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Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS
Administrative Information	2
Annual Report for 2025	4
Acquisition Grants and Donations	32
Trustees’ Report	198
Financial Statements	214

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Administrative Information

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Administrative Information

Royal Patron: Chair: Honorary Treasurer: Secretary: Membership Accountant: Honorary Expert Adviser:

HM The King Mr Geordie Greig FSA Mr Charles Sebag-Montefiore CBE FSA FCA Mrs Nell Hoare MBE FSA FIIC Mr Paul Celerier FCA Dr Matthew Payne FSA

Trustees

Ex-officio

Dr Jessica Gardner University Librarian, University of Cambridge Rebecca Lawrence (to 3 November, 2025) Chief Executive, British Library

Dr Rhodri Llywd Morgan National Librarian, National Library of Wales

Tina Morton

Secretary, Historical Manuscripts Commission Mr Richard Ovenden OBE FSA Bodley’s Librarian, Bodleian Libraries Mrs Amina Shah FRSE National Librarian, National Library of Scotland

Elected

Scottish Representative

Dr Iain Gordon Brown FSA, FRSE

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

CAF Bank Limited 25 King’s Hill Avenue, West Malling Kent ME19 4JQ

Design

www.72ptdesign.com

Tom Ayling Stephen Clarke FSA Artemis Cooper Anthony Davis FSA Dame Lisbet Rausing Mark Stevens FSA Mark Storey Professor Kathryn Sutherland Joan Winterkorn MBE FSA

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Annual Report for 2025

Annual Report for 2025

Overview of acquisition grants and donations made during the year.

The year saw a record for the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries with the award of 79 grants, many more than it has ever given before in a single year. In addition, nine grant offers were made that could not be taken up as the applicants were outbid at auction.

This Annual Report also includes details of a grant of £20,000 to Glasgow Life towards their acquisition of Archive of Alasdair Gray (1934-2019) . This grant was awarded, and accounted for, in 2024 but the purchase was not completed by the end of that year.

Our regional reach continues to be extended, with grants to nine archives and libraries in England, Scotland and Wales that had never previously applied to us. Of the 79 grants, 31 were awarded to county archives or record offices, 18 to universities, 15 to specialist libraries and museums, seven to national libraries and museums and eight to non-national museums. The distribution of the contents of two mixed lots mentioned below meant that the 2025 grants benefitted well over 100 separate libraries and archives, in all.

With one exception, all the grants were awarded for the acquisition of rare books and archives. As reported last year thanks to the generous response to our special appeal by individuals, trusts and foundations, in 2024 we were able to buy the 13th-century Sarum Master Bible and donate it to Salisbury Cathedral Library. Such was the generosity of donors that we raised additional funds which during 2025 were paid to Salisbury as a special grant to cover the cost of a new scholarly catalogue of the medieval manuscripts at the cathedral, as well as workshops and lectures for adult and children and other events, as you can read on pages 28-31.

Left: Portrait of Alasdair Gray. Right: Cover art from Something Leather . © The Estate of Alasdair Gray.

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PRINCIPAL GRANTS FROM THE OPERATING FUND

In all 64 grants were financed from the Operating Fund, at a total cost of £261,207. The largest were two grants of £20,000 and the smallest was under £100, due to mixed auction success for the grantee.

The British Library was awarded £20,000 towards their acquisition of five pre-eminent manuscripts from Longleat House (13th to 15th centuries) . A large group of FNL members visited the BL during 2025 and had the opportunity closely to examine several of these manuscripts along with other treasures acquired with FNL’s assistance over the last nine decades. FNL members who attended the 2025 AGM and Annual Lecture learned about the complications surrounding the archive of Clarissa Eden (Countess of Avon) ; these were successfully resolved, enabling its acquisition by Birmingham University, where they join the papers of Anthony, Earl of Avon, thanks to a grant of £20,000. A grant of £15,000 was awarded to Chawton House for a collection of 30 letters by 19th-century women writers to various recipients.

There was a natural history theme to a number of grants from the Operating Fund and two from the John R. Murray Fund (see John R. Murray Fund below). A grant of £10,795 enabled the Royal College of Surgeons to acquire Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737-1739) , while a grant of £5,750 helped St John’s College, Cambridge, to acquire Jane Wallas Penfold’s Madeira Flowers, Fruits, and Ferns (1845) , which was of particular interest as it was once part of the library of St John’s alumnus William Wordsworth. Finally, a grant of £3,100 enabled Gilbert White’s House and Gardens to acquire a letter of 1777, partly in the hand of the naturalist Gilbert White .

Right: Gilbert White, Ink and Pen portrait. Courtesy of Gilbert White’s House and Garden. Opposite: Plate 344 Black Coral [ Corallium nigrum ] from Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal. Courtesy of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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Bids for family, estate and related papers are frequently supported by FNL, and in 2025 ten acquisitions fell into this category. Four were financed from the John R. Murray Fund and are highlighted below; the rest were financed from the Operating Fund. Hampshire Archives (grant of £5,576) acquired the BiggWither Archive (16th to 20th centuries) , while £2,500 enabled Royal Berkshire Archives to acquire a group of documents relating to the Barrington family and Beckett House, Shrivenham (1742-1832) . Cambridgeshire Archives found, in the surprising location of South Africa, a volume containing a terrier of the property of John Chettoe in Chesterton (1768) and a transcript of an earlier terrier of the same lands (1694) which they secured with a full grant of £350. Thanks to a grant of £450 Kresen Kernow bought a manorial survey book for the manor of Ashton Barret, with a plan of land in the parish of St Dominick, dated 1811 , and with a grant of £1,940 Essex Record Office secured a volume of manuscript copies of deeds of land in Belchamp St Paul, 1297-1586 .

Opposite: Detail of the binding of MS5300. Courtesy of Lambeth Palace Library. Right: Some of the recipes collected by the 2nd Viscount Barrington. Courtesy of Royal Berkshire Archives.

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There was a theme of ‘returns’ to some of our grants during 2025. A major grant from the John R. Murray Fund (see below) awarded to Beckford’s Tower and Museum in Bath enabled the return of some of William Beckford’s books to his library. Thanks to a grant of £17,691, South West Heritage Trust was able to acquire an important map of Kingsbridge in Devon (1586 ); estate maps of the 16th century are rare and this sort of view (part plan, part bird’s eye) even rarer, so the return to Devon of this wonderful map is very significant. Several smaller grants facilitated other returns. For some years FNL has supported the tireless efforts of Thomas Plume’s Library in Maldon to replace the titles that went missing during the 20th century, and in 2025 copies of three 17thcentury books from Plume’s original collection were returned to Maldon (grant of £2,621). Thanks to a grant of £1,343, a two-volume edition of Erasmus’ Paraphrases (1535) has now returned to St John’s College, Cambridge, to which it was originally presented in the 16th century – a spectacularly delayed return of a book thought to have been borrowed from the library more than 400 years ago. The final return, to Bruce Castle Museum thanks to a grant of £1,750, was of Pieter van Foreest’s Observationum et curationum medicinalium (1606) from the library of Joseph Fenton (1565-1634) at his Tottenham house, adjacent to what is now the Museum.

Shelley, E. M. Forster, Dickens and Gibbon feature among the ‘literary letters’ bought with our help in 2025. Assisted by a grant of £4,500, King’s College Cambridge bought letters and other documents from the estate of Norman Routledge written by or about the novelist E.M. Forster (1879-1970) . East Sussex Brighton and Hove Record Office acquired a charming letter from Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) to Maria Josepha Holroyd (1771-1863) thanks to a grant of £2,100, while a letter from Charles Dickens to Pauline Viardot (1821-1910), 19 January 1863 , was acquired by the Charles Dickens Museum with a grant of £1,100. Contemporary literature was represented by the National Library of Scotland’s acquisition of a further tranche of the literary papers (1992-2025) of Kathleen Jamie (born 1962), who served as the fourth Makar (Scotland’s poet laureate) from 2021-2024, FNL’s grant of £10,000 helping to bring NLS’s Jamie collection up to the present day.

Opposite: Title page of volume one of Tomus primus[-secundus] paraphraseon in Novum Testamentum , Erasumus. By permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge.

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The RIBA Library acquired a manuscript planning brief for the remodelling of Old St Paul’s Cathedral under the supervision of Inigo Jones, c.1631 . This exceptional survival relates to the remodelling of St Paul’s Cathedral carried out in the 1630s by the command of James I. Peterborough Archive Services bought 28 volumes of architects’ notes and sketchbooks (grant of £169) with drawings and notes on buildings in and around Peterborough. In contrast, Keble College Oxford acquired letters from John Betjeman to Percy Muir (1955) which add to the already complex picture of Betjeman’s architectural tastes and in particular the work of Keble College architect William Butterfield. Designers of the engineering kind were represented by the purchase, by the National Railway Museum, of George Stephenson’s letter to his son (1828) which documents the technological innovation that subsequently informed the building of the Rocket locomotive (grant of £2,250). With a grant of £6,000 the Institution of Civil Engineers acquired the notebook covering 1755-1758 of James Brindley (1716-1772) , a famous 18th-century canal engineer; there are only four known notebooks in Brindley’s hand in existence.

Top, left: George Stephenson’s letter to his son, 1828. Courtesy of the Science Museum Group.

Left: Engraving of James Brindley (1716-1772) by Robert Dunkarton, after a painting by F Parsons. Courtesy of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

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An insight into the social and military history of Caithness during the Napoleonic era is provided by an Adjutant’s Orderly Book of the 2nd Battalion Caithness Volunteers (1804-1808) , bought by Highland Archives (grant of £960). In similar vein ‘A New Song addressed to the Loyal Volunteers of Burton Bradstock’ (1804) , bought by Dorset History Centre with a grant of £175, offers a glimpse of the patriotic fervour of the period as expressed in music and song in the coastal communities of Dorset faced with the threat of invasion.

A number of acquisitions were related to law and order or, in the case of the acquisition by the National Library of Wales (NLW), the lack thereof. Captain Charles Johnson’s A general history of the pyrates, from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence to the present time (1726) , bought by NLW with a grant of £3,750, recounts the lives of 34 pirates, including two Welshmen. West Sussex Record Office acquired police ledgers (19th century) and three lots of legal documents (17th-19th centuries) with a grant of £1,259, whilst East Sussex, Brighton and Hove Record Office acquired a Police occurrence book (January – December 1898) for the borough of Eastbourne , a place where there appears to have been relatively little crime (grant of £265). The incident notebook of PC William Pearson of the York Police (1892-1902) shows that at the same period the city’s force was rather busier; it was bought by York Archives and Libraries with a grant of £2,633.

On a medical theme, a grant of £3,350 helped the Royal College of Physicians acquire François Umeau’s In circulationem sanguinis Harveïanam exercitatio anatomica (1659) ; Umeau contested William Harvey’s discovery that the blood is in constant motion around the body. The City of Doncaster bought a volume of witness statements given at Doncaster Coroner’s Court 1859-1872 , a rare survival in that city and indeed anywhere (grant of £704). The medical theme continued with purchases by Dorset History Centre (grant of £943) of ‘A Short Narrative of the Life of Giles Lawrence Roberts M.D. (written by Himself)’ (1799) from Bridport, and the Essex Record Office’s purchase of medical notes of Dr Jonas Asplin of Prittlewell, 1826-1830, with earlier notes from lectures, 1792-1797, and diary entries, 1827 (grant of £1,314).

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The second was to Cambridge University Library which received £20,000 towards its acquisition of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) material from the collection of W.B. Tegetmeier (1816-1912) , a significant addition to the Library’s Darwin Archive. Earlier members of the Darwin family featured in a grant to Erasmus Darwin House (£7,014) for correspondence between Erasmus Darwin and family with the cotton spinner, engineer and inventor William Strutt (1756-1830) . Erasmus Darwin was a renowned physician, a prolific inventor, botanist and more; he is now recognised as laying the foundations of the intellectual acumen of his grandson Charles.

An autograph letter of Mary Shelley to Claire Clairmont, with a clipped signature of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 2 May 1837 , was acquired by the KeatsShelley Memorial Association thanks to a grant of £10,000 from the Fund.

A grant of £3,900 to Herefordshire Museums & Galleries enabled the purchase of two different editions of the Thomas Andrew Knight’s Pomona Herefordiensis (1811) and The Herefordshire Pomona (1876–1885) , one of the earliest and most comprehensive scientific studies of British fruit varieties.

Left: Illuminated calligraphy from manuscript by Esther Inglis, ‘Argumenta in Librum Geneseos Esthere Inglis manu exarata Londini 1606’ (Acc 14768). Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. Above: Plate XXVIII. The Cowarne Read, from Pamona Herefordiensis by Thomas Andrew Knight, published in 1811. Courtesy of Herefordshire Museums and Galleries.

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Six smaller grants were made to county record offices, many of which have no acquisitions budget at all. The earliest material was acquired by West Sussex Record Office and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. With a grant of £492 the former purchased a warrant between William Cecil and John Aylwyn relating to lands in Heyshott and West Dean, West Sussex, 1596 ; the latter bought Isabella Geffrey of Ilmington’s manuscript release and quitclaim for land at Ilmington near Shipston on Stour, Warwickshire (c.1300) , thanks to a grant of £329.

Two early 20th-century albums of photographs illuminating farming and rural life in Perthshire were acquired by Perth Archives thanks to a grant of £263. A grant of £149 allowed North East Wales Archives (NEWA) to buy eleven lithograph maps from a first edition Boundary Commission Report for England and Wales (1868) . The smallest grant from the Fund was for £77, which helped NEWA to buy one lot, a 19th-century map from the archive of Gwysaney Hall ; the grant offer was much larger but sadly they were outbid for the other lots they had hoped to acquire.

An early reaper-binder on a Perthshire farm. Courtesy of Perth Archives and Local Studies.

Deed of cottage in Stebbing, January 1711. Courtesy of Essex Record Office.

The final grant from the John R. Murray Fund was for £452 to Essex Record Office for a mixed which contained items of Essex interest, including a deed of a cottage in Stebbing (1711), a note written by Sir Robert Petre and letters from Lady Anne Hamilton (1766-1846) . However, the lot also contained several 17th- and 18th-century deeds that were not from Essex. These were transferred by ERO to six other repositories Somerset, Devon, East Riding and elsewhere. Thanks to the willingness of ERO to distribute the non-Essex material from these two mixed lots (see Operating Fund above for the other), two grants totalling £760 benefitted of nearly 50 different repositories.

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GRANTS FROM THE PHILIP LARKIN FUND

The second and final tranche of the literary archive created by Roger McGough (born 1937) , poet, performer, and broadcaster, was acquired by Liverpool University with the help of a grant of £20,000 from the Philip Larkin Fund.

GRANTS FROM THE UNWIN TRUST FUND

In its distribution of the entire Blavatnik Honresfield Library collection to 70 libraries, FNL donated 36 books to Beckford’s Tower and Museum in Bath. Of these 31 were known to have been in the ownership of William Beckford (1760-1844) at his library in Bath. This donation doubled the number of Beckford volumes in the collection. In 2025 a major grant of £23,475, of which £11,750 was from the Unwin Fund, added to this group by the purchase at the sale of the library formed by Barry Humphries of three books, one written by William Beckford (1760-1844) under a pseudonym, and two from Beckford’s collection . The latter two contained annotations by Beckford that were far more extensive than are generally found in his books.

Left: Beckford’s notes in his copy of Irving’s Memoirs of George Buchanan (1807).

Scaffold ephemera. Courtesy of University of Liverpool Library; photograph © Syndication International, Mirror Group.

The recently acquired books. Courtesy of Beckford’s Tower and Museum, Bath Preservation Trust.

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Salisbury Cathedral

The Sarum Master Bible: research, access and engagement

In 2024 FNL bought the 13th-century Sarum Master Bible and donated it to Salisbury Cathedral Library. Thanks to the generosity of our many donors we are also supporting the preparation of a scholarly catalogue of the Library’s medieval manuscripts (image right) as well as a programme of other activities. In 2025 FNL paid an exceptional grant of £33,398 which, together with funds that were raised during the campaign but paid direct to Salisbury, is funding these activities.

Jilly Wright, Head of Development, writes: A reception to thank the Bible donors was held in the Cathedral on 25 February 2025. Dean Nicholas Papadopulos, Geordie Greig and Anne Dutton spoke to the assembled guests. Alongside the Bible, a selection of enlarged photographs from the manuscript was on display, which permitted close examination of the text and illustrations not possible by eye alone.

The digitisation of the Bible presented considerable challenges as the book is thick, with nearly 600 leaves, and very tightly bound. Fortunately, Lynda Sayce was able to photograph each leaf with no loss of text in the gutter margin.

The Bible was displayed in the Cathedral for a total of four months in 2025. We were delighted to welcome a group of FNL members to the Cathedral on 15 October 2025 to see the Bible and examine other medieval documents in the Cathedral Library. There have since been 14 other organised visits to see the Bible in the Library.

----- Start of picture text -----
The catalogue is being prepared by Rodney Thomson, Professor Emeritus of the
University of Tasmania, who has published eight catalogues of medieval manuscripts.
Image courtesy of Salisbury Cathedral.
----- End of picture text -----

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On 20 October, medieval manuscript expert Christopher de Hamel delivered a talk about the Bible in the Cathedral; it was a tour de force that captivated the packed audience.

A selection of images from the manuscript was printed and laminated to create a handling collection for use by school groups and visitors. A series of free art workshops was arranged in the Cathedral for adults and children to try calligraphy, using quill pens, and to make illuminated letters using coloured inks and gold leaf.

In March and April 2026, for a total of six weeks, the Bible was again on display in the Cathedral in conjunction with two events: a talk by Michelle Brown, former Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and a study day in the Cathedral Library, taught by Michelle Brown in collaboration with the London Rare Books School at the University of London.

In January 2025, Professor Thomson began working remotely, using the existing 1880 catalogue and digitised copies of the microfilms of the manuscripts (which were made in the 1970s). He worked in the Cathedral Library in May and again in August and September 2025 and will return in August 2026. So far, preliminary descriptions have been completed for manuscripts 1-86. Already many new discoveries have been made, including hitherto unknown provenance inscriptions, and many texts have now been correctly identified.

Additional specialists have visited the Cathedral Library to help with the cataloguing, including Professor Nigel Morgan from Cambridge University, who is examining the liturgical manuscripts, and Shaun Thompson, Conservation Manager at Cambridge University Library, who is looking at the manuscripts that are still in medieval bindings.

The cataloguing is taking place over four years; it will be published in physical and electronic format by Boydell and Brewer.

Opposite, clockwise from top left:

Dr Christopher de Hamel giving a lecture on the Sarum Master Bible. © Cassie Dalby. Adult Art Workshop – creating a decorated initial. Children and Families Art Workshop – calligraphy. Adult Art Workshop Looking at the Sarum Master Bible. Images courtesy of Salisbury Cathedral.

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Acquisition Grants and Donations

Where items were acquired at auction the all-in cost of the purchase is given rather than the hammer price.

FOR ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY COLLECTIONS

Thucycdides. L’hystoire de Thucydide Athenien de la guerre qui fut entre les Peloponesiens & Atheniens translatee en langue Francoyse par feu messire Claude de Seyssel . Paris: Gilles Gourmont (François Regnault), [1534]. Bought from Quaritch at the Edinburgh Book Fair for £8,500, with the aid of a grant of £3,000 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Jane Pirie, Curator (Rare Books) writes: This volume a rare example of early vernacular French book production, containing the translation by Claude Seysell from the Latin of Lorenzo Valla. It was one of Seysel’s translations from ancient historians aiming to enrichir, publier et magnifier the French vernacular through the influence of Latin style. The book was printed by Gilles Gourmont, whose name appears in the woodcut title page, but the final printer’s device belongs to François Regnault, and it is likely that both printers, librarie-jurés of the University of Paris, were responsible for the publication.

However, it is the provenance that makes this copy of great significance to Aberdeen and the North of Scotland: there are three names associated with the city that complement the existing holdings in the University Collections.

The first named owner of this book is Robert Erskyne, who was a career churchman and Dean of Aberdeen from 1540-1563, during the turbulent preReformation years of the 16th century. The University Collections holds another five books that he owned, showing that Erskyne exchanged books whilst he was alive, in particular with William Gordon, last pre-Reformation Bishop of Aberdeen. What happened to the possessions of members of the church after the Reformation is not always clear, and the immediate fate of Erskyne’s books at his death in 1563 is as yet unknown.

Frontispiece with the signature of William Forbes. Courtesy of the University of Aberdeen.

The next likely owner is a Thomas Gardyne, probably the lawyer Thomas Gardyne of Blairton who is recorded as a commissary in Aberdeen from 1584- 1610. His signature appears also on one of Erskyne’s books already in our collection – Livy’s History of Rome , printed in Paris in 1530.

The third owner is as William Forbes, 7th Laird of Tolquhon. In the 1580s Forbes extended and modernised his castle near Tarves in Aberdeenshire in which he housed his fine and notable library. The bulk of it was subsequently moved to Whitehaugh, near Tullynessle, which was owned by the Forbes-Leith family. The University Collections has copies of the Whitehaugh library catalogues and the Thucydides is listed in the section, ‘Rare Books, Very Old’ as Egidius Gormontius L’Histoire de Thucydide , Paris, n.d., and so the book was present until at least the 1860s, after which the Forbes library began to be sold piecemeal.

It was important that this book was acquired for the Collections of the University of Aberdeen. It is not only an example of printing from a unique period in European book history but also a vital piece of evidence of the network of book ownership and exchange in the North-East of Scotland.

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FOR BECKFORD’S TOWER AND MUSEUM, BATH

First edition Azemia (1797) by Jacquetta Agneta Mariana Jenks [William Beckford (1760-1844)] and William Beckford’s copies of first edition Memoirs of the Life and Writings of George Buchanan (1807) by David Irving and first edition Human Life, a Poem by Samuel Rogers (1820). Bought at Forum Auctions (26 March 2025, Lots 8, 11 and 15) for £28,980, with the aid of a grant of £23,475 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [of which £11,750 was financed from the Unwin Fund].

Dr Amy Frost, Senior Curator, writes: When books from the Library of William Beckford (1760-1844) come on the market they frequently reach prices that are far beyond the budget of Beckford’s Tower, a small independent museum in Bath. The generosity of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries made it possible for the Museum of acquire three works from the sale of the Library of Barry Humphries (1934-2023), who had a small but significant Beckford collection.

The key acquisition was a rare first edition of Azemia: A Descriptive and Sentimental Novel written by Beckford and published under a pseudonym in 1797. It is the companion volume to another work written by Beckford, under the pseudonym Lady Harriet Marlow, in 1796 – Modern Novel Writing, or the Elegant Enthusiast; and Interesting Emotions of Arabella Bloomville. A Rhapsodical Romance – which satirises the women novel-writers of the period. Azemia followed a year later as a continuation of this parody, written under the pseudonym Jacquetta Agneta Mariana Jenks of the fictional Bellegrove Priory in Wales, and dedicated to Lady Harriet Marlow. In these works, Beckford frequently takes passages of published writing by authors that the contemporary reading public would have recognised, and adapts them, exchanging words and phrases for often comedic alternatives. Azemia was the only published Beckford work that the Museum did not own and one that is extremely rare to see for sale. This is a highly significant addition to our means of interpreting the variety of Beckford’s accomplishments as an author.

Purchased alongside this was Beckford’s copy of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of George Buchanan (1807) by David Irving, which includes three-and-a-half pages of Beckford’s annotations, written in pencil on the blank prelims. Handwritten notes by Beckford in his books generally run to one or two pages, so to find a copy with this amount makes it slightly more unusual. It also has a Beckford binding, with the Latimer cross and cinquefoil from Beckford’s coat of arms on its spine.

The final book to be acquired was Beckford’s copy of Samuel Rogers’ Human Life, a Poem from 1820, which also includes two pages of Beckford annotations and again has a Beckford binding. But what made this work of particular interest to the Museum was that it includes a watercolour likeness of Rogers facing the title page. There is a strong possibility that this was painted by Beckford, and if that is the case it would be a rare addition to the known examples of his artistic skills. Adding this volume to the Museum’s collection offers the opportunity to study it further in the hope of confirming that attribution.

The books are all housed within bespoke boxes commissioned by Barry Humphries, and offer an interesting insight into his life as a collector that the Museum is keen to study further. These three works individually also enhance the Museum’s ability to explore different aspects of Beckford’s collecting and writing with our visitors. Collectively they join a library collection already significantly augmented by the Beckford books from the Blavatnik Honresfield Library, donated by the Friends of Nations’ Libraries, which had a transforming impact upon Beckford’s Tower.

Top: Azemia: A Descriptive and Sentimental Novel (1797) by William Beckford. Above: Watercolour of Samuel Rogers possibly by William Beckford. Courtesy of Beckford’s Tower and Museum, Bath Preservation Trust.

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FOR BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY: CADBURY RESEARCH LIBRARY

Papers of Lady Clarissa Eden (née Spencer-Churchill), Countess of Avon (1920-2021), widow of Sir Anthony Eden (1897-1977). Bought from Hugo Vickers for £20,000, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Mark Eccleston, Head of Collections Management, writes: Anne Clarissa Eden, Countess of Avon, née Spencer-Churchill (1920-2021), was an English memoirist and the second wife of Anthony Eden, who served as British Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957. She married Eden in 1952, becoming Lady Eden in 1954 when he was made Knight Companion of the Garter, and Countess of Avon in 1961 when her husband was created Earl of Avon. In 2007, at 87, she released her memoir subtitled From Churchill to Eden . On the death of Lady Wilson of Rievaulx in 2018, Lady Avon became the oldest living spouse of a British Prime Minister.

Following Lady Avon’s death in 2021, the University of Birmingham was very keen to acquire her papers to supplement our already rich holdings relating to 20th-century politics and politicians, not least those of her late husband. Anthony Eden’s papers had already been deposited at the Cadbury Research Library many years ago. His private office papers as Foreign Secretary, 1936-1938, 1940-1945 and 1951-1955 were transferred to us in 1978 by the Public Record Office under s.4 (1) of the Public Records Act 1958; and in 2023 we purchased further papers via The Eden Will Trust. That material consists of family papers of Anthony Eden, his first wife Beatrice Eden (née Beckett), and their son Nicholas Eden. These papers had previously been held by John Eden, Baron Eden of Winton (1925-2020), Lord Avon’s nephew and the son of Sir Timothy Eden (1893-1963).

We are extremely grateful for the support of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries which has ensured that Clarissa Eden’s papers are similarly cared for, and made accessible to all interested researchers. These papers include a large series of Clarissa Eden’s personal correspondence with individuals, organisations and charities, in addition to appointment diaries and other log books; papers for her memoirs, and tapes with recollections of the Suez crisis; financial, legal, travel and property papers; and a selection of printed and audio material. The papers also contain material about Anthony Eden, primarily from after his death, including papers relating to busts of Lord Avon in the Foreign Office and Speaker’s House, and details of his gravestone and memorial service.

