and Valerie knew many stalwarts of the Welsh language cultural and political establishment and in the letters the likes of Saunders Lewis, Gwynfor Evans, Aneirin Talfan-Davies and Keidrych Rhys jostle for space with Jones’ other friends such as T. S. Eliot, Stephen Spender and Harman Grisewood. The letters contain several illustrations, including pigs, ponies and a sleeping cat, a portrait of a beautiful woman and the view (drawn from memory) of Stonehenge as seen from his tent whilst stationed on Salisbury Plain in 1915. There are several of his distinctive inscriptions, mostly in Welsh, the most impressive being a version of his inscription commemorating the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **67** The letters are unpublished but were made use of by Thomas Dilworth for his recent biography David Jones: Engraver, Soldier, Painter, Poet (London, 2017). The National Library of Wales is home not only to David Jones’s personal library but also to his main archive, consisting of personal papers, correspondence and literary and artistic works. His letters to Valerie Wynne-Williams are another significant addition to our holdings, complementing as they do the sixty letters from her to Jones and a handful of draft letters from Jones already in the archive. They are also the second significant group of David Jones papers recently acquired with the aid of a Friends of the National Libraries grant, following the purchase at auction of his letters to Morag Owen in November 2019. The National Library remains keen to acquire further groups of David Jones’s correspondence, in particular to complement letters already in the archive. We are especially interested in correspondence reflecting his interest in Wales and Welsh affairs, such a notable and interesting feature of his letters to Valerie and Morag. The letters have now been catalogued (reference number NLW MS 24167E) and are available to access in the Library’s reading room. A selection of letters from David Jones to Valerie Wynne-Williams (NLW MS 24167E). Courtesy of the National Library of Wales and reproduced with permission from the David Jones Estate. **68** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNTY RECORD OFFICE** **Rental roll for Hackness in North Yorkshire for the years 1622-1639. Bought from Bloomsbury Auctions (8 July 2020, Lot 71) for £1,300, with the aid of a grant of £940 from the Friends of the National Libraries.** _Margaret Boustead, Head of Archives & Records Management, writes:_ In July 2020, we were excited to discover that a 17th century rental for Hackness, near Scarborough, was to be sold at auction. The splendid rent roll listed the rents received from properties in and around Hackness for the years 1622 to 1639 and was very clearly an escape from the archive of the Derwent family of Hackness. This archive, which has been held by the Record Office since 1946, includes an early rental for 1605 to 1622, and a long series of rentals from 1650 to 1839. The rental for sale partly filled a significant gap in the sequence and we are very grateful to FNL whose generosity allowed us to secure it and return it to the archive. Hackness rental 1622-1639. Courtesy of North Yorkshire County Record Office. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **69** The rental arrived from the auction house rolled round an oak support, but it is not obvious if this is contemporary with the manuscript. The manuscript itself consists of three membranes of parchment, measuring over two metres in length and 25 centimetres in width, with a tag at the top. The three membranes are sewn together with a distinctive yellow wool. The rental is almost exactly the same physical make up and layout as the preceding rental of 1605 to 1622 - using the same format and an identical method of crossed stitches to join the separate parchment membranes together. Dated 29 September 1639 at the top, the rental notes a James More acting as steward for the owner (at that time Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby). It is written in a late English secretarial hand with the opening line “The turffgraft is to be payed yearly upon Michell day”. Separate columns list the tenants and the rents paid for properties in Hackness Town and the surrounding settlements of Hackness Dale, Silpho, Harwood Dale, Suffield, Everley, Barnscliff and Burniston. Free holders and their rents are listed and ‘other rentes which are not parcell of Hackness’, including a payment of £2 by John Collyson for ‘Derwen’ and a payment by George Dodsworth for a house in Settrington. Columns for each year’s rent are marked with an ‘o’ to show an account settled. Separate columns list payments of 2d for ‘green hive’, likely to be a vernacular term for the right to cut green wood, and of 2d and 4d for ‘oven farme’, but these dues appear to be payable only by the tenants of Hackness Town. The rental lists approximately 126 tenants altogether, of whom only three are women: Katheryn Undrell in Hackness Town, Jayne Cockrell in Silpho and Mrs Thomazin Gate in Harwood Dale. Hackness and district rents vary from £1 6s 8d paid by Thomas Blande to 8d paid by Rychard Langdon, both for holdings in Hackness Town. At a previous sale in 1991, the rental was sold alongside material from North Somerset, so it is likely that it was taken by the Sydenham family of Brimpton, Somerset when they acquired the manor in 1640. It is very pleasing to be able now to reunite it with the main archive. **70** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR NORTHUMBERLAND ARCHIVES** ## **Letters of Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of Tankerville (1743-1822). Bought from Historical Autographs for £950, with the aid of a grant of £350 from Friends of The National Libraries.** _Sue Wood, Head of Archives, writes:_ In November 2020 Northumberland Archives was able to purchase 35 letters of Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of Tankerville thanks to a grant from The Friends of The National Libraries. The letters were written and received by Charles Bennet during his joint tenure (1784-1786) with Lord Carteret as Postmaster General and relate to a dispute between the two men that was to lead to Tankerville’s dismissal by the Prime Minster, William Pitt the Younger in 1786. Tankerville was keen to reform the Post Office in particular to improve the postal service, seeking to extend its reach and speed. The dispute, known as the Dashwood Affair, arose after Tankerville objected to signing off accounts that he saw as an abuse of public monies. This abuse involved signing off a bill for furniture for Carteret’s private use. Carteret claimed that affair was a misunderstanding but used his connections to put Pitt under pressure to dismiss Tankerville. Protestations by Tankerville led to the establishment of a government commission that revealed a number of underhand practices including the issue of suspicious invoices, irregular appointments and smuggling by seamen whose wages had been deliberately withheld. The findings of the commission led to major reforms. The letters purchased are correspondence to and from Tankerville, relating to the Dashwood Affair. The correspondents are Lords Cartaret and Tankerville, William Pitt and Lord Clarendon. Clarendon had held the office of Postmaster General between1763-1765 and was returned to office in 1786 following Tankerville’s dismissal. The letters cover the period June 1786-December 1786. The letters complement further correspondence relating to the Affair that have been in the care of Northumberland Archives since 1968 and are important in telling more of the story of the events surrounding Tankerville’s dismissal and the role of William Pitt in the Affair. It was usual for minsters of this period to retain their own papers – there was no rule about the Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **71** surrender of public papers. As a consequence there is little about Tankerville’s tenure as Postmaster-General in either The National Archives or amongst The Post Office Archives. The papers held by Northumberland Archives are therefore of particular importance. Collectively they contradict Pitt’s reputation as a reformer demonstrating his unwillingness to support Tankerville and show the support given to Tankerville by his kinsman Charles Grey (1764-1845), the future Prime Minister. The Tankerville family were of French descent and were first created Earls in 1418. Charles Bennet (1743-1822) was the 4th Earl under the third creation. In the 18th century the family owned an extensive estate in Northumberland with a family seat at Chillingham Castle. The family also held extensive estates in Shropshire and Sussex and had a London home, Mount Felix, at Walton on Thames. Further records of the Tankerville family are held at Shropshire Archives and West Sussex Record Office. The 4th Earl is best known for developing the rules of modern cricket. Draft or copy letter of 27 November 1786 written by Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of Tankerville (1743-1822) to the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, regarding a dispute that arose during Tankerville’s second tenure as Postmaster General. Courtesy of Northumbria Archives. **72** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM, MANUSCRIPTS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS** **i. Maurice Magnus,** _**Dregs: A Foreign Legion Experience by an American**_ **, typescript corrected by D.H. Lawrence, c.1918-1922. Bought from Peter Harrington Rare Books for £5,000, with the aid of a grant of £1,000 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Mark Dorrington, Keeper of Manuscripts and Special Collections writes:_ The University of Nottingham is extremely grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for supporting the purchase of this typescript of _‘Dregs’_ (see image on page 75). The acquisition now forms part of our D. H. Lawrence Collection, which was designated in 2008 by the former Museums, Libraries and Archives Council as being of national and international importance. Charles Maurice Liebetrau Magnus (1876-1920) was an American writer, magazine-editor, translator and journalist, whose literary contacts dried up during the First World War. He was living by his wits and occasional journalism when D. H. Lawrence arrived in Italy in November 1919 and met him in the company of the exiled Scottish writer Norman Douglas (who had known Magnus for years). The three men spent some days together in Florence, and Lawrence was clearly very much interested by Magnus who served for a short time during the First World War in the French Foreign Legion. In February 1920 Lawrence visited Magnus for two days at the monastery in Montecassino, where Magnus showed him the typescript of a book he had written about his time in the Legion. Magnus subsequently rewrote and retyped the book, presumably incorporating some suggestions given to him by Lawrence. Magnus at this stage was actually in hiding from the police after a cheque he’d given to a hotel in Anzio had bounced; he was in serious financial trouble. At the end of April 1920, Magnus most unexpectedly turned up in Taormina in Sicily, where Lawrence and his wife Frieda were then living, hoping that Lawrence would lend him some money, which Lawrence most unwillingly did. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **73** Magnus travelled from Sicily to Malta in May 1920 on the same boat as Lawrence and Frieda. He stayed on Malta when Lawrence went back to Sicily, and at the start of November 1920 he committed suicide by drinking hydrocyanic acid, having been intercepted on the street by policemen intent on extraditing him to Italy on the charge of fraud. Magnus had tried unsuccessfully to publish his book in both Britain and the USA. Following the suicide, Magnus’s creditors on Malta sent Lawrence the typescript of _‘Dregs’_ in hopes that it would raise money to pay them back the money they themselves had loaned to Magnus before his suicide. Lawrence arranged to get it published and wrote his long introduction, the ‘Memoir of Maurice Magnus’, to accompany Magnus’ book. The University of Nottingham already holds the manuscript of Lawrence’s introduction and this can now be studied alongside the revised typescript of Magnus’ book, partly corrected by Lawrence either in the spring of 1920 or (more likely) before he sent the typescript to his agent in the US along with the ‘Memoir’, for their publication together. This typescript has never been published in full or thoroughly studied, either for its account of homosexual experience (extremely unusual to be spelled out at that date), or for the ways in which Lawrence may have influenced it. Magnus was working on it while at the monastery at Montecassino; he and Lawrence discussed it there and – arguably – Lawrence very much influenced it. Lawrence saw it in the spring of 1920, and thought it much improved; he saw it again after Magnus’s death, when it was sent to him from Malta. When it finally reached print, however, it would be severely censored; the sexual passages which Lawrence had most likely encouraged Magnus to incorporate (which had almost certainly not been there in the draft he saw at Montecassino) had been cut. It is the missing piece of the whole Magnus episode. The acquisition was also supported by the Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and a generous private donation. **74** Friends of the National Libraries **ii. D. H. Lawrence, autograph letter signed to his sister, Ada, 30 January 1930; autograph postcard signed to his niece, Margaret, 16 June 1927; and seven autograph postcards signed to his sister Emily, 17 November 1928 to 27 February 1930. Bought (from Paul Rassam) for £11,250, with the aid of a grant of £4,000 from the Friends of the National Libraries.** _Mark Dorrington writes:_ The University of Nottingham is once more grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for this generous grant towards a further addition to our designated D. H. Lawrence Collection. Although Lawrence was a prolific letter writer and over 5,500 letters are published in the Letters of D. H. Lawrence (Cambridge University Press, 8 vols., 1979-2000), comparatively few letters and postcards to family members have survived. These have special significance because they provide valuable insights into relationships which are often invisible to, and overlooked by, critics and biographers who are more interested in his friendships with literary figures and publishers. The letter and eight postcards were written during the last three years of Lawrence’s life; the final postcard was written just days before his death on 2 March 1930, and on the last day he wrote any correspondence. They contain important details of his travels during these years, plus accounts of his health which were obviously provided in more detail to family members than to his other contacts. The University of Nottingham has the largest collection in the world of materials related to Lawrence’s early life and to his family. This includes the extensive papers of his sister Ada, purchased in 2018 (with the assistance of grant aid from FNL), which contain correspondence between D. H. Lawrence, his family and childhood friends, 1899-1930 and this letter and eight postcards can be fully contextualised with these papers. The correspondence begins with a postcard sent to his niece, Margaret (daughter of Emily), on 16 June 1927 from Lucca, in Italy. The remaining postcards are to his sister, Emily first from Bandol, in the south of France, on 17 November 1928; then from Mallorca on 18 April 1929; followed by two from Baden-Baden, in Germany on 19 July and 12 August 1929. On the second he writes: ‘I went to the doctor, he says my lung is very much better, healed, only the bronchials and the asthma are still bad’. The next postcard was sent from Rottach, in Germany, on 14 September 1929 and then another from Bandol on 23 September 1929. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **75** Lawrence’s letter to Ada, dated 30 January 1930, is also from Bandol, in which he writes: ‘We shall be pleased to see you and Emily on the 18th or so. The doctor says I must lie quite still for two months - absolute rest. It is true, I’ve gone down badly this winter - really. He wants me to go into a sanatorium above Nice - If this lying still doesn’t help, I shall have to do so. I’ve been in bed ten days - feel rather better.’ In Vence, near Nice, on 27 February 1930, Lawrence wrote his last four letters and postcards. On the postcard to Emily he writes: ‘I am about the same - anyhow no worse. We are moving into a house here in Vence on Saturday and I am having an English nurse from Nice - I think it will be better.’ Three days later, he discharged himself from the Ad Astra sanatorium and moved into the Villa Robermond, where he died the following evening. The acquisition was also supported by a grant from the Arts Council England/ V&A Purchase Grant fund. Maurice Magnus, _Dregs: A Foreign Legion Experience by an American_ , typescript corrected by D.H. Lawrence, c.1918-1922. (University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections La/L/33.) A selection of Lawrence’s postcards to his sister, including the card of 27 February referred to above. Courtesy of the University of Nottingham. **76** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR PEMBROKE COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE** **The Archive of Barrie Cooke (1931-2014). Bought from the family via Omnia Arts for £275,000, with the aid of a grant of £15,000 from Friends of the National Libraries** _(see image on page 11)_ **.** _This grant was awarded in 2019 and accounted for in that year, but the purchase was not completed until 2020._ _Dr Mark Wormald, Fellow and College Lecturer in English, writes:_ In May 2012 I stayed with the British-born Irish expressionist artist Barrie Cooke at his house and studio in County Sligo. I’d encountered his name in the fishing diaries Ted Hughes kept for the last 20 years of his life, and because I already sensed from those diaries, especially of their trips together in pursuit of Irish pike, salmon and trout, often with Ted’s son Nicholas, occasionally with Barrie’s youngest daughter Aoine, how deep their friendship was. That sense was confirmed on that first visit, but browsing Barrie’s bookshelves, I learned something new. The shelf below the one filled with every one of Ted’s books, personally inscribed to my host, was another, devoted to every one of Seamus Heaney’s books, again personally inscribed. If his friendship with the Hugheses turned on fish and fishing, his long and close friendship with the future Nobel Laureate depended, as Barrie told me, on ‘mud’. On his death in 2014, his Irish Times obituary hailed Cooke as ‘an artist’s artist.’ Though his work features in the permanent collections of major European, British and American museums, that epithet can be mistaken, by those who are not artists, with faint praise. But as is evident in the extraordinary archive of letters, poems and other literary papers, which a grant from FNL was crucial in helping Ted Hughes’s Cambridge College acquire, Cooke was a poet’s artist too. Cooke cast a wry and often rapturous eye on his friends’ writing, producing some 150 charcoal drawings, monotypes, watercolours and lithographs of Hughes and Heaney’s poetry over a span of 35 years. Some were indeed of ‘mud’, yes: a remarkable limited illustrated edition of Heaney’s Bog Poems, published by Hughes’s sister Olwyn’s Rainbow Press in 1975, contained eight. Cooke painted 45. Heaney’s version of a medieval Irish epic ‘Sweeney Astray’ appeared in an American Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **77** limited edition in 1984, again with eight small monochrome illustrations. Cooke produced 45, some wild, some delicate, some richly coloured. Heaney’s letter in delighted praise of them is one of the archive’s highlights; he wrote, elsewhere, of the combination of the distinctively Cookeish combination of la boue and beauté, ‘the muddy opulence of his palate’, and of Cooke himself as Ireland’s Green Man, a Sweeney for our time. As for Hughes, Cooke illustrated Crow, and, in 1982, ‘The Great Irish Pike’, a suite of lithographs looming straight out of those Irish fishing trips with Nicholas, who also features in a sketch book full of images of the fish that haunted them all. But Cooke’s full-blooded immersion in the wild and wet in Ireland’s natural and cultural history was infectious, inspiring Heaney, Hughes and others to send him poems (some never seen) and letters that are among their most expressive and transcendent. The painter’s guest book, also in the archive, reveals him as convenor of his own circle: a gathered cast of poets and artists to rival Bloomsbury, though they caught more fish. A record of great creative friendships across media and borders, the archive does not just crown Pembroke’s already unique collection of Hughesiana, established since 2012 with FNL’s help. The many warm responses to the public announcement in November 2020 of the acquisition of the archive include the donation of a hitherto unknown late poem by Hughes, with the touching story of the friendship that led to its composition, and a very significant collection of fascinating letters Cooke himself wrote to another leading Irish artist. As work continues on the cataloguing of the archive, in advance of its opening to researchers in 2021 and the first of a series of events and exhibitions on both sides of the Irish sea, it is already clear that this unique archive will change our understanding of the relationship between all these artists, and the shared creative passions that bound them. **78** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR PETERSFIELD MUSEUM, THE EDWARD THOMAS STUDY CENTRE** **i. A collection of books owned by Lesley Lee Francis, the granddaughter of the American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963), relating to her grandfather’s period in England between 1912 – 1915. Acquired from Lesley Lee Francis for £1,400 (shipping costs) with the aid of a grant of £1,400 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Jeremy Mitchell, Chair of the Edward Thomas Fellowship and a Trustee of Petersfield Museum, writes:_ Since 2017 an extensive and important collection (gifted by the family of the late Tim Wilton-Steer) of over 2,000 books and other items, including some letters, by and about the early 20th-century literary reviewer, writer and poet Edward Thomas, has been held at Petersfield Museum in Hampshire. These are on loan from the Edward Thomas Fellowship and form the basis of what will become the first Edward Thomas Study Centre in England when the Museum re-opens, following an extensive redevelopment project, in Spring 2021. Edward Thomas (1878-1917), was a renowned book and poetry reviewer, essayist and writer before the First World War. This was the reason behind the visit of a young American poet, Robert Frost, to London in 1913 when he was seeking a review of his first book of poetry, ‘North of Boston’. Thomas, who was known for his honesty when reviewing poetry, wrote not only one but three favourable reviews of Frost’s poetry and on the two men meeting they struck up a friendship that lasted long beyond Thomas’ death in action at the First Battle of Arras in 1917. From their first encounter in 1913, there are many recorded instances of Frost and Thomas meeting both in London and, in the summer of 1914, in Gloucester where Frost and his family were renting a property near Dymock, a village that at the time had attracted a small gathering of poets – who became known as the Dymock Poets. It was the meetings with Robert Frost, and the latter’s encouragement, that are considered the ‘triggers’ that led to Thomas finally writing poetry from December 1914 until his death in 1917. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **79** Lesley Lee Francis, now in her 89th year, is the granddaughter of Robert Frost and has been active in America perpetuating his memory as well as being actively involved in running the Robert Frost Symposium for 26 years – which had its final session in September 2019. Lesley has also written several books about Frost including _You Come Too: My Journey with Robert Frost_ , which was published in 2016. In the book, she combines priceless personal memories and rigorous research to create a portrait of Frost and the women, including herself, whose lives he touched. Lesley’s invaluable insights into Frost’s poetry and her inclusion of previously unpublished family writings and photographs make this book essential not only to Frost scholarship but also it will appeal to anyone interested in this great poet’s life and work. Lesley has also included a small selection of unpublished Christmas poems which Robert Frost produced annually for family and friends, which add to the uniqueness of the collection. This small, intimate collection will be an important addition to the existing books by and about Robert Frost in the Study Centre and help to establish broader connections for the new Study Centre within both the UK and the US. All books will be available for public access for reading and research within the Study Centre. A selection of Robert Frost’s Christmas poems. Courtesy of Petersfield Museum. **80** Friends of the National Libraries ## **ii. Three autograph letters from Edward Thomas (1878-1917) to the publisher Martin Secker on literary business. Bought from David J Holmes Autograph Books for £3,803, with the aid of a grant of £3,500 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Jeremy Mitchell writes:_ In addition to the books in the collection donated by the late Tim Wilton-Steer’s family to the Edward Thomas Fellowship, there are a few letters written by Edward Thomas to various friends and business acquaintances. In no way can this element of the collection be regarded as extensive, so the opportunity to add these three letters, being sold on eBay by a New York-based seller, at a negotiated price felt to be affordable, was considered an opportunity not to be missed. These letters are more interesting than they might appear at first glance, being written in a period when Edward Thomas’s income, from what he termed ‘hack writing’ was going down - in fact by about one third in a couple years. Whilst a ‘drop’ from £300 per annum to £200 does not seem significant, in today’s ‘money’ that is the equivalent of £10,000 per annum at a time when he was also trying to maintain and school a family with three children. There is also an interesting aspect in these letters of ‘Edward Thomas as a businessman’. He certainly tried to look after that side of his career and a mass of correspondence exists. Two of the letters are written from ‘Wick Green, Petersfield’, which was the Thomas’ second home when they lived in and around the village of Steep, on the outskirts of Petersfield. The other address, Dillybrook Farm, is somewhere he stayed at on several occasions, most notably when he was writing ‘In Pursuit of Spring’ (published April 1914). It is also not far from the home of Clifford Bax, with whom he often stayed, and is not far from Bath. Walter de la Mare stayed there with him on one occasion, and there is a photo of the farm in Richard Emeny’s book _Edward Thomas: A Life in Pictures_ . It is largely unchanged today. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **81** Within the Tim Wilton-Steer books there are first editions (both American and British) of the two publications referred to in the letters – on Swinburne and Walter Pater – and it is proposed to exhibit the letters alongside these books within the Study Centre when it opens in the Spring of 2021. The opportunity to add these letters, with their local and wider significance, through the generosity of the Friends of the National Libraries, is another significant step forward for the Museum and the Edward Thomas Fellowship as both seek to further establish the Study Centre as an important resource for Thomas scholars and the wider public. The balance of purchase monies on both transactions came from private donations made to the Edward Thomas Fellowship but without the kind and generous support of the Friends of the National Libraries neither acquisition would have been possible. Both Petersfield Museum and the Edward Thomas Fellowship are extremely grateful for this support and wish to also thank all whose donations to the Friends of the National Libraries make grants such as this possible. Letter from Edward Thomas to Martin Secker, January 1913. Courtesy of Petersfield Museum. **82** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR QUEENS’ COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE** _**Aesopi Phrygis Fabellae Graece & Latine**_ **[Aesop’s fables in Greek and Latin] (Basel: Johann Froben, 1524). Bought for £2,450 from Blackwell’s Rare Books, with the aid of a grant of £1,000 from the Friends of the National Libraries.** _Lucille Munoz, Rare Books Curator, writes:_ In December 2020, the Friends of the National Libraries provided generous financial assistance to enable the acquisition by Queens’ College of a beautifully annotated copy of Aesop’s fables which, quite probably, was used and read at the college nearly five hundred years ago. Edited by the Byzantine Greek scholar Maximus Planudes and printed in the original Greek (with Latin translation by Aldus Manutius), this edition of Aesop’s fables helped to make available a text essential to humanist education. Published in 1524 by the humanist printer Johann Froben, this edition was in fact his fourth printing of Aesop’s fables, others having already been issued by printers in London, Milan, Paris, Prague, Strasbourg, Valencia, Rome, as well as the Netherlands. Indeed, the works of Aesop had been among the first Greek texts to be printed following the invention of printing by movable type. Erasmus, whose work was replete with Aesop allusions and quotes, thought the fables central to education as material ideal to inform instruction in composition, moral training and classical languages. It is particularly interesting, therefore, to find that this copy is so closely connected to Renaissance Queens’, where Erasmus lived and taught Greek in 1511-14. Inscriptions on the title page reveal that in the mid-1520s, the volume belonged to one John Calverd (Calvard, Calver) a student at Queens’ (BA 1526/27; MA 1530) and later a fellow (1529-30). In accordance with common practices of the period, Calverd adorned specific pages in his copy with annotations, examples of which can be seen in the first fables on p. 102-111 where against the Greek he indicates word roots and verb conjugations, and against the Latin, alternative translations. In this way the copy offers invaluable evidence of how Greek might have been taught and studied at Queens’ both during the time of Erasmus and after it. Indeed, Calverd’s association with the college coincided with that of a whole generation of humanists inspired by Erasmus, in particular, Thomas Smith who as Greek lecturer famously sought to defend Erasmus’ proposed return to ‘authentic’ Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **83** ## Greek pronunciation. Various signs of ownership and use provide ample demonstration that the histories to be told in relation to this copy extend beyond John Calverd. One such sign on the title-page indicates that one ‘Antonius Nowellus’, possibly Anthony Nevill who attended Merchant Taylors’ School in c. 1610, also once owned this volume. His quotation on Thersites (from Thomas Cooper’s _Bibliotheca Eliotae_ ) interestingly attests