The papers also include material formerly belonging to Anthony Eden and retained by his widow, including correspondence; appointment diaries; notes for speeches; papers relating to the death of Robert Eden in 1928, and visitors’ books. Both parts of the collection contain photographs of Clarissa and Anthony and of buildings, works of art and other miscellaneous items.

Anthony and Clarissa Eden’s wedding day, 14 August 1952.

Above: Anthony and Clarissa Eden. Images courtesy of the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.

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FOR THE BRITISH LIBRARY

Five medieval manuscripts from the collection of Longleat House, purchased by private treaty for £2,233,500, with the aid of a grant of £20,000 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Julian Harrison, Lead Curator of Medieval Historical and Literary Manuscripts, writes: The British Library has acquired five medieval manuscripts of outstanding national heritage significance, formerly in the collection of Longleat House. Together, these manuscripts shed light on the study of Hebrew by Christian monks in medieval England, on the administration of a medieval English town, and on spiritual devotion in medieval England and Ireland.

The first manuscript was made at Ramsey Abbey in Huntingdonshire in the 13th century, in a collaboration between Christian monks and Jewish scholars. It contains a unique trilingual Hebrew-Latin-Middle French dictionary, containing definitions of over 3,600 Hebrew words; a Hebrew Psalter, made by Jewish scribes but annotated heavily by Christian monks; and a grammar of the Hebrew language, said to be the most important such work made in medieval Europe. This is considered to be the most important surviving manuscript for Christian-Jewish relations in the period before the Jews were expelled from England in 1290.

The Red Book of Bath was compiled by the town’s officials in the 1420s. It contains an extraordinary array of historical, legal and administrative texts, including: a unique Life of King Arthur in Middle English verse; two sketch-maps of the Mediterranean; and the oath to be sworn by burgesses to the mayor. We imagine that the town’s officials carried this manuscript with them when carrying out their official duties.

The third manuscript was made for a female patron in the Dublin region in the 15th century. It contains an unusual collection of devotional and visionary texts, written in the Hiberno-English dialect. This manuscript occupies an important position in the transmission of the works of Richard Rolle of Hampole (d. 1349), an English mystical writer. It also contains the earliest copy of A Revelation of Purgatory , describing a series of visions experienced by an anchoress in Winchester in 1422.

40 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries Descriptor of Section 41

42 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations

FOR BRUCE CASTLE MUSEUM AND ARCHIVE

Joseph Fenton’s copy of Pieter van Foreest’s Observationum et curationum medicinalium Liber xxx De Venenis, & xxxi De Fucis . Leiden, 1606. Bought from Sokol Books for £1,750, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Deborah Hedgecock, Curator of Bruce Castle Museum & Archive, writes: This early 17th-century volume is signed by Joseph Fenton (1565-1634), one of three surgeons at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Master of the Worshipful Company of Barber-Surgeons on two occasions. Relatively little is known about Fenton’s life and work – he wrote no books and no medical notes survive – but he was clearly held in high regard, especially for his knowledge of cataracts and development of surgery for their removal.

This volume was part of his library at the house at Tottenham which he built in 1620. It survives today as The Priory, part of the All Hallows Church complex, neighbouring Bruce Castle Museum and Archive. Fenton’s contemporary neighbour was the vicar of Tottenham, William Bedwell (1561-1632), an eminent mathematician, and an Arabic and Hebrew scholar with an exceptional library himself. At Bruce Castle we are building our collections relating to Fenton and his contemporaries such as Bedwell, in order to share their stories more widely and keep their memory in the public domain.

Fenton’s books are easily recognised through his florid signature on the title page of every volume. He collected medical works and those on a medical theme. The majority were in Latin but there were some Arabic texts. Marginal notes in Fenton’s hand also appear in many of the volumes. Observationum et curationum medicinalium has annotations written by Fenton, with highlighted passages about skin spots and remedies to preserve beauty, focussing on the paleness and redness of the face. Among the topics discussed are freckles, spots and scars caused by chickenpox and smallpox, the whitening of teeth and hands, and obesity, and provide insights into Fenton’s many medical interests.

44 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 45

FOR CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) material from the collection of W.B. Tegetmeier (1816-1912). Bought from Quaritch for £60,670, with the aid of a grant of £20,000 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Liz Smith, Digital Curator for 19th-century Science Collections, writes: In December 2025, Cambridge University Library was able to purchase a set of printed and manuscript material being sold by the descendants of William Bernhardt Tegetmeier (1816-1912), relating to his friendship and working relationship with Charles Darwin (1809-1882). It is the first group of material sold by the Tegetmeier family since 1906.

Charles Darwin is one of the most widely recognised figures in the history of science and continues to hold an iconic significance even in current debates. The Darwin Archive, already here at Cambridge and recently inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, is an invaluable resource for wider 19th-century studies, containing correspondence, photographs and other domestic papers relating to the family, from children’s drawings to recipe books. Of particular significance are Darwin’s working papers documenting his important work on evolution, both the accumulated notes organised to help him write and the letters exchanged with correspondents around the world, who provided observations and helped him refine his ideas.

William Bernhardt Tegetmeier was one such correspondent, whom Darwin contacted at a vital time in his career. Tegetmeier was lecturer on domestic economy at the Home and Colonial Society’s training college, and in the late 1850s became the chief correspondent on poultry and pigeons for the publication The Field . He was introduced to Darwin in about 1855, when they shared a fascination with pigeon breeding. He was a key source of information for Darwin in his studies on inheritance, both providing him with physical specimens and performing a series of crosses between varieties. The manuscripts in this collection form a valuable and unusual record of the way they worked together, including not only letters exchanged but also two sets of annotated detailed queries sent back and forth between them. Tegetmeier was one of Darwin’s key advisors in transforming what started as a chapter for the Origin of Species into an entirely separate work, the Variation of plants and animals under domestication . This material was previously entirely unknown to scholars.

At the heart of the collection are the two sets of queries, featuring the handwriting of both Darwin and Tegetmeier, as well as several partial letters. A scrap of paper holding a bibliographical reference in Darwin’s hand closely resembles those in his working portfolios elsewhere in the Darwin Archive, suggesting an active collaboration between the two men, as does an address label used to send pigeon skulls.

The collection also contains some rare printed ephemera, including an unusual pamphlet about the cruelty of live animal traps circulated by Darwin’s wife Emma (1808-1896) and a ‘Press’ ticket for Darwin’s funeral (the only variant not already held in the Darwin Archive). Correspondence between Tegetmeier and Darwin’s sons George and Francis about providing copies of his letters to Tegetmeierfor The life and letters of Charles Darwin, published by Francis in 1887, illustrates the way his sons sought to honour and shape Charles Darwin’s legacy.

Below: Queries about pigeons sent from Charles Darwin to William Tegetmeier, 1858 (MS DAR 185:156). Overleaf: Press ticket for the funeral of Charles Darwin on 26 April 1882 (MS DAR 185:168), along with other notes and printed ephemera sent from Darwin to Tegetmeier from the 1850s to the 1870s. Images below and overleaf courtesy of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

----- Start of picture text -----
46 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries Descriptor of Section 47
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48 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 49

FOR CAMBRIDGESHIRE ARCHIVES

Terrier of the property of John Chettoe in the parish of Chesterton (1768), incorporating a transcript of an earlier terrier of the same lands (1694). Bought from a private seller for £350, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Esther Bellamy, Collections Archivist, writes: Cambridgeshire Archives was delighted to be given the opportunity to purchase this survey of Chesterton. The seller had acquired it as part of a job lot of mostly Scottish works from a bookseller in South Africa. We do not know how it came to be on the other side of the world but we are grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for funding this acquisition so it could be returned to Cambridgeshire.

We do not hold any other similarly detailed Chesterton terriers or surveys for this period so this is a very welcome addition to our collection. It is particularly interesting to us because in the 250 years since Chettoe ordered this survey of his lands, this area of Cambridgeshire has changed beyond recognition. The entire estate was sold by his widow after his death in 1786 and changed hands several times in later years before being acquired by St John’s College, Cambridge, in the early 20th century. Many of the college’s lands in this part of the city were sold for housing developments in the 1930s and 1940s and Chesterton has now been almost entirely swallowed up in the expansion of Cambridge. This terrier thus provides a key insight into what this rural village looked like, and the people who lived there, before it was transformed by urban development.

The terrier contains a detailed survey of an estate in Chesterton which was owned by John Chettoe and occupied by John Johnson. Chettoe was a London landowner but having acquired an estate in Chesterton through marriage augmented it through a succession of smaller purchases throughout the 1760s and 1770s. The property described in the terrier is possibly only part of that estate but nevertheless comprised a ‘Capital or Mansion House’ and 288 acres of land, sufficient to pasture about 480 sheep.

The volume is divided into three sections, headed ‘East Field’, ‘Middle Field’ and ‘West Field’. On the recto of each page, we find a description of each close as it was in 1768, with a note of their locations, sizes and values and the names of any tenants or neighbouring owners or occupiers. On the verso we find descriptions of these same closes copied from an earlier terrier of 1694, presumably for the purpose of comparing the size and value of the land over the years. Much of this land was located very close to Chesterton but we can see that parts of the estate reached as far west as Castle Hill on the northern edge of Cambridge.

Detail of the Chesterton terrier (ref. 2683). Courtesy of Cambridgeshire Archives.

50 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 51

FOR CEREDIGION ARCHIVES, ABERYSTWYTH

Thirteen 19th-century pencil sketches, depicting views of, or a tour of, Wales. Bought from Jacob Boston of Salisbury for £650, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Helen Palmer, County Archivist writes: Our attention was first drawn to this series of sketches when Friends of Ceredigion Archives purchased for the collections a pencil drawing of Thomas Johnes’ magnificent house at Hafod. Subsequent idle searching on the internet produced a sketch of Aberystwyth which was in so similar a style that I felt confident it was by the same hand and bought it. The vendor proved to have a whole series of sketches of Wales, Scotland, Ireland and beyond. Anonymous but for the initials ‘GB’, these sketches are of little artistic merit but are reasonably competent and reveal an enthusiasm for ruins not atypical of the period, but an equal and rather more engaging interest in bridges and settlements. Keeping all the sketches created by ‘GB’ together is probably already impossible, but this generous grant has allowed us to purchase all those known to depict sites in Wales.

from the East , an undated View of the bridge at Builth on the Wye , and a view of a millwheel, unhelpfully described only as Newport .

These 13 sketches have now been reunited with those depicting Hafod and Aberystwyth, both of which are now donations to Ceredigion Archives, so that the entirety of GB’s known Welsh views are now owned by Ceredigion. The remaining decision relates to the best location for the sketches – should they be offered to the relevant archives around Wales or retained together in Aberystwyth? Whatever is decided, thanks to the generosity of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries these little images are now all available for public enjoyment and research for the first time in nearly 200 years.

From the Garth Ferry Anglesea looking towards Bangor and Penrhyn 1829. Courtesy of Ceredigion Archives.

The sketches are all pencil on paper and have distinctive marks on the reverse showing that at some time all were mounted, possibly in albums, in a similar way. The vendor told me that they had all been separated by the time he purchased them, so any contemporaneous arrangement has sadly been lost. But the images remain and they are modestly splendid.

The earliest item in the collection dates from 1821 and depicts Dolbadarn Castle, Lake Llanberis. Since the late 18th century and particularly J.M.W. Turner’s painting of the site, this picturesque ruin had been a focus for romantic tourism. The majority of the later views date from 1829 and are mostly more prosaic in nature, but in consequence probably of more interest to the local historian. They comprise views of Conway Castle and the suspension bridge , the Menai Bridge from Bangor Ferry , From underneath the Menai Bridge , Penrhyn Castle near Bangor , Dolgelly Merioneth, Chepstow Castle, From the Garth Ferry Anglesea looking towards Bangor and Penrhyn and Machynlleth, Montgomery. There are two further undated sketches in the same smaller format as Dolbadarn , depicting Conway Castle and town from the ferry and Conway Castle

52 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 53

FOR THE CHARLES DICKENS MUSEUM

Unpublished letter and envelope, Charles Dickens to Pauline Viardot, 19 January 1863. Bought from a private seller for £2,500, with the aid of a grant of £1,100 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Emma Harper, Deputy Director: Programmes and Collections, writes: Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was friends with, inspired by, and moved in the circles of some extraordinary women; yet these women hardly feature in collections such as ours, or compendiums of his letters. This acquisition helps to remedy this omission by adding to our collection a rare letter from Dickens to the musician and philanthropist Pauline Viardot (1821-1910). This acquisition will allow us to examine Dickens’s friendship with Pauline and to explore his relationships with women, something that is often ignored in favour of his male friendships.

Viardot was a French singer and composer of Spanish descent whom Dickens greatly admired. She was a hugely important musician in the 19th century and used her position and influence to support charities and philanthropic activities, much as Dickens did.

Viardot and Dickens corresponded regularly, met on several occasions and shared mutual friends. This letter, from 1863, demonstrates the intensity often found in Dickens’s relationships with women: he writes ‘I know no human creature from whom such sympathy would be more precious to me’. The letter dates from a period when Dickens was in Paris and about to undertake more performances of his works — ‘I think I am going to read again’ — and his arrangements to send Viardot tickets for the reading. The pair clearly connected as performers: Dickens’s reading of The Cricket in the Hearth moved Pauline to tears and her singing in Gluck’s Orpheo ed Euridice later had the same effect on him. He wrote of her performance ‘Nothing can be more magnificent, more true, more tender, more beautiful, more profound!’ (Letter, Dickens to Viardot, 20 November 1862).

Dickens’s love of theatre and performance is an important theme for the Museum, but in this letter he also alludes to another more covert aspect of his life – ‘I am going to Geneva tomorrow night, but will be back in seven days’. This coincides with him visiting another woman, his mistress Ellen Ternan. Such references are rare but this tallies with another letter in our collection, from Dickens to his friend and fellow writer Wilkie Collins, whom he invited to stay in his Paris apartment during these same seven days, describing the upcoming absence as entre nous – secret or between ourselves.

We are thankful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for the opportunity to bring this letter into a British public collection and help showcase Dickens’s friendship with and admiration of Pauline Viardot, one of the most extraordinary women of the 19th century.

Additional support for the acquisition of this letter was received from the Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund.

Dickens’s letter to Viardot, together with the envelope. Courtesy of the Charles Dickens Museum.

54 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 55

FOR CHAWTON HOUSE LIBRARY, CHAWTON

A selection of 30 letters by 19th-century women writers to various recipients. Purchased at Bonhams (19 June 2025, Lot 17) for £17,920, with the aid of a grant of £15,000 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Molly Maslen, Assistant Curator, writes: We are always looking to expand our holdings of manuscripts, and our collection at Chawton House is continually growing as we acquire more material by female authors. Most of our acquisitions come from donations, but occasionally we are able to purchase items; this selection includes letters by writers such as Maria Edgeworth, Amelia Opie and Harriet Martineau. As we do not have a budget for acquisitions, it is largely thanks to the FNL’s generous grant that we were able to acquire these letters. They underpin our mission to provide researchers with the means to dive deeper into the lives of these writers, to share their stories with a wider audience and put them back into the spotlight.

These letters, and those of Harriet Marineau in particular, offer an insight into the lives of these extraordinary women of literature. The majority of her letters were written from Tynemouth near Newcastle, where she spent the five years between 1840 and 1845 recovering from illness. It is well known that during this time Martineau wrote Life in the Sick-room (1844), but she also spent time engaging in arguments around the better treatment of the working classes and social reform, including child labour, factory hours and sanitation. Many people visited her in Tynemouth and were able to discuss these topics, but she also wrote letters extensively, recruiting people to help with her causes. In one letter to ‘Mrs Strutt’ (possibly the writer Elizabeth Strutt), she discusses making literature accessible to working-class men through more readily-available libraries. Martineau wrote: ‘It appears that, from the first generation of ‘worky’ school boys having now grown up to be reading men, the demand for books is beyond all description.’ With the aid of friends, author and publisher Charles Knight (1791-1893) and other like-minded people, she had ‘schemes’ to supply libraries in ‘Barracks, prisons, Police & Coast Guards Stations, workhouses … pit & Factory villages …’. These letters demonstrate why Martineau is widely regarded as a key contributor to social debates of the Victorian period.

Other letters in this collection are more commonplace in their subject-matter, but still highlight the recognisably human side of these women. For example, in 1822 the Scottish poet and writer Anne Grant writes to a gentleman who is due to teach a family friend’s son, Gordon, and asks him to look out for the boy as he ‘has never been from home before’. In another letter Sarah Austin writes to Lady Belper to convey ‘a message to your son from my daughter’, showing that parents have, throughout history, had to be messengers for their children.

These few examples of the 30 letters highlight the importance of our growing holdings of women’s writing to researchers; they will also form a key part of our public engagement and enable us to bring lesser-known writers to the foreground. In 2026, Chawton House will be curating exhibitions and displays celebrating the more ‘unknown’ women in our collections and to commemorate the anniversaries of women writers, and these letters will be a key feature in our endeavours.

Left: A selection of the letters. Courtesy of Chawton House Library.

56 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 57

FOR DEVON ARCHIVES AND LOCAL STUDIES, SOUTH WEST HERITAGE TRUST

Map of Kingsbridge, 1586. Bought via Forum Auctions for £18,428 (by private treaty in advance of the auction), with the aid of a grant of £17,691 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Scott Pettitt, Head of Devon Archives and Local Studies, writes: This map, drawn partly as a plan and partly as a bird’s-eye view, appears to have been executed at the time of ‘the newe byldyng, upon fyvepyllers of stonn, betwixt the Church styles of kyngsbrydge, 1586’, probably for Sir John Petre, the then lord of the manor, whose land called Norton is denoted on the far side of the mill stream. The Petres were an old Devon family. Sir John’s father, Sir William Petre (1506-1572), was Secretary of State to Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. The Petre family employed draftsmen of skill to create plans of their estate at Ingatestone in Essex, which Sir William had made their principal seat, and it seems likely that it was one of these draftsman who devised this fine work, painted on vellum, in six colours, and measuring 410 x 485mm.

Notable features include the 13th-century parish church, the timber-built Exchange or Market House, then called the Chepe House (in which the manor courts were held until the building’s demolition in 1796), and the pillory.

The houses are shown as being constructed in stone (still unusual in the Elizabethan period), with either slate or red clay roofing. Less remarkable is the preponderance of chimneys which became extremely popular in the second half of the 16th century. Properties are depicted with small lean-to constructions in front of them, indicating the association of the houses with commerce.

By far the most impressive property is that marked as the residence of George French, probably the merchant of that name who in 1604 mortgaged premises on the Quay in the adjacent parish of Dodbrooke. At back of the house are marked a number of outbuildings and a fine walled garden, which contained a bower house (in the far right-hand corner), a rustic arch (in the near right-hand corner) and what appears to be a ‘knot’ in the top lefthand corner.

The map was first discussed in print in May 1799 in an article for the Gentleman’s Magazine , which judged it still an ‘almost faithful representation’ of Kingsbridge before the centre of the town was extensively altered in 1796. In 1877 it is mentioned in an article for the Transactions of the Devonshire Association , which obliquely suggests that it may then have been in the possession of the Kingsbridge Feoffees; but it subsequently appears to have passed into private hands. When Mary R. Ravenhill and Margery M. Rowe published their definitive carto-bibliography of Devon maps in 2002 the map was thought to be lost.

Opposite: Detail of the George French residence. Courtesy of the South West Heritage Trust.

Acquisition Grants and Donations 59

58 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Whilst there are several good representations of Elizabethan London and of Oxford and Cambridge, contemporary illustrations and maps of provincial towns in the second half of the 16th century are extremely rare. Devon Archives and Local Studies is most grateful to FNL for enabling this important acquisition, which complements other holdings concerning Kingsbridge, including the papers of the Petre family and the Kingsbridge Feoffees.

Map of Kingsbridge, Devon, 1586. Courtesy of the South West Heritage Trust.

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Acquisition Grants and Donations

61

FOR CITY OF DONCASTER ARCHIVES

A volume of witness statements given at Doncaster Coroner’s Court 1859-1872. Bought at Bonhams, New York (23 October 2025, Lot 230) for £704, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Dr Charles Kelham, Collections & Exhibitions Officer, Heritage Doncaster, writes: The survival-rate of the pre-1974 Doncaster borough coroner’s court records has been unimpressive. The court was established by letters patent in 1467, but its hearings leave no trace in the borough records until 1625. Documentation once again disappears after 1700 and is not found again until the period 1890-1930. For the post-war period until local government reorganization in 1974, when Doncaster Archives was first established, there is an incomplete run of papers which had been selected for permanent preservation by officers of the court.

Their patchy survival is made all the more regrettable because inquest papers represent such a rich resource. They provide valuable detail for family and local historians, and for social historians they shed light on some of the darker corners of life in years gone by, revealing the circumstances of tragic incidents whilst providing a background of ordinary daily life as the context for such occurrences. The most revealing documents in a set of inquest papers are the witness statements, and it is these that make up this volume, spanning 13 years for which Doncaster Archives has otherwise no coverage.

A quarto volume, measuring 226 x 187 mm and containing 616 pages excluding blanks, it is bound in contemporary half calf and boards. The spine has gone and the text block is separating, but aside from that the book is in good condition. It is a manuscript record of witness statements heard at 349 inquests held in Doncaster before John Lister, HM Coroner for the borough. These inquests – along with a further 115 from 1872-1876 – are also summarised in an abstract at the end of the volume. Because many statements bear the signatures of those giving testimony, it is clear that this is a working document, kept by the court as a day-to-day record. The entries tell us where the inquests were conducted – generally at the Guildhall, but also at other premises, including the Union Workhouse and various public houses.

Deaths might result from a variety of causes: domestic accidents, violent altercations, suicide and disease are among the more frequent explanations for the sudden deaths being considered. Alcohol appears, at least on the surface, to have been a contributory factor in relatively few deaths. The significant number of rail-related accidents in a railway town such as Doncaster, taking into account that the industry had had barely had two decades to develop adequate safety precautions, comes as no surprise. Some cases that today might well have resulted in criminal proceedings were deemed accidental, the result of natural causes or, where no obvious cause could be found, ‘visitation of God’.

How the volume passed into private hands is unknown. It was previously sold by Dominic Winter for £420 in 2015. Doncaster Archives has no knowledge of the existence of any comparable records from before or after the period covered, but it seems reasonable to suppose that this was just one in a series of similar books.

Inquest manuscript from April 1859. Courtesy of Bonhams.

62 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations

63

FOR DORSET HISTORY CENTRE

1. Autograph Letters on the subject of Dorset written to John Symonds Udal, including four watercolours and 11 chromolithographed Christmas and New Year cards, together c. 176 letters in three volumes, 1876-1915. Bought at Forum Auctions (25 September 2025, Lot 35) for £1,324, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Sam Johnston, Service Manager for Archives and Records, writes: Despite being born in Staffordshire and an expatriate resident of Fiji and the Leeward Islands for much of his life, John Symonds Udal was a keen historian of Dorset where he had strong family roots. As such he corresponded with some of the county’s leading antiquarians and cultural figures of the day. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1901, published Dorsetshire Folklore in 1922 and is buried at Symondsbury near Bridport.

----- Start of picture text -----
The period covered by this correspondence
was particularly significant in Dorset as those
local notables (including poet William Barnes
and the Reverend Henry Moule), who had
established Dorset County Museum in 1846,
were still alive. Hardy is not a correspondent
but his work is mentioned in one memorable
passage in an 1892 letter from Walter
Boswell-Stone: ‘If you have not yet read Tess
of the d’Urbervilles, a great pleasure awaits
you. Hardy tells me that a cheaper edition is
coming out in the autumn. The D’Urbervilles,
by the way, are the Turbervilles, who still
exist in Dorset, though their estate has fallen
low.’ Hardy’s own archive is held at DHC and
a full catalogue created via a funded project is
now complete and online.
----- End of picture text -----

The archive of dialect poet William Barnes is also held by the service and will be catalogued through a similarly funded project from October 2025. Barnes writes several letters to Udal on the subject of etymology and particular Dorset dialect terms; he also thanks Udal for sending him ‘your book of youthful song in which I find many nuggets of golden verse’. Another correspondent writes from the British embassy in St Petersburg in 1889 enquiring about the history of Pilsdon Manor in remote west Dorset. Udal exchanged letters with many different people on a wide and eclectic range of topics including witchcraft and mummery, as well as social events such as Mr Digby’s roasting in January 1891 ‘of a whole ox on the ice of the lake in Sherborne Park’. Udal also carried on extensive correspondence with the artist Wilmot Pilsbury, from whom it appears he commissioned various watercolours of Dorset. Some of Pilsbury’s miniature works are bound in with the letters.

This collection of correspondence is therefore highly pertinent to material already held by DHC and will cast further light on the culture of antiquarianism, folklore, research and collecting that was prominent at the time and which drew a range of people to it. Many of the named correspondents already appear in archive collections held at DHC so this acquisition will help to create new historical narratives and cast light on personalities and events over a 40-year span.

Opposite: Letter from William Barnes to J. S. Udal, 14 April 1881. Courtesy of Dorset History Centre.

64 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 65

FOR DORSET HISTORY CENTRE

2. Notarial Protest Book recording declarations by ships’ masters at the port of Poole, 1924–1963. Bought at Elliotts UK Auctioneers (11 October 2025, Lot 94) for £248, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Owen Simons, Collections Archivist, writes: This Protest Book, acquired at the Wimborne Collectors Auction on 11 October 2025, is a rare survival of maritime legal practice at Poole Harbour. Covering the years 1924 to 1963, it contains formal declarations made by shipmasters following voyages affected by adverse conditions at sea. These ‘protests’ were sworn statements, recorded before a notary public (usually a solicitor with an additional qualification in civil law), to protect shipowners and crews from liability for damage or delay.

Each entry follows a structured format, noting the vessel’s name, master’s name and signature, home port, cargo details, and the circumstances prompting the protest – typically storms, rough seas or other hazards. For example, ships such as Seamont , Swan Lily , and Seahorse lodged protests after encountering severe weather while carrying timber and pit props. These records provide vivid evidence of the risks faced by merchant shipping and the legal safeguards underpinning maritime commerce.

The practice of lodging a protest was crucial for insurance claims and dispute resolution. As explained in maritime law guides, a protest is not an admission of fault but a protective measure, ensuring that damage caused by uncontrollable events is properly documented. This volume demonstrates how such procedures continued well into the mid-20th century, bridging the age of sail and steam with modern shipping.

Poole was a major port for timber and other bulk cargoes during this period, and this book complements Dorset History Centre’s holdings on trade and shipping. It offers rich potential for research into maritime law, insurance, and the social history of seafaring communities.

Entries in the Port of Poole protest book, 1925. Courtesy of Dorset History Centre.

The book is in good condition, with clear ink entries and original binding. It will be catalogued to enable public access and will feature in displays concerning Poole’s maritime heritage. We are grateful to FNL for funding this acquisition in full, ensuring its preservation for future generations.