to the intemporal status often enjoyed by early modern classical textbooks such as this, as they passed between multiple owners over the course of centuries. Other former owners include one Samuel W. Bates (18th-century) and the noted bibliophile, Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843). Foremost among the many reasons to celebrate the return to Queens’ of this volume is its status as testimony to the humanist spirit that flourished at the college during the Tudor era. As such it represents a formidable addition to the unique collection of humanist texts already held in Queens’ College’s Old Library. Annotations by John Calverd in the opening fable of ‘The Eagle and the Fox’. Courtesy of Queens’ College. **84** Friends of the National Libraries ## **QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES** **The Papers of Thomas Verner Jnr, relating to the Donegall Estate and the sale of Belfast (1846-1856). Bought from Robert Rubin Rare Books for £5,809, with the aid of a grant of £4,800 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Tim Eggington, Fellow Librarian, writes:_ The collection of papers in this collection is of a particularly local nature, they are the papers of Thomas Verner Jr. (1796-1875). Verner was appointed as receiver of the distressed Donegall estate in 1847 by the Chancery Court and retained this role under the new Encumbrance Act. Verner was related to the third Marquis of Donegall and acted as his agent in Belfast. The Donegall estate which comprised significant amounts of land in counties Antrim and Donegal included the town of Belfast. Initially a profitable estate it fell to bankruptcy in 1850 was directed to be sold under court order. The distressed state of the estate did not relate to circumstances associated with the famine in Ireland during the 1840s but rather to the irresponsible activities of members of the Chichester family, namely the third Marquess of Donegall, George Hamilton Chichester and his father, George Augustus, the second Marquess. The papers in this collection comprise approximately 700 documents spanning just over 20 years of a pivotal period in Ireland’s history 1840 to 1861. The papers and correspondence addressed to Verner, also include printed items and receipts which will be of interest to social historians, these comprise invoices and receipts for carriages, coach makers, hotels (some in France), horses, wine, silverware and crockery, plus leases for fisheries and postage stamps from 1849 for instance. Of particular interest to local historians and the non-expert audience will be the genealogical and topographical information relating to Belfast available in this collection as tenants, businesses and solicitors are noted in the discharge of debts associated with the sale of Belfast and areas nearby. In addition to the papers relating to the sale of the Donegall estate and Verner’s involvement in that activity are papers relating to Verner himself and his own business interests, some of which include the Cave Hill Railway Works in Belfast and local limestone quarries. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **85** The collection has been received and added to holdings at Special Collections & Archives. All of the papers have been transferred to archival standard folders and boxes and are now stored in our secure and environmentally controlled store. A box listing has been created so that all items are documented. This ensures they can made available for consultation even with these rudimentary notes as security can be maintained and easy management of the files is possible. A browse through the box listing indicates there is plenty of scope for calendaring exercises to be taken forward by MA history students which will give real skills development opportunities for these early career researchers. There are some documents which seem to be immediately interesting in terms of blog posts which will be useful to highlight this collection in our holdings and bring it to the attention of wider audiences through social media promotion at a later date. As more detailed cataloguing of this collection progresses collection level descriptions will be made available for resource discovery tools such as RASCAL www.rascal.ac.uk, the Archives Hub www.archiveshub.ac.uk from which resource they will be harvested by Archives Portal Europe (APE) www.archivesportaleurope.net to provide multiple access routes for researchers and the general public to information about the collections. Verner Papers MS 68, Box 3, Folder 4/4 Item 9 Receipt – Grand Hotel du Louvre January 1862. Courtesy of Queen’s University, Belfast. **86** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE ROYAL ENGINEERS MUSEUM, GILLINGHAM, KENT** **The Steer Webster Collection relating to the Mulberry Harbours. Bought from Mitchell’s Auctions (19 March 2020, Lot 1113) for £35,392, with the aid of a grant of £8,000 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Sam Jolley, Assistant Curator, writes:_ In Spring 2020, just before the world shut down, the Royal Engineers Museum was grateful to receive support from the Friends of the National Libraries to purchase an important Second World War collection. Colonel Vassal Charles Steer-Webster (1897-1970), Royal Engineers, was the Deputy Director of Experimental Engineering. This department was tasked with devising a means to land troops and supplies on the Normandy beaches less well defended than those with harbours. The result was two floating harbours, both similar in size to Dover Harbour, prefabricated in the dockyards of Britain, towed in sections across the Channel and constructed on the Normandy beachhead by Royal Engineers. Colonel Steer-Webster played a leading role in the design, development and trials of the Mulberry Harbour and was in almost daily contact with Sir Winston Churchill during its construction and development. The collection of Colonel Steer-Webster is a unique and significant archive of photographs, documents, medals and models relating to the design of the Mulberry Harbours owned by one of the principal designers. Of particular interest are the 150 black and white photographs of aspects of the Mulberry Harbour in construction and use, and 71 photographic slides that include design drawings and images of the final harbour. There is also an extensive scrapbook of the tour of Canada Colonel Steer-Webster made to show the Canadians how essential the Mulberry Harbours were to victory and that their casualties had not been in vain. Steer-Webster’s Army career spanned both World Wars and the collection includes items from his service during the First World War. The bullet removed from his buttock, invaliding him out of the infantry and into the Royal Engineers, is a particular favourite of the Assistant Curator. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **87** It is a unique record from a significant British Engineer working on one of the most urgent and innovative construction projects of the Second World War. Acquisition by the RE Museum has ensured the collection will become publicly available for the first time, and will be accessible to researchers when our newly redeveloped Research Room reopens in summer 2021. The long-term redevelopment plan for the Museum’s visitor experience includes the redesign of our First and Second World War Galleries. As an innovative solution to the logistical challenges of the Normandy Invasion, the Mulberry Harbours will feature prominently in the story told by this redesign. The Steer-Webster Collection will demonstrate the technical ingenuity of this remarkable feat of engineering in a way that the Museum’s current galleries lack. Additionally, the Museum is committed to STEM learning, both within its own Schools’ Learning Service and the Corps of Royal Engineers, and are currently developing a Mulberry Harbour outreach session. The photographs and models from the Steer-Webster Collection will contextualise a subject that can be quite difficult to grasp or visualise for those without an engineering background. As one of the Corps of Royal Engineers’ most famous and successful operational endeavours, this Mulberry Harbour archive needed to be with the Royal Engineers Museum. Thank you to the Friends of the National Libraries for helping us to make it publicly accessible. Left: Models used to design the Chocolate Mattress road ramps. Right: Female factory workers make the Chocolate Mattresses. Images courtesy of Mitchell’s Auction Company Ltd. **88** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE SALVATION ARMY HERITAGE CENTRE, LONDON** ## **Manuscript diary of unidentified member of The Salvation Army, Maldon, Essex, 1891-1901. Bought from a private seller for £500 and presented by the Friends of the National Libraries** _Steven Spencer, Director, writes:_ In 1865, William Booth, a former Methodist minister and his wife, Catherine, an independent evangelist, founded a Christian Mission in east London. In 1878 this mission became ‘The Salvation Army’ and adopted military style uniform for its members and a military terminology renaming its ministers as ‘officers,’ its members as ‘soldiers,’ places of worship as ‘corps’ and William Booth as ‘The General.’ From its London origins, The Salvation Army spread across the whole of the UK by 1880 and had some 1,400 corps by 1890. The corps at Maldon opened in 1887. This modest diary of 80 pages was written by an (as yet) unidentified member or ‘soldier’ at the Maldon corps (the diary does not identify the corps, but we were able to match the officers mentioned with those appointed to Maldon using contemporary Salvation Army periodicals). The diary is in two small volumes (both lacking covers and the first few pages) and the second volume begins with several pages of recipes, indicating that it probably began life as a recipe book and was only later repurposed as a diary. The entries usually comprise only a single sentence and are separated by gaps of weeks or even months. Little evidence is included about the author’s life beyond a few references to named individuals “coming home” (including Willie, seemingly a member of the armed forces, and Edie, another Salvationist) who may be relations of the author. The most significant reference to the author’s domestic life is the characteristically short entry for 9 November 1900: “Dear Mother Died. Her end was peice [sic]”. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **89** The diary’s entries focus, almost exclusively, on the activities of Maldon corps and predominantly on the number of people ‘saved’ in each meeting. The author seems to have consciously employed a wide variety of expressions for this, including: “three got the victory over the Devil,” “two sinners left their all at Jesus feet,” “one backslider returned to the fold,” “two at the foot of the cross” etc. Notes are made of the regular profits from fundraising efforts including the annual Self Denial collection (when Salvationists give up “some little luxury” for a week and give the money to their corps) and various special events are recorded, which show the Maldon corps’ connection to a wider Salvation Army context, such as the Bicycle Brigade on their evangelical tour of Essex. Despite its limited content and the dearth of information about its author, this diary is a significant accession. While we hold several diaries written by officers, we have none by a member of a corps. ‘Soldiers’ were often from working class backgrounds and this may partly account for the lack of diaries; indeed the spelling and grammar here may indicate that the author had a limited education or was only used to writing infrequently. We also hold relatively few corps records from as early as the 1890s, so we rely on personal diaries such as this one for a record of the day-to-day activities of a Salvation Army corps. Diary entries, 25 March-9 May . Courtesy of The Salvation Army International Heritage Centre, London. **90** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR ST ALBANS MUSEUM + GALLERY** **Fragment of Sulpicius Severus,** _**Life of St. Martin**_ **, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [St Albans, 12th century]. Bought from Bloomsbury Auctions (8 July 2020, Lot 39) for £10,750, with the aid of a grant of £2,000 from the Friends of the National Libraries.** _David Thorold, Curator of Collections (Pre-Historic to Medieval), writes:_ St Albans grew to be the premier Benedictine Monastery in England and became renowned for its written works. Its library was one of the largest in the country, and the Monastery home to two of the country’s finest chroniclers, Matthew Paris and Thomas Walsingham. Chronicles, Missals, scientific tracts, classical works and humanist writings were produced or copied by monks or professional scribes working as part of St Albans’ Scriptorium. The dissolution of the monasteries led to the library of St Albans becoming spread far and wide. Many of its manuscripts now survive in various national and academic collections, and while the abbey’s chroniclers have become justly famous for their works there are no surviving examples of the scriptorium’s work earlier than the 15th century in St Albans. The manuscript fragment. Courtesy of St Albans Museum + Gallery. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **91** According to medieval accounts St Martin of Tours (c. 317–397) was a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity after an encounter with a halfnaked beggar at the gate of the city of Amiens. Martin cut his cloak in half in order to share it with the beggar, who that night appeared to him in a dreamvision and revealed himself to be Christ. Martin renounced the army and founded a hermitage in Ligugé that became the first monastery in Gaul. He was appointed bishop of Tours in 371, and then founded and became abbot of the abbey of Marmoutier. After his death, St Martin was associated with many miracles and he became the patron saint of France. The remaining half of Martin’s cloak was used by the kings of France as a royal banner in war, and they swore sacred oaths upon it. The legend of St Martin’s cloak was first recorded in the _Vita sancti Martini_ (Life of St Martin) of Sulpicius Severus (363–c. 425). Severus, a native of Aquitaine and a Christian, also wrote a chronicle of sacred history, but his Vita became especially popular in the middle ages and would have been an obvious candidate for the St Albans Library. This copy is in the hand of Scribe ‘B’ of St Albans, probably the head of the scriptorium at the time This small rectangular cutting of 12 lines of Anglo-Caroline minuscule allows the museums service for the first time to display an example of the work of the scriptorium in the hand of one its own monks, demonstrating the style and skill of the Scriptorium team and providing a link to the works of the other acknowledged masters of the Abbey. It is to form a central part of an exhibition on the works of the Abbey running at the St Albans Museum + Gallery beginning in July 2021. **92** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS** **The second (1612) and third (1613) editions of Josuah Sylvester’s** _**Lachrimae Lachrimarum**_ **, an elegy for Henry, Prince of Wales, bound together in one volume. Bought from Peter Harrington Rare Books for £7,500, with the aid of a grant of £6,000 from Friends of the National Libraries (B.H. Breslauer Foundation Fund).