66 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 67

FOR DORSET HISTORY CENTRE

3. ‘A New Song addressed to the Loyal Volunteers of Burton Bradstock’, 1804. Bought at Duke’s Auctions (15 October 2025, Lot 605) for £175, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Owen Simons, Collections Archivist, writes: This evocative early 19th-century musical manuscript, acquired by Dorset History Centre in 2025, offers a rare glimpse into the patriotic fervour of the Napoleonic era as expressed in local Dorset communities. Entitled ‘A New Song addressed to the Loyal Volunteers of Burton Bradstock’, the handwritten score comprises seven verses and is annotated with the suggestion that ‘This Musick… may [make] a good Military March.’ The lyrics include a striking reference to ‘The blood-stain’d sons of France,’ clearly situating the piece within the context of Britain’s military mobilisation against the Napoleonic threat.

The Loyal Volunteers referenced in the title would have been one of many volunteer corps formed across Britain during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815). These units, often raised locally and composed of civilians, were a crucial part of Britain’s defensive strategy, particularly in coastal areas vulnerable to invasion. Dorset, with its extensive coastline and strategic ports, saw the formation of several such groups, including the Bridport Volunteers and Weymouth Yeomanry. The Burton Bradstock volunteers, though less documented, would have shared in this tradition of local defence and patriotic service.

The manuscript is folded as a letter and addressed on the verso to ‘Lieu B A Symes, 1st Dorset Regiment, Lewes Barracks, Sussex’, with a Bridport postmark. This dates the letter to about 1804 when the Dorset Militia was stationed in Lewes as part of Britain’s urgent defensive measures during the Napoleonic Wars. Due to the threat of a French invasion on England’s south coast, militia regiments like Dorset’s were mobilized for home defence, rotating through key garrisons in Sussex to guard vulnerable coastal areas and maintain internal security. Their presence reflected the nationwide effort to reinforce southern England during one of the most critical moments of the war.

The song’s content reflects the stylistic and thematic conventions of Napoleonic-era volunteer music: martial imagery, local pride, and a call to arms. Such compositions were often performed at recruitment events, parades or informal gatherings, serving both to unify communities and to instil a sense of patriotic duty. The reference to Burton Bradstock, a small coastal village in West Dorset with a population of only about 650 at the time, adds an important localised narrative to the national story of resistance and mobilisation.

This acquisition complements Dorset History Centre’s existing holdings on local military history and community life in the early 19th century. It has been conserved and digitised for public access and is expected to feature in future exhibitions and outreach programmes exploring Dorset’s role in the Napoleonic Wars.

We are grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for funding the full cost of this acquisition.

Marching song of the Burton Bradstock militia, 1804. Courtesy of Dorset History Centre.

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FOR DORSET HISTORY CENTRE

4. ‘A Short Narrative of the Life of Giles Lawrence Roberts M.D. (written by Himself) of Bridport, Dorsetshire’; manuscript, original vellum, 1799. Purchased at Forum Auctions (20 November 2025, Lot 33) for £927, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Sam Johnston, Service Manager for Archives and Records, writes: Dr Giles Roberts (1766-1834) was a key personality in the history of Bridport. He trained as an apothecary, qualified in London as a doctor (funded by public subscription in Bridport) and in 1807 was appointed Medical Attendant in the town, where he campaigned for better hygiene and public health. He was also known as a philanthropist and benefactor of many local causes. He experimented with electricity as a means of treating certain medical conditions, but is best known for his pharmaceutical invention, a patent medicine that became known as ‘Poor Man’s Friend’. He produced this in 1798, a year before this autobiography was written. The ointment in question (despite containing mercury and other harmful ingredients) was deemed an effective remedy by the public and made him wealthy. It was sold nationwide and overseas. Jars carrying the Roberts moniker have been found as far afield as Australia. Dr Roberts was the uncle of the renowned pioneering palaeontologist Mary Anning who was a beneficiary in his will.

The autobiography starts with Roberts detailing his birth on 21 April 1766, the son of a naval gunner, and describing the family as being of ‘middling circumstances’.

As a child he suffered from smallpox and rickets, but survived to take a strong interest in science; he attributes to himself (modestly or otherwise) ‘a natural genius for mechanicks and experimental philosophy but more especially for chemistry, electricity and magnetism’. He goes on to describe his experiments, which included self-administered electrical shocks. Roberts lived in Bristol for a time but eventually returned to Bridport where ‘I began to practice as an apothecary amongst the lower class of people’. He goes on to describe his marriage to a local woman. Frustratingly, there is no mention of the famous medication. What comes across strongly and frequently however is Roberts’s strong religious faith, which seemed to dominate every aspect of his life. On the final page of the document, he recounts obtaining a licence to preach in 1799 and states that he had delivered 120 sermons across the West Country.

Whilst being far from a full autobiography this document is a fascinating insight into the mind of a man driven both by scientific inquisitiveness and a powerful religious conviction. He seemed able to reconcile them sufficiently to continue his business activities which led him to local prominence and prosperity. We are very grateful for the support of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries in our acquisition of this item. It is of great interest to Bridport and will in due course be exhibited in the town’s museum.

Detail: Autobiography of G. L. Roberts MD, 1799. Images courtesy of Dorset History Centre.

Title page of Roberts’s autobiography, 1799.

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FOR EAST SUSSEX, BRIGHTON AND HOVE RECORD OFFICE

1. Letter from Edward Gibbon, Lausanne, to the Hon. Maria Josepha Holroyd, Sheffield Place, Fletching, East Sussex; 10 November 1792. Bought from Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers for £3,780, with the aid of a grant of £2,100 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Christopher Whittick, Friends of The Keep Archives, writes: Since the dispersal of the Sheffield Park archive in 1981 East Sussex Record Office and its successor ESBHRO have been assiduously attempting to acquire any stray material which appears on the market and reunite it with the whole. In this endeavour they have been consistently and most generously supported by the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

This letter illuminates the intimate connection between the family of John Baker Holroyd (1735-1821), first earl of Sheffield, and the historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), described by David Womersley in ODNB as ‘the most prominent — perhaps the only — embodiment of Enlightenment in England’.

The addressee was Sheffield’s eldest daughter Maria Josepha Holroyd (17711863). A precocious child, when she was 12 her intelligence attracted the interest of Edward Gibbon who proposed that he should teach her over the next four years. Gibbon addresses Maria, now aged 21, who ‘I have known and loved from the first dawning of her life and coquetry, to the present maturity of her talents; and as long as I remain on this planet, I shall pursue, with the same tender and even anxious concern, the future steps of her establishment and life’. After a graceful acknowledgement of Maria’s letters, he enquires minutely into her studies and daily occupation, sends news of visitors to Lausanne and of his garden, which Maria and her father had helped to improve during a visit the year before.

Gibbon concludes on a more serious topic, the French Revolution, and informs Maria that, ‘The delay of this year [of his visit to Sheffield Place] was truly painful, but it was inevitable; and individuals must submit to those storms which have overturned the thrones of the earth. … as you are now so much mingled with the French exiles, I am of opinion, that were you to keep a journal of all the authentic facts which they relate, it would be an agreeable exercise at present, and a future source of entertainment and instruction’. This passage has great poignancy – in April 1793 Maria’s mother Abigail died as a result of pleurisy contracted while ministering to French refugees in Guy’s Hospital.

Following Gibbon’s death in 1794 there came to Sheffield Place a line of advisers and confidants eager to assist in Lord Sheffield’s commitment to take care of his friend’s legacy. Working alongside them, asserting her knowledge and independence, was the 23-year-old Maria, to whom Gibbon had often referred as ‘The Secretary’. After reviewing the cadre of Gibbon editors, the London scene, and the passing army officers in Sussex, in 1796 Maria married John Thomas Stanley, later seventh baronet and first Baron Stanley of Alderley (1766–1850). Herself a prodigious letter-writer, her long life was punctuated by extensive travel, political acuity and the doings of her growing family of eleven children, of whom nine survived into adulthood; among her direct descendants was the philosopher and campaigner Bertrand Russell.

The acquisition of this letter adds a new dimension to ESBHRO’s holdings of Sheffield Park material and promotes the significance of Maria Holroyd alongside the established lustre of Edward Gibbon.

Gibbon’s letter to the Hon. Maria Holroyd. Courtesy of East Sussex, Brighton and Hove Record Office at The Keep.

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FOR EAST SUSSEX, BRIGHTON AND HOVE RECORD OFFICE

2. Eastbourne Borough Police occurrence book, January – December 1898. Purchased at Eastbourne Auctions (6 October 2025, Lot 2287) for £530, with the aid of a grant of £265 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Christopher Whittick, Friends of The Keep Archives, writes: In 1891 Eastbourne Borough Council established its own police force, the archive of which is held at ESBHRO.

Between 1861 and 1901 the town’s population rose exponentially from 3,222 to nearly 43,000. Its genteel development, led by the Duke of Devonshire and the Davies-Gilbert family, had by the time this book was compiled earned Eastbourne the soubriquet of ‘the Empress of Watering-Places’ – a resort ‘built by gentlemen for gentlemen’.

The volume, which appears to be the only survivor of what must have been an extensive series, reflects the seemingly tranquil life of the town – there appears to have been relatively little crime, and the time of the Eastbourne force seems to have been occupied mainly by reports of items lost – keys, a cheque, jewellery, a waterproof (without cape) – and found – a bicycle, a grey parrot, a set of false teeth; and with missing children, runaway horses, unmuzzled dogs, chimney fires and the search in pawnshops for items stolen in less fortunate places such as Hastings. Albert Guy, aged 3 and dressed in a sailor hat, blue jersey and lace-up boots, was both reported missing and found on 27 June – the entry conjures up the image of an end-of-the-pier photograph. In August William Chitty, 7½ and dressed in a light suit and black velvet jockey cap, made it as far as Hastings, and a 14-year-old boy, smartly dressed with a new black bowler hat (with label) reached London Bridge station before his adventure came to an end.

As a coastal town, Eastbourne recorded several accidents at sea. In July a lone sailor reported that his yacht had capsized off Beachy Head; he was lucky to be rescued by a fishing boat, and the boat was later towed to shore. Not all cases had such happy results: in July, four German waiters from the Grand Hotel went for a dip, but sadly two of them drowned.

But even Eastbourne had its seamy side. A compassionate PC allowed a homeless registered pedlar, his wife and baby to stay the night in the police station, and in March a boy found in the street ‘fairly exhausted by overwork’ was taken back to his parents. Destitute women were taken from the street to shelter, and the police surgeon was occasionally called to the station to check on them – in October he examined Doreen Clark, supposed to be miscarrying, but he ‘found her recovering from drink’.

Administrative records rarely provide such detailed information on the mundane nature of everyday life; this volume provides a snapshot of Eastbourne in a single year at the height of its prosperity, and as such forms an important addition to the holdings of ESBHRO.

Thomas’s letter to Richard Porteous. Courtesy of the Detail showing entries for April 30 and May 1, 1898. Courtesy of East Sussex, Brighton and Hove Record Office.Edward Thomas Fellowship.

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FOR EAST SUSSEX, BRIGHTON AND HOVE RECORD OFFICE

3. Letter from Eric Ravilious, Cerne Abbas, to Christine Nash, née Kühlenthal, headed by a watercolour illustration of the Cerne Abbas giant, 11 December [1939]. Purchased at Sworders Auctions, Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex (7 October 2025, Lot 14) for £9,789, with the aid of a grant of £4,875 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Christopher Whittick, Friends of The Keep Archives, writes: ESBHRO holds the archive of Eric Ravilious (1903-1942), which was donated by the artist’s daughter in 2020. Serving as an Official War Artist, Ravilious’ life was cut tragically short at the age of 39 when a plane in which he was flying crashed in Icelandic waters on 2 September 1942.

In December 1939, waiting to hear whether his application to join the War Artist scheme had been accepted, Ravilious was approached by Noel Carrington of Penguin to produce a series of drawings of chalk figures, which were about to be turfed over to prevent their use by enemy navigators. On 10 December he wrote from the New Inn at Cerne Abbas to his wife Tirzah ‘The village and the country are lovely, and the Giant all I had expected. It really is a marvellous figure’. On his return home he wrote to his lover Diana Tuely ‘I have just returned from Dorset, having been promised a job drawing chalk figures – horses and giants – for a book. So I managed to hand my shifts [as an aircraft observer] over and went off there and then, and with a burst of work drew four, the Weymouth George III, the Cerne Giant, the horse at Westbury and the other white horse at Uffington.’

In his final year at the Royal College of Art, 1925-26, Ravilious had been taught by John Nash, who had made his name as an Official War Artist in World War I. Both Ravilious and Nash were blessed in primary relationships with remarkably forgiving and exceptionally supportive women, who nurtured both them and their work. By 1939 another thing they shared, apart from a relaxed attitude towards infidelity, was the experience of having a relationship with Helen Binyon, who preserved the letters, all held by ESBHRO, which have made it possible to write detailed biographies of the artist. After her own painting career was cut short by glaucoma Nash’s wife Christine Kühlenthal, a friend of

Noel’s sister and fellow Slade student Dora Carrington, devoted herself to helping him in his work, always handling business and household matters. In the aftermath of their son’s death and the loss of any comfortable intimacy between them, this supportive role extended to not merely tolerating, but facilitating John’s affairs. This letter perfectly illustrates this artistic and sexual ménage – when Eric tells Christine of his recent lunch with John and Helen, it is her husband and his lover to whom he refers.

The acquisition of this letter cements the standing of ESBHRO as the primary centre for the study of Eric Ravilious and his circle, and demonstrates that in these exceptionally difficult times for local government repositories, the County Record Office is still able and determined to act decisively to enhance its holdings and in this case to augment one of its outstanding archives.

In all three purchases FNL matched the funds advanced by the Friends of The Keep Archives, moving in each case with consummate speed and efficiency – the Ravilious letter was knocked down to us within 72 hours of the submission of our application. ESBHRO and its Friends are once again indebted to FNL for their most generous support.

The Ravilious letter complete with sketch of the Cerne Abbas Giant. Courtesy of East Sussex, Brighton and Hove Record Office.

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FOR THE EDWARD THOMAS FELLOWSHIP

1. Women Must Love by Julia Hart Lyon (pseudonym of Ann Myfanwy Thomas), 1937, with associated corrected galley proofs. Bought from Blackwell’s Rare Books for £3,500, with the aid of a grant of £2,500 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Jeremy Mitchell, Chair of Trustees and Keeper of the Edward Thomas Centre, writes: The Edward Thomas Fellowship is pleased to report the acquisition of Women Must Love (1937) by ‘Julia Hart Lyon’, the pseudonym used by Myfanwy Thomas, younger daughter of the poet Edward Thomas. This scarce first edition is of exceptional literary and archival significance as Henry Williamson’s personal association copy, inscribed to him by Myfanwy, together with the complete set of densely annotated galley proofs, heavily corrected in Williamson’s hand. These corrections, made in pencil and in green and red inks, cover the entirety of the novel and reveal an extraordinary level of collaborative engagement between author and reader.

Above: Myfanwy Thomas in the 1930s. Below: Women Must Love Cover. Opposite: Edited Galley Proof image showing Henry Williamson’s corrections. All images courtesy of the Edward Thomas Fellowsghip.

The volume is accompanied by a letter tipped to the rear endpaper, written by Myfanwy to Williamson. In it, she presents him with ‘two copies of our book – one [this copy] very specifically inscribed for you & one for your library’, expressing her thanks ‘for everything – so much that you’ve done’. She refers directly to Williamson’s work on the book, offering to send ‘more copies if you want them’, and mentioning her mother Helen Thomas’s critical view of the cover design. The letter closes affectionately, before Williamson amends the final line in pencil, in a characteristic flourish.

The annotated galley sheets further illuminate the close nature of the relationship between Myfanwy and Williamson during the 1930s. Williamson – who appears in the novel thinly disguised as ‘Richard Tremayne’ (later ‘Richard Scotforth’) – supplied replacement passages, made structural changes, and annotated scenes recalling shared experiences. The proofs demonstrate not only his editorial influence, but also the degree to which Myfanwy’s semiautobiographical novel draws upon their personal history, written during the years when she served as his secretary and close companion.

This acquisition builds on earlier strengthening of the Centre’s holdings relating to Edward Thomas’s family, including the FNL-supported acquisition of his Collected Poems inscribed by Walter de la Mare ‘to H.W. … and his “daughter the younger”’. Myfanwy is the ‘daughter the younger’, a phrase appearing in Thomas’s own poems and family letters. The emotional and scholarly resonance of preserving her work – especially one so entwined with the Thomas-Williamson literary circle – is considerable.

Women Must Love and its accompanying proofs are now held at the Edward Thomas Centre at Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery. The Fellowship warmly thanks the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for their generous support in preserving this significant literary record.

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FOR THE EDWARD THOMAS FELLOWSHIP

2. As It Was (new impression, 1926) and World Without End (1931) by Helen Thomas. Bought from Antiquates Fine & Rare Books for £2,150, with the aid of a grant of £1,900 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Jeremy Mitchell, Chair of Trustees and Keeper of the Edward Thomas Centre, writes: The Edward Thomas Fellowship is delighted to have acquired a second set of books which previously formed part of Henry Williamson’s personal collection, following the book written by Myfanwy Thomas the month before. This time it is two copies of works by Myfanwy’s mother Helen Thomas: As It Was and World Without End . These two volumes, published in 1926 and 1931 respectively by William Heinemann, are of exceptional biographical and literary significance, bearing extensive inscriptions, annotations and marginalia in Williamson’s distinctive hand. They are also deeply evocative artefacts documenting the complex, sometimes fraught relationship between Helen Thomas, Myfanwy and Henry Williamson during the 1920s and early 1930s.

Written as a novel by Helen Thomas, As it Was recounts the story of David, a poet, and Jenny, his wife. However, it quickly became apparent that ‘David’ and ‘Jenny’ were actually Edward and Helen themselves – but this was not confirmed in print until a 1986 edition printed by Carcanet. The significance of this copy of As It Was lies foremost in its intimate provenance. Williamson inscribed the front free endpaper to his wife, Ida Loetitia Williamson, at Christmas 1926: ‘To I.L.W. from H.W.W. at Xmas 1926.’ Beneath this, he adds a striking biographical note identifying Edward Thomas as ‘the poet of this story’, recalling Thomas’s admiration for the Venus Accroupie statue in the Louvre, and naming the circumstances of Thomas’s death at Arras in April 1917 (he says ‘below Vimy’ which was a misconception prevailing at the time).

World Without End is the more heavily worked of the two volumes and is inscribed by Helen Thomas herself: ‘To Henry Williamson with the admiration of the author. Helen Thomas. January 1931.’

Williamson’s annotations, in black, red, and pencil, run throughout the text. Towards the end of the book, he adds characteristic interjections – ‘ha! ha!! ha!!!’ and ‘ye gods!!’ – illustrating both his temperament and his ambivalence toward Helen.

The provenance is exemplary. Both books were originally part of the Williamson family archive, dispersed at Stride’s Auctioneers two years ago; the present copies come directly from that sale. Their survival together preserves a coherent narrative of literary friendship, tension, and the intertwined family histories that shaped the Edward Thomas story in the decades after his death.

The Trustees of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries kindly supported this acquisition at short notice, noting the research value of Williamson’s annotations and the strength of the association. Both books are now held in the Edward Thomas Centre at Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery, where they are available to researchers and will be displayed in future exhibitions exploring Helen Thomas’s memoirs, literary responses to grief, and the continuing impact of Edward Thomas on those who survived him. The Fellowship warmly thanks the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for making this important acquisition possible.

Unusually, the book itself is a new impression without the expurgated eight lines describing an intimate scene between Helen and Edward — the very passage that caused controversy on publication and offended Robert Frost to the extent that he withdrew his dedication to Helen.

Left: Cover of As it Was; . Above: Henry Williamson’s letter to his wife. Courtesy of the Edward Thomas Fellowship.

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FOR THE EDWARD THOMAS FELLOWSHIP

3. Poems by Lady Margaret Sackville (1901). Purchased at Lyon & Turnbull (5 February 2025, Lot 290) for £1,071, with the aid of a grant of £700 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

The volume is now held in the Edward Thomas Centre at Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery, where it is available to researchers and will feature in future exhibitions and public programming. The Fellowship is grateful to FNL for making this acquisition possible and for continuing to support the preservation of Edward Thomas’s literary legacy for the benefit of all.

Jeremy Mitchell, Chair of Trustees and Keeper of the Edward Thomas Collection, writes: The Edward Thomas Fellowship is delighted to report the acquisition of Poems (1901) by Lady Margaret Sackville, formerly the property of Edward Thomas. This first edition, published by John Lane at The Bodley Head, is a scarce survival in its original paper boards and forms an important addition to the Edward Thomas Centre’s expanding research collection.

The book — Thomas’s review copy for the Daily Chronicle — is of significant literary and scholarly interest, shedding new light on his earliest professional years as a reviewer, during which he developed the critical voice that later shaped his prose works and, ultimately, his poetry. It bears his clear ownership inscription and contains a sequence of pencil annotations throughout the text – a characteristic feature of Thomas’s working method – which can be matched directly to passages in his published review of 2 July 1901, such as that on page 41 referring to Dante Gabriel Rosetti.

These annotations provide rare documentary evidence of Thomas reading a contemporary woman poet. Sackville (1881–1963) was an influential early figure in the Poetry Society and later became known for her First World War writing, including the noted anti-war collection The Pageant of War (1916). The presence of Thomas’s comments on her second volume of poems is of particular value, as the Edward Thomas Centre continues to build its collections representing First World War literature, in which female poets remain under-represented. The acquisition therefore strengthens two strands of the Centre’s work: the study of literary networks around Thomas, and the contextualisation of his career within the wider poetic landscape of the early 20th century.

Comparable works in Thomas’s library – including his annotated research copy of Richard Jefferies’s Wild Life in a Southern County , acquired by the Fellowship in 2024 — demonstrate how rarely such material appears and how essential it is to secure it. This Sackville volume, with inscription and annotation, is an especially uncommon example.

Page 41 reference possibly to Dante Rosetti. Courtesy of the Edward Thomas Fellowship.

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FOR THE ERASMUS DARWIN FOUNDATION, LICHFIELD

Correspondence between Erasmus Darwin and family with cotton spinner, engineer and inventor William Strutt (1756-1830), and his wife Barbara. Bought at Bonhams (19 June 2025, Lot 53) for £9,352, with the aid of a grant of £7,104 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [John R. Murray Fund].

Jenny Arthur, Trustee, writes: Dating from 1794 to 1804, this collection of ten letters and two notes give an insight into the life and ideas of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), who was instrumental in many significant changes in the 18th century.

Letter to William Strutt from Erasmus Darwin, 1801. Courtesy of Erasmus Darwin House.

Darwin was a renowned physician, a prolific inventor, botanist, published poet and a founding member of the Lunar Society. He is now recognised as laying the foundations for his grandson, Charles Darwin, the naturalist and geologist whose writings, including On the Origin of Species , changed the thinking of the world.

The letters were written by members of the Darwin family to their close friend William Strutt of Derby and his wife Barbara. Strutt, a cotton spinner, engineer and inventor, was Darwin’s deputy as president of the Derby Philosophical Society. The letters had been passed down through generations of the Strutt family before being sold in 2025.

The letters provide a unique insight into social and domestic life for the Darwin family. Emma Darwin’s re-use of paper covered with scientific sketches to invite friends over for dinner, for example, hints at a cost-saving strategy, something that feels especially relevant to many of us today.

The letters also serve as testament of Darwin’s varied interests and connection with his contemporaries. They reveal his thriving social circle of eminent preindustrialists, upon which he relied to provide a critique of his work, inviting Mrs Joseph Strutt to read the manuscript he had sent ‘and to write anything which occurs to you on the blank sides of the leaves with a pencil’. They further reveal his intellectual and experimental interest in topics such as galvanism. Six of the letters written by members of the Darwin family give accounts of his death and discuss his legacy.

In his biography of Erasmus Darwin, Desmond King-Hele quotes from the letter dated 6 August 1801, which illustrates that, at 69 and recently recovered from a serious illness Erasmus was embarking on an ambitious research programme into the fundamentals of electricity. However, Desmond was unaware of the location of the letter, working only from a transcript. To find the original document is very exciting.

It is thrilling for the museum, which is located in Darwin’s former home in Lichfield in which he undertook most of his innovative research and writing, to acquire these letters. They fill a significant gap in our holdings and are a wonderful addition to our collection. We are extremely grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for their generous contribution to their acquisition.

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FOR ESSEX RECORD OFFICE

1. Volume of manuscript copies of deeds of land in Belchamp St Paul, Essex, 1297-1586, made by procurement of William Golding, landowner, 1584 [-1586]. Bought at Forum Auctions (30 January 2025, Lot 20) for £2,772, with the aid of a grant of £1,940 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Richard Anderson, Archive and Collections Lead, writes: This is a fine survival of a manorial cartulary, in very good condition and in an elegant black leather enclosure. The original title page describes the cartulary accurately if ostentatiously as ‘A booke wherein is entred and Written divers Dedes of feoffment, Releases, Indentures of sale of lande, and other evidences, wylles, wrightin[g]e and notes concernyng chiefly the messuages landes tenements and hereditaments situate lying and being in Paules Belchamp in the County of Essex’. The hand is remarkably clear and there are only a very few locations of discolouration or spotting from damp.

The Golding family were at the centre of Elizabethan Essex society. William’s brother made a successful translation of Ovid and William’s nephew was the ‘poet and courtier’ Edward de Vere. Seated at Castle Hedingham, some five miles from Belchamp St Paul, the de Veres were perhaps the most influential of all Essex families of the period, further emphasising the importance of retaining this volume in the county.

The cartulary enhances strong existing collections at Essex Record Office for the Belchamp villages in the north of the county. Primary among these resources is the 1576 survey of William Golding’s possessions made by the accomplished local surveyor Israel Amys or Amyce, which local historians can now view alongside this directly complementary 1584 volume. In addition to Belchamp St Paul, the volume includes the texts of deeds recording property in the neighbouring parishes of Great and Little Yeldham. It is hoped to create a calendar of the deeds, not least since the whole volume is in Latin which is recognised as a potential bar to accessibility.

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Jonas Asplin MD (c.1771-1842) was the eldest son of Francis Asplin of Little Wakering Hall, in what is now the outskirts of Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Having practised medicine for some years in France, he returned to England in 1825 and lived from 1826 to 1835 at Prittlewell before finally moving to Rayleigh.

He had trained in Edinburgh, and the lecture-notes from the 1790s are taken from several identified lecturers. The example included here is from a lecture by the influential Dr Joseph Black (1728-1799), Professor of Chemistry, exploring the effect of arsenic, both as a murder weapon and apparently ‘as an affectual remedy in the cure of cancers’.

The medical case-notes from Asplin’s time in Prittlewell contain a range of detailed histories, with notes of the medicines prescribed. They are written in precise language, but also reveal his opinions of other practitioners. On 4 March 1826 Asplin examined a case of advanced breast cancer on which ‘Sir Astley Cooper would have operated ... but she has preferred putting herself into the hands of Quacks – first under some woman at Islington then some fellow in the Kent Road, & latterly under a Dr Scott at Bromley’. This is followed by an account of an operation for femoral hernia on the keeper of Little Wakering workhouse on 12 March 1826, and in the same month on the ill health of a family at Rayleigh diagnosed as stemming from ‘the constant influence of the paint & glazing shop, forming part of the house’.

The diary entries further record meteorological observations across the Thames Estuary and news and anecdotes of Southend society. On 21 May 1827 it was ‘very fine – Norden called on Carr for Poors Rate. Dr Aranda & wife called. Old Harridge moribund. Mrs Scallon ill – Scallon’s conduct shameful ...’ In September 1827 he noted the passage of the yacht of the Queen of Württemberg in ‘quite a hurricane’, and on fireworks night there was a ‘terrible noise from 3 this morning – from the powder plot gentry ... blackguards busy w[ith] fires & serpents’.

A detailed catalogue has already been created for Essex Archives Online (reference D/DS 713) and it is anticipated that the records will shortly be digitised for ready public access. These delightful records will long continue to shed light on the medical and social history of this corner of the county.

Grant of 1403 from Beeleigh Abbey Collections.

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FOR ESSEX RECORD OFFICE AND OTHER PUBLIC REPOSITORIES

3. Collection of correspondence, land tax receipts, title deeds and miscellanea relating primarily to Essex, c.15th century–1869, with items dispersed to six further public repositories (Devon Heritage Centre, Somerset Heritage Centre, Camden Local Studies and Archives, Islington Archives, Herefordshire Archives and East Riding Archives). Bought at Chiswick Auctions (29 May 2025, Lot 24), funded in full by a grant of £452 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [John R. Murray Fund].

Richard Anderson, Archive and Collections Lead, writes: The auctioneer’s description of ‘a small collection of handwritten notes and documents from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries’ gave only the slightest hint of what this collection would hold. Essex Record Office’s interest in the records derived from a small deed of a cottage in Stebbing dating from January 1711, but it emerged that the deeds were only a small element of the unknown collector’s interests which – at least in part – included signatures and correspondence of the members of notable families. Among these are three letters from Lady Anne Hamilton (1766-1846), a former lady-in-waiting to Caroline of Brunswick; a letter from Morton Eden, 1st Baron Henley (1752-1830); and a note by the barrister and Victorian wit A.V. Kirwan (1804-1870). There are additionally many autographs, some unencouragingly marked ‘swops’, including of Sir Harcourt Butler (1869-1938) and Admiral Sir Richard Webb (1870-1950).

The earliest items are a warrant from the auditor general dated 1633 and an unexpected medieval parchment fragment, evidently a writing exercise in a probable 15th-century hand. A particularly welcome Essex reference was the presence of a note from 1589 by Robert Petre demanding a Mr Freke to pay forty pounds; this is likely the Sir Robert Petre who died at Thorndon Hall, Essex, in 1593, and an important figure in this most influential of the county’s Elizabethan families.

Several 17th- and 18th-century deeds were transferred to other repositories; these included a feoffment of land in three parishes in Herefordshire dated 1639, a feoffment of land in Withernwick, Yorkshire, dated 1653, and two leases of land in London from the 1790s.

Improbably the only volume in the collection is likely the most intriguing item. This appeared to be simply an anonymous list of client addresses with some copy letters in Spanish. Closer examination showed it to belong to James Reynolds (1817-1876) FRGS, a publisher in educational charts and maps based in the Strand, trading mostly with South America and London society. In a letter of 12 January 1874 Reynolds records that he was awarded ‘a copper medal for my collection of books and maps for schools’ at Lima, Peru.

Such job lots at auction can easily be overlooked as beneath the notice of public repositories; but as this acquisition demonstrates they have the potential to include items of considerable value which once identified and catalogued will find an interested readership.

Deed of cottage in Stebbing, January 1711. Courtesy of Essex Record Office.

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FOR ESSEX RECORD OFFICE AND OTHER PUBLIC REPOSITORIES

4. Collection of 92 title deeds, including to property in Essex, 1825-1896, with other deeds dispersed to 45 public repositories, 1676-1900. Bought at Lawrence’s of Bletchingley Auctions (28 October 2025, Lot 146), funded in full by a grant of £308 (£153 for purchase and remainder to cover distribution) from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Richard Anderson, Archive and Collections Lead, writes: Essex Record Office was interested in this mixed and miscellaneous lot since one of the auction house images showed a deed of 1825 conveying land in the Manor of Crepping Hall from Charles Robert Sperling of Castle Hedingham to William Penn Gaskell. ERO holds an extensive archive of the Sperling family, including correspondence from Charles Robert Sperling, and the manorial records of Crepping Hall are also overwhelmingly held at ERO. William Penn Gaskill was further identified as of potential research interest through his familial relationship to William Penn, founder of the state of Pennsylvania, USA. In the event there were also nine other deeds of Essex properties in Chappel, St Osyth, Colchester, Wivenhoe, Harold Wood, Forest Gate and Wanstead, amounting to a useful addition to ERO’s holdings.

The bulk of the deeds relate to land outside Essex and no clear shared ownership or earlier common source could be determined. Since the sale a process of distribution to the relevant public repositories has been in progress, with the result that these records will be preserved and publicly accessible for the future in the places to which they relate. One example is the deed of appointment in 1855 of a new trustee to the marriage settlement of Mortimer Ricardo (1807-1876). He was the third son of the great economist David Ricardo and influential in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Dorset. A search of The National Archives’ Discovery database revealed that the original marriage settlement and financial papers are held at Gloucestershire Archives who have welcomed the donation. The lot also contained a similar deed of appointment of a new trustee to a scion of the famous family of the Dukes of Marlborough, Captain William Robert Churchill Spencer (1823-1862).

More substantial deeds of estates were among the collection, including of Ashes Hall, Westhoughton, Lancashire, in 1808, and of the estates in three conjoining Suffolk parishes of Henry Fox of Stowmarket, in 1810.

The ten deeds relating to Essex have been catalogued and are available for study at ERO. The remaining 82 have been distributed to a total of 45 repositories – 44 across England and one in Wales. The core purpose of these two purchases (see page 88) was to illustrate the possibility of acquiring, without substantial outlay and for permanent public preservation, property records that would otherwise be likely to suffer still further fragmentation or loss. On that measure the acquisitions have been successful.

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Map of House and Grounds of Samuel Day in Stansted. Courtesy of Essex Record Office.
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Deed of covenants on copyhold in Chappel in Essex, 1825. Courtesy of Essex Record Office.

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Kimberley James examining Gilbert White Letter.
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FOR GILBERT WHITE’S HOUSE AND GARDENS

A letter written partially in the hand of Gilbert White (1720-1793) but of his own composition, 1777. Bought from Christopher Edwards Antiquarian Books and Manuscripts for £3,120, with the aid of a grant of £3,100 from the Friends of Nations’ Libraries.

Kimberley James Collections and Marketing manager writes: This letter from Gilbert White is addressed to the antiquarian John Loveday (1711-1789), who wrote pseudonymous articles for The Gentleman’s Magazine and was well known for his descriptions of country houses. As an alumnus of Magdalen College, Oxford, he was ideally placed to provide an expert response to Gilbert White’s questions about Selborne Priory, required for the antiquities section of his pioneering work The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). The letter, written on 15 December 1777, embodies research from White’s own studies which he wants Loveday to verify, with questions such as ‘Might I presume to beg further that you would at your leisure inform me what a preceptory was; and who the preceptors were; and what was their power, Etc.’

The most unusual aspect of this letter is that it is written in two distinct hands; one is recognisably Gilbert White’s, but the other is yet to be verified. The most likely author was Gilbert’s nephew John White (known to the family as Jack), who went on to be a physician and is mentioned by Jane Austen in her letters. John spent much of his adolescence living with his uncle in Selborne and it is likely that John lent a hand by acting as scribe, leaving spaces for his uncle to return and fill in the appropriate quotations and references.

We know that White communicated with other naturalists during the writing of The Natural History of Selborne , but this letter demonstrates that he was aware of a wider community of scholars who might be ready to provide assistance with other aspects of his research.

On its acquisition the letter was put on display in the library of Gilbert White’s House and Gardens, and we are most grateful to the Friends of Nations’ Libraries for enabling us to bring it home to Selbourne.

A YouTube video was created to celebrate the letter going on display at the Museum: https://youtu.be/HrXBFDLZXz4?si=vQwfn7PlqQYMJ90B.

94 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 95

Sir John Gladstone, 1st Baronet (1764-1851) was the father of politician and statesman William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98); Robertson (1805-75) was William’s brother. They were the family members with the greatest involvement in the running of John Gladstone & Company, the business through which the family’s trade was conducted, including trade in goods derived from enslaved labour plantations.

John Gladstone began acquiring plantations in 1806, and would ultimately own 2,508 enslaved people across estates in Demerara (now Guyana) and Jamaica. The extent of these holdings made John the single biggest recipient of the compensation paid as a result of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. The Gladstones were typical absentee owners, with Robertson the only member of the family to visit the plantations in Demerara, in 1828.

Daily operations therefore fell to European attorneys and managers such as James. His letters consist of reports to John and Robertson about plantation outputs, such as the shipping of hogsheads of sugar and the relative profitability of the land, particularly the plantations Vreed en Hoop, Success, Wales and Vreedenstein.

The plantations occupy a key place in the history of enslavement and indentured labour in the British Empire. The Demerara Uprising of 1823, led by an enslaved man called Jack Gladstone, began on Success; faced with the abolition of slavery, John Gladstone would (from 1836) develop an indentured labour system under which workers from Malta and Calcutta (referred to at the time as ‘coolies’) were moved under agreements that were supposedly equitable but in fact exploitative. Disputes over the legal status of these contracts ultimately led to the Gladstone family divesting themselves of their entire plantation holdings, and any association with enslavement and indentured labour, by 1843.

The year 1840, from which all the letters originate, was a key year: in February John Gladstone began to review of the whole of his West Indian Estate. Stuart’s letters contain his review of the offers made for the sale of various plantations, particularly Vreed en Hoop. The final letter in the group concerns the sale of Vreed en Hoop by Robertson Gladstone to an unidentified buyer; ultimately, the plantation would end up being owned by James Stuart.

Gladstone’s Library has no budget for the acquisition of Gladstone-related material and we are hugely grateful for FNL’s support.

96 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 97

FOR GLASGOW LIFE MUSEUMS

Alasdair Gray archive materials (1950-2019). Bought from the Estate of Alasdair Gray for £430,000, with the aid of a grant of £20,000 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

This grant was awarded in 2024 and accounted for in that year but the purchase was not completed in time for its inclusion in the 2024 Annual Report

Jane Rowlands, Head of Museums and Collections, writes: Alasdair Gray (28 December 1934 – 29 December 2019) was a Scottish artist and writer. While prolific in his visual art practice until his death, Gray was better known in Scotland for his writing, with his most famous novel Lanark published in 1981. In 2023, his novel Poor Things was adapted into an Oscar-winning film, bringing his work to new and wider audiences. Gray was, in the words of his 2019 obituary, ‘the father figure of the renaissance in Scottish literature and art which began in the penultimate decade of the 20th century.’

This archive of approximately 5,000 items is drawn from Gray’s family collection, and since his death has been cared for and maintained by The Alasdair Gray Archive charity, under the custodianship of Sorcha Dallas. Many of the materials directly feature in or relate to Gray’s creative work. The collection includes original visual artworks, sketches and drawings, Gray’s original prints made with Glasgow Print Studio and Edinburgh Printmakers, a restaging of his working studio, a section of his personal library, a complete set of Gray publications (including those he designed for others), and a substantial body of literary papers, photographs and correspondence.

An independent statement of significance, commissioned by The Alasdair Gray Archive in 2022 with support from The National Archives, concluded that the archive is of exceptional significance. The assessment noted that the collection provides a full chronology of Alasdair Gray’s life and work, and provides rare insight into all aspects of his multi-disciplinary creative practice. It further highlighted Gray’s extensive use of marginalia within his books as a particularly rich and revealing feature of the archive, encompassing everything from brief notes to original artworks and literary compositions.

This acquisition is the culmination of a long association between Glasgow Life Museums and Alasdair Gray. In the 1970s Gray was employed by Glasgow’s People’s Palace museum as the city’s Artist Recorder, producing portraits of contemporary Glaswegians and streetscapes, which are an invaluable artistic record of the city at that time. The acquisition also complements our existing holdings of Gray’s work, including our literary manuscripts collection, which illustrate Gray’s creative process and his focus not just on the written word, but also on layouts and typefaces, with visual elements given careful thought and attention. The acquisition of the archive builds on the vital stewardship undertaken by the Alasdair Gray Archive charity since Gray’s passing, and opens up new opportunities for learning and discovery: from academic research to public engagement through Glasgow’s museums.

This purchase, made with generous support from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries, secures the archive intact for Glasgow’s civic collection, preventing it from being dispersed, and preserving access to this important repository of Scotland’s cultural history.

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Original manuscript chest for Lanark (see also page 5). Courtesy of Glasgow Life Museums.
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Descriptor of Section 99

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100 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 101

FOR HAMPSHIRE ARCHIVES

Estate, official and family papers of the Bigg-Wither (formerly Wither) family of Manydown Park, Wootton St Lawrence near Basingstoke, Hampshire, mainly 17th-20th centuries. Bought at Chiswick Auctions (14 September 2025, Lot 494) for £6,560, with the aid of a grant of £5,576 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Sarah Lewin, Information and Archives Manager, writes: The Bigg-Withers provide a case study of a Hampshire gentry family: typical in many ways, serving as magistrates, clergy and militia officers, and participating in the local gentry network; but also unusual, because from at least 1484 their main home, Manydown Park, was held as a leasehold from the Dean and Chapter of Winchester until shortly before they left it in 1871.

Hampshire Archives already holds several collections relating to the family. They are complemented by the new acquisition, which we were able to purchase thanks to a generous grant from FNL, adding to existing series and providing new detail, especially concerning the family’s official roles.

Many of the new items relate to Bigg-Wither property in Worting and Wootton St Lawrence parishes, some covering extensive parts of the estate, but also relating to specific properties, such as the White Hart Inn at Worting, 1659-1790; the first lease includes a room-by-room inventory of the landlord’s furnishings. Two deeds contain small manuscript maps, including one of Stable Close, Worting, 1790. The earliest item is a manorial account roll for Denmead, southern Hampshire, 1362-3.

calculations by Thomas Wither for royal taxes, 1689-92, with a petition of inhabitants of Basingstoke against the taxes charged to the town, complaining that ‘the trad[e] of Cloathinge is much decaied’ there, 1690. Personal papers include a notebook of Thomas Wither, c1688-1702, revealing the diverse concerns and interests of a Hampshire gentleman: family and estate matters, local taxes, geography, history and politics.

Lovelace Bigg inherited the Wither estates in 1789, taking the additional name Wither. Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra were friends of his daughters, and in 1802 Lovelace’s son Harris proposed to, was accepted and then rejected by Jane Austen. It was intriguing to discover medical bills for Harris’s family from the Lyford dynasty of local surgeons who also treated Jane Austen. Harris’s son the Reverend Lovelace Bigg-Wither features prominently, with his manuscript translations of classical verse, and printed addresses to local farmers and the Basingstoke Mechanics’ Institution, 1830s-40s. Pictorial material includes late 19th-century photographs of family members and postcards of the Manydown area.

Used in conjunction with other related collections, the new acquisition allows researchers to piece together a much fuller account of this Hampshire gentry family, and we are very grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for their help in its purchase.

At the domestic level, room-by-room inventories of Manydown Park dated 1672, 1689 and 1831 give a vivid impression of the furnishings, ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’, enabling comparisons with other inventories in Hampshire Archives. There are also menus from 1732, recording dishes served and their arrangement on the tables.

Other papers illuminate this gentry family’s largely unpaid official roles, especially during the turbulent 17th century. They include several account rolls of Wither family members as high sheriffs, 17th-18th centuries, and intricate

Manydown Park and members of the Bigg-Wither family. Courtesy of Hampshire Archives.

102 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 103

FOR HARRIS MANCHESTER COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Coastal silhouette foldout photograph book of the Normandy coast, 1944. Bought at C&T Auctioneers (9 January 2025, Lot 328) for £2,300, with the aid of a grant of £1,660 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Julia Donaldson, College Archivist, writes: We are delighted to have acquired this special album, thanks to the generous support of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries. During the Second World War, Harris Manchester College was requisitioned by a branch of the Admiralty known as the Inter-Services Topographical Department (ISTD). The ISTD formed part of Naval Intelligence and was responsible for producing detailed geographical and geological information for planners at British and Allied headquarters, as well as for commanders directing operations in the field. To meet these demands, the ISTD employed teams of geographers in Oxford to assemble intelligence on all aspects of regions where military activity was anticipated, serving the full range of British armed forces and their Allied counterparts.

Harris Manchester College Archives contain some records relating to the ISTD’s wartime presence in Oxford and they are regularly put on display for students and members of the local community, who have always shown great interest in this chapter of the College’s history. Until now, however, a crucial element has been missing: without an example of the ISTD’s finished work, we have been unable fully to illustrate the nature and impact of its efforts. This newly acquired album allows us, for the first time, to tell the College’s wartime story in a complete and compelling way and with the thrilling immediacy that only an original photograph book can convey.

The ISTD teams drew upon a remarkable variety of sources: published books and articles; aerial reconnaissance carried out from Oxfordshire airbases; photographs and data supplied by private companies; and – as a result of a BBC appeal – some ten million postcards and holiday snapshots submitted by members of the public.

This album, depicting the northern coast of France, is one of a series created to support the planning of major amphibious operations, including the Normandy landings of Operation Overlord. This example contains panoramas of the Gold Beach sector, assembled from multiple individual photographs. Produced to help service personnel arriving by sea to recognise their location, the album highlights key strategic points such as Mont Fleury – the site of a German coastal gun battery which was targeted by the Allied navy during the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944.

A page showing a view of Mont Fleury in its topographical setting. Courtesy of Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford.

104 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

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Acquisition Grants and Donations 105
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FOR HEREFORDSHIRE MUSEUMS & GALLERIES

Pomona Herefordiensis (1811) by Thomas Andrew Knight. Bought from Roger Middleton Rare & Antiquarian Books for £3,900, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [John R. Murray Fund].

Damian Etheraads, Head of Culture, Museums, Libraries and Archives at Herefordshire Council, writes: In 2025 there was a unique opportunity for Herefordshire Museums & Galleries to purchase two different editions of the Herefordshire Pomona: Pomona Herefordiensis (1811) and The Herefordshire Pomona (1876–1885). The FNL grant made it possible for us to purchase the earlier volume.

The beautifully illustrated Pomona Herefordiensis of 1811 documents local apple and pear varieties at a time when traditional orchards were in decline. Authored by Thomas Andrew Knight, it is one of the earliest and most comprehensive scientific studies of British fruit varieties, with a strong emphasis on cultivation techniques. As only 600 copies were printed it is a rare work, and also historically significant in that it established the foundation for pomological study in Herefordshire and beyond. It highlights the county’s horticultural expertise and the contributions of figures such as Thomas Andrew Knight and Henry Graves Bull. The books are richly illustrated with hand-coloured engravings and are in wonderful condition.

The Hereford Museum & Art Gallery is currently undergoing a major redevelopment project. The new galleries will provide context for the volume within displays on Herefordshire’s agricultural heritage, cider-making traditions and scientific achievements, making them more meaningful to the public. The museum’s approach also extends beyond the printed page, using interactive displays, digital reproductions and connections to physical collections such as historic cider-making tools and fruit-growing objects, which will bring the books to life in a way that a traditional reference collection would not. Pages in the book will be changed regularly both as a preservation measure and also to enable visitors to see different illustrations each time they visit.

This is a key addition to our collection, reflecting Herefordshire’s deep-rooted fruit-growing and cider-making traditions. We are most grateful for the kind generosity of FNL’s members for the opportunity to enhance our new galleries with this stunning work.

Plate VIII The Orange Pippin, from the Pomona Herefordiensis , 1811. Courtesy of Herefordshire Museums and Galleries.

106 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 107

FOR HIGH LIFE HIGHLAND – NUCLEUS: THE NUCLEAR AND CAITHNESS ARCHIVES

Adjutant’s Orderly Book, 2nd Battalion Caithness Volunteers (18041808). Bought from E.J. Mortens Booksellers for £1,200, with the aid of a grant of £960 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Jamie McCaffrey, Caithness Archivist, writes: Nucleus holds the archive of the UK’s nuclear industry alongside the archives of the Caithness area; it is part of High Life Highland (as is Highland Archives, see page 108).

The 2nd Battalion Caithness Volunteers was raised by Colonel Sir Benjamin Dunbar of Hempriggs during the Napoleonic Wars in response to the perceived threat of invasion. Lieutenant Colonel Williamson was the Inspecting Field Officer of Volunteers.

The volume complements several existing local authority and estate papers held by the Caithness Archive including records of the burghs of Wick (BW) and Thurso (BT) and papers of the Dunbars of Hempriggs (WS) which include many records pertaining to the 2nd Battalion, including memoranda of Benjamin Dunbar, correspondence, inspection returns and payments. The book also contains the names of many officers and NCOs.

Caithness Archives is delighted to add the Adjutant’s Orderly Book to its holdings. It offers valuable cross-referencing opportunities and will deepen our understanding of regional military practices and recruitment during this period, as well as being a valuable genealogical resource. Without the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries’ kind support this purchase would not have been possible and this unique piece of Caithness history would have remained inaccessible to the local community and researchers visiting Nucleus.

The book offers an insight into the social and military history of Caithness during the Napoleonic War period – specifically the measures put in place in preparedness for an emergency and possible enemy attack from the coast. It includes details of the involvement of Lord Moira and the Earl of Caithness in raising the unit, as well as particulars of inspections, marching procedures, obeying of orders, dress codes and more.

The book begins on 29th January 1804 with an opening letter inscribed by Lord Moira (as Master General of Ordnance) at the raising of the unit. Among the companies mentioned are the Ackergill, Keiss, Ulbster, Stirkoke, Clyth, Forse, Latheronwheel, Strathmore and Langwell. Other letters cover battalion orders, training, rates of clothing, patrols, inspections, meetings and musters. Of particular interest are a notice of a wrecked vessel in Orkney with the Battalion on alert, and an inspection request by Lord Hawkesbury (later Prime Minister, as Lord Liverpool) in October 1807 requiring a full list of arms and equipment. Many of the orders and notices are signed off by Lt Colonel Williamson from places such as Edinburgh, Wick, Thurso and Ackergill; notable letters also relate to Lord Caithness as Lord Lieutenant of Caithness. The last entry is dated 14th May 1808 regarding Major Williamson at Ackergill.

2nd Battalion Caithness Volunteers Orderly Book.Letter to Roscoe signed by Reynolds. Courtesy of High Life Highland.Courtesy of Liverpool Central Library and Archives.

108 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 109

FOR HIGH LIFE HIGHLAND – HIGHLAND ARCHIVE CENTRE

Collection of legal and financial documents relating to Hay of Lochloy and Park, 1503-1753. Bought at Lyon and Turnbull (18 June 2025, Lot 31) for £1,968, with the aid of a grant of £1,830 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Jennifer Johnstone, Archivist, writes: Spanning over 250 years, the Hay of Lochloy and Park collection offers an insight into the legal and financial dealings of a prominent family based in Nairnshire in the Highlands of Scotland The historic county of Nairn, along with the Royal Burgh of Nairn, falls under the jurisdiction of the Highlands and as such, the records relating to both bodies are in the care of the Highland Archive Service. The Kilravock Estate had been owned by the Rose family since the mid-15th century (see page 134) and David Hay (born c.1573) married Marie Rose, daughter of Hugh Rose, the tenth laird of Kilravok.

This collection of papers relating to Hay of Lochloy and Park originates from the Rose of Kilravock collection of family and estate papers (GD125) which for many years was in the care of the National Records of Scotland. The Castle, located near the village of Croy, has associations with Mary, Queen of Scots, Prince Charles Edward Stuart and Robert Burns. The documents within this particular series include marriage contracts, testamentary papers and correspondence, offering rich genealogical insights.

The writs and charters contained within the collection provide insight into feudal landholding practices and royal patronage, while the bonds, discharges and assignation documents reflect the economic responsibilities and obligations of the time. Marriage contracts and executry papers reveal familial strategies for inheritance, and the correspondence between the Hay and Rose families further enriches the narrative, illustrating personal, legal, and estate concerns in a changing political landscape. Together, these materials form a valuable resource for understanding the intersection of law, economy, and kinship in early modern Scotland and their inclusion into the holdings of Highland Archive Service ensures their long-term preservation and accessibility as well as enhancing our existing Nairnshire-related materials.

The collection also complements several existing family and estate papers held by the Highland Archive Service, including the Baillie of Dunain (D456), Munro of Novar (D538) Kilravock Estate (D1459), and Munro of Foulis (GD93) collections. The Hay of Lochloy and Park papers offer valuable cross-referencing opportunities and deepen our understanding of regional inter-family relationships and estate management practices across the Highlands.

The Highland Archive Service will use these records in a variety of ways, reaching different users. In order to highlight our acquisition of these papers, we will produce a short article for local press and will include collection highlights in our popular social media pages. Our engagement programmes are designed to ensure access and participation for diverse groups within our communities, including school pupils, individuals in custodial settings and residents in care homes, and our Community Engagement Officer will incorporate examples from the collection into relevant events and activities.

Opposite: Bonds, assignations and discharges, relating to the Hay of Park and Lochloy family, c1608. Courtesy of High Life Highland.

110 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 111

FOR HULL HISTORY CENTRE – HULL CITY ARCHIVES

Photographs relating to Hull and Immingham docks, Scarborough railway photographs and assorted ephemera. Bought at Gilbert Baitson Auctioneers (22 October 2025, Lot 225) for £77, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Martin Taylor, City Archivist, writes: Hull has a rich maritime history which we need to ensure is reflected in the archives; we are consequently always looking to improve coverage, especially of 20th-century infrastructure and activity. The year of 2026 will see the completion of the National Lottery Heritage Fund supported transformation of the Maritime Museum and the display of our historic vessels, which will generate even more interest in the city’s rich seafaring and mercantile past. This acquisition includes photographs relating to Hull and Immingham docks and is an important addition to the history of the Humber region as a port and a transport hub. We were delighted to receive the support of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries in purchasing these items – this is the first time that the City Archives part of Hull History Centre has made an application for assistance.

The photographs of vessels in Hull and Immingham docks and sailing across the Humber are a particularly welcome addition. The paddle-steamer Brocklesby (pictured) and her sister Killingholme were the mainstay of the Hull – New Holland ferry service from 1912 until 1934 when they were replaced by the wellremembered Wingfield Castle and Tattershall Castle.

A series of photographs relating to the development at various locations includes the office block at the front of Paragon Station (now demolished); the replacement with electronic barriers of the old gates at Walton Street level crossing (pictured) in 1964; the demolition of the Neptune Street railway bridge (one of the earliest in Hull) and the replacement of other bridges on the line between Hull and Scarborough.

The archive also includes photographic reproductions of contemporary promotional material relating to the opening in 1912 of Immingham Dock by the Great Central Railway and of locations within the dock complex there, including coaling jetties, timber ponds and power houses.