** _Elizabeth Henderson, Rare Books Librarian, writes:_ In 2020 the University of St Andrews was able, through the generosity of the Friends of the National Libraries, to purchase a rare and fascinating volume containing two editions of Josuah [Joshua] Sylvester’s mourning poetry for Prince Henry. The volume contains the bookplate of the bibliophile Sir Thomas Brooke (1830-1908) of Armitage Bridge House, near Huddersfield. The privately printed catalogue of his library from 1891 suggests that the editions were not bound together at that point, and that the cataloguer was unaware that ‘Sundry Funeral Elegies’ was the second part of the third edition of _Lachrymae Lachrymarum_ , as it is described as ‘apparently forming part of a larger work’. Sylvester (1562/63–1618) was a poet and translator who sought patronage from James VI & I and his eldest son Prince Henry. Prince Henry became his main patron, granting him an annual pension. In _Lachrimae Lachrimarum_ Sylvester joined the public mourning and literary outpouring of grief that followed Henry’s sudden death in November 1612. The 1613 edition also includes verses by poets such as Hugh Holland, Henry Cornwallis, Sir Edward Herbert, Sir Henry Goodyear, Sir William Sidney, and contains the first printing of ‘Look to me, Faith; and look to my Faith, God’, by John Donne. This is one of only seven poems which Donne allowed to be printed in his lifetime, as he preferred to circulate his verse among a restricted audience in manuscript. James VI & I and Prince Henry have a particular connection to the Library at the University of St Andrews, through their gifts of books. Henry’s gift is dated 4 August 1612 (just months before his death) and by the time his books had arrived and were listed he is referred to as ‘of sacred memory’. An early library inventory in the muniments collection here thus captures a very particular historical moment and links to the shock felt across the country at Henry’s death. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **93** Many of the books published in response to Henry’s death used visual metaphors to enhance their expression of grief, for example by printing a ‘field of tears’ on the title page. The extremely unusual printing technique of whiteline woodcuts, with white outlines or lettering on an otherwise black page, epitomised mourning. Sylvester’s work is a particularly ambitious example of this, with each verso printed entirely in black apart from the Prince’s coat of arms, coronet and garter, while on the rectos woodcut borders of skeletons and cadavers enclose the text. As Sarah Werner has pointed out, the Early English Books Online digitised images (from a microfilm) for the third edition shows the title page with conventional black lines on white – that is, the image has been wrongly ‘corrected’, and now misrepresents the original white lines on a black title page. Acquiring a physical copy of this book allows our students to encounter the design accurately, but it will also be a powerful teaching tool to discuss the authenticity of digital images of rare and early printed books – a subject which has newly been introduced to the Material Bibliography curriculum, but which is of increasing importance for researchers in any aspect of the history of the book. An opening showing the black verso with the Prince’s arms in white, and woodcut border with skeletons on the recto. Courtesy of the University of St Andrews There are already plans to incorporate this exciting purchase into a variety of modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. There is research interest from academics working on Prince Henry and the Stuarts, notions of imperial monarchy under James VI and I, printing history and the use of woodcuts in English books, and the poetry of John Donne. The bibliographical complexity of the editions was singled out as a particular attraction by our early modern specialists. Close study of the volume since it arrived has thrown up intriguing possibilities for further research into the different states of the printing, with evidence that the arrangement of the woodcut borders is not identical on every page of different copies of what are identified as the same state. **94** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS** ## **Four albums of photographs created by the Andersonian Naturalists’ Society, late 19th century and c. 1904, bought for £1,100 with the aid of a grant of £600 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Victoria Peters, University Archivist, writes:_ The Andersonian Naturalists’ Society is amongst the earliest student societies at the University of Strathclyde. It was founded in 1885 by students at Anderson’s College, Glasgow, the antecedent of the University of Strathclyde, with the purpose of encouraging the study of natural science in all its branches. Observation in the field was regarded as critical and a notable characteristic of the society was its successful excursion programme. From the beginning, photography was of great importance and the exhibition of photographs became a usual feature of meetings. Indeed, in 1930, in the annals of the society, one member claimed ‘… no photographs of animals in the field, of plants in situ, or of natural scenery, from the scientific naturalists’ point of view, are to be seen anywhere of greater excellence than those which are from time to time shown upon the screen at our meetings.’ The four albums contain 149 photographs documenting excursions of the Society to a number of locations in Scotland. Ayrshire is particularly well represented. One album, for example, is almost entirely devoted to Culzean Castle. There is an especially striking view of a large fig tree in the castle’s kitchen garden, with a person standing next to it for scale. Other locations in Ayrshire represented are Greenan Castle, Auchendrane and the Heads of Ayr. The Society did not confine itself to Ayrshire– the members visited and photographed other locations in Scotland too. There are photographs of Cadzow near Hamilton, as well as several locations and buildings in Argyll and Bute including Loch Fyne, Arran, Islay, Sanda Island, Saddell Castle and Skipness Castle. Birds’ nests and eggs were a particularly popular subject. Included are the red-breasted merganser, the common or arctic tern, the oyster-catcher, the meadow-pipit, the rock-pipit, the wren, the red-breasted drab, the coot and Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **95** various types of gull. Trees were another popular subject, with examples of the oak, the silver fir, the scots fir, the grey poplar, the maple, the beech, the wych-elm and the hawthorn. Other subjects include cattle, adders, rivers, lochs, waterfalls, rock formations and landscapes. There are also a number of arresting group portraits of members of the Society, both men and women, relaxing on their excursions. The purchase of these albums has helped us fill a clear gap in the University Archives – we had no photographs amongst our records of the Society and, furthermore, no records of the Society at all before 1930. For one of our earliest student societies, and one which attached such significance to photography, this was a real omission and we are delighted that, due to the help of the Friends of the National Libraries, we have been able to rectify that. Top: A group photograph of the Andersonian Naturalists’ Society. Left: An espalier fig tree in the kitchen garden at Culzean Castle. Courtesy of the University of Strathclyde. **96** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THOMAS PLUME’S LIBRARY, MALDON** **Ten volumes (16th and 17th century) from Thomas Plume’s Library. Bought from Forum Auctions (20 September 2020, various lots) for a total of £20,312, with the aid of a grant of £10,812 from Friends of the National Libraries (B.H. Breslauer Foundation Fund).** _Dr Helen Kemp, Plume Librarian, writes:_ Thomas Plume’s Library is an extraordinary survival. In 1704 Dr Thomas Plume (1630-1704), Archdeacon of Rochester, bequeathed his collection of c. 8,000 books to his birthplace, Maldon, to establish a public lending library in the redundant Church of St Peter. The library is still housed in the same building and the books are on the original shelves. The books are mostly from the 16th and 17th centuries, they were printed all over Europe, and encompass a wide range of topics. In the early 20th-century, when Thomas Plume’s Library was still a lending institution, many books went missing. In 1987 a local resident noticed that a book bearing the library’s Ex Libris inscription was being offered for sale in a New York book auction. He clubbed together with some friends and bought the book for the Library. The Librarian then made a careful comparison of the previous two catalogues and noted down details of all the missing books. The Friends of Thomas Plume’s Library were formed and, since that first book was discovered, they have sought to help the Trustees in buying replacement books – in a few cases the originals. When searching auction catalogues the librarians sometimes come across a couple of books from missing list but - to some amazement - in the auction of the Fox Pointe Library, held in September 2020, twelve books were identified. Our rare books appraiser recommended a maximum bid for each and, with only a few days before the auction, the Friends of the National Libraries generously offered a flexible grant (to augment a sum offered by the Library’s own Friends) to enable us to bid for the books. We were very lucky to get ten of the twelve books we wanted (the remaining two were sold far above the recommended value). The books are in very good condition and we are delighted to have been able to bring them home to Plume’s library. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **97** The books purchased are as follows: - Gregory Martin, A discoverie of the Manifold Corruptions of the Holy Scriptures by the Heretikes of our Daies, first edition (1582); - Herman Hugo, The Siege of Breda, translated by Captain Henry Gage, first edition in English (1627); - Gildas, The Epistle of Gildas, the Most Ancient British Author, Faithfully translated out of the Originall Latine [by Thomas Abington], first edition in English (1638); - Martin Lluelyn, Men-Miracles. With other poems, first edition (1646); - James Shirley, Poems, etc, first collected edition (1646); - Thomas Heywood, Merlins Prophesies and Predictions Interpreted and their truth made good by our English Annalls, with the Life of Merlin (1651); - Nicolas Villaut, A Relation of the Coasts of Africk called Guinee, second edition (1670); - Juan Palafox Y Mendoza, The History of the Conquest of China by the Tartars, first edition in English (1671); - Murtadha ibin Al-Khafif, The Egyptian History, treating the pyramids, the inundation of the Nile, and other prodigies of Egypt, first edition in English (1672); - Samuel Haworth, A description of the Dukes Bagnio, and of the Mineral Bath and New Spaw thereunto belonging, first edition (1683). Illustration detail from Thomas Heywood’s, Merlins Prophesies and Predictions (1651). Courtesy of the Trustees of Thomas Plume’s Library. **98** Friends of the National Libraries **FOR THE NATIONAL ART LIBRARY, VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM Manuscript diary (1940-1949) of the artist Duffy Ayers (1915-2017). Bought from Maggs Brothers Ltd. for £5,000, with the aid of a grant of £2,000 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Jonathan Hopson, Librarian, writes:_ Elizabeth Fitzgerald (known as ‘Duffy’) trained at the Central School of Art, where she met the painter Michael Rothenstein. They married in 1936 and eventually settled in Great Bardfield, Essex, where they became members of the artists’ community which gained national renown in the 1950s through a series of large open-house exhibitions. Her own career was initially subordinated to supporting Rothenstein. However, after their divorce in 1956, she married the graphic artist Eric Ayers and moved to London, where she resumed painting and regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy. A representative collection of her work is held at the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden. **----- Start of picture text -----**
Detail from the Duffy Ayers (then Rothenstein),
Diary, 1940-1949 (MSL/2020/1). Courtesy of the
National Art Library, V&A Museum.
**----- End of picture text -----**
Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **99** This diary chiefly covers the years 1940-1942, when she travelled the country with Rothenstein who was then working for the Recording Britain project. This had been devised by Kenneth Clark as a means of employing artists in wartime, to document threatened landscapes and ways of life, and to encourage the characteristically British art of watercolour. The project assembled some 1,500 topographical paintings and drawings (including over 40 by Rothenstein) which were given to the V&A by the Pilgrim Trust in 1949. The diary provides context for the creation of Rothenstein’s pictures; it also describes in frank, passionate detail the emotional dynamics of the often fraught marriage of two artists. Duffy characterised her husband’s melancholic intensity as “Here was a man, made like a tree, but with fine roots and rich sap flowing in his head... His mind is like fire ... what agony was in his eyes, though he smiled”. After periods of separation and reconciliation, the move to Great Bardfield in 1941 brought some stability to their relationship, which even survived the crisis of Rothenstein’s love-affair with Duffy’s twin sister Peggy. Touchingly, her final entry notes “My son was born May 26. 1949. Bliss”. The diary is also valuable for its lengthy observations of the Rothensteins’ artistic friends and associates, such as Graham Sutherland, Augustus John and Robert Graves. These are written with a distinctively female perspective, musing on the burden of household drudgery shouldered by the wives of creative men “which tends, in most women’s cases to dull their imaginative side, to demoralize them, even in very small degrees, which, finally, comes to kill their natural originality”. The Museum is grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for assisting with the acquisition of a manuscript which documents the lives and works of several artists represented in its collections. Believed to be previously unknown to scholars, it will be cared for and made available in the National Art Library. **100** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR WILTSHIRE & SWINDON HISTORY CENTRE** ## **Letters Patent issued by Charles I under the Great Seal, dated 20 July 1626. Bought from Bonhams (11 March 2020, Lot 51) for £7,875, with the aid of a grant of £2,775 from Friends of the National Libraries.** _Terry Bracher, Heritage Services Manager, writes:_ In 2020, the Friends of National Libraries assisted This letters patent, written on one skin of dust-stained vellum, measures 450 x 740mm, is in good condition in wholly legible Latin. It was issued on 20 July 1626, in the second year of the reign of Charles 1 under the Great Seal of England, which is still attached and in also well preserved. Embossed at the head of the document is a half portrait of the regent, holding the orb and sceptre, with a historiated first line, topped with fine decoration across the header. Accompanying the original document is a 17th-century legal transcript, written in English, which adds a great deal to the evidential value, as it ensures easier understanding for those without Latin training. The importance of the document in terms of understanding Swindon’s development as a town through the ages cannot be understated. Nowadays, the town is closely associated with the Great Western Railway, which certainly put the town on the map. However, prior to Brunel & Co. laying down the famous train line between Bristol and London, Swindon was a vibrant and locally important market town, as ordained by this Charter. The Victoria County History of Wiltshire notes that Swindon has been known as a market town since the 13th century when, in 1289, it was referred to as Chipping Swindon. However, the royal authority, set out by the Charter in 1626, allowed Thomas Goddard to hold regular and continuous markets “to have & to hold within the town of Swindon one Markett every Monday in the week” for ever “& two Faires there yearly”. This will have greatly enhanced its reputation and allowed the market, and in turn the town, to flourish. It is important to note that the Charter not only benefitted Thomas Goddard, but all the inhabitants of the town who wished to sell at the market, as they would be free from all stallage, picage and tolls linked to the market. Indeed, the right and ability for markets to be held in Swindon will have made it the focal point for the surrounding area and will have had a progressively positive impact on the town’s development. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **101** Thomas Goddard (1580-1641) was a member of the Goddard family, a prominent in Wiltshire family throughout the centuries, who initially purchased the manor at Swindon in 1563, and thereafter have regularly occupied important political positions within the authorities of the town and county. This is reflected in modern Swindon, with parks, pubs and streets all brandishing the Goddard name. The markets instigated by Thomas Goddard, which were flourishing by the late 17th century, must have been one of the most important contributors to the growth and prosperity of the town prior to the 1840s and the arrival of the railway. The FNL grant towards the purchase of the Charter has ensured not only that it sits in ideal archival conditions to ensure its long-term preservation, but that it also sits in an appropriate home, in the company of its documentary relatives within the Swindon Borough Council records. The item is now catalogued and findable via our online catalogue under the Ref No - G24/001/2 and is available for public consultation. The Swindon Market charter. Courtesy of Bonhams. **102** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR THE FELLOWS’ LIBRARY, WINCHESTER COLLEGE** _**Qâdi Zâda Al-Rûmî, Shareh Mulakhas Al-Jaghmini fī al-Hay’a**_ **(Commentary on the Compendium of Cosmology), Arabic manuscript on paper, late 15th century. Bought from Sokol Rare Books for £13,500, with the aid of a grant of £3,500 from the Friends of National Libraries.** _Richard Foster, Fellows’ Librarian and Keeper of Collections, writes:_ Qâdi Zâda Al-Rûmî (1364–1436) was a Turkish astronomer who worked at the observatory in Samarkand, under the direction of Ulugh Beg (d. 1449). He made an important contribution to the flowering of Arabic science in Timurid Iran as one of the authors of a new star catalogue (the _Zīj-i Sulṭānī_ ) and a textbook on arithmetic. The present work, compiled by Qâdi Zâda around 1412, is a commentary on al-Jaghmini’s introduction to astronomy, written in the early thirteenth century and the most widely circulated Arabic treatise on Ptolemaic cosmology. Detail from the _Sharh al-Mulakhas fi’Ilm al-Hay’a_ a decorated manuscript on polished paper, late 15th century. Courtesy of Sokol Books. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **103** Qâdi Zâda’s commentary itself became a popular work and many manuscripts survive. The majority of these, however, date from the 17th and 18th centuries. Winchester’s copy is an unusually early example, made within decades of the author’s death. It also stands out for the fine quality of its diagrams in red and black ink. These are largely concerned with the movement of celestial bodies, showing the spheres of the planets, lunar phases and solar eclipses. The text is written in neat, formal _Nastaliq_ calligraphy on polished paper. An early reader has made use of the ample margins to make annotations. There are several ownership inscriptions and stamps to the endpapers, as well as quatrains of Persian poetry. The red morocco binding is Persian and dates from the early 18th century. This acquisition enhances the College’s strong collection of scientific books. Among the earliest of these are medieval and Renaissance works from the bequest of William Moryn (d. 1543). Two 18th-century donations, from Charles Scott (1750) and Robert Shipman (1762), brought to the library many key texts of the Early Modern period, including first editions of Kepler, Newton and Hooke. Two items at Winchester provide particularly interesting comparisons with Qâdi Zâda’s work: a fifteenth-century manuscript of Roger Bacon’s _Opus Maius_ , and an early printed edition of _Sacrobosco’s De Sphaera Mundi_ with Peuerbach’s _Theoricae Novae Planetarum_ (Venice, 1490). These works draw on many of the same classical sources, and include illustrations of some of the same astronomical phenomena, as the Arabic manuscript. Together, they form an invaluable teaching resource for showing the exchange of scientific ideas between Eastern and Western cultures in the middle ages. In 2021, the manuscript will go on public display as part of a temporary exhibition in the College museum. Further images and detailed information are available via Winchester’s online collections database www.winchestercollections.co.uk. **104** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR YORK MINSTER ARCHIVES** ## **A volume of c.110 pieces of printed ephemera relating to special services at York Minster, c.1880-1904. Bought from Forum Auctions (3 December 2020, lot 132) for £500 and presented by Friends of National Libraries.** _Peter Young, Archivist, writes:_ The conduct of services is the primary function of York Minster, the mother church of the Northern Province, and the records of those services are, therefore, of prime importance for the study of its history, the history of the province and the history of the wider Church in England. Printed ephemera, in particular orders of service, are, where available, the best source of information about services held at the Minster. The ephemera relating to special services contained in this volume are arranged into the following sections: ‘Advent to Christmas’, ‘Ash Wednesday to Good Friday’, ‘Easter to Whitsuntide’, ‘Special services in time of war’, ‘Military [services,] dedicatory etc.’, ‘The royal family’, ‘Archbishops, bishops and deans’, and ‘Miscellaneous’. They comprise mainly orders of service with some libretti, hymn sheets, prayer requests, memoranda, orders of procession and pamphlets. Their final system of arrangement is the second to which they have been subject: both appear to have been the work of the same person. The ephemera bear two sets of manuscript numbering (the old numbering has been struck out or amended where in conflict with the new), and the volume contains two manuscript tables of contents, one referring to the old numbering, the other referring to the new numbering. The volume’s 20thcentury morocco binding, by Potter and Sons of York, is gold-tooled with ‘York Minster’, ‘Special Services’ and the Minster arms. The earliest piece in the special-services volume appears to be the order for the installation of Arthur Perceval Purey-Cust as Dean of York, which office he held from 1880 to 1916; the same order of service is also the earliest item in the series of orders of service in the Chapter archive. It was Purey-Cust who, to popularize the Minster’s services, had the scheme of music for the week printed from 1881; and presumably it was also Purey-Cust who introduced printed orders of service. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **105** The orders series includes only 51 items for the period covered by the special-services volume, which therefore contains a relatively large number of pieces not in the orders series. Among these pieces is a memorandum of Queen Victoria’s visit in 1893; orders for services on the 63rd anniversary of her accession (1900) and the day of her funeral (1901), the latter of which is accompanied by a slip containing the words of a hymn in her memory, written by Purey-Cust and set to music by Minster Organist Thomas Tertius Noble; a request for prayers for ‘the speedy restoration of peace in the Transvaal’ (South African War, 1899-1902); and an early order for a service ‘for Society for Preventing Cruelty to Animals’. Some of the items in the orders series, which appears to be based on deposits made in the 1960s and 1970s by the Minster’s chamberlain, bear numbers that match the old numbering in the special-services volume. During the period covered by the volume, the chamberlain’s duties were carried out by the chapter clerk, suggesting that he may have been its compiler. We are most grateful to Friends of National Libraries for making possible the acquisition of this valuable item. Slip containing the words of a hymn in memory of Queen Victoria, written by Dean Purey-Cust and set to music by Organist Tertius Noble, [1901]. Courtesy of Forum Auctions. **106** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FOR YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, LEEDS** ## **Memorandum Book of a Yorkshire wool merchant (1772-3). Bought at Forum Auctions (16 July 2020, Lot 125) for £6,250, with the aid of a grant of £3,125 from Friends of the National Libraries** _David Asquith, President, writes:_ In 2020 Yorkshire Archaeological & Historical Society had an unexpected chance to acquire a manuscript ‘Memorandum Book’ for sale at a London auction house. Time to assemble the financial backing required to top up the Society’s own funds was short, but thanks to rapid and generous decisions by the Friends of the National Libraries, the Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Scheme and donations from individual members the Society was able to mount a successful bid. Competition was stiff and the hammer price of £5,000 (plus premium) was significantly higher than the auctioneer’s estimate, which makes the Society especially grateful for the support which it received from FNL and others. The curious nature of the manuscript itself may well have accounted for the price - it is a miscellany of personal thoughts and reflections on national events, human nature or the weather, but frequently relating to the textile industry in which the compiler, John Brearley of Wakefield, was engaged as a cloth ‘frizzer’. His interest in his industry is also evident in this manuscript, which he compiled in 1772-73, and includes 140 line-drawings to illustrate his ideas about the machinery of the day. One note by Brearley indicates that it is his _twelfth_ such book, which strongly suggests that two other similar memoranda books spanning 1758-62 are the first and second in a series which he kept over an extended period of time. These other books were given to the Leeds City Archives many years ago, and edited extracts were published in the Society’s Yorkshire Record Series in 2001. Whether or not his other nine volumes have survived, or whether any more followed number twelve, we do not know. Acquisitions by Gift and Purchase **107** Water power was essential – this diagram shows how it could be used to drive a frame. Below it are some remarks about preventing grease from spoiling plush during the ‘friseing’ process. At present the Society has no plans to print extracts from this latest volume. Rather, it is intended to make digital images of the whole manuscript available online, free of charge. The handwriting is largely sufficiently legible so it requires only an introduction by a historian of the period, perhaps accompanied by some explanatory text. Regrettably, thanks to that wellknown epidemic, it has so far proved impossible to bring this plan to fruition. Given the distance in time between this manuscript and the other two, there is the possibility of comparative study of their contents in the social and economic context of the later 18th century. For example, the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce was founded in 1754 and the British Museum in 1756. The newspaper the _North Briton_ appeared in 1761; Hargreaves invented his ‘spinning jenny’ in 1764 and Arkwright his frame in the same decade. How many such events found their way into John Brearley’s mind and inspired him remains to be seen. Brearley had settled in Wakefield, Yorkshire, but was a Lancashire man and entertained a conventional prejudice against Yorkshire people. Images courtesy of Yorkshire Achaeological & Historical Society. **108** Friends of the National Libraries ## **Trustees’ Report** The Trustees present the annual report and the financial statements of Friends of the National Libraries (‘the Charity’ or ‘FNL’) for the year ended 31 December 2020. Reference and administrative details of the Charity, its trustees and advisers are set out on pages 2-3. ## **OBJECTIVE AND ACTIVITIES** The principal objectives of the Charity, as set out in its constitution, are to promote the acquisition of printed books, manuscripts and records of historical, literary, artistic, architectural, musical or such-like interest by ‘National Libraries’ and to assist them in any other way which the Charity considers appropriate. ‘National Libraries’ are defined to include the national libraries of the United Kingdom and any university, county, local authority or other library, record office, museum or gallery to which the public has access and which in the opinion of the Trustees constitutes a proper repository for any proposed acquisition. The Charity aims to achieve these objectives through making grants, thus enabling National Libraries to acquire items for their collections that would otherwise be unaffordable. The export of nationally important manuscripts and printed books is often avoided with the help of substantial grants by the Charity. Grants to county record offices, university libraries and other specialist archives play an essential role in enabling those institutions to acquire documents, archives and printed books that are of great importance for researchers, scholars and historians. Trustees’ Report **109** ## **Grant-making policies** All grants are given to National Libraries, as defined in ‘Objectives and Activities’ above. The Charity’s two main criteria when awarding grants are the historical, literary and other qualities of the proposed acquisition and its significance to the applicant’s collection. Price, condition and provenance are also taken into account. Each applicant is required to give an undertaking that it will not sell the item newly acquired, will acknowledge the help given by FNL on all matters concerning the item, will keep the acquisition in secure and environmentally sound conditions, and will make it available for the public to enjoy on request if it is not on view at all times. Grants from the Philip Larkin Fund are made for the restricted purpose of purchasing modern literary manuscripts and archives. The Trustees have the power to spend the capital as well as the income of the Philip Larkin Fund but have decided always to retain a minimum sum of £250,000 in this fund. Other grants from restricted funds are made from the Smaller Libraries Fund to aid smaller, non-national institutions and from the B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund to support the purchase of rare printed books and fine bindings. Since its establishment in 1932, FNL has helped over 320 institutions, to acquire thousands of items. Scholars, researchers and historians can use the printed books, manuscripts, musical scores, photographs and other items acquired by the beneficiaries. **110** Friends of the National Libraries The Trustees have given careful consideration to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit. FNL’s core objective is to support acquisitions by archives, libraries, universities, museums and specialist collecting institutions, the public benefits that flow from this are: - i. Saving locally, nationally and internationally significant material for the nation. - ii. Making it possible for the public and researchers to access this written and printed material that would otherwise have been lost to the public domain. - iii. Supporting the nation’s collecting institutions and enabling them to enrich their collections with acquisitions that would be beyond their resources to acquire without our support. We believe this greatly benefits the institutions supported, those who access and use their collections, and also the public realm. These benefits are clearly demonstrated by the essays in this Annual Report. ## **Main objectives for 2020** The Trustees’ main objective for 2020 was to make grants from all funds of at least £200,000 excluding any special purpose grants, but in April 2020 (when the 2019 report was written) the effect of Covid-19 made it impossible to predict the probable decline in the level of 2020 investment income. The Trustees therefore qualified this financial objective by noting that, to the extent that investment income in 2020 fell below that of 2019, FNL’s ability to finance grants would suffer. The Charity’s investment advisers, Cazenove Capital Management, were given the investment objective of achieving capital growth with a good level of income and a total return in line with inflation over the medium term. Trustees’ Report **111** ## **ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE** ## **Grants** Details of the 39 grants made or committed by FNL in 2020 are given on pages 14 to 107. Their total value was £200,264 (of which £147,952 was charged to the Operating Fund, £51,312 to the B. H. Breslauer Fund and £1,000 to support costs. In addition in 2020 the Charity gave _The Book of Lismor_ e, a Medieval Irish decorated manuscript on vellum, to the UCC Educational Foundation, a UK registered charity established for the benefit of University College Cork. This manuscript was received as a restricted gift from the Chatsworth Settlement and was professionally valued at £500,000. In aggregate, therefore, the Charity made grants in 2020 of £700,264 (2019: £580,846). Further information on this restricted gift is set out below under the heading ‘ _The Book of Lismore_ and FNL’s Schedule 3 status’. ## **Membership** The support of FNL’s members is vital to its work as a charity. Subscription income enables FNL to award many more acquisition grants than would otherwise be possible. Moreover members also help to raise awareness of the Charity’s work and the grants it can give. Whilst all libraries and archives are welcome apply for grants, whether or not they are Institutional Library Members of FNL, membership is certainly encouraged for all those institutions that have received and apply for financial support from the Charity. The Trustees warmly welcome the new members who joined FNL in 2020. Sadly, a number were also lost through death, resignation or lapsed membership. At the end of 2019 FNL had a total of 640 members: by the end of 2020 this had fallen slightly to 637. Our members greatly value the work of FNL, indeed during the year one wrote: “We are proud to belong and congratulate you on your considerable achievements. The thought of _The Book of Lismore_ going to Cork is exciting enough in itself, but with your other grants and the Big Give added in, it makes for something especially substantial and precious in these difficult times.” **112** Friends of the National Libraries In 2019 FNL introduced a new online membership system, enabling those who intend to join to do so online and securely to set up a direct debit, or annual payment by credit card, in a matter of minutes. Members have found the system very easy to use, and members overseas have found the credit card payment option particularly useful. At the end of 2019, FNL upgraded its website at www.fnl.org.uk. This provided more readily accessible information about FNL to existing and potential members. It also allowed applicants for the first time to apply online for a grant: most applications are now made via the website and the simplicity of the system has been welcomed by libraries and archives. ## **The Book of Lismore and FNL’s Schedule 3 status** The Charity received an exceptional, restricted gift in kind, with a value of £500,000, from the Chatsworth Settlement in the form of _The Book of Lismore_ , a Medieval Irish decorated manuscript. The Book consists of 198 large vellum folios and contains important texts, many drawn from Irish tradition and others, that are translations of contemporary European works, showing that Ireland was deeply engaged with the contemporary European culture of the time. Since the 1640s _The Book of Lismore_ has belonged to the Cavendish family, Dukes of Devonshire, and their ancestors: it was kept at Lismore Castle, Co. Waterford, and more recently at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. The Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement donated the Book to University College Cork in recognition of academic and curatorial expertise at the university, and in appreciation of a very long and fruitful partnership between the Cavendish family and the University. FNL was involved because it is one of a very limited number of bodies listed in Schedule 3 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984. As such FNL can facilitate gifts to eligible institutions of previously exempted works of art without giving rise to a tax charge on the donor family, and it can enable acquisitions by eligible institutions of artefacts accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax. FNL received the manuscript as a restricted gift and gave it in turn to the UCC Educational Foundation, a UK registered charity established for the benefit of University College Cork. Trustees’ Report **113** FNL last used its Schedule 3 status in 2015 when it was awarded an exceptional grant of £583,920 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund in order to facilitate the acquisition by the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, of the original Brontë family dining table: FNL paid that sum to the vendor of the table. The Charity is delighted to have been asked to play its part in enabling the Chatsworth Settlement to make a gift of _The Book of Lismore_ to University College Cork. ## **Fundraising** Budgetary pressures on libraries and archives continue to be intense and this situation will be exacerbated once the full financial implications of Covid-19 are felt in institutions’ budgets. There is also a worry that these pressures could be increased by sales of rare printed books, manuscripts and other collections as a direct result of the impact of Covid-19. This, combined with significant increases in the prices that archives, manuscripts and books can now command, means that all but the most modest acquisitions can be out of the reach of regional as well as many national repositories without significant support from charities such as FNL. FNL’s help is thus increasingly vital for institutions seeking to save collections for the nation. Total income from fundraising in 2020, including subscriptions, amounted to £1,101,035 (2019: £499,355), of which restricted donations comprised £538,505. The restricted donations included the major gift in kind of _The Book of Lismore_ described above (£500,000) and the grant from B.H. Breslauer Foundation (£38,505). Three generous gifts were made to the Prince of Wales Fund, increasing its level by £439,302. The B.H. Breslauer Foundation has been enormously generous to FNL over very many years. Grants from FNL’s B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund have, in particular, supported the acquisition of rare printed books and fine bindings. During 2020 a further generous donation of $50,000 was received from the B.H. Breslauer Foundation, making it possible to award a further seven grants from that fund (listed on pages 12-13). The Trustees are indebted to Foundation’s Directors and to its President, Mr Felix de Marez Oyens, who also generously contributes his expertise as a Trustee of FNL. **114** Friends of the National Libraries FNL ran a Christmas fundraising campaign on the Big Give platform to increase the funds that FNL has to support smaller libraries, archives and specialist institutions. Donations from some 60 individuals, many of whom are FNL members, amounted to over £13,000 of which £10,000 was matched by Big Give, bringing the total to a remarkable £23,619. In early 2021 the Smaller Libraries Fund received a further major boost with an enormously generous grant of £20,000 from the Murray family, to whom we are indebted for their continued support of FNL. We are also grateful for donations received during the year from many members including David Beckham, former Trustee Miriam Gross, and current FNL Trustee Mark Storey. The Scouloudi Foundation once again supported the work of FNL with a further annual grant. The Trustees are most grateful to all of these donors, and those who prefer to remain anonymous, for their generosity. The Trustees are also grateful to Uber for, once again, supporting the cost of producing this annual report. Their sponsorship frees up FNL funds and allows more grants to be awarded than would otherwise be possible. ## **Legacies** A number of FNL members have generously remembered the charity in their Wills. During 2020, FNL received the final instalment of a very generous legacy from the late Alan Gillitt, a former member. The evergreen benefaction of the late David Hall (1947-2015) continues: he was the Deputy Librarian of Cambridge University Library, and left FNL a share of the proceeds of the sale of the residue of his library. In 2020 FNL received almost £3,000. A number of members have indicated their intention to leave a legacy to FNL in their wills, for which we are most grateful. Any member considering a bequest can find information on our website, www.fnl.org.uk and can email FNL at admin@fnlmail.org.uk. We will be delighted to provide guidance. Trustees’ Report **115** ## **Events and other benefits for members** The Annual General Meeting was held on 25th June 2020 but, because of Covid-19 restrictions on meetings and concerns over the use of public transport, it was held as a closed meeting, without the usual address by a distinguished figure. Members did not attend it in person, but all members were sent the 2019 Annual Report, the notice of Annual General Meeting, a Form of Proxy for voting and an email address for questions. Sadly it is advisable also to hold the 2021 AGM by Zoom, as set out in this year’s Notice of AGM. The Trustees very much regret that circumstances have forced this unwelcome but prudent decision. FNL’s popular visits programme was likewise unable to proceed but the Trustees expect to resume these FNL visits in 2022. FNL members who regularly take part in these visits did, however, enjoy a great variety of virtual visits, online exhibitions and talks, links to which Nell Hoare sent them by email. The FNL Briefing on Acceptance in Lieu and the Cultural Gifts Scheme that was to have been held in London April 2020 was also thwarted by lockdown. In December an FNL Briefing on grants for acquisitions was offered via Zoom. This proved extremely popular: 30 attendees were planned but in the event 42 librarians and archivists from all four home nations took part. It is hoped that the FNL Briefing on Acceptance in Lieu can also be held via Zoom during 2021, as this platform does make it possible for colleagues based far from London to attend with ease. The Charity’s website includes information about FNL visits and other events for members (when they resume), news from the sector as well as a database of all grants awarded since FNL was founded in 1931 (www.fnl.org.uk). FNL can also be followed on twitter (@FNL313). We continue to be most grateful to the institutions that have been awarded grants in the past and which offer free entry or other concessions to FNL members, helping to make FNL membership more attractive. Organisations that support us in this way include Cambridge University Library, The University of Glasgow Library, Dove Cottage, Milton’s Cottage, the Friends of the Bodleian Library and Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books in Newcastle. **116** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FINANCIAL REVIEW** As the financial statements set out following this report show the constituent funds of the Charity separately, each is given separate comment below. ## **The Operating Fund** The unrestricted Operating Fund records all the income and expenditure of FNL, except the restricted and endowment funds. In 2020, the total income of this fund amounted to £232,805 (2019: £264,087). Subscription income amounted to £33,773 (2019: £47,970): the fact that fewer new life members joined in 2020 than in 2019 explains the reduction. Other donations and legacies amounted to £89,455 (2019: £84,315). Investment income fell from £125,584 to £109,577 as a direct consequence of the pandemic, which caused many companies to reduce or cancel their dividends. Thirty-two grants were paid or committed by FNL from the Operating Fund in 2020. The aggregate value of grants awarded from this fund amounted to £148,893 (2019: £186,238). Expenditure on the costs of running the Charity borne by this fund fell to £39,842 (2019: £52,609). The reason for the decrease is that 2019 carried the additional administration costs of implementing the increase in subscriptions and the expense of designing a new website with an integral online membership system that enables new members to join online, and applicants to apply for grants online. After taking into account all income and expenditure, the net surplus in the Operating Fund amounted to £44,070 (2019: £23,528). This sum was transferred to the General Endowment fund. Trustees’ Report **117** ## **The Philip Larkin Fund** In 2020, the Philip Larkin Fund received investment income of £11,129 (2019: £16,185) but paid no grants (2019: three grants paid amounting to £35,668). After investment management fees of £1,573 and unrealised losses on investments contained in this fund of £14,441 (2019: unrealised gains of £30,051), the balance of this fund at the year-end was £319,930 (2019: £324,815). ## **The Smaller Libraries Fund** In 2020 the Smaller Libraries Fund received no income. The balance of this fund at the year-end was £625 (2019: £625), the generous donations made via Big Give and the Murray family having been confirmed and received after the year-end. ## **The B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund** Since 2012 the B.H. Breslauer Foundation, the President of which is Mr Felix de Marez Oyens, a Trustee of FNL, has generously made a series of grants to FNL to be added to its B. H. Breslauer Fund. In 2020 a further grant was received from the Foundation of £38,505 (2019: £75,856). Seven grants, totalling £51,312 were awarded by FNL from its B. H. Breslauer Fund in 2020 (2019: £70,537), and the balance of this fund at the year-end was £10,362 (2019: £23,169). ## **The Endowment Funds** The General Endowment Fund, which is expendable, comprises the accumulated unrestricted reserves of the Charity. In 2020 £44,067 was transferred from the Unrestricted Operating fund, £237 was transferred to the restricted funds and investment management fees of £15,916 were charged to the Endowment funds. In addition, the financial statements record unrealised losses on the investment portfolio of £99,098 (2019: unrealised gains of £315,658). The General Endowment Fund amounted to £2,432,785 at the year-end (2019: £2,503,969). **118** Friends of the National Libraries The Permanent Endowment funds comprise the Golden Jubilee Appeal Fund and the Prince of Wales Fund. They represent incoming donations and grants which cannot be expended by the Charity but all income arising from the investment of these funds is added to the Operating Fund. During 2020 generous gifts were given to the Prince of Wales Fund amounting to a munificent £439,303 (2019: nil). At the year-end, the Prince of Wales Fund stood at £1,440,283 (2019: £1,000,980), and the total of the Permanent Endowment Funds stood at £1,539,001 (2019: £1,099,698). ## **The balance sheet** The balance sheet on page 127 shows net assets at 31 December 2020 of £4,302,703 (2019: £3,952,276), comprising the investment portfolio at its market value of £3,869,819 (2019: £3,854,579) and net current assets (mostly cash, less commitments to make grants) of £432,884 (2019: £97,697). The investment portfolio at the year-end and the movements between 31 December 2019 and 2020 are summarised in note 7 on page 131. ## **Statement of cash flows** The statement on page 128 shows that proceeds from the sale of investments in 2020 amounted to £991,947 (2019: £400,073) and that £1,120,726 (2019: £422,171) was spent on the purchase of new investments. Details are given in note 7 on page 131. The other potentially significant factor in relating the Charity’s cash balances to its net income or expenditure is the extent to which the grants committed to in each year have been paid by the end of the year: the timing is completely outside the Charity’s control. The extent of such unpaid commitments decreased by £17,125 (2019: decrease of £32,903), thereby increasing the cash balances at the year-end. ## **Auditors** At the Annual General Meeting held on 25 June 2020, Mr Gregory Stevenson, of Knox Cropper LLP, London, was re-appointed as Auditor. Trustees’ Report **119** ## **Policies on investments and reserves** The Trustees have adopted a total return investment policy, intended to maximise total returns whilst accepting a medium degree of risk. To this end, the Charity’s investment portfolio comprises holdings in a diverse group of collective investment vehicles, some focussed on income and others on capital growth. Cazenove Capital Management has been given the investment objective of achieving capital growth with a good level of income and a total return in line with inflation over the medium term. Save for the restricted funds and the Permanent Endowment funds, which are identified in the balance sheet on page 127, all the Charity’s reserves are regarded as an expendable endowment fund and are shown under that heading in the financial statements. This fund is normally represented by investments in order to produce a reasonably predictable and regular level of income. The Trustees regard this as necessary to maintain and support the Charity’s operation. Any deficit on the Operating Fund is made good by a transfer from the General Endowment fund and any surplus is transferred to that fund. ## **Risks and uncertainties** Some years ago the Trustees identified that the principal risk to the Charity was that FNL’s financial resources could become inadequate to meet an increasing level of applications for grants from libraries and other institutions. The creation of the Prince of Wales Fund in 2017, which has now reached £1.44 million, has helped to mitigate this risk by generating additional investment income. Furthermore, the Trustees recognise that there is a risk to the Charity’s reputation should it make grants for acquisitions which suffer from uncertain provenance or which carry other problems of condition, value or suitability. The Officers of the Charity, and the Trustees as a group, pay particular attention to these factors when considering applications for grants. **120** Friends of the National Libraries ## **STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT** ## **Constitution** The Charity is governed by a constitution adopted at the annual general meeting held in June 1995. The present constitution is based on the constitution originally adopted at the first annual general meeting held in June 1932 and consolidates all subsequent amendments. ## **Trustees** The Trustees of the Charity are the Chairman and Honorary Treasurer, together with nine elected and seven _ex officio_ Trustees. The Charity’s Secretary, who is also the fundraising consultant, is not a Trustee. The Chairman and Honorary Treasurer are elected at the annual general meeting for a term of one year. The elected Trustees serve for a term of three years. Each ex officio Trustee holds office for as long as he or she holds the position indicated against his or her name on page 3. Candidates for election as a Trustee are proposed by the Trustees or by members of the Charity from their personal or professional contacts who are knowledgeable in the fields falling within the Charity’s scope, or who have knowledge or experience which can help the Charity to achieve its objectives. New _ex officio_ Trustees meet these criteria by virtue of their office. New Trustees are provided with a detailed briefing about the Charity (its history, aims and work) and supplied with key documents including Charity Commission guidance notes for Trustees. The names of the Trustees at the date of this report are set out on pages 2 and 3. All served throughout the year 2020 except as indicated in the following paragraph. Trustees’ Report **121** At the Annual General Meeting held on 25 June 2020 at the London Library Mr Geordie Greig, Chairman, and Mr Charles Sebag-Montefiore, Honorary Treasurer, were both re-elected. Mrs Rachel Bond and Mr James Fergusson retired as Trustees having served three years, and Ms Miriam Gross and Mrs Jenny Uglow also retired during the year. Mr Felix de Marez Oyens, Mr Stephen Clarke, Mrs Natalie Livingstone, Mr Peter Mimpress and Mrs Alexandra Sitwell were elected to fill the trustee vacancies. Members of the General Council, whose names appear on page 3, are appointed by the members at an Annual General Meeting. They act in a consultative capacity, either individually or collectively, and are not Trustees of the Charity. ## **Administration** Paul Celerier FCA acts as FNL’s Membership Accountant and Mrs Nell Hoare acts as the Charity’s Secretary. Mr Matthew Payne, Keeper of the Muniments at Westminster Abbey, kindly assists the Secretary in the role of Expert Adviser. ## **Trustees’ responsibilities** The Trustees are responsible for managing the affairs of the Charity and administering its funds and assets within the framework of any general policies agreed at an Annual General Meeting. They are responsible in particular for approving grants to institutions before any commitment is made. Approval is normally given at one of the regular meetings of Trustees but applications between meetings may be dealt with by email consultation. Furthermore, the Chairman and Honorary Treasurer have been empowered collectively to approve such applications for grants between meetings not exceeding £10,000. **122** Friends of the National Libraries The Trustees are also required to prepare annual financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom accounting standards. In preparing those statements, the Trustees: - select suitable accounting policies and then applies them consistently; - make judgements and estimates which are reasonable and prudent; - state whether applicable accounting standards have been followed – subject to any material departures that are disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and - prepare the financial statements on a going-concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the Charity will continue its activities. The Trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose the financial transactions and the assets and liabilities of the Charity with reasonable accuracy. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities. Trustees’ Report **123** ## **FUTURE PLANS** The Trustees do not expect there to be any significant change in the Charity’s aims, objectives or activities in the foreseeable future. The Charity’s main objective for 2021 is to make grants from all funds of at least £200,000 excluding any special purpose grants, subject to the level of investment income to be received in 2021 not being less than that received in 2020. Approved and signed on behalf of the Trustees on 16 March 2021 by: **GEORDIE GREIG CHARLES SEBAG-MONTEFIORE** Chairman Honorary Treasurer **124** Friends of the National Libraries ## **Financial Statements** ## **INDEPENDENT AUDITORS’ REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF FRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARIES** ## **Opinion** We have audited the financial statements of Friends of National Libraries (the ‘charity’) for the year ended 31st December 2020 which comprise the statement of financial activities, the balance sheet, the statement of cash flows and notes to the financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice). In our opinion, the financial statements: - give a true and fair view of the state of the charity’s affairs as at 31st December 2020 and of its incoming resources and application of resources for the year then ended; - have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and - have been prepared in accordance with the Charities Act 2011. ## **Basis for opinion** We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the charity in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion. ## **Conclusions relating to going concern** In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate. Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the charity’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue. Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report. ## **Other information** The other information comprises the information included in the annual report, other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. The trustees are responsible for the other information. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon. In connection with our audit of the financial statements, our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether there is a material misstatement in the financial statements or a material misstatement of the other information. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact. We have nothing to report in this regard. ## **Matters on which we are required to report by exception** We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 require us to report to you if, in our opinion: - the information given in the financial statements is inconsistent in any material respect with the trustees’ report; or - sufficient accounting records have not been kept; or - the financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records; or - we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit. Financial Statements **125** ## **Responsibilities of trustees** As explained more fully in the trustees’ responsibilities statement set out on pages 121-122, the trustees are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error. In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the charity’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the charity or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so. ## **Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements** We have been appointed as auditor under section 145 of the Charities Act 2011 and report in accordance with the Act and relevant regulations made or having effect thereunder. Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements. Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below: - The Charity is required to comply with the charity law and, based on our knowledge of its activities, we identified that the legal requirement to accurately account for restricted funds was of key significance. - We gained an understanding of how the charity complied with its legal and regulatory framework, including the requirement to comply with the Charity SORP, through discussions with management and a review of the documented policies, procedures and controls. - The audit team which is experienced in the audit of charities, considered the charity’s susceptibility to material misstatement and how fraud may occur. Our considerations included the risk of management override. - Our approach was to check that all income was properly identified and separately accounted for and to ensure that only valid and appropriate expenditure was charged to the Charity’s funds. This included reviewing journal adjustments and unusual transactions. A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at: www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor’s report. ## **USE OF OUR REPORT** This report is made solely to the charity’s trustees, as a body, in accordance with Part 4 of the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008. Our audit work has been undertaken, so that we might state to the charity’s trustees those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charity and the charity’s trustees as a body, for our audit work, for this report or for the opinions we have formed. **KNOX CROPPER LLP** | **Chartered Accountants** | **Statutory Auditors** **65 Leadenhall Street** | **London** | **EC3A 2AD** **19 April 2021** Knox Cropper LLP is eligible for appointment as auditor of the Charity by virtue of its eligibility for appointment as auditor of a company under section 1212 of the Companies Act 2006. **126** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARIES** ## **STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES for the year ended 31 December 2020** |**Note**
**Income from:**
**donations and legacies**
2
**investments**
3
**Total**
**Expenditure on:**
**grants to institutions**
**for the purchase of books,**
**manuscripts, archives**
**and bookbindings**
4
**raising funds**
5
**Total**
**Operating result**
**Net gains/(losses)**
**on investments**
7
**Net income/(expenditure)**
Transfers between funds
**Net movement in funds**
**Reconciliation of funds**
Total funds brought forward
**Total funds carried forward**|**Unrestricted**
**Restricted**
**Endowment**
**Total**
**Total**
**fund**
**funds**
**funds**
**2020**
**2019**
**£**
**£**
**£**
**£**
**£**
123,228
538,505
439,302
1,101,035
499,355
109,577
11,128
–
120,705 139,028
232,805
549,633
439,302
1,221,740
638,383
148,893
551,371
–
700,264
580,846
39,842
1,752
15,916
57,510
70,819| |---|---| ||188,735
553,123
15,916
757,774
651,665| ||44,070
(3,490)
423,386
463,966
(13,282)
_
(14,441)
(99,098)
(113,539)
345,709| ||44,070
(17,931)
324,288
350,427
332,427
(44,070)
239
43,831
–
–| ||–
(17,692)
368,119
350,427
332,427
–
348,609
3,603,667
3,952,276
3,619,849| ||–
330,917
3,971,786
4,302,703
3,952,276| Financial Statements **127** ## **FRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARIES** ## **BALANCE SHEET as at 31 December 2020** |**Note**
**Fixed assets**
Investments
7
**Current assets**
Debtors
8
Cash at bank and in hand
Total current assets
**Liabilities**
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
9
**Net current assets**
**Total net assets**
Representing
**The funds of the charity**
10
**Unrestricted income fund:**
Operating fund
11
**Restricted income funds:**
Philip Larkin Fund
12
Smaller Libraries Fund
13
B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund
14
Lund Trust Digitisation Fund
15
**Endowment funds:**
Expendable
16
Permanent
17
**Total funds**
18
Approved by the Executive Committee on 16 March 2021 and signed on its behalf by
GEORDIE GREIG
CHARLES SEBAG-MONTEFIORE
Chairman
Honorary Treasurer|**2020**
**2019**
**£**
**£**
3,869,819
3,854,579
52,150
11,081
481,910
207,441| |---|---| ||534,060
218,522
101,176
120,825
432,884
97,697| ||4,302,703
3,952,276| ||–
–| ||319,930
324,815
625
625
10,362
23,169
–
–| ||330,917
348,609| ||2,432,785
2,503,969
1,539,001
1,099,698| ||3,971,786
3,603,667| ||| ||4,302,703
3,952,276| ||| **128** Friends of the National Libraries ## **FRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARIES** ## **STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS for the year ended 31 December 2020** |**Cash fow from operating activities**
net income/(expenditure) for the year – see page 126
_Adjustments for:_
gains/(losses) on investments
income from investments
increase/(decrease) in commitments to make grants
(increase)/decrease in income tax recoverable
changes in other debtors and creditors
net cash provided by / (used in) operating activities
**Cash fows from investing activities**
income from investments
proceeds from sale of investments
purchase of investments
deposited with investment manager pending investment
net cash provided by / (used in) investing activities
**Change in cash and cash equivalents in the year**
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year
**Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year**
**Movement in net funds**
At 1 January 2020
Movement
At 31 December 2020|**2020**
**£**
350,427
113,539
(120,705)
(17,125)
(792)
(42,801)
282,543
120,705
991,947
(1,120,726)
–
(8,074)
274,469
207,441
481,910
207,441
274,469
481,910|**2019**
**£**| |---|---|---| |||332,427
(345,709)
(139,028)
(32,903)
18,596
(225,156)| |||(391,773)| |||139,028
400,073
(422,171)
–| |||116,930| |||(274,843)
482,284| |||207,441| |||482,284
(274,843)
207,441| Financial Statements **129** ## **FRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARIES** ## **NOTES ON THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 31 December 2020** ## **1. Accounting policies** ## **a) Basis of accounting** The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the Charities SORP (FRS 102), ‘Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102)’, with FRS 102 and with regulations made under the Charities Act 2011. A summary of the more important accounting policies is set out below. The accounts have been prepared to give a ‘true and fair view’ and have departed from the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 only to the extent required to provide a ‘true and fair view’. This departure involved following Accounting and Reporting by Charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS102) issued on 16th July 2014 rather than the Accounting and Reporting by Charities Statement of Recommended Practice effective from 1st April 2005 which has since been withdrawn. The Trustees consider that there are no material uncertainties about the Charity’s ability to continue as a going concern nor a significant risk that uncertainty over estimates made for the purpose of these financial statements may cause a material adjustment to the carrying value of assets and liabilities. The functional currency is the £ Sterling. The charity is a public benefit entity. ## **b) Income** Membership subscriptions (including life subscriptions) are recognised in the year in which they fall due. Grants receivable to defray expenditure incurred over a specified period are apportioned over the relevant period. Legacies are recognised in the period in which they are received or when receipt is otherwise probable. Other income is recognised in the period in which it relates. Donations for which no requirements are specified by the donor are recorded through the Operating fund or one of the Endowment funds, as appropriate. ## **c) Expenditure** Expenditure is allocated between charitable activities, raising funds and support costs. Expenditure on charitable activities comprises grants to institutions for the purchase of books, manuscripts, archives and bindings, and for support for the digitisation of and open access to manuscripts which, together with support costs, are charged to the appropriate fund when they have been committed to the intended recipient. Support costs are those costs which are not attributable to a single activity but provide the necessary organisational support for all the Charity’s activities. They comprise governance costs associated with constitutional and statutory requirements: the costs of the annual report and the annual general meeting are allocated to the cost of raising funds and all other support costs are allocated equally between the cost of grants to institutions and the cost of raising funds. The amounts concerned are allocated between the charity’s funds respectively in proportion to the number of grants committed and the number of receipts of voluntary income (other than receipts for the permanent endowment funds). ## **d) Investments** Investments are stated in the balance sheet at their market value on the balance sheet date. The resultant unrealised surplus or deficit is recognised in the fund to which the investments have been allocated. ## **130** Friends of the National Libraries ||**Unrestricted**|**Unrestricted**|**Unrestricted**|**Restricted**|**Endowment**|**Total**|**Total**| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |||**fund**||**funds**|**funds**|**2020**|**2019**| |||**£**||**£**|**£**|**£**|**£**| |**2.**|**Income from donations and legacies**||||||| ||**Grants receivable**||||||| ||for the Charity’s general purposes||–|38,505|439,302|477,807|81,856| ||for special purpose grants payable||–|500,000|–|500,000|281,000| ||||–|538,505|439,302|977,807|362,856| ||**Membership subscriptions**||||||| ||annual membership|26,496||–|–|26,496|25,851| ||life membership|2,400||–|–|2,400|17,350| ||income tax recovered on subscriptions|4,877||–|–|4,877|4,769| |||33,773||–|–|33,773|47,970| ||**Other donations and legacies**|89,455||–|–|89,455|88,311| ||**Other income**
||–|–|–|–|218| |||123,228||538,505|439,302|1,101,035|499,355| |**3.**|**Income from investments**||||||| ||distributions from investments|109,392||11,128|–|120,520|138,269| ||interest on bank balances and deposits|185||–|–|185|759| |||109,577||11,128|–|120,705|139,028| |**4.**|**Grants to institutions for the**||||||| ||**purchase of books, manuscripts,**||||||| ||**archives and bookbindings**||||||| ||from unrestricted funds for the||||||| ||purchase of books and manuscripts|147,952||–|–|147,952|186,238| ||from the Philip Larkin Fund for the||||||| ||purchase of modern literary archives||||||| ||and manuscripts||–|–|–|–|33,942| ||from the Smaller Libraries Fund for the||||||| ||purchase of manuscripts and archives||–|–|–|–|945| ||from the B. H. Breslauer Foundation||||||| ||Fund for the purchase of printed||||||| ||books and bookbindings||–|51,312|–|51,312|70,537| ||from the Lund Trust Digitisation Fund||||||| ||for support for the digitisation of||||||| ||and open access to manuscripts||–|–|–|–|6,365| ||from restricted grants||||||| ||for University of Cork (Book of Lismore)||–|500,000|–|500,000|–| ||for the Whitehouse Ruskin Collections||–|–|–|–|281,000| ||total of direct costs|147,952||551,312|–|699,264|579,027| ||support costs (see note 6)|941||59|–|1,000|1,819| |||148,893||551,371|–|700,264|580,846| ||Details of the grants made are set out on pages 14 to 107.||||||| Financial Statements **131** |**5. Expenditure on raising funds**
consultant’s fees and expenses
investment manager’s charges
other direct costs
total of direct costs
support costs (see note 6)
**6. Support costs**
governance costs:
annual report
annual general meeting
audit fee
other
Support costs were allocated in 2020 a
grants to institutions (note 4)
raising funds (note 5)|**Unrestricted**
**Restricted**
**Endowment**
**fund**
**funds**
**funds**
**£**
**£**
**£**
25,045
–
–
–
1,574
15,916
2,169
–
–|**Total**
**Total**
**2020**
**2019**
**£**
**£**
25,045
29,857
17,490
18,067
2,169
12,579| |---|---|---| ||27,214
1,574
15,916
12,628
178
–|44,704
60,503
12,806
10,316| ||39,842
1,752
15,916|57,510
70,819| ||
s set out in note 1(c), as follows:
941
59
–
12,628
178
–|11,806
7,296
–
1,200
2,000
2,000
–
1,639| |||13,806
12,135| |||1,000
1,819
12,806
10,316| ||13,569
237
–|13,806
12,135| |||| **7. Investments** The investment portfolio is managed by Cazenove Capital Management Limited, which selects the charity’s investments. The portfolio as at 31 December 2020 and the movements in the year are summarised in the following tables: |_Cost_
_Market_
_Prospective_
_value_
_annual income_
_£_
_£_
_£_
UK equity funds
1,076,814
1,056,438
44,542
International equity funds
1,301,547
1,593,157
38,327
Bond funds
338,425
377,433
10,262
Multi-asset funds
197,658
225,766
2,046
Alternative asset funds
593,983
617,025
21,779
3,508,427
3,869,819
116,956
**Movements in year:**
Market value at start of year

Deposited with fund manager pending investment
Cost of purchases
Proceeds of sale
Realised gains/(losses)
Unrealised gains/(losses)

Prior year adjustment

Movement in year

Market value at end of year|_Yield_
_£_
4.22%
2.41%
2.72%
0.91%
3.53%
3.02%
**2020**
**2019**
_£_
_£_
3,854,579 3,486,772
–
–
1,120,726
422,171
(991,947)
(400,073)
(31,128)
4,742
(82,411)
340,967
–
–| |---|---| ||15,240
367,807| ||–| ||3,869,819 3,854,579| ||| ## **132** Friends of the National Libraries |**8. Debtors**
subscriptions and grants receivable
income tax recoverable
other debtors
**9. Creditors: amounts payable within one year**
commitments to make grants
other creditors and accrued charges
|**2020**
**2019**
_£_
_£_
–
–
8,606
7,814
43,544
3,267| |---|---| ||52,150
11,081| ||**2020**
**2019**
_£_
_£_
91,694
108,819
9,482
12,006
101,176
120,825| ||| ## **10. The funds of the Charity** ## **Operating fund** The Operating fund is an unrestricted income fund which records all the income and expenditure of the Charity that is not subject to a restriction imposed by a donor or is more appropriately credited or charged to one of the Endowment funds. The income of the Operating fund may therefore be expended without restriction in furtherance of the Charity’s objectives. To the extent that the Operating fund incurs a deficit, it is made good by a transfer from the general endowment fund and any surplus is transferred to that fund. ## **Restricted funds** The Philip Larkin Fund, the Smaller Libraries Fund, the B.H. Breslauer Fund and the Lund Trust Digitisation Fund may also be expended, but for restricted purposes. The Philip Larkin Fund is restricted to the purchase of modern literary archives and manuscripts, the Smaller Libraries Fund to assisting local record offices, libraries and other institutions wishing to purchase manuscripts and archives that relate to their areas, the Lund Trust Digitisation Fund to the support of projects of digitisation and open accesss and the B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund to the purchase of printed books and bookbindings. Grants and donations received for specific purpose of making a grant to another institution are also recorded under Restricted funds. ## **Endowment funds** The permanent endowment funds may not be expended but the income from investing the funds is credited to the Operating fund. The general endowment fund is an expendable fund that comprises the accumulated reserves of the Charity, which may be expended without restriction in furtherance of the Charity’s objectives. |**11. Operating fund**
at beginning of year
income in year
expenditure in year
transfer (to)/from general endowment fund
at end of year|**2020**
**2019**
_£_
_£_
–
–
232,805
264,087
(188,735)
(240,559)
(44,070)
(23,528)
–
–| |---|---| Financial Statements **133** |**12. Philip Larkin Fund**
at beginning of year
income in year
expenditure in year
investment gains/(losses)
transfer from general endowment fund
at end of year
**13. Smaller Libraries Fund**
at beginning of year
income in year
expenditure in year
transfer from general endowment fund
at end of year
**14. B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund**
**(The B H Breslauer Foundation Fund for Printed Books and Manuscripts)**
at beginning of year
income in year
expenditure in year
transfer from general endowment fund
at end of year

**15. Lund Trust Digitisation Fund**
at beginning of year
income in year
expenditure in year
transfer from general endowment fund
at end of year
**16. Expendable endowment fund**
**General fund**
at beginning of year
expenditure in year
investment gains/(losses)
transfer from/(to) operating fund
transfer (to) restricted funds
at end of year|**2020**
**2019**
_£_
_£_
324,815
313,617
11,129
16,815
(1,573)
(35,668)
(14,441)
30,051
– –| |---|---| ||319,930
324,815| ||625
945
–
625
–
(945)
–
–| ||625 625| ||23,169
17,850
38,505
75,856
(51,312)
(70,537)
–
–| ||10,362
23,169| ||–
6,365
–
–
–
(6,365)
–
–| ||–
–| ||2,503,969
2,181,374
(15,916)
(16,341)
(99,098)
315,658
44,067
23,528
(237)
(250)| ||2,432,785
2,503,969| ||| **134** Friends of the National Libraries ## **17. Permanent endowment funds** |at beginning of year
received in year
at end of year|**Golden**
**Prince**
**Total**
**Total**
**Jubilee**
**of**
**2020**
**2019**
**Appeal**
**Wales**
**Fund**
**Fund**
**_£_**
**_£_**
**_£_**
**_£_**
98,718
1,000,980
1,099,698
1,099,698
–
439,303
439,303
–| |---|---| ||98,718
1,440,283
1,539,001
1,099,698| ||| ## **18. Analysis of net assets between funds** **For the year ended 31 December 2020** |**Analysis of net assets between funds**
**For the year ended 31 December 2020**|||||| |---|---|---|---|---|---| |||**Net current**|**Total**||**Total**| ||**Investments**|**assets**|**2020**||**2019**| ||**_£_**|**_£_**|**_£_**||**_£_**| |Unrestricted fund|–|–|–||–| |Restricted funds:|||||| |Philip Larkin Fund|318,880|1,050|319,930||324,815| |Other funds|–|10,987|10,987||23,794| ||318,880|12,037|330,917||348,609| |Endowment funds:|3,550,939|420,847|3,971,786||3,603,667| ||3,869,819|432,884|4,302,703||3,952,276| |**For the year ended 31 December 2019**|||||| |||**Net current**|**Total**||**Total**| ||**Investments**|**assets**|**2019**||**2018**| ||**_£_**|**_£_**|**_£_**||**_£_**| |Unrestricted fund|–|–|–||–| |Restricted funds:|||||| |Philip Larkin Fund|333,917|(9,102)|324,815||351,890| |Other funds|–|23,794|23,794||109,348| ||333,917|14,692|348,609||461,238| |Endowment funds:|3,520,662|83,005|3,603,667||3,471,265| ||3,854,579|97,697|3,952,276||3,932,503| ||||||| Financial Statements **135** ## **19. Comparative Statement of Financial Activities for 2019** The table below is given in compliance with the new SORP requirements in order to provide the split between the operating and endowment funds for the previous year, 2019. |**Note**
**Income from:**
**donations and legacies**
2
**investments**
3
**Total**
**Expenditure on:**
**grants to institutions**
**for the purchase of books,**
**manuscripts, archives**
**and bookbindings**
4
**raising funds**
5
**Total**
**Operating result**
**Net gains/(losses)**
**on investments**
7
**Net income/(expenditure)**
Transfers between funds
**Net movement in funds**
**Reconciliation of funds**
Total funds brought forward
**Total funds carried forward**|**Unrestricted**
**Restricted**
**Endowment**
**Total**
**fund**
**funds**
**funds**
**funds**
**2019**
**2019**
**2019**
**2019**
**£**
**£**
**£**
**£**
138,503
360,852
–
499,355
125,584
13,444
–
139,028| |---|---| ||264,087
374,296
–
638,383| ||187,950
392,896
–
580,846
52,609
1,869
16,341
70,819| ||240,559
394,765
16,341
651,665| ||23,528
(20,469)
(16,341)
(13,282)
–
30,051
315,658
345,709| ||23,528
9,582
299,317
332,427
(23,528)
250
23,278
–
–
9,832
322,595
332,427
–
338,777
3,281,072
3,619,849
–
348,609
3,603,667
3,952,276| **20 Transactions with trustees and connected parties** The trustees received no remuneration or reimbursement of expenses. Certain trustees, or persons or charitable organisations connected with them, made donations to the Charity of £57,314 during the year (2019: £77,256). **136** Friends of the National Libraries ## www.fnl.org.uk Registered Charity number 313020 Cover image: Account book for the Walrond family estates at Bradfield, Devon, possibly depicting William Walrond (1610-c.1667; see page 44). Courtesy of the South West Heritage Trust. Inside covers: Pages from Duffy Ayers’s diary, including an index to the locations in which the diary was written, while Michael Rothenstein painted watercolours for ‘Recording Britain’ (see page 98). Courtesy of the National Art Library, V&A Museum. Iij Ih{ q 4C?,£/ IJA OIL r km&g ?,l 26: i&f&. lji IW Y 4SI 4LJM¥ p. e. YK l(tr(. IJ Jlifvr4d_ k£* IrL •é