Many of these views were taken to support construction activity and are fairly routine; but as archivists know, such apparently mundane images can often be invaluable in providing information about the history of place and reawakening memories among today’s inhabitants.

The FNL’s grant offer was for up to £600, enabling us to bid for two lots. The second comprised documents relating to Hull Docks but, sadly, we were outbid.

Walton Street level crossing, Hull 1964, believed to be one of the widest level crossings in Britain.

Paddle steamer Brocklesby, a Hull-New Holland ferry built 1912, c1930. Images courtesy of Hull History Centre.

112 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 113

FOR INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE, LONDON

Notebook of James Brindley, 1755-58. Bought from Brindley’s descendants for £6,000, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Carol Morgan, Archivist, writes: James Brindley (1716-1772) was a famous 18thcentury canal engineer, best known for the Bridgewater canal built for the Duke of Bridgewater in 1760-1761 to carry coal to Manchester from his mines at Worsley.

Although not the earliest canal, it was an important development. Previously canals had tended roughly to follow the course of a river whereas the Bridgewater canal remained at the same level throughout with an underground canal at the mines and the Barton aqueduct crossing the valley of the River Irwell. Soon after its completion, work began on its extension to the River Mersey at Runcorn. The impact of these works was immediate and over the next decade Brindley was tasked with building a network of canals linking the industrial Midlands with the Trent, Mersey and Severn rivers and the industrial North.

There are only four known notebooks in Brindley’s hand. ICE already held three of them, presented to us in 1915; they cover the periods March 1759 to March 1760, September 1761 to December 1762, and October to November 1763.

This fourth notebook is the earliest known, covering 1755-1758, and had descended in the Brindley family. It had been on display at the Brindley Museum in Leek for many years, but the museum was no longer in a position to display it. The family approached Institution of Civil Engineers and the purchase was made possible only thanks to a generous grant from FNL. The handover took place at the museum in December 2025.

The notebook is arranged by person or project and lists the days and dates spent on each project along with activities, costs and accounts. The notes were written for Brindley’s own use and were not intended to be seen by anyone else, except perhaps the client. Most of the projects relate to millwork, which was his main occupation at this time. It was Brindley’s experience with water channels for mills which led to his later canal work, as he and others realised that if built on a larger scale, they could be used to transport goods. When examined along with the later notebooks, it is possible to see the progression in Brindley’s methods and recording style.

Sue Threader, Chair of the ICE Archive Panel writes ‘We are thrilled that this final James Brindley notebook has been added to the ICE Archives. It will be preserved alongside the other Brindley volumes and made accessible through digitisation. It completes an extraordinary set that sheds new light on the early career of one of Britain’s most influential engineers, largely responsible for initiating the canal age, and we are sincerely thankful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for enabling this important purchase.’

Brindley notebook 1755-58 including references to Coalbrookdale, Leek and Congleton. Courtesy of ICE Library and Archive.

114 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 115

FOR THE KEATS-SHELLEY MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION

Autograph letter of Mary Shelley to Claire Clairmont, with a clipped signature of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 2 May 1837. Bought from Peter Harrington for £16,595, with the aid of a grant of £10,000 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [John R. Murray Fund].

Ella Kilgallon, General Director, Keats-Shelley House, writes: Thanks to the generous support of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries, we are delighted to have acquired a rare letter between Mary Shelley and her stepsister, Claire Clairmont. In the letter, Mary writes in response to a request for her late husband’s signature. Enclosed within the letter is a clipped signature Yours ever faithfully – Percy B. Shelley . Mary writes, ‘I hope the person to whom you give it will appreciate it as it deserves – or I should not like to part with it’. With these few lines Mary shows her reluctance at giving away such a precious keepsake.

Claire Clairmont (1798-1879), the letter’s recipient, is often dismissed as a minor figure in the Romantic circle. Overshadowed by her celebrated stepsister Mary Shelley, Claire was treated with disdain by Lord Byron despite the pair having been lovers (they had a daughter together, Allegra, who died at the age of five). However, Claire was a central presence in the lives of the Shelleys while in Italy, Switzerland and England and was herself probably romantically involved with Percy Bysshe Shelley.

After Shelley’s death, Claire played an important role in amassing a significant collection of valuable memorabilia (a situation that inspired Henry James’s novella, The Aspern Papers ). This letter speaks to Claire’s fascination with collecting Shelley relics as well as her own close relationship to the poet. In this instance, it is notable that Claire did not give the signature away, despite requesting it on behalf of another, but instead kept in for her own personal collection. The survival of the original letter together with the clipped signature is rare. While it was not unusual in this period for signatures of writers to be given away as keepsakes, it is much less common to see the process in action. What is also surprising is that Claire would even request a signature of Shelley’s for a friend at this time of her life. By 1837 – employed as a governess – she largely kept her former connections with the poets Shelley and Byron to herself.

Above: Autograph letter of Mary Shelley to Claire Clairmont, 2 May 1837. Right: Clipped signature of P.B.Shelley. Images © Peter Harrington.

The collection of the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association includes several letters by Mary Shelley detailing her efforts to promote her late husband’s memory and reputation. However, Claire Clairmont is absent from the correspondence. This omission in part reflects Mary’s attempts to control Shelley’s memory and remove any notion of his alleged relationship with Claire. Despite the existence of other lovers, it was against Claire that Mary reacted most strongly both during and after Shelley’s lifetime. The addition of this important letter to our collection enables us to begin to fill this void and share the story of the complex and intimate dynamic between Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and Claire Clairmont.

116 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 117

FOR KEBLE COLLEGE, OXFORD

Letters from John Betjeman to Percy Muir (1955). Bought from Sophie Dupré for £790, with the aid of a grant of £675 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Peter Monteith, Archivist and Information Compliance Manager, writes: This grant enabled the purchase of a small collection comprising two letters and an enclosure from John Betjeman (1906 to 1984) to Percy Muir (1894–1979) and his wife. Betjeman affectionately addressed Percy Muir as ‘Biblio Muir’, perhaps in recognition of the fact that his correspondent was a highly regarded antiquarian bookseller, who worked as a partner and then Managing Director at Elkin Mathews Ltd.

The most important of these letters adds to the complex picture of Betjeman’s architectural tastes and his views on Butterfield’s work. In it, he thanks Percy Muir for sending a copy of C.R.L. Fletcher’s Guide to Oxford , noting how he enjoyed the book as a schoolboy at Lynam’s (now the Dragon School) and citing Fletcher’s comment that Keble College had been ‘perpetrated’ by its builders.

As well as being a Poet Laureate, John Betjeman was a founding member and the first Secretary of The Victorian Society and a keen advocate of Victorian architecture. William Butterfield’s Gothic revival architecture has long divided opinion, especially concerning Keble College, where his use of polychromatic brickwork is in stark contrast to the stone buildings of earlier colleges. Betjeman spoke rather highly of Butterfield’s work at Keble, where the poet was elected to an Honorary Fellowship in 1972 in recognition of his support for the College, but there has been some debate about how he really felt about it. Focusing on Betjeman’s early book An Oxford University Chest , Humphrey Carpenter (biographer and son of Harry James Carpenter, Warden of Keble 1939–1955) suggested that Betjeman ‘deplored what the Victorians had done to English architecture’ and only praised Butterfield’s work as an ‘honest expression’ of the age of gaslight. Carpenter was highlighting what he may have perceived as a disjunct between Betjeman’s early comments and his later writings and campaigning. Carpenter’s comments were later disputed by Greg Morse in his book John Betjeman: Reading the Victorians , but there is still great potential research to be done into how Betjeman really felt about Butterfield’s architecture.

When viewed alongside other writings and recordings in the Keble College archives, Betjeman’s letter to Muir, quoting from Fletcher’s book, allows a deeper understanding of Betjeman’s views on architecture, which may be more nuanced and subject to change than previously acknowledged.

The bundle also includes a letter enclosing a printed pamphlet in aid of a public subscription towards the restoration of the Church of St Katherine, Chiselhampton, outside Oxford. It includes details of the appeal and the poem Verses Turned . The enclosure includes several signatures, including that of the artist John Piper (a member of the Oxford Diocesan Advisory Committee), with whom John Betjeman often collaborated.

These important letters will be of interest to anybody researching Betjeman’s youth, architectural tastes, humour and book-collecting. They are also important to local historians, due to the letter and enclosure concerning the Chiselhampton appeal.

Keble College is very grateful to the FNL for this grant, without which we would not have been able to acquire these letters.

A selection of items letters and the pamphlet appealing for funds for the restoration of St Katherine’s Church. John Betjeman © 1955. By Kind Permission of the Warden, Fellows, and Scholars of Keble College, Oxford.

118 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 119

King’s College holds the foremost collection of E.M. Forster’s personal papers, and the Forster archive is one of our largest and most frequently consulted collections. Documents like these are important resources that shed light on Forster’s relationships with his intimate friends and contemporaries, and we have no doubt that they will generate a great deal of interest among our researchers. Letters become the property of the recipient and their acquisition is dependent upon their becoming available, often through sale.

FOR KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

Letters, postcards, and ephemera from the estate of Norman Routledge written by or about the novelist E.M. Forster (1879-1970). Bought at Hansons Auctioneers (17 June 2025, Lot 13) for £6,250, with the aid of a grant of £4,500 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Tom Davies, Assistant Archivist, writes: Norman Routledge (1928-2013), later a mathematician and distinguished schoolmaster at Eton, came up to King’s College in 1946 to read mathematics and achieved first-class honours with distinction. He was elected a Fellow in 1951 and was fortunate to count Alan Turing and E.M. Forster among his contemporaries and close friends.

King’s College is very grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for their help in acquiring these letters, which will enhance our existing body of Forster materials.

The bulk of the material King’s has acquired is a series of some 29 letters and postcards from Forster to Routledge dating between 1954 and 1965. Some of the correspondence is quite humorous and reveals Forster’s characteristic sharp wit and mischievous personality – in one letter, he writes about feigning illness to escape an engagement! Also included are several photographs, menus, seating plans for a lunch held at King’s in honour of Forster’s 80th birthday as well as programmes for staged performances of his novels A Passage to India and Howards End .

Following a stroke in his rooms at King’s, Forster was moved to Coventry to be cared for by his lover Bob Buckingham and Bob’s wife May. It was an unconventional but nonetheless contented final few weeks of Forster’s life. In 1979, to mark the 100th anniversary of Forster’s birth, a plaque was erected on the Buckinghams’ house. At the ceremony Routledge gave a speech, the typescript of which is preserved as part of this accession.

Letters from E.M. Forster and ephemera: Norman Routledge collection (EMF-18 471X). By kind permission of the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge.

120 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 121

FOR KRESEN KERNOW (ARCHIVES AND CORNISH STUDIES SERVICE)

Survey book for the manor of Ashton Barret, with plan in the parish of St Dominck, 1811. Bought from Ambra Books for £600, with the aid of a grant of £450 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Kate Rose, Archivist, writes: Kresen Kernow was made aware of the forthcoming sale of the manorial survey book in August 2025. As we hold very few documents for this manor and do not have a plan in our collections or indeed any work by its surveyor W.T. Stenaford of Stoke Climsland, the acquisition of the volume was a priority.

The manor, then known as Assietone, can be identified in the Domesday book. It was formerly in the property of the Barret family and in 1707 descended in the female line to the Presetwoods of Penquite. It subsequently passed by sale to the Huddleston, Rashleigh and Spurrell families; the Spurrells bequeathed it to the Pode family, who commissioned the survey. We have no recent provenance, but there is a handwritten pencil note on the back page with the address Norfolk Crescent, Bath.

The leather-bound volume, with gold gilded cover details, includes a fine ink-and-watercolour plan on parchment, detailing historical field-names, gardens, orchards, arable and pastureland and waste. The plan shows the glebe lands, the names of neighbouring landowners and footpaths. It also includes multiple field-gates marked in red ink, something not commonly marked on Cornish manorial plans.

The survey also marks the lines of hedges. The earliest Cornish hedge is thought to be over 4,000 years old – their origins going back to Neolithic enclosures – and they are a distinctive aspect of Cornwall’s landscape. Through this survey book and plan, we are able to plot where historic hedges and field boundaries, many now lost, may once have been and see if there are any traces of them today.

We thank FNL for their kind grant which enabled us to purchase this survey book, ensuring its long-term preservation and availability for researchers. The survey has been digitised and will be made available to view online through the Kresen Kernow website. The plan will also be one of many pre-1841 manorial plans which will shortly be made available via the Cornwall Council online mapping site as part of our Mapping the Past for the Future project, helping the future preservation of Cornwall’s documentary and landscape heritage.

Below, left: Title page to survey book.

Below: Plan of manor of Ashton Barret. Images courtesy of Kresen Kernow.

122 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 123

FOR LAMBETH PALACE LIBRARY

1. Devotional manuscript, early 15th century. Bought at Gorringe’s, Lewes (3 February 2025, Lot 1281) for £12,500, with the aid of a grant of £2,785 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Rachel Freeman, Archivist, writes: It is not often that an entire medieval manuscript, previously unknown to researchers, surfaces at auction, as was the case in February 2025. Our attention was drawn to the sale by a member of the Friends of Lambeth Palace Library, and our gratitude goes to both the FNL and the Friends for helping us purchase this item.

This intriguing volume contains a unique compilation of contemplative texts of English and Germanic origin, written in a neat, 15th-century hand. Although the volume has lost its first folio, the decorative remnants on its stub, the penwork of the initials throughout and the ornate scrolls accommodating the catchwords, all suggest an English creation.

Late medieval Christianity was dominated by affective piety: contemplation of the sufferings of Christ. It is within this environment that our volume – small in size, and perfect for personal devotion – was produced. The compilation includes the Centum meditationes de passione domini (a hundred meditations of the passion of the Lord) of Henry Suso, a 14th-century German Dominican, and the Vita Christi (Life of Christ) of Suso’s contemporary, Ludolph of Saxony. Alongside them sits De meditatione passionis Christi per VII horas diei (a meditation of the passion of Christ through seven hours of the day), attributed to Pseudo-Bede, and a number of unidentified texts. These works encourage the reader to contemplate, and in so doing to participate in, the sufferings of Christ.

There is much beyond the content still to discover. A faint ‘Johannes’ in a 15th-century hand can be seen on a flyleaf, which the sales catalogue tentatively follows with ‘Lacy’. It would be interesting to explore a possible link with the Dominican recluse John Lacy of Newcastle, although sophisticated imaging would be needed to clarify the surname.

124 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 125

FOR LAMBETH PALACE LIBRARY

2. Henry VIII (attributed). A Glasse of the Truthe (London, Thomas Berthelet, 1531-2?) bound with The Determinations of the moste famous and mooste excellent Universities of Italy and Fraunce, that is so unlefull for a Man to marie his Brothers Wife, that the Pope hath no Power to dispense therwith (London: Thomas Berthelet, 1531). Bought from Quaritch for £30,000, with the aid of a grant of £9,000 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [Unwin Fund].

Dr Julia King, Rare Books Librarian, writes: Lambeth Palace Library is extremely grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for their support in our recent acquisition of a book containing both Henry VIII’s own work known as A Glasse of the Truthe , and also Thomas Cranmer’s translation of The determinations of the moste famous and mooste excellent Universities of Italy and Fraunce , in what may be its original binding.

This volume, wholly concerned with Henry VIII’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon, is an extremely rare example of Henrician propaganda dating from the period between Henry becoming Supreme Head of the Church in 1526 and his eventual marriage to Anne Boleyn in 1533. The King’s so-called ‘Great Matter’ dominated the theological debates of the 1520s and 1530s, and this volume is a welcome addition to Lambeth’s collections relating to the birth of the Church of England. The volume sits squarely within our mission to collect, preserve and make accessible the memory of the Church of England, so that its cultural and religious history can be explored and enjoyed by all.

While determinations… exists in other copies Lambeth’s collections, this first edition of A Glasse of the Truthe is a much rarer work and survives in only two other copies in the world. Together, bound between two pieces of near-contemporary manuscript waste, they become an extraordinary witness to a pivotal moment in Church of England history. Determinations… is an earlier account of the academic debates on the validity of the King’s marriage, held between English theologians and continental scholars. However, A Glasse of the Truthe is written in a much more colloquial tone, taking the form of a dialogue between a lawyer and priest arguing about Henry VIII’s divorce and break with Rome.

126 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 127

FOR LEEDS UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES, CULTURAL COLLECTIONS AND GALLERIES

Scrapbook and commonplace book compiled by the Revd W.M. Pierce and his wife Elizabeth (née Rockcliffe), West Ashby, Lincolnshire, c.1840-1880. Bought from Christopher Edwards for £3,750, with the aid of a grant of £1,500 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Dr Rachel Eckersley, Rare Book Specialist, writes: The University of Leeds Libraries holds several 18th- and 19th-century commonplace books across different collections and in 2024 purchased a superb group of 12 women’s commonplace books (MS 2306), many with a northern provenance, and the literary archive of Mary Way (1744-1816). This small collection has already generated significant academic and public interest and importantly builds on our holdings relating to women’s lives and domesticity, book history and the history of writing, and manuscript verse and literary networks. When the scrapbook and commonplace book compiled by the Revd W.M. Pierce and his wife Elizabeth (née Rockcliffe) was offered for sale by Christopher Edwards, we knew it would complement our research themes and existing collections perfectly and we are very grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for their help in acquiring it.

William Matthews Pierce (c.1800-64) studied at St John’s College, Cambridge before entering the Church of England, and was ordained priest in 1822; he went on to become vicar and then rector of several prosperous parishes in Lincolnshire. He was a promoter and possibly editor of The Christian’s Monthly Magazine and Universal Review and was also the first and main compiler of this commonplace book. In 1826 he married Elizabeth Rockcliffe, published author of Village pencillings in prose and verse (London: William Pickering, 1842) and Frank Merrivale; or, dissolving views from the glass of time (London: G. Bell, 1845), and the daughter of the Revd Francis Rockcliffe, rector of Fulletby until his death in 1824; William succeeded to the living of Fulletby on his marriage. He and his wife lived comfortably in West Ashby Manor House, a few miles from Somersby Rectory, home of the Tennyson family. Elizabeth died in 1860, predeceasing her husband, as did their son Francis Rockliffe Pierce two years later. On William’s death in 1864 the scrapbook passed to the Revd Walter Currer Holiwell (1835-99), also a Lincolnshire clergyman, and a likely cousin of Elizabeth or William.

The Pierce commonplace book (MS 2339) comprises letters and manuscript notes on parish affairs, printed ephemera of local interest, numerous examples of original prose and poetry in manuscript by Elizabeth and Francis, extracts from works of other poets, press cuttings on a variety of subjects and some family business documents, all dating from the 1840s to the 1880s. Highlights include four remarkable 18th-century manuscript library catalogues, listing the books belonging to a series of country clergy in the Rockcliffe family and one small library of another local cleric bought by Elizabeth Rockcliffe’s grandfather in 1774. Intriguingly, various papers about John James Hopwood of St John’s, who died suddenly of apoplexy on Midsummer Common, Cambridge, on 11 January 1842, the day he passed his BA examination, also feature, including a sketch of his memorial inscription and printed copies of his Cambridge examination papers in Algebra and other subjects, dated 1839. His connection to the Pierces is as yet unknown.

Detail of Rockliffe library catalogue (MS2339). Courtesy of Leeds University Libraries.

128 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 129

FOR THE LIVERPOOL UNIVERISITY LIBRARIES, MUSEUMS, GALLERIES

Literary archive created by Roger McGough, British poet, performer and broadcaster. Bought from Rick Gekoski, acting on behalf of Roger McGough, for £44,000, with the aid of a grant of £20,000 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [Larkin Fund].

Jo Klett, Archivist writes: With the generous support of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries and the Arts Council/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, the University of Liverpool Libraries has recently acquired the second tranche of the archive of Roger McGough.

Roger McGough (born 1937) is a celebrated British poet, performer, and broadcaster. Emerging as part of the Liverpool poetry scene in the 1960s, he gained prominence through The Mersey Sound , a landmark anthology co-authored with Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, whose papers we already hold. McGough’s work spans poetry and prose for adults and children, plays and scripts. McGough is also a versatile performer and broadcaster; in the 1960s he co-founded the satirical music and poetry group The Scaffold and has had a long-running involvement with BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please . Over his career he has received numerous honours, including an OBE and CBE for services to literature.

The University has held the papers of McGough since 2007; and this second tranche of material comprises an extensive body of his creative and professional output, represented through manuscripts, drafts, scripts and project files relating to major works such as Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, Yellow Submarine and The Sound Collector . Forty-three notebooks chart his poetic practice across decades, containing published and unpublished poems, ideas, sketches and personal reflections. A large set of corrected and uncorrected proofs document the development of numerous books, including Poetry Pie, It Never Rains, As Far as I Know and Slapstick , alongside original illustrations and correspondence with publishers. In addition, there is a substantial collection of travel, appointment diaries and day planners which record daily activities, creative progress, holidays and touring schedules. Further material includes extensive professional and literary correspondence, fan mail, drafts for his autobiography, cassette recordings, festival ephemera, posters, children’s books, published editions, personal artworks and scripts for Poetry Please , together offering a rich insight into a vibrant and prolific literary career.

This newly acquired archive complements the Library’s manuscript and printed collections for other Merseyside writers such as Matt Simpson, and such major literary figures of the 20th century as Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney. It will feature in our public programming and will be embedded in university teaching and research. Work from the McGough archive features in the new exhibition Lightbulb moments at the University’s Victoria Gallery and Museum, acting as inspiration and encouragement for all.

Above: Scaffold single. Courtesy of University of Liverpool Library. Far, left: Roger McGough at a poetry reading, Liverpool 1967. © Jonathan Cape Ltd. Left: Roger McGough self-portrait. Courtesy of University of Liverpool Library.

130 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 131

FOR MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY

Manuscript booklet of astronomical tables, second or third quarter of the 14th century. Bought at Christies’ (28 January 2025, Lot 135) for £24,877, with the aid of a grant of £7,214 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Julia Walworth, Fellow Librarian, writes: During the second half of the 14th century, Merton College Oxford was home to a group of scholars who worked collaboratively and were at the cutting edge of the science of the day. Their focus was the astronomy and astrology of eclipses and planetary conjunctions and their effect on the events in the world. The potential influence of planetary conjunctions was increased by solar or lunar eclipses. At that time, calculating the date, time, duration and extent of a past or future solar eclipse was a complex undertaking, involving more than 200 steps and requiring considerable computational skill. Once worked out, these results were circulated to help others, as in this manuscript acquired with the assistance of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

This parchment booklet (now Merton 329) is a rare example of a working manuscript surviving in the format in which it would have originally been used. It comprises four leaves (protected by a wrapper of re-used parchment from an earlier liturgical manuscript) containing eight astronomical tables, very carefully written and clearly laid out. The sequence opens with a table of solar and lunar eclipses for England calculated by the Cambridge scholar Walter Elveden (d. circa 1360), previously thought to have survived in only one copy. The subsequent folios are devoted to tables that facilitate the calculation of eclipses, with an emphasis on the true solar longitude (the Sun’s real position), a pivotal component in such calculations. Also included is a table for converting Islamic to Christian years, with a short text explaining how to use the table if the reader was also consulting astronomical tables based on the Islamic year. It seems likely that this material was compiled by an experienced astronomer for their own use or for teaching purposes, or both.

The manuscript reflects the interests of 14th-century Mertonians, particularly John Ashenden (d.1368) and William Reed (d.1385). A contemporary note added to the foot of the first folio references the Oxford meridian, suggesting that the manuscript originated at Oxford or was there soon after the tables were copied. These tables are known to have been employed in calculations made by Mertonians and point to Merton as a place of production of this manuscript.

This fascinating manuscript is now available for study in Oxford alongside others produced in the Mertonian astronomical milieu. It was the focus of a library exhibition, Science and the Sky , in autumn 2025. Digital images will be made available online in 2026 so that it will be easily accessible to scholars everywhere. Merton College is extremely grateful to FNL for making this acquisition possible. The manuscript represents not only the research of the past but offers exciting possibilities for future study.

Main image: Table of solar eclipse details 1352-1386. Left: Astronomical manuscript (Merton MS 329) on display in 2025. Courtesy of The Warden and Fellows of Merton College Oxford.

132 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 133

FOR MONTROSE MUSEUM (ANGUSALIVE MUSEUMS & GALLERIES)

The Booke of Common Prayer (London: Robert Barker, 1632) with Royal arms gilt to covers. Bought at Lyon & Turnbull (20 August 2025, Lot 221) for £1,008, with the aid of a grant of £746 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Emma Gilliland, Museums & Galleries Collections Lead, writes: This small copy of The Booke of Common Prayer came into the possession of the Ogilvy family of Cortachy Castle in Angus in 1650. It has a significant connection to the Jacobite cause.

From 1425 onwards, members of the family held prominent positions at court. Sir James Ogilvy (c.1593-1666) was elevated to the peerage as Lord Ogilvy of Alyth and Lintrathen by Charles I in 1639. This grant was in recognition of his refusal to sign the National Covenant and his earlier court role as a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to James I. In 1639 the family was further ennobled with the creation of the Earldom of Airlie.

The 2nd Earl, James Ogilvy (c.1615-1704), was a fervent Royalist during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He was captured during the battles of Aberdeen (1644) and Philiphaugh (1645), sentenced to death in 1646, and later imprisoned in the Tower of London. He survived the Interregnum and resumed public life following the Restoration, serving under both Charles II and James II.

In 1650 Charles II visited the Earl at Cortachy, staying in what became known as the ‘King’s Room’. He had been in exile, but returned to Scotland in June 1650 with the support of the Scottish Covenanters, who demanded he sign the National Covenant which outlined the abandonment of Episcopal church governance. Charles felt his independence suffocated by some of his supporters. When staying in Perth on 4 October he announced that he was going hawking, but in fact took flight with close friends. He arrived at Cortachy late in the afternoon, much to the Earl’s surprise. The King slept that night in the castle, and the following day went to Glen Clova with a bodyguard of Ogilvy men. Charles expected to return to Cortachy, but was found by a search party from Perth who had been pursuing him. Since he did not return to the castle, he left behind two books, one of which is this 1632 edition of The Booke of Common Prayer .

The leather binding has the royal arms of Charles I tooled on the front and back; Charles II was only two years old when this copy was printed. The 3rd Earl’s son, James Ogilvy (d. 1731), joined the Jacobite Rising of 1715 under the Earl of Mar, and would have been familiar with this book at Cortachy which was a tangible symbol of the family’s historic support for the Stuart kings. There are various annotations throughout the book including by one James Ogilvy, ‘This book is not to be placed in any other man’s possession.’

This support persisted during the 1745 Rising. David Ogilvy (1725-1803), de jure 6th Earl of Airlie, was a member of Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s privy council and raised a regiment which fought at Culloden.

The Angus contribution to the Jacobite cause is largely unknown outside of academic circles, and the Ogilvys were one of the most prominent Jacobite families in the area. Although the Angus Collection holds important Jacobite items, we have nothing else relating to the Ogilvys. With the generous support of FNL we are delighted that we have been able to safeguard this small but important book. It will feature in our 2026 exhibition at Montrose Museum, Tartan & Turmoil: The Angus Jacobite Story .

----- Start of picture text -----
Above: Close-up of the Royal arms of Charles I.
Right: An ownership inscription by David Ogilvy.
Courtesy of ANGUSalive Museums & Galleries.
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134 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 135

FOR NAIRN MUSEUM, HIGHLANDS

Archives from Kilravock Castle in the Scottish Highlands, 14th to 17th centuries. Bought at auction from Lyon & Turnbull (18 June 2025, Lots 5, 15, 20 and 30) for £11,545, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Annie MacDonald, Nairn Museum Curator, writes: In June 2025 Nairn Museum was successful in acquiring at auction four lots of medieval and early modern manuscripts created by Clan Rose of Kilravock Castle, forming a sample body of material spanning more than three centuries. The documents provide a unique insight into the social and political history of Nairnshire during this period.

The earliest group comprises ten vellum documents dating from the early 14th century, written in Latin and relating to the second and third barons of Kilravock. Amongst these is an inquisition from 1343 settling rights connected with the foundation of the Chapel of Kilravock. This manuscript provides a detailed description of tenants’ customary privileges, grazing rights and shared resources, offering rare insight into everyday arrangements in medieval Highland society. Nairn Museum has hired an artist to illustrate the vivid depiction of the chapel described in this document, with one brewery freely, 13 animals of advanced age … four times twenty sheep, or many up to the aforesaid number, two horses, one sow and two hens.

Within the medieval documents, we also have a charter issued by Euphemia, Countess of Ross, after the death of her second husband Alexander Stewart, 1st Earl of Buchan, better known as the Wolf of Badenoch. Issued in Euphemia’s own right, the charter was granted in favour of an ancestor of the Balquhain family, an early branch of the house of Leslie. It provides valuable evidence for patterns of succession and governance, showing the active role of noblewomen in the Scottish Highlands in the medieval period.

From the 16th century, there is a remarkable set of five letters signed by the Queen Regent of Scotland, Mary of Guise, written between 1555 and 1559 and addressed to Hugh Rose, the 10th Baron of Kilravock. These letters illuminate the exercise of royal authority in the Highlands during a period of political tension and rebellion. Nairn Museum is particularly excited by these letters

because they show the national significance of the Scottish Highlands, Kilravock and its lairds within the governance of 16th-century Scotland.

The collection also includes letters and papers associated with the regents of James VI, notably John Erskine, Earl of Mar, and James Douglas, Earl of Morton. Their correspondence reflects the instability of the early 1570s and appeals for constancy and support following political violence. Later documents relating to the 12th and 14th barons of Kilravock extend the archive into the 17th century, encompassing legal, financial and estate papers. We are working with members of Clan Rose to co-curate this material for exhibition.

The acquisition of this material ensures that manuscripts long associated with the history of Kilravock remain accessible in the region to which they belong. We are delighted to have been part of a collection of local and national heritage institutions supported by Friends of the Nations’ Libraries to acquire parts of the Kilravock Castle archive at auction. Nairn Museum is deeply indebted to the Friends for their vital support, without which the preservation and study of this important archive would not have been possible.

Above left: Letter of Mary of Guise relating to the murder of Donald McLeod, asking the laird of Kilravock to be ready with his kinsmen upon six hours’ warning, 12 May 1557. Above right: Charter with seal issued by Euphemia, Countess of Ross. Courtesy of Nairn Museum.

136 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 137

FOR THE NATIONAL GALLERY LIBRARY

1. J.B. Boudard, Iconologie tirée de divers auteurs. Ouvrage utile aux gens de lettres, aux artistes & généralement à tous les amateurs des beaux-arts, dedié à S.A.R. L’infant D. Philippe . Parma: Philippe Carmignani, 1759. Bought from Alessandro Borgato, Padua (£2,400).

2. Leonardo da Vinci, A Treatise of Painting . London: Printed for J. Senex and W. Taylor, 1721. Bought from Whitmore Rare Books, Pasadena (£6,300).

Bought for a total of £8,700, with the aid of a grant of £7,700 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Alan Crookham, Chief Librarian & Archivist, writes: The Iconologie tirée de divers auteurs is the extremely rare first edition of this important work for art history studies by the Frenchman J.B. Boudard (circa 1715-1773), sculptor at the court of Parma under Duke Philip of Bourbon. Inspired by the renowned work of Ripa, it also reflects the influence of the new Enlightenment thinking, with references to Voltaire, Rousseau and Boileau, alongside the usual classical authors.

The National Gallery has a small, but significant, collection of books on iconography. Within the United Kingdom, we were able to identify copies of this book only at the National Art Library (Victoria & Albert Museum), Oxford University, Cambridge University and the University of East Anglia. Given the book’s importance in relation to art history, its acquisition has strongly enhanced the resources offered by the National Gallery Library for the study of paintings.

Leonardo da Vinci’s A Treatise of Painting is the first edition in English of the artist’s first published work, Trattato della pittura , which appeared in an Italianlanguage Paris edition in 1651, more than 130 years after his death. The Trattato had been drawn together from Leonardo’s copious notes by his pupil Francesco Melzi; a manuscript copy, made for Paul Fréart de Chantelou and illustrated by Nicolas Poussin, formed the basis for the 1651 edition. This is a rare complete copy of the English translation that includes 36 plates (four of them folding), including the frontispiece portrait of Leonardo.

The National Gallery is one of the few art museums to own a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin of the Rocks (NG1093), and we have a long tradition of Leonardo scholarship. Although copies of this book are available at the National Art Library (Victoria & Albert Museum) and a number of UK universities, it was a notable omission in the National Gallery Library’s holdings. Given the Gallery’s close interest in Leonardo, this acquisition has strengthened and complemented our existing research materials on this subject.

Founded by Parliament in 1824, the National Gallery is one of the finest art galleries in the world, housing the nation’s collection of historic European paintings; it is also a preeminent centre for the research of paintings in the Western European tradition from the 13th to the early 20th century. In 2025 it established a new Research Department to lead on its research strategy and ensure that its research resources are made available to the widest possible audience, including both national and international visitors and digital users, as well as Gallery staff.

The title pages of the two works. Courtesy of the National Gallery.

The Iconologie tirée de divers auteurs and A Treatise of Painting have been catalogued and their details are available at https://library.nationalgallery.org.uk/.

138 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 139

FOR THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

1. Esther Inglis, ‘Argumenta in Librum Geneseos Esthere Inglis manu exarata’ (London, 1606). Bought by Private Treaty Sale for £84,500, with the aid of a grant of £20,000 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [John R. Murray Fund].

Heidi Egginton, Curator for Political and Artists’ Archives, writes: ‘Argumenta in Librum Geneseos …’ was thought to be one of the last two or three of the 59 traceable works by Esther Inglis (c.1570-1624) remaining in private hands. It is of pre-eminent importance as a work of calligraphic art and as an illuminated manuscript produced by an early modern woman.

Inglis is now widely recognised as an important Franco-Scottish artist who engaged creatively in transnational Renaissance cultures of self-fashioning, while negotiating the restrictions of her class and gender. The daughter of French Huguenots who fled Dieppe during the French Wars of Religion, Inglis was raised in Edinburgh, where her parents ran the French school. Her calligraphic manuscripts, which she had begun creating by the age of 16, are particularly notable among those made by early modern artisans for the inclusion of her signature and self-portraits, now acknowledged as the first known such images produced by a woman artist in Scotland or England. In both the use of her name and image and her calligraphy, Inglis presents herself as a distinctively feminine professional, dedicated to international diplomacy and the advancement of the Protestant cause through her talents with needle, paintbrush and quill pen.

Inglis did not work to commission but rather turned devotional texts into miniature works of art for prospective patrons in the hope of receiving financial support. There is evidence that she sometimes operated in partnership with her husband Bartilmo Kello, a clerk for foreign correspondence and intelligencer at the Scottish court of James VI. This manuscript is a fine example of those she produced in colour in a highly experimental creative period between 1605 and 1607. During this time Inglis, having followed the Jacobean court south from Edinburgh to London, was seeking preferment from a range of elite Protestant figures, while she and her young family were living in straitened financial circumstances. ‘Argumenta Librum Geneseos …’ displays a bravura

range of handwriting styles, including text written in a minute script less than one millimetre high, and will be of significance for the study of early modern European calligraphy as an art form. Although this work does not contain a self-portrait, it includes an Inglis motif of a wreath crossed by two gold pens and surmounted by a crown with the inscription Vive la Plume , possibly in reference to her prowess in writing competitions of the day.

While Inglis confined herself to copying scripture and other moral texts that society deemed suitable for women, recent scholarship has highlighted her creative agency as an author, translator and poet in her own right. This manuscript includes a rare original dedication in English to its first owner, signed by Inglis, where she hopes the recipient will enjoy the ‘few blossoms I have effected of Dame Flora’ and describes its creation as ‘a woman’s work’. As this volume has hitherto been unavailable for study, with an excerpted transcription appearing in Scott-Elliot and Yeo’s Inglis catalogue in 1990 and making only a short public appearance at the conference at the University of St Andrews in 2023, this acquisition significantly expands the canon of original literary work by Inglis in public collections and will support new scholarship on early modern women’s writing.

Above: Self-portrait from manuscript by Esther Inglis, ‘Pseaumes de David’ (MS.8874, f.4). Right: Title page from manuscript by Esther Inglis, ‘Argumenta in Librum Geneseos Esthere Inglis manu exarata Londini 1606’ (Acc14768). Images courtesy of the National Library of Scotland, Acc.14768.

140 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 141

FOR THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

2. Literary papers of Kathleen Jamie, 1992-2025. Bought from Jenny Brown Associates, acting on behalf of Kathleen Jamie, for £30,000, with the aid of a grant of £10,000 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [John R. Murray Fund].

Colin McIlroy, Curator of Modern Literary Manuscripts at the National Library of Scotland, writes: Kathleen Jamie (b.1962) is a poet and non-fiction writer. She is the recipient of a number of prestigious awards for her poetry, including the Forward Prize, the Somerset Maughan Award and the Eric Gregory Award; she has also won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize on two occasions. She served as the fourth Makar (Scottish poet laureate) from 2021 to 2024. The National Library of Scotland has been collecting her literary papers since 1998 and currently holds four accessions of manuscript material. This further accession will bring the collection up to the present day, covering her period as Makar.

This is an incredibly rich collection, including as it does the drafts and workings of The Bonniest Companie (2015), S urfacing (2019), Cairn (2024) and The Keelie Hawk (2024). Passages of poetry and prose are captured on a range of formats, and include annotated typescripts of early drafts, print-outs with annotations and card fragments of poetry, and final annotated proofs. These offer an in-depth view into the birth and development of these important publications.

Also included are notebooks which combine diary entries – recording Jamie’s travels and subsequent ideas for poems and prose – and journal-type passages. They offer a significant and illuminating perspective on the writer’s work and life, and alongside the subsequent working drafts provide revealing insights into Jamie’s travels, ideas, her personal philosophies on writing and her creative methods.

The papers also include Jamie’s professional papers, such as contracts, correspondence relating to radio appearances and some university tutoring materials. Other projects are represented, including preparatory work and material for writing residencies, as well as documentation and work relating to Jamie’s time as Makar. There are also lists of wildlife spotted, and personally revealing notes on the reception of The Bonniest Companie , which provide further insight into the creative life of one of Scotland’s most important contemporary writers.

Digital material includes the result of collaborations with artist Olivia Lomenech Gill, as well as Jamie’s unpublished translations of the work of the German poet and philosopher Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843), two poems of which appeared in The Keelie Hawk , with others in her earlier collections. Audio-visual material includes cassettes and CD recordings of Jamie reading her own works, and the poems of others. These date back to 1992 and include broadcast and non-broadcast material.

This is an incredibly rich collection (TD 3958), including resources which demonstrate Jamie’s creative process, and capture the writing and re-writing of some of the most significant publications in contemporary nature writing, eco-criticism and poetry.

Below: Selection from the Kathleen Jamie papers (TD.3958). © Kathleen Jamie. Below, right: Kathleen Jamie. © Alistair Heather. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland.

142 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 143

FOR THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES

1. A corrected proof copy of Richard Llewellyn’s novel How Green Was My Valley (London: Michael Joseph, 1939). Bought from Peter Harrington Rare Books for £15,000, with the aid of a grant of £7,500 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Rhys Jones, Assistant Curator of Manuscripts, writes: In June 2025, with generous assistance from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries, the National Library of Wales purchased this proof copy of Richard Llewellyn’s famous novel, chronicling life in a late-19th and early-20th century South Wales coal mining community through the experiences of the family of Huw Morgan, the book’s narrator. Richard Llewellyn, the pseudonym of Richard Dafydd Vivian Llewellyn Lloyd (1906-1983), had other successes such as the play Poison Pen (1938) and the novel None but the Lonely Heart (1943); but his reputation rests mainly on the enormous success of How Green Was My Valley and its 1941 film adaptation.

Interestingly the Susan Llewellyn bequest includes her correspondence with the bookseller Bernard Quaritch Ltd during the mid-1970s, which shows that she and Richard were aware of the proof’s existence and keen to discover how and why it had come on the market in the first place. Perhaps the fact that Macdonald Hastings, its earliest known private owner, had several books published by Michael Joseph, Llewellyn’s own publisher, is significant in this regard.

The volume has been catalogued and assigned the reference number NLW MS 24225B and is now available to be read in the Library’s reading room.

The National Library of Wales is home to the manuscript of the novel (NLW MS 22669E), and this proof copy is the missing link in the novel’s development, showing it in a form close to the published first edition of October 1939. It contains last-minute authorial changes and corrections to the text, including alterations to several characters’ names and the removal of most of the place-names. The author’s signature on the title page is dated July 1939, with various copy editors’ annotations and Composing Department stamps dated to early August.

In 1995 a group of Richard Llewellyn papers was purchased from Bertram Rota Ltd by the Library, acting on behalf of Llewellyn’s second wife and widow Susan Heimann Llewellyn (1940-2021). However, the purchase of the proof copy is particularly timely, coming as it does barely a year after the acquisition of a second major group of Richard Llewellyn papers as a bequest from Susan Llewellyn (the bequest also very generously included the assignment to the Library of Llewellyn’s copyrights).

The proof copy has passed through many hands since 1939, having been sold through Sotheby’s no fewer than three times; previous owners have included the author Macdonald Hastings and pop star Elton John. For the last 30 years or so it was in the possession of William A. Strutz (1934-2024) of Bismarck, North Dakota, whose collection has been described as ‘one of the few remaining great private libraries in America’.

Above: Annotated title page of How Green Was My Valley. Left: How Green Was My Valley corrected proof copy. Courtesy of the National Library of Wales

144 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 145

FOR THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES

2. Johnson, Charles. A general history of the pyrates, from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time (printed for, and sold by, T. Woodward, 1726). Bought from Marshall Rare Books for £7,500, with the aid of a grant of £3,750 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Timothy Cutts, Rare Books Curator, writes: At the National Library of Wales we are most grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for their generous support in helping us to acquire A general history of the pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson. The two volumes recount the lives of 34 pirates, including two Welshmen, Howel Davis (c.1690–1719) and Bartholomew Roberts (c.1682-1722).

Howel Davis, a native of Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire, was serving as a mate on the slave ship Cadogan when it was captured by pirates in July 1718. Davis decided to join the pirates and was made captain of the ship. He set out for Brazil, but his crew mutinied and sailed to Barbados instead. Davis was imprisoned but eventually released. After taking shelter in New Providence in the Bahamas he left on the sloop Buck , conspired with six other crew members to take over the vessel off Martinique and was elected captain.

Subsequently, he crossed the Atlantic to terrorise shipping in the Cape Verde Islands. One of the prizes he took there became the new flagship of Davis’s pirate fleet, the 26-gun Saint James . Transferring to the 32-gun Rover , he sailed south and captured more rich prizes off the Gold Coast. In June 1719 he was shot dead in an ambush while trying to kidnap the Governor of the Portuguese island of Príncipe.

Earlier Howel Davis had captured the ship Princess on which Bartholomew Roberts, another native of Pembrokeshire, was serving as second mate. He was taken prisoner, and when Davis was killed he was elected to succeed his fellow Welshman as captain. Also known by his nickname Black Bart, Bartholomew Roberts became a notorious pirate. The account of his life in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography recounts: ‘He sailed into a fleet of 42 Portuguese ships, ascertained which was the richest, boarded, and sailed off with her. Soon he struck terror everywhere. When he entered a harbour in Newfoundland, their crews abandoned the 22 ships there. After successes, the pirates went ashore at places like Surinam and Sierra Leone, indulging wild debauchery until their resources were exhausted.’ Roberts was killed in February 1722 and, as he had previously requested, his body was thrown overboard in all its pirate finery.

A general history of the pyrates includes a 34-page chapter on Howel Davis and a 120-page chapter on Bartholomew Roberts together, with a fold-out portrait of him, sword in hand, together with the ships Royal Fortune and Ranger .

These two volumes complement other recent purchases. In 2024 the National Library of Wales purchased the June 1722 edition of the periodical The Political State of Great Britain , which includes a description of the battle between Black Bart’s ship and the Swallow commanded by Captain Ogle, in which the famous pirate was killed, and one of the earliest descriptions of the Jolly Roger flag. In the last five years we have also acquired editions in English, French and Dutch of Bucaniers of America by Alexandre Exquemelin, published between 1684 and 1704, in which the Welsh buccaneer Henry Morgan (c.1635-1688) features prominently.

Plate depicting Captain Bartholomew Roberts. Courtesy of the National Library of Wales.

146 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 147

FOR THE NATIONAL RAILWAY MUSEUM, YORK

Letter from George Stephenson (1781-1848) to his son and fellow engineer Robert Stephenson (1803-1859), detailing his thoughts and design considerations for a new engine, dated a year before the construction of Rocket , 31 January 1828. Bought for £2,500 from Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers, with the aid of a grant of £2,250 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Karen Baker, Curator of Library and Research, writes: This letter from George Stephenson, considered the ‘Father of Railways’, to his locomotive-builder son Robert, provides a rare insight into the challenges, personal and practical, behind this nascent technology. Its contents document the technological innovation that subsequently informed the building of Rocket, the locomotive that heralded in the steam era, and the first locomotive type designed in 1829 for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world’s first inter-city railway powered by steam locomotives.

In his letter, forwarded to Alston in Cumberland, Stephenson discusses the length of the boiler and the numbers of chimneys to use for the Liverpool Travelling Engine, later to be known as the Lancashire Witch , commissioned for the Liverpool and Manchester but used on the opening of the Bolton and Leigh Railway in August 1828. Of significance is the detail around the number and size of boiler steam-pipes. The development of the pipes into a multi-tubular boiler was successfully used by Stephenson in the pioneering Rocket , winner of the 1829 Rainhill Trials, a competition to determine the line’s motive power. This boiler’s innovation became the blueprint for all subsequent steam locomotive development.

The letter, addressed ‘My Dear Robert’, is frank and paternal, addressing concerns around the suitability of employing a man with the help of John Moss, a plantation owner and banker who, along with other business leaders, commissioned George to build the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. He ends the exchange by apologising for his handwriting ‘I wish you may be able to read this scrible’. George famously learned to read and write as a young adult and this detail, coupled with his practical concerns, shows a human aspect to Stephenson that is often missing in the historical accounts of his achievements.

This letter complements the Stephenson family cookery book we have in the collection and his contemporary Timothy Hackworth’s collection of family letters and documents. The contents of this letter have never been made publicly accessible before now and, when put alongside other pioneering perspectives, shine new light on this burgeoning industry and insight into the changemakers who developed it.

The National Railway Museum is very grateful to FNL for the grant to allow us to acquire this important piece of human history. The next five years will see the bicentenaries of both Rocket (2029) and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (2030). This letter will undoubtedly play a central role in the stories we tell when the world’s eyes will be on Britain’s railways and the legacy given to the world by George Stephenson.

Miniature portrait of George Stephenson (1781-1848) by Mrs Mary F. Hamilton.

Stephenson’s letter to his son, 31 January 1828. Images courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Science Museum Group.

148 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Descriptor of Section 149

FOR NORTH EAST WALES ARCHIVES

1. Eleven lithograph maps from a first edition Boundary Commission Report for England and Wales published in 1868. Bought at William George Auctions (12 February 2025, Lots 54, 55 & 66-74) for £149, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [John R. Murray Fund].

Claire Harrington, Principal Archivist, writes: The 1867 Representation of the People Act resulted in major changes to the franchise in England and Wales – the franchise being extended, some boroughs removed and others created. This prompted the setting up of a Boundary Commission to establish the limits of the new and altered boroughs. In 1868 this Commission published The Report of the Boundary Commissioners for England and Wales , which was presented to both Houses of Parliament; it included a series of maps to clarify the limits of the new and altered boroughs. Early in 2025 a number of these maps came up for auction: 11 of them related to towns in Denbighshire and Flintshire, the two counties within our collecting remit. They are printed, with hand-coloured additions, and as we did not already hold copies we were pleased to be able to add them to our collection.

The alterations depicted reflect the changes in local representation, and form an important part of the democratic history of the area. The towns included are: Caergwrle; Caerwys; Denbigh; Flint; Holywell; Mold; Overton; Rhuddlan; Ruthin; St Asaph and Wrexham/Holt.

As the timing of the auction did not allow for the launch of a fundraising appeal, we are especially grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for funding this purchase in full.

Opposite: Map of Flint showing boundaries, including proposed changes of the Parliamentary Borough. Courtesy of North East Wales Archives.

Acquisition Grants and Donations 151

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FOR NORTH EAST WALES ARCHIVES

2. Map of the Gwysaney Estate, Mold, 1874. Bought at Trevanion Auctioneers (11 June 2025, Lot 487) for £77, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [John R. Murray Fund].

Claire Harrington, Principal Archivist, writes: Here at the Hawarden Branch of North East Wales Archives, we have for many years held the archives of the extensive Gwysaney Estate, just outside Mold in Flintshire. Our catalogue of the collection can be browsed online at www.newa.wales/collections .

It is a substantial collection dating from the 13th century to the 21st and a valuable source of information for the history of mining and industry in the area. Gems of the collection include a number of large finely-drawn 18th-century estate maps and an unbroken series of rentals, 1759-1927.

Over recent months a considerable quantity of material from Gwysaney Hall, chiefly furniture and books, has come up for auction. Most of this material was not within our collecting remit but there was a handful of items which we were interested in acquiring as additions to our existing holdings.

An application to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries resulted in a very generous grant offer of up to £1,600. Unfortunately, we were out-bid for all but one of the items we had identified, and were consequently able to claim only a small proportion of the grant.

The item we were successful in acquiring is a large, rolled Ordnance Survey map of 1874, one inch to one mile, covering North East Wales and parts of Cheshire and Shropshire, with manuscript additions showing concentric circles identifying distances from Gwysaney Hall. It is mounted on wooden rollers at top and bottom and was clearly hung in the estate office for regular use. The estate, the property of the Davies-Cooke family, was widespread and scattered, so a ready reference for travelling distances was undoubtedly very helpful.

Opposite, top: Detail of OS map centred on Gwysaney Hall, showing immediate area around Gwysaney. Opposite, bottom: OS map centred on Gwysaney Hall. Courtesy of North East Wales Archives.

152 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 153

FOR NORTHUMBERLAND ARCHIVES (BERWICK RECORD OFFICE)

Sir William Hutcheon Hall papers, (1815 – 1878). Bought at Charles Miller Ltd (12 June 2025, Lot 84) for £492, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Linda Bankier, Berwick Archivist writes: This small collection of 30 documents provides a fascinating insight into the naval career of William Hutcheon Hall and some glimpses into his personal life. He was born on 25 August 1797, son of William Hall, a ship master, and his wife Mary. From these humble beginnings in Berwick, in 1811 he went to sea at the age of 14 and, having risen through the ranks, was knighted in 1867 and became an admiral in 1875. He died in 1878, aged 80.

The documents chronicle his career from being a first-class volunteer on HMS Warrior . They include his vivid personal account of the ship being caught in a hurricane in 1815 when sailing from the West Indies to England (BRO 3053/1/1). William appears to have kept a personal diary and entries have survived for 1831 where he mentions joining HMS Alfred at Chatham in March, as well as visits to friends. In 1840, with the rank of captain, Hall was commanding the East India Company’s steamer Nemesis and saved Robert Kelly, a fireman, from drowning as they left Liverpool for the South China Sea. A year later, the ship’s engineers and firemen presented him with a plate as a token of their respect and admiration.

The documents also shed light on William’s interest in the welfare of sailors. He was instrumental in setting up sailor’ homes at ports. The collection includes handwritten notes of his meeting with the Duke of Northumberland on 17 April 1852 to discuss these homes and the need to make them self-supporting.

In 1854, William Hall was appointed captain of HMS Hecla and was involved in attacks on the Russian fortifications at Ekness in the Baltic Sea. The collection includes a printed account of his involvement in that campaign, the northern theatre of the Crimean War, and also a beautiful sketch of the attack on the Russian forts on 3 October 1855 (BRO 3053/1/11).

The private correspondence in the collection provides a fascinating insight into Hall’s personal life. It includes a Valentine poem sent in 1843 to The Honourable Miss Hilaire Caroline Byng of Shipbourne Lodge in Kent. An admiral’s daughter, she was related to Admiral John Byng, the first and last admiral to be court martialled and shot by firing squad in 1757 – the collection includes a poem (BRO 3053/3/2) about him. William Hall married Miss Byng on 30 April 1845. Their only child Frances Russell was born in 1850 and the collection includes several letters written to her in 1855 and 1866. The latter contain little sketches and are addressed to ‘My Dear Pet Lamb Dolly’.

We are very grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries who generously provided the funds needed to acquire these items, which provide an enlightening picture of Sir William Hutcheon Hall’s career and achievements as a naval officer but also offer an insight into him as an individual and his personal and family life.

Above: Photograph of Sir William Hutcheon Hall. Opposite: Sketch of attack on Russian forts at Eknus [Ekness], October 1855. Courtesy of Northumberland Archives.

154 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 155

FOR NOTTINGHAM UNIVERSITY MANUSCRIPTS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

A General System of Horsemanship in all its Branches by William Cavendish (1593-1676), 1st Duke of Newcastle, published in 1743. Bought from Forest Books Antiquarian & Secondhand Booksellers for £3,725, with the aid of a grant of £1,725 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Ursula Ackrill, Librarian (Special Collections), writes: We are grateful to add to our holdings this sammelband of two separate publications relating to horses and horsemanship. One is the first edition of the translation into English of A General System of Horsemanship by the 1st Duke of Newcastle. Manuscripts and Special Collections holds manuscripts by this author in two collections, the Portland Literary Papers and the Cavendish Papers. Among them is the manuscript of this book (Pw V 21), which was written in English but had originally been published in French in Antwerp in 1658; it first appeared in English in this edition, published in London by John Brindley in 1743. The purchase enables researchers to study the manuscript and its printed version side by side.

The book is a comprehensive study of ‘the manner of feeding, dressing, and training of horses for the great saddle, and fitting them for the service of the field in time of war, or for the exercise and improvement of Gentlemen in the Academy at home.’ The Duke of Newcastle’s equestrian skills were renowned, and his riding school at Antwerp attracted students from across Europe.

The English edition is lavishly illustrated with numerous engravings signed by notable Dutch artists working in Antwerp in 1658. Its 42 double-page engraved plates are reproduced from the 1658 French edition, including that edition’s title page.

The importance of the illustrations is signalled in its extended title, which draws attention to the close involvement of the author in a process more usually under the control of the publisher. The English edition appears ‘[w]ith all the original copper-plates, in number forty-three, which were engrav’d by the best foreign masters, under his Grace’s immediate care and inspection, and which are explained in the different lessons. And to give all the improvements that may be, this work is ornamented with head-pieces and initial letters, properly adapted to the subsequent chapters.’

The second volume, also published by John Brindley in 1743, contains an English translation of The Perfect Knowledge of Horses , originally published in French and written by Gaspard de Saunier (1663–1748), riding-master at the Academy of the University of Leiden, and son of Jean de Saunier, horse trainer at the Grande Écurie du Roy de France. Father and son worked with horses for various French sovereigns and military men in Europe. The book is claimed to be based on Jean’s experience but was edited by Gaspard, encompassing their lifelong learning and studies on equine anatomy and hippiatrics. This volume is the first publication in English of the French original, which appeared in 1734. It contains 20 engraved plates showing anatomical details, equipment and veterinary techniques, some coloured.

Allegorical representation of the Duke of Newcastle riding Pegasus. Courtesy of the University of Nottingham.

156 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 157

FOR PERTH AND KINROSS ARCHIVES (CULTURE PERTH & KINROSS)

The Godfrey Bingley Collection, 1893. Bought at Lyon and Turnbull (5 February 2025 Lot 362) for £263, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [John R Murray Fund].

Craig Statham, Local History Officer, writes: Culture Perth & Kinross has an impressive photograph and postcard collection of around 25,000 items. As with many collections, however, there are gaps, for example a dearth of material covering agriculture before the Second World War. The acquisition of two photograph albums covering what appeared to be Perthshire agriculture in the late 19th or early 20th century was considered an excellent means of filling that gap.

On receiving the albums, staff set about doing research the better to understand their history. Some of the photographs had accompanying handwritten information, but most did not. However, a reverse image search of one photograph revealed that it had been taken by Leeds-based photographer Godfrey Bingley (1842-1927). Fortuitously, in 1913 Bingley donated his collection to the University of Leeds, and over a century later the University digitised a portion of it; one of these digitised items matched one of the photographs in our two albums. Further research within the University of Leeds website revealed the presence of many of the images from our albums; most had accompanying information, allowing us not only to place them but to assign them all to 1893. It was decided to give the albums the title of The Godfrey Bingley Collection.

Certain images stood out as worthy of in-depth research. A photograph of a well-to-do group sitting outside a house apparently called Tullyneddy appeared to have real potential for uncovering additional information. It turned out that the house was actually called Tullyneddie and that it, and many of the buildings and farms around it, was owned by Helen Speid, and was tenanted by a gentleman called James Gilchrist. It is possible that these are some of the individuals in the photograph. They appear throughout both albums, holding the reins of horses and viewing agricultural machinery in action. We believe that Helen Speid may have commissioned many of the photographs in these two albums.

Kinkeadley Farm Cottage. Courtesy of Culture Perth & Kinross.

Another image that unexpectedly revealed some hidden secrets was entitled Kinkeadley . Just outside the right-hand window of Kinkeadley Farm Cottage can be seen a man sprawled across a bench, with a young girl standing at his side. Using the Valuation Rolls, it was possible to discern that the man was William Ferguson, and the girl his daughter Marion.

Whilst the first album is primarily of buildings, the second’s focus is more on agricultural work and the animals involved. A run of six photographs shows the process of agricultural change in the late 19th century from the reaper to the reaper-binder.

The visual quality of, and intricate detail within, these images led us to mount a small exhibition in October 2025. We have catalogued and digitised the images so they can be made widely accessible and offered Angus Archives access to the digital copies of the Angus-related images.

Acquisition Grants and Donations 159

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Old House at Wansford. Courtesy of Peterborough Archives Service.

FOR PETERBOROUGH ARCHIVES SERVICE

Twenty-eight volumes of architects’ notes and sketchbooks from Townsend & Fordham. Bought at Cheffins (9 October 2025, Lot 273) for £160, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

James Keech, Archivist, writes: We are delighted to have added this fascinating material to our collection. The group comprises 28 volumes with contents relating to East Anglian churches and historic buildings, mainly in the Peterborough area, between 1884 and the 1940s.

Cambridgeshire Archives made us aware that these papers were coming up for auction, and a decision was made to bid when it was discovered that most of the sketchbooks related to buildings in the Peterborough area. With funds being tight at the archive we approached the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for a grant that would enable us to bid. This was my first experience attending an auction and was, happily, a positive one. We had anticipated that we would need to bid up to £400 all in, but we were delighted to secure the lot for just £169.

Townsend & Fordham was an architectural firm based in Peterborough, and one for which there is little surviving material; it therefore seemed important to preserve this fragment of its archive. Within the collection there is a series of sketchbooks containing architectural drawings, which usually show elevations and floor plans. Some show wonderful decorative features inside buildings, and altogether the complexity of the drawings is impressive to behold – outstanding examples being the sketch of Fletton Church and a drawing of 1897 of a house in Wansford. Well over half the drawings relate to buildings in the City of Peterborough, including drawings of Peterborough Cathedral and the Corn Exchange, as well as several buildings in Stamford, Peakirk, Market Deeping, Helpston, Northborough, and Castor.

This significant acquisition helps fill a gap and will reveal much about Peterborough’s built heritage. It will provide significant historical information to the people of Peterborough about important buildings in their city and the wider region and we are most grateful for FNL’s support which enabled us to acquire it.

160 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 161

FOR PETERSFIELD MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY

Nevil Shute The Mysterious Aviator (US edition of So Disdained ), first edition, 1928. Bought from James Cummins Bookseller, New York, for £1,210, with the aid of a grant of £650 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Jeremy Mitchell, Chair of Trustees, writes: Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery is pleased to report the acquisition of a rare first-edition copy of The Mysterious Aviator (1928), the American edition of Nevil Shute’s early novel So Disdained . This purchase marks a significant strengthening of the Museum’s holdings relating to the life of the Petersfield artist Flora Twort (1893-1985) and the creative, social and intellectual circles that shaped Petersfield in the 1920s and 1930s. The book will underpin future research and interpretation of Twort’s close friendship with Shute and will contribute to expanding public awareness of Petersfield’s rich literary heritage.

Although not illustrated or annotated, this first edition is scarce in its original state and represents Shute at a pivotal point in his early literary career. Its American publication under the title The Mysterious Aviator brought his work to an international audience for the first time and marked a critical stage in his emergence as a major novelist. For Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery, the copy serves not only as a literary artefact but as a lens through which to explore Shute’s personal ties to the town.

In early 2026, this newly acquired first edition featured in a small exhibition of recent acquisitions at the Museum. The display introduced visitors to the evolving breadth of the collection whilst highlighting Petersfield’s cultural and literary connections. The book will also be made available for research, education programmes and interpretation projects as the Museum continues to develop its narrative of Petersfield’s rich literary and artistic heritage.

Nevil Shute (1899-1960), best known for A Town Like Alice , On the Beach , and No Highway , spent substantial periods of time in and around Petersfield during the 1920s. It was during this era that he formed a close, lifelong friendship with Flora Twort. Shute proposed marriage to Twort twice and, although she declined both times, the two remained close and their relationship was characterised by mutual admiration, artistic curiosity and emotional candour. The newly acquired first edition of The Mysterious Aviator dates from the period of their closest connection and includes several references to Petersfield and the surrounding Hampshire landscape.

The novel itself holds additional relevance for Petersfield’s wider cultural history. Shute was part of an extended literary and philosophical network centred on local philanthropist Dr Harry Roberts, whose circle included G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and other prominent writers of the period. This was the broader creative milieu within which Twort herself moved. The presence of Shute’s early fiction in the Museum’s collection provides a rare and valuable link to these interconnected artistic friendships, which shaped both Twort’s development and the cultural character of Petersfield at a formative moment, and this acquisition enables the Museum to tell a fuller story about the intellectual life of the town between the wars.

Above: Nevil Shute leaning on window at Harry Roberts House. Flora Twort seated on bench with dog. Right: The Mysterious Aviator Cover. Courtesy of Petersfield Museum.

162 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 163

FOR RIBA COLLECTIONS, THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS Manuscript planning brief for the remodelling of Old St Paul’s Cathedral under the supervision of Inigo Jones, c.1631. Bought at Bonhams (19 November 2025, Lot 1) for £1,202, with the aid of a grant of £806 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Olivia Horsfall Turner, Chief Curator, writes: This manuscript is an exceptional survival relating to the remodelling of St Paul’s Cathedral carried out in the 1630s by command of James I. The project saw the exterior of the dilapidated medieval building encased in a classicising skin as well as the creation of a magnificent classical portico at the west front. The design was devised and overseen by the architect Inigo Jones (1573-1652) who arguably laid the foundation for British Renaissance architecture and Palladianism. His work at St Paul’s has been described by John Harris and Gordon Higgott as ‘[t]he greatest of all Jones’s undertakings while Surveyor of the King’s Works’.

The document appears to be in the hand of Edward Carter, Jones’s pupil who later succeeded him as Surveyor of the King’s Works. It begins with a list of the officers on the project from Commissioners to craftspeople, shedding light on the various figures typically involved in early modern building works. The roles include a surveyor (Inigo Jones), two comptrollers and a paymaster (Michael Grigg), a ‘Clark of the Check and ingrosser of the accompts’ (John Webb), and a ‘Clark of the Store and measurer of materials’ (Robert Cooke). The ‘Articens’ are likewise listed: mason, carpenter, plumber, smith and glazier. The manuscript also describes the duties of each officer. The surveyor, for example, is ‘to make the Platts and geve directions’, and the Clerk is ‘to call the workmen and labourers fower times every daie at the least’. The text bears later annotations in the hand of John Webb, Jones’s assistant, in which he explains that, when Jones was absent, he undertook the necessary design work rather than Jones’s official substitute, Edward Carter. These annotations reflect the professional rivalry between the two men.

164 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 165

FOR THE ROYAL BERKSHIRE ARCHIVES

A group of documents relating to the Barrington family and Beckett House, Shrivenham, 1742-1832. Bought from Dean Cooke Rare Books Ltd for £5,000, with the aid of a grant of £2,500 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Mark Stevens, County Archivist, writes: The Barrington family were for centuries a mainstay of Berkshire life. They lived at Beckett between 1710 and 1936, and their period of ownership spanned nine generations. The 1st Viscount Barrington, born John Shute (1678-1734), was a politician and theologian who inherited Beckett from an admirer. In 1936 the family sold the estate to the War Office and it became the Royal Military College of Science.

The Barrington title remained extant until 1990, but without an ancestral seat, its archives have been displaced across various repositories. Between 1949 and 1996 the Royal Berkshire Archives received a total of seven collections, which came from the 10th Viscount, the family’s London and Highworth solicitors and the Highworth Historical Society.

More recently, Barrington material has appeared for sale. In 1997, naval items from Admiral Samuel Barrington (1729-1800) were purchased by Yale. In 2003, the National Maritime Museum bought material on longitude, which had been accumulated by William, the 2nd Viscount (1717-1793). At two auctions in 2003 and 2006 we bought some 19th-century Beckett papers and a memoir by Augusta Barrington, daughter of the 6th Viscount.

In 2023 a substantial lot was sold at Dominic Winter and purchased by Dean Cooke. It came from the same source as the longitude papers, and included more items from Admiral Barrington’s naval command during the Seven Years’ War. We were the underbidders and although too late to acquire the naval material (which was sold to an American university), we agreed deals for the remainder.

The 2nd Viscount is represented by the sole volume of Beckett estate accounts, by a description of haymaking, and also by material for his London house at Cavendish Square (now the Royal College of Nursing). There are also around 50 recipes and remedies from the 1770s ‘found amongst the Viscount’s

papers after his death’, including how ‘to pot eels like lampreys’, eye wash for a horse, Lord Cadogan’s stomatic medicine, ‘receipt for a putrid sore throat’, a solvent for bladder stones and a remedy for worms and a ‘list of wine kept and drunk at Becket’.

For William’s brother, Shute Barrington (1734-1826), Bishop of Durham, is a selection of papers on trees. There are measurements of the yews at Ankerwycke and Darley Dale, a record of annual growth for a poplar in Darlington, and techniques for grafting fruit trees. The Bishop may also be the source for a list of the Mexican antiquities displayed by William Bullock in 1823, and a description of the stuccoing technique used at Caversham Park.

And then the rest is Beckett. There are Georgian plans and descriptions for a hay barn and piggeries. There are stewards’ estate vouchers and rentals. For the current house, built for the 6th Viscount in the early 1830s, there are building estimates and bills for supplying grates and glass.

The totality represents a substantial and notable addition to our Barrington collections. We are delighted to have kept it in the UK for public research.

Plan of piggery at Beckett, late 18th century. Courtesy of Royal Berkshire Archives.

166 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 167

FOR THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS HERITAGE LIBRARY

François Umeau, In circulationem sanguinis Harveïanam exercitatio anatomica (Poitiers: Jean Fleuriau, 1659). Bought from W.S. Cotter Rare Books for £3,795, with the aid of a grant of £3,350 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Katie Birkwood, Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian, writes: William Harvey (1578–1657) is one of the most famous historical fellows of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP). His publication of Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus (Anatomical exercises on the motion of the heart and blood in animals) in 1628 upended centuries of medical orthodoxy by revealing that blood is in constant motion around the human and animal body, pumped by the heart. His revelations were based on years of study and experimentation including a series of anatomical lectures delivered at the RCP. The superseded medical theory had been based on the teachings of the 2nd-century Roman physician Galen, who stated that blood was created in the liver and gradually diffused outwards to all parts of the body. That understanding was unshakable medical orthodoxy until Harvey published his findings, and it is therefore no surprise that Harvey’s De motu inspired numerous responses both in favour of and, more usually at first, in staunch opposition to the radical new theory.

The RCP heritage library holds a near-complete collection of both editions and translations of Harvey’s works, and of the strident criticism and fervent support it received over many decades. However, the present work by Umeau is a rare and surprising example of an anti-Harveian work that was not already present in the collection. It is therefore satisfying to fill this lacuna with this very scarce work: one copy is known in the USA, no others in the UK, and only a handful are recorded in continental Europe.

The RCP is one of the lead organisations in an international collaboration to celebrate the 400th anniversary of De motu cordis in 2028, with plans for conferences and exhibitions in North America and Europe. This book, as an expression of the long tail of anti-Harveianism, will be a central exhibit in the proposed exhibition about the creation and legacy of De motu cordis to be held at the RCP that year, and we are most grateful to FNL for enabling its acquisition.

Opposition to the new Harveian physiology persisted for many decades. In this newly-purchased volume, physician François Umeau, writing from Poitiers in west-central France, contends that though 31 years have now passed since the publication of De motu cordis , he continues firmly to adhere to the prior Galenic theory, saying that he would rather ‘err with Galen than proclaim the truth with Harvey’. He criticises those followers of Harvey who ‘are enticed by novelty’ and persists in quoting what he considers to be the anatomical facts from the ancient authorities Hippocrates and Galen. In this attitude Umeau was not alone: dissenting voices continued to be raised into the 18th century.

Opposite: Title page and marbled endpapers of Umeau, In circulationem sanguinis Harveianam exercitatio anatomica (1659). Courtesy of the Royal College of Physicians.

168 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 169

FOR THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND

Elizabeth Blackwell (1707–1758), A Curious Herbal (London, 1739–1737). Bought at Christie’s (10 December 2025, Lot 187) for £12,700, with the aid of a grant of £10,795 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Sara Pink, Director of Library and Archives, writes: In December 2025, the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCSE) secured a landmark addition to its collections: A Curious Herbal by Elizabeth Blackwell, a pioneering figure in both botanical illustration and women’s history. This second edition is notable for its rarity and provenance and is the first major herbal illustrated and authored by a British woman. Blackwell’s achievement is remarkable not only for its scientific rigour and artistic merit, but also for the extraordinary circumstances under which it was produced. Facing personal adversity, Blackwell created over 500 hand-coloured botanical plates to support her family while her husband was imprisoned for debt. Her work offered an affordable, accurate reference at a time when coloured botanical illustrations were rare and highly valued.

The work was conceived primarily as a medical reference. Subtitled Containing Five Hundred Cuts of the Most Useful Plants Which Are Now Used in the Practice of Physick , it was intended to assist physicians, apothecaries and medical students in accurately identifying medicinal plants. At a time when misidentification could have serious or fatal consequences, the clarity and precision of Blackwell’s illustrations were of vital practical importance. The herbal was issued in weekly parts before being collected into two folio volumes.

The RCSE holds a distinguished collection of botanical works, especially those illuminating the history of medicine, and A Curious Herbal is directly relevant to the College’s core themes of botany, medical history, and the intersection of science and art.

The volume’s hand-coloured plates and compelling backstory offer unique opportunities for exhibitions, outreach, and interdisciplinary study. It stands as a testament to resilience, ingenuity, and also offers a tangible link the to the often-underrepresented but vital role of women in the advancement of science.

Securing A Curious Herbal further cements the RCSE’s reputation as a leading centre for the history of medicine and medical humanities. The College is deeply grateful to FNL for their generous support.

The work’s influence is underscored by its connection to leading figures such as Carl Linnaeus and Sir Hans Sloane, who recognised the scientific value of Blackwell’s meticulous illustrations, making it a cornerstone of botanical literature. The edition acquired, undertaken at a time when coloured botanical illustrations were rare, is particularly significant for its complex publication history, involving both authorised and unauthorised printings. Bibliographer Blanche Henrey used this copy for collation, noting the presence of letterpress rather than engraved text, a detail linked to the piracy and consequent legal disputes that surrounded the work’s original publication.

Opposite: Top: Plate 269 Dragons Dracontium [Dragon Arum, Dracunculus vulgaris ]; Bottom: Plate 417 The Caper Bush Capparis [ Capparis spinosa ]. (see also page 7). Courtesy of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

170 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 171

FOR SENATE HOUSE LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Two rare, printed collections relating to tenants’ rights in London, 1935-1941. The collections were purchased from Maggs Brothers Ltd for £2,700, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Lucy Evans, Head of Collections, writes: Thanks to the support of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries, Senate House Library has secured two extraordinary collections that illuminate Britain’s interwar housing crisis and the grassroots activism that shaped modern housing policy.

These acquisitions, rare newsletters and ephemera capture a pivotal moment: when ordinary tenants fought for dignity and security amid rising rents, overcrowding and inadequate repairs, all in the context of relaxed rent controls. We are delighted to include them in our forthcoming public exhibition for 2026, developed in collaboration with London School of Economics, provisionally titled ‘London Housing, Poverty and the Environment’.

The first collection documents the activism of the Hampstead Tenants’ Defence League (HTDL), a Communist Party-affiliated group advocating for tenants’ rights in the 1930s and early 1940s. It features eight issues of The Hampstead Tenant newsletter, accompanied by drafts of the League’s constitution, detailed programmes of demands, and annotated correspondence with local authorities. The papers offer a fascinating record of strategies for rent strikes, campaigns for adequate air raid shelters and bold challenges to borough councils.

The second collection comprises ten newsletters and bulletins issued by the Federation of Tenants’ and Residents’ Associations of London between 1939 and 1941. Titles such as Federation News, Housing News, The Home Front , and the Bulletin of the Federation of Tenants’ and Residents’ Association of London address urgent wartime concerns: combating landlordism, reopening schools, curbing soaring utility costs and safeguarding vulnerable communities during aerial bombardment.

Illustration from the cover of The Home Front , January 1940.

Both collections originated from the archive of Ernest William Darling at the Hoover Institute in California. Illustrated with line drawings and halftone images, these mimeographed publications are a visually striking record of tenant activism under the pressures of the Second World War. Darling’s ties to the Communist Party underscore the ideological dimension of these materials, which link local struggles to broader antifascist and anti-capitalist movements. Advertisements on the back of newsletters for titles such as Vyacheslav Molotov’s Soviet Peace Policy further highlight the political context in which these campaigns unfolded.

The Hamstead Tenant , July 1936, issued by The Hampstead Tenant Defence League. Images courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London.

These two collections complement Senate House Library’s renowned leftwing political collections with case studies of working-class solidarity and grassroots resistance, illustrating how rent strikes influenced wartime rent controls and laid the foundations for modern housing policy. They also resonate powerfully today, in the context of contemporary housing crises such as damp, unsafe cladding and insulation scandals. Through this generous grant, which restores these papers to their roots in London, Senate House Library can ensure that the voices of those who fought for fair housing nearly a century ago continue to inspire scholarship, activism, and public dialogue today. We are deeply grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for the opportunity to acquire these rare and profound collections, which are available to consult in the Special Collections Reading Room.

172 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 173

FOR THE SHAKESPEARE BIRTHPLACE TRUST, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

Deed: Isabella Geffrey of Ilmington’s manuscript release and quitclaim for land at Ilmington, near Shipston on Stour, Warwickshire (c.1300). Bought at Forum Auctions (6 February 2025, Lot 34) for £329, with the aid of a grant of £224 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries [John R. Murray Fund].

Jim Ranahan, Cataloguing Archivist, writes: We are very grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for this grant which ensured that a document of local significance is retained in the area where it was created. The support from FNL has been hugely important to us, on two levels. By offering generous financial support, FNL enabled the Trust to put together a robust funding package, which gave us (cautious) confidence in approaching the auction. Through FNL’s endorsement of our funding submission, we felt validated in embarking on what was for us a significant acquisition process. The document had been auctioned in 2024 but our joint bid, with Warwickshire County Record Office, proved insufficient.

This deed is amongst our earliest records for Ilmington, giving it an enhanced research potential for an area that is integral to our extensive local collections, as this calendar demonstrates:

‘Release and quitclaim for land at Ilmington, circa 1300 from Isabella Geffrey of Ilmington to Robert de Val, relinquishing her right in a messuage and 1½ acres of land and a farthingdeal of meadow, namely: the messuage which Alice Hebbe long held in the vill and fields of Ilmington, one acre at Holdeforde, half an acre in The Four Acres and a farthingdeal of meadow at Severode.

Witnesses: Henry Benet of Foxcote [in Ilmington], Gilbert Benet of Foxcote, Richard Geffrey of Ilmington, Gilbert Marescall of Ilmington, Gilbert Dyonis of Ilmington.’

Her personal seal is attached – a vesica-shaped design often used for the seals of medieval women. This seal is white in colour, whereas most of our seals are the more usual red or brown.

The document provides evidence of a woman of property and substance, resident in a core part of the Trust’s collecting area. Such evidence supports our research into the impact of women over a wide date-range.

Thank you to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries. Your generosity has rekindled a fascination in the deeds and seals within the collections held by the Trust. This fascination covers our cataloguing, conservation, digitisation and public service activities and provides a ‘multiplier effect’ for the initial grant, as we work together to make this deed and related collections as accessible to researchers as possible.

The Ilmington deed [DR1445]. Courtesy of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

174 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 175

FOR ST JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

1. Desiderius Erasmus, Tomus primus[-secundus] paraphraseon in Novum Testamentum [Paraphrases] (Basel, Johann Froben, 1535). Bought at Reeman Dansie (12 November 2025, Lot 878) for £7,343, with the aid of a grant of £1,343 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Lucille Munoz, Special Collections Librarian writes: Built between 1623 and 1628, St John’s Old Library was established to house a substantial donation of almost 200 volumes of manuscripts formerly owned by the religious controversialist and Johnian William Crashaw (1572–1626).

Although details of the founding library – frequented by figures such as Roger Ascham, John Cheke, and William Cecil – are limited, they remain crucial for reconstructing its 16th-century holdings. Active collecting began in 1511 five years before the library was formally furnished, through a combination of purchases and donations of books or money, notably from John Fisher and Margaret Beaufort.

Among the volumes recorded in book lists are several presented to the library by one John Marshe in 1552–53. Little is known about this donation: no surviving list details the contents of Marshe’s gift, nor is there any other evidence of his association with the College. Trained as a lawyer, John Marshe (c.1516-1579) established himself as one of London’s leading and well-connected merchants, maintaining close links with William Cecil, another influential Johnian. It is possible that the donation was made to Cecil’s alma mater in order to cultivate or reinforce this connection. In accordance with the College statutes, Marshe’s books bear inscriptions commemorating his gift. Moreover, they appear to derive from a single earlier collection, that of William Layton, a questionist at Cambridge between 1524 and 1528. Today, 14 volumes from the Marshe–Layton library survive in St John’s Old Library.

Above: Inscription of John Marsh in volume 1; Left: Front board of volume 1 (see also page 11). By permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge.

Through FNL’s generosity, a two-volume edition of Erasmus’ Paraphrases which had formed part of Marshe’s gift has now returned to St John’s. Its provenance is confirmed by an inscription on the title-page in the hand of the other books presented by Marsh: ‘Joannes Marshe generosus dono dedit hunc librum Coll. Sti. Joannis Euangeliste in Vniversitate Cantabrigi[a]e Anno D[omi] ni 1552’; the same page also bears the inscription ‘William Layton’. The books also appear to correspond to an entry in the college’s Register of Inventories .

At some point after its acquisition, however, the edition left the College. It does not feature in the documentation relating to the first purpose-built library (now called the Old Library), suggesting that it may have been borrowed by a member of St John’s and never returned. It has now and this new/old addition might prompt new research on the original library and its founding collection, including the gift of John Marshe.

176 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 177

FOR ST JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

2. William Wordsworth’s copy of Jane Wallas Penfold, Madeira Flowers, Fruits and Ferns, a Selection of the Botanical Productions of That Island, Foreign and Indigenous, Drawn and Coloured by Nature (Reeve Brothers, 1845). Bought from Michael S. Kemp Bookseller for £9,750, with the aid of a grant of £5,750 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Adam Crothers, Special Collections Assistant, writes: William Wordsworth (1770-1850) studied at St John’s from 1787 to 1791; ‘The Evangelist St John my patron was’ he writes in his long autobiographical poem The Prelude ( 1850). Describing his time at Cambridge, Wordsworth invokes a state of mind doubtless familiar to many: ‘A feeling I was not for that hour, | Nor for that place.’

But with his reputation as one of the great English poets now established, St John’s today does feel like Wordsworth’s place: his is one of the more familiar names that can be cited when explaining the College’s history and cultural significance. And the Wordsworth material held in the Old Library has long helped researchers and other enthusiasts to deepen that sense of local, institutional connection. Among the highlights: first editions of The Prelude and the groundbreaking Coleridge collaboration Lyrical Ballads (1798); a handful of books (including a Latin Bible) once owned by the poet; his breakfast crockery set; several letters; and a manuscript sonnet written to the Wordsworth portrait that hangs in the College dining hall. The collection represents not only Wordsworth’s writing but the career, the life and the reputation to which that writing was central.

Wordsworth became Poet Laureate in 1843; feeling he was too old for the role, he accepted it only on Robert Peel’s assurance that there would be no expectation of his producing official poetry. But he did continue writing, and responding to commissions. Among them was an approach from Jane Wallas Penfold, a Madeiraborn artist working on a book of botanical illustrations. In her preface to Madeira Flowers, Fruits and Ferns , Penfold writes of Wordsworth’s lines: ‘Although it is now two years since Mr. Wordsworth composed them, they were written, I feel proud to say, for this volume, which was at the time contemplated. The flowers he names do not all correspond with those subsequently selected, but the reader will feel with me that any emanation from the pen of so celebrated a Bard must add a charm to the book which it could not otherwise have gained.’

Wordsworth’s ‘Verses’, to which is appended a print reproduction of his signature, take as their subject his lack of familiarity with Madeira, and the sensations that Penfold’s colourful illustrations nonetheless inspire; he also reflects on mortality and migration, and plainly sought to compose a poem with some thematic heft rather than the sort of merely pretty lines he could write in his sleep.

The copy that the Library has purchased thanks to the FNL’s kind support was Wordsworth’s, inscribed to him by the author; mounted on the pastedowns are pieces of writing by the botanist James Britten (1846–1824), pertaining to his research into the book. A highly exhibitable volume, it was attracting research interest before we had even finished cataloguing it and is set to prove, if I may, a fruitful acquisition.

Below: Front board with gold- and blind-tooling. Below, right: Plate XIII The Custard Apple (Wb1845.2). By permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge.

178 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 179

FOR THOMAS PLUME’S LIBRARY, MALDON, ESSEX

Three volumes from the Fox Pointe Library missing from the collection of Thomas Plume’s Library. Bought at Forum Auctions (19 June 2025, Lots 155, 186 and 281) for a total of £2,261, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Dr Helen Kemp, Library Keeper, writes: Thomas Plume’s Library originated as a lending library and unfortunately several hundred books went missing during the early 20th century when security was not very tight. The extent of the problem was discovered in the 1980s when one of our original books came up for auction in New York and was spotted by a founding member of our Friends. A comparison of catalogues of 1848 and 1959 enabled the librarian Mrs Shacklock to prepare a list of the missing books. Many of the books on the list are now out of the financial reach of The Friends of Thomas Plume’s Library, and it was wonderful news for us when The Friends of the Nations’ Libraries offered to support this purchase in full, enabling us to continue our efforts to fill the gaps in the collection.

The following books were bought at auction in June 2025:

1. James Howell, A German Diet: or, the Balance of Europe , first edition, engraved frontispiece by Claude Mellan and Abraham Bosse, title in red and black, woodcut device on title, woodcut decorations and initials, contemporary sheep, re-backed preserving original spine, folio. Printed for Humphrey Moses, 1653. Provenance: White of Wallingwells (bookplate). (Lot 155, £605).

2. Robert Wittie, Scarbrough Spaw, or, A Description of the Nature and Vertues of the Spaw at Scarbrough in Yorkshire , first edition, small 8vo, for, and to be sold by Charles Taylor, 1660. (Lot 186, £945).

3. John Nalson, A True Copy of the Journal of the High Court of Justice, for the Tryal of K. Charles I. As it was read in the House of Commons ..., engraved frontispiece and plate of parliament, each with facing letterpress ‘explanation’ f. as called for, engraved portrait of the King, final advertisement f., folio, Henry Clarke for Thomas Dring, 1684. (Lot 281, £1,071).

Above: Frontispiece, James Nalson, Tryal of Charles I , 1684; Right: Title page. Courtesy of Thomas Plume’s Library.

The Friends of the Nations’

Libraries have helped us in previous sales from Fox Pointe Manor Library, which had many books in common with Thomas Plume’s, and this was the sixth sale at Forum Auctions from Fox Pointe. The Trustees and staff of Thomas Plume’s Library, and The Friends of Thomas Plume’s Library, are very grateful to FNL for generously funding the full amount.

180 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Acquisition Grants and Donations 181

FOR THE ARCHIVES OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD

Two cartoons of Christian Cole (1853-85), member of University College Oxford, 1877. Bought from Michael Kemp, Bookseller, for £12,500, with the aid of a grant of £6,500 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Robin Darwall-Smith, Archivist of University College, writes: Christian Cole was the first black African to be awarded an Oxford degree, and is thus a significant figure in the history of the university. He came up in 1873 from Sierra Leone and could only afford to become a non-Collegiate student. Cole read Classics and, on completing his degree, in 1877 was made a member of University College, thanks to the support of its then Master. Although Cole never lived in the college, he used its library and, in some of his pamphlets, called himself ‘BA of University College Oxford’. The College recently erected a plaque in Cole’s memory commemorating his links with us.

Cole also became the first black African to be called to the bar. He published several pamphlets, a copy of one of which is in our Library. Between 1879 and 1885 he lived partly in Sierra Leone and in London, but struggled to find work. Finally, in 1885 he emigrated to Zanzibar to work as a lawyer and private tutor. Unfortunately, he died there of smallpox in December 1885.

No photographs of Cole are known to exist. We do, however, have images of him from another source. Between the 1870s and 1900 Thomas Shrimpton and Sons, a stationer’s shop in Oxford, commissioned (mainly from undergraduates) cartoons of Oxford people and events. Shrimpton’s sold photographs of these cartoons, and copies of these are well known.

Three Shrimpton cartoons depicted Cole. As can be seen from the image opposite, the humour of the cartoons is most offensive to modern eyes, and perhaps inevitably they will always have to be shown, either on exhibitions or online, with an appropriate ‘health warning’. They are, however, the only authentic images of Cole, and they are extremely important documents in British Black History.

Earlier this year, University College was informed that the originals of two of these cartoons had been found, and we were invited to purchase them.

One shows Cole with Joseph Renner Maxwell, the second Black African to come up to Oxford, who crossed swords with Cole in the student press to the amusement of the cartoonist, who called this cartoon ‘The Pot and the Kettle’; the other imagines Cole’s return home to Sierra Leone in 1879.

Because of Cole’s special place in the history of Oxford and of this College, we were very eager to acquire the cartoons. The College, however, has no designated funds for purchases, and we are therefore most grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for its generous grant, which has made it possible for these cartoons to live in an institution closely associated with Cole.

The cartoons will be listed on the College’s online archive catalogue, and I look forward to welcoming researchers to come and see them.

Cartoon that references Cole’s disagreement with Renner Maxwell. Courtesy of University College, Oxford.

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Acquisition Grants and Donations 183

FOR WEST DEAN COLLEGE OF ART, DESIGN CRAFT AND CONSERVATION

Christopher Clarkson’s (1938-2017) Limp Vellum Report and associated binding models. Bought from the Clarkson estate for £3,000, with the aid of a grant of £2,000 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Victoria Stevens ACR FIIC, Lead Tutor for Books and Library Materials, writes: The significance of the contribution of Christopher Clarkson (1938-2017) to book conservation and book history was made very clear in his obituary, published in the Guardian on 17 April 2017:

‘In 1967, [Clarkson] went with the British government team to Florence, Italy, after the devastating floods of November 1966. ... It was there that he developed his awareness of historical binding structures, questioning why some of the bindings had survived intact when other types had not. This gave him his abiding interest in the history of the structures and functional properties of bookbindings, and led to a detailed study of limp vellum bindings, published in 1975.

He also began to formulate, along with others, the principles of ‘book conservation’ (a phrase he coined), as opposed to the simple repair of books without reference to their historical and archaeological significance, that are now embedded in modern conservation practice.’

Recognising the need for training in this new specialism, he eventually moved to West Dean where between 1987 and 1998 he was Lead Tutor for Books and Library and developed the West Dean programme in the subject. In his subsequent career he worked at major institutions in the US and UK and latterly, as a consultant, advised on and conserved some of the world’s most significant manuscripts. One of his final projects was the conservation of the 12th-century Winchester Bible.

As an object, the Limp Vellum Report is a series of bound examples of parchment binding structures accompanied by detailed notes on their history and use in historical library and archive collections. At West Dean it serves as an invaluable teaching resource for students of both book conservation and bookbinding: its brilliantly executed models of bindings enable them to

understand the composition, structure and possibilities for both making and conserving these key objects. Furthermore, it completes the larger Christopher Clarkson Archive that was transferred to the care of West Dean in 2022.

But the importance of the Limp Vellum Report goes beyond the physical object and teaching resource: it is a tangible link to the history of bookbinding and book conservation in the UK. The author was, in part, trained by Chris who, in turn, was trained by Roger Powell and Sydney (Sandy) Cockerell, two very significant binders at Cockerell and Son, Letchworth. Sandy had been apprenticed to his father Douglas Cockerell, who in turn was the apprentice of none other than T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, the founder and binder of the Doves Press Bindery, a cornerstone of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Clarkson’s influence is still felt at West Dean through the emphasis on the sound book-conservation principles of authenticity, reversibility and minimal intervention. We are grateful for FNL’s support in returning this important resource to the teaching department that Clarkson developed, where it will support the training of future generations of book conservators.

Elements of the Limp Vellum Report: a range of binding models in a bespoke storage box. Courtesy of West Dean College.

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Acquisition Grants and Donations 187

FOR WEST SUSSEX RECORD OFFICE

2. Minutes of the Court of Sewers of the Rape of Arundel, 1655-1663. Bought at Toovey’s (2 April 2025, Lot 4168) for £398, with the aid of a grant of £320 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Wendy Walker, County Archivist, writes: This volume reflects the crucial role played by the Commissioners of Sewers in matters of land drainage, flood defence and the free running of local rivers. They helped to shape the landscape of West Sussex: many acres of pasture land in the Arun and Adur valleys and on the coastal plain owe their preservation to the work of the Commissioners and the flood mitigation measures they put in place and maintained.

This volume of minutes records in a wealth of detail the incidents which the Commissioners were called on to manage and resolve, such as the obstruction of the river caused by the ‘casual’ sinking of a bark or vessel belonging to William Pellatt, John Yalden, Richard Kirkman, John Ludgatter and Edward Hamper. The minutes also provide an insight into local industries with a reference to ‘small chalke’ being cast on the side of the river by Nicholas Searle of Chiltington and his workmen, causing an obstruction, and problems with land drainage (potentially leading to flooding) at North Stoke.

Opposite and above: Minutes of the Court of Sewers of the Rape of Arundel acc 20974.

WSRO holds an extensive Land Drainage archive including a series of minutes for the Court of Sewers for the Rape of Arundel from 1726 to 1933 (LD/II/SM1-7). This substantially older volume enables the story of land drainage in the catchment of the Rivers Adur and Arun during the time of the interregnum to be researched. With lists of the Commissioners presiding, those serving on the jury and the names of offenders, it is also an extremely name-rich source which provides an important record of local residents and the essential work for which the court was responsible.

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FOR WEST SUSSEX RECORD OFFICE

3. One lot of police ledgers (19th century) and three lots of legal documents (17-19th centuries). Bought at Toovey’s (21 May, Lots 3343, 3363, 3366, 3367) for £1,850, with the aid of a grant of £1,259 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries. All four lots are included in the all-in price above, but are described separately below.

Lot 3343 Two police registers covering Arundel and area, 1869-1932, bought for £311

Wendy Walker, County Archivist, writes: Police records can be a fascinating source for local and social history. These two registers, purchased with the generous support of the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries, contain a wealth of information about people and crimes in the local area and are name-rich sources which will be of great value to genealogists, as well as being important sources for local history. They contain entries which concern a range of crimes including petty theft (such as the apprehension of Albert Daughbury who was charged with stealing an umbrella on 30 May 1869) and many counts of drunk and disorderly behaviour. Other entries record events of local importance, such as a fire in Captain Prime’s hayricks at Walberton.

The first register, dating from 1869-1876, is particularly significant. It is a police duty book for the Arundel Borough Police force which was in existence between 1836 and 1889, at which point it merged with the West Sussex Constabulary. Prior to this purchase, WSRO held only a small quantity of records relating to this force, including two other police duty books covering 1876-1880 and 1880-1885. The purchase of this volume means that WSRO now has a continuous record of the Arundel Borough Police force from 1869 to 1885.

Lot 3363 Auction and sales particulars and printed and manuscript maps relating to property in West Sussex, late 19th-early 20th century, bought for £453

Lot 3366 Legal documents mainly relating to Littlehampton and Arundel areas, 17th-19th centuries, bought for £543

Lot 3367 Legal documents mainly relating to the Littlehampton and Arundel areas, 19th century, bought for £543

These three related lots comprise a mixture of deeds, sales particulars and related records such as correspondence and financial paperwork, and relate to properties in and around Littlehampton and Arundel, as well as to important local institutions such as the Littlehampton Ferry.

The deeds and sales particulars are a valuable source for local and house history, reflecting the development of two important towns in West Sussex and containing the names of local landowners and tenants.

Whilst not yet catalogued, the documents relating to the Littlehampton Ferry have the potential to provide insight into the operation and changing fortunes of this scheme, which played a crucial role in the local economy. The Littlehampton Ferry linked the east and west banks of the Arun, although its importance declined following the arrival of the railway in 1846. Other documents relate to a proposed electric tramway which would have transported holidaymakers from the railway station to the seafront, perhaps reflecting an aspiration in the late 19th century for Littlehampton to become a seaside resort to rival Eastbourne.

Opposite: Legal documents relating to Littlehampton and Arundel (acc 21011). Courtesy of West Sussex Record Office.

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Acquisition Grants and Donations 191

FOR THE WIENER HOLOCAUST LIBRARY, LONDON

L. Templier, Chansonnier à Buchenwald: Chanoir , illustrated by L. Templier and P. Jardel, Paris, 1949 (first edition). Bought from Eric Chain Kline Bookseller of Santa Monica, USA for £1,224, with the aid of a grant of £959 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Martina Ravagnan, Printed and Audio/Visual Collections Manager, writes: The Wiener Holocaust Library is the world’s oldest and Britain’s largest collection of original archival material on the Nazi era and the Holocaust. The Library’s unique collection of over one million items includes published and unpublished works, documents, letters, photographs, press cuttings, books, pamphlets, periodicals and unpublished manuscripts and memoirs, posters, artworks, and eyewitness testimonies. Books have featured as an essential part of the acquisitions process since as early as the 1920s, when the Library’s founder Dr Alfred Wiener started to gather evidence about the persecution of Jews in Germany.

Chansonnier à Buchenwald fits perfectly into our special collection of illustrated books published in the immediate postwar years (1945 to 1949) by artists of different nationalities who survived the Nazi concentration camps. This collection offers a valuable insight into the different ways in which art, music and creativity constitute a powerful form of spiritual resistance to discrimination and oppression.

This rare item is a moving homage paid by its author to his brother Henry who was killed in a Nazi concentration camp. The volume includes a compilation of song lyrics composed and sung by Chanoir, a French political prisoner who entertained his fellow companions during their captivity in Buchenwald at the hands of the Nazis. Chansonnier à Buchenwald is superbly illustrated with 16 loose lithographic plates (nine black and white and seven duotone) by P. Jardel. The first illustration on the front page is a portrait in colour of a Buchenwald inmate by L. Templier. This copy is one of 450 printed as a limited first edition on ‘Pur Fil du Marais’ woven paper, of which this is number 293. The portfolio is slightly sunned along the edges, but in overall very good condition and does not need to undergo any conservation treatment. The text is entirely in French.

Front page with a portrait of a Buchenwald inmate drawn by L. Templier. Courtesy of the Wiener Holocaust Library.

This portfolio will be soon added to the Wiener Holocaust Library’s online catalogue and made available to be consulted by researchers in person in our Reading Room upon request. It will also be digitised and added to the Wiener Digital Collections (whlcollections.org), a newly launched website that enables online access to some of our most important collections.

According to WorldCat at present there are no other copies of Chansonnier à Buchenwald in libraries in the United Kingdom; only six copies are available in American libraries and one in Germany. The Wiener Holocaust Library is especially grateful for the generous support of the Friends’s of the Nations’ Libraries in purchasing this rare item and in making it available to British readers and researchers for the first time.

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FOR YORK LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES

Incident notebook of William Pearson, Police Constable, York City Police (1892-1902). Bought from Katz Fine Manuscripts, Canada, for £2,633, funded in full by a grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Dr Julie-Ann Vickers, Head of Archives, writes: With the generous support of FNL we were able to purchase this remarkable volume from an overseas bookseller. The notebook’s misleading and water-damaged cover belies its contents, which provide a front-row seat to what life was like for a police constable pounding the beat in late Victorian York. Drunken brawling soldiers, domestic arguments, chimney fires, petty crime and prostitution are all documented in Pearson’s notebook in which, in his neat script, he summarises the circumstances of his warnings and arrests. A rare survival, this volume offers a glimpse into a level of policing and crime rarely preserved in the permanent record. We know from existing entries in the York City Police archive that Pearson was appointed a constable on 8 April 1885. Further details in these official records enabled a speedy and confident authentication of this notebook.

Elsewhere he reports a couple ‘having connections’ in a public place, a surprisingly common occurrence on his rounds. The final entry in the notebook describes his transfer in 1892 to the Durham coal strike. Pearson declares that ‘colliers was very bad to manage’ but nevertheless retrieves a piece of coal from the pit, presumably as a souvenir of his experience.

Before the discovery of this volume, PC Pearson was simply another entry in the York City Police employment records. This notebook vividly brings his experience on the force to life, and in doing so preserves a rare piece of policing and social history.

Left: Cover, Incident Notebook. Below: Report of Riotous Behaviour. Courtesy of Explore York Libraries and Archives.

The volume begins with Pearson’s neatly copied extracts of published, official rules for PCs, including ‘Constable Deportment’ and the criminal responsibility of infants. Based on these opening pages, anyone casually appraising the book may have been tempted to throw it away. But several pages in, Pearson starts recording the incidents that occur on his beat. Though each report is no more than one or two paragraphs long, they offer a unique and rich resource for the social history of York and beyond.

The value of this source stems largely from the small details noted and the verbal exchanges that take place between individuals, which Pearson dutifully records. Any particularly foul or insulting language is written down verbatim – clearly for evidential purposes. Most of these exchanges cannot be transcribed here due to the expletive-laden nature of their content. An exception is the case of Rachel Groves, who in 1899 was reported for ‘Riotous Conduct’ after following her husband along North Street, using bad language and calling him ‘A Bloody Rotten Pig’. Pearson goes on to describe how her behaviour attracted a ‘crowd of Boys and Girls’ who proceeded to follow her down the street.

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FOR YORK UNIVERSITY, THE BORTHWICK INSTITUTE FOR ARCHIVES

1. Eric Morecambe Papers (1950s-1980s). Bought at Hansons Auctioneers and Valuers (10 January 2025, Lots 619 and 715) for £4,349, with the aid of a grant of £2,478 from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

2. Further Eric Morecambe papers purchased in March 2025 from Christian White Rare Books for £4,000, with the aid of a £2,000 grant from the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries.

Gary Brannan, Keeper of Archives and Research Collections, writes: The Borthwick Institute has expanded its holdings on 20th-century British entertainment through two significant acquisitions relating to Eric Morecambe (1926–1984). These additions complement the Ernest Maxin Archive, donated in 2021, and together the acquisitions provide a unique record of how Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise created some of the most memorable moments in British television comedy.

The first acquisition, supported by FNL in January 2025, comprised nine notebooks and joke books filled with Morecambe’s handwritten ideas, sketches and gags spanning their career, from their days in variety theatre to their peak in British light entertainment. These items offer an extraordinary insight into Morecambe’s comic imagination and working methods, illustrating an incredible productive output from Morecambe and highlighting his central role in shaping the duo’s comedy, challenging the common perception that their scripts were wholly the product of their writers, notably Eddie Braben.

Building on this foundation, a second acquisition followed later in 2025: a collection of Eric Morecambe’s personal appointment diaries and address books covering the years 1977 to 1983. These offered an intimate record of his professional activities and private reflections during the later years of his partnership with Ernie Wise, when the pair produced some of their most celebrated work.

The 1977 diary is of particular significance, covering the period in which Morecambe and Wise created their final BBC Christmas Special, still regarded as the pinnacle of British light entertainment. Entries record rehearsals, filming, editing sessions and social engagements, while the pages are scattered with jokes and comic asides. Subsequent diaries continue the story, tracing Morecambe’s dedication to performance despite declining health and documenting his transition to work with Thames Television after 1978.

The accompanying address books provide a remarkable record of Morecambe’s professional network. They contained contact details for key figures in post-war entertainment including Tommy Cooper, Val Doonican and Harry Secombe, as well as BBC producers. The annotations and revisions over time offer opportunities for researchers to explore the structure and evolution of Britain’s mid-century entertainment industry, tracing networks of collaboration and influence across stage and television.

Together, the notebooks and diaries form a body of material of considerable research value. They open new possibilities for scholarly study in areas such as creative process and collaboration, network and peer-group analysis, and the broader cultural history of British broadcasting. They also complement the Ernest Maxin Archive, enabling a fuller reconstruction of how the 1977 Christmas Special and similar BBC productions were conceived, produced and received. The records formed the basis of the UK launch of Paul Hendy’s stage play The Last Laugh , in which actors Simon Cartwright, Damian Williams and Bob Golding depict Bob Monkhouse, Tommy Cooper and Eric Morecambe.

Beyond their academic importance, the reaction to the acquisition has shown us the strength of the enduring public affection for Morecambe and Wise. The papers allow researchers and the public to encounter the creative process behind the nation’s most cherished comic double act, and deepen our collective understanding of what makes us laugh.

Image overleaf: The Eric Morecambe papers (MD_265). Courtesy of the Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York.

Descriptor of Section 197

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Trustees’ Report 199

Trustees’ Report

The Trustees present the annual report and the financial statements of Friends of the Nations’ Libraries (the ‘Charity’ or ‘FNL’) for the year ended 31 December 2025.

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 rare printed books that are of great importance for researchers, scholars and historians.

Grant-making policies

All grants are given to National Libraries, as defined in ‘Objectives and Activities’, opposite.

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.

The John R. Murray Fund and the Unwin Fund are separately identified funds, but there are no restrictions on expenditure from either fund, both the income and capital of which can be spent at the discretion of the Trustees.

Since its establishment in 1931, FNL has helped over 400 libraries to acquire thousands of items. Scholars, researchers and historians and the general public can study and see the printed books, manuscripts, musical scores, photographs and other items acquired by the beneficiary libraries.

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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 gain access this written and printed material that would otherwise have been lost to the public domain.

• iii. Supporting the nation’s libraries and enabling them to enrich their collections with acquisitions that would be beyond their resources to acquire without our support.

The Trustees believe this greatly benefits the libraries themselves, 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 2025

The Trustees’ main objective for 2025 was to make grants from all funds of at least £250,000 excluding any special purpose grants, subject to the level of investment income to be received in 2025 not being materially less than that received in 2024.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE

Grants pledged in 2025

Details of the 79 grants made or committed by FNL in 2025 are given on pages 32 to 197. Their aggregate value was £386,712 of which £261,207 was charged to the Operating Fund, £42,568 to the John R Murray Fund, £27,964 to the Unwin Fund, £20,000 to the Philip Larkin Fund, and £1,575 to support costs. Additionally, a grant of £33,398, financed by restricted donations, was given for the restricted purpose of funding projects associated with the Sarum Bible, donated by FNL to Salisbury Cathedral Library in 2024, including the financing of a new scholarly catalogue of the Cathedral’s medieval manuscripts and a range of engagement activities focusing on the Sarum Master Bible.

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 that it can give. Whilst Libraries which apply to the Charity for acquisition grants are not required to be Institutional 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 2025; sadly, a number were also lost through death, resignation or lapsed membership.

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Donations and legacies

Benefactors generously contributed £139,265 in the year, including an immensely generous donation of £100,000 from Dr Peter Baldwin and Dame Lisbet Rausing, following their first donation of £100,000 in 2024.

Trustees are grateful to Haymarket, the publishing group, which has once again sponsored the production of this Annual Report. This support makes it possible to produce a high quality publication as a permanent record of FNL’s work during 2025.

Trustees are most grateful to a FNL member who left an immensely generous legacy of £10,000 to FNL during the year. Several members have remembered the charity in their Wills over the years and 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 [e-mail]. We will be delighted to provide guidance.

Events and other benefits for members

In 2025 we were delighted to offer a full programme of FNL visits for members. We are most grateful to colleagues at Holst Victorian House, Senate House Library, Dorset History Centre, the British Library, Salisbury Cathedral Library, the Royal College of Physicians and Hertfordshire Archives Local Studies for hosting these visits and giving so generously of their time and expert knowledge.

The 2024 AGM was held on 18 June at the Society of Antiquaries. The FNL Annual Lecture ‘Adventures in the Past’ was given by Lord (Andrew) Roberts.

The Charity’s website includes information about FNL visits and other events for members, 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 Bluesky (@TheFNL.bsky.social), Instagram (thefnluk) and 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, and the Friends of the Bodleian Library.

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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 2025, the total income of this fund amounted to £367,215 (2024: £369,815).

Subscription income at £46,295 was virtually unchanged from the previous year (2024: £46,516). Other donations, as discussed above, amounted to £139,265 (2024: £137,025). Echoing the reduction in interest rates, investment income fell slightly from £241,305 in 2024 to £236,520.

Sixty-five grants (a record number) were paid or committed by FNL from the Operating Fund in 2025. The aggregate value of grants awarded from this fund amounted to £262,689 (2024: £194,803).

As shown in note 5, expenditure on the costs of running the Charity borne by this fund rose to £93,015 (2024: 78,285). The chief elements of expenditure are the costs of the two consultants responsible for the secretarial and financial administration and record-keeping of the Charity; investment management fees; and the cost of printing and posting the Annual Report, which gets longer as the scale of the Charity’s grants increases. After taking into account all income and expenditure, the net surplus of income over expenditure in the Operating Fund amounted to £24,633 (2024: surplus of £108,007). This sum was transferred to the General Endowment Fund.

The Philip Larkin Fund

In 2025, the Philip Larkin Fund received investment income of £13,562 (2024: £13,628) and paid one grant amounting to £20,000 (2024: three grants amounting to £13,610). After unrealised gains on the investments contained in this fund of £23,106 (2024: £12,974), the balance of this fund at the year-end was £351,567 (2024: £335,696).

The John R. Murray Fund

The income of this fund is separately identified, but both income and capital can be spent at the discretion of the FNL Trustees. In 2025, the John R. Murray Fund received investment income of £41,396 (2024: £41,643) and paid ten grants amounting to £42,568 (2024: ten grants amounting to £61,554). After unrealised gains on the investments contained in this fund of £70,515 (2024: £39,590) the balance of this fund at the year-end was £1,525,715 (2024: £1,458,804).

The Unwin Fund

In 2023 the FNL received a munificent donation of £250,000 from the Unwin Charitable Trust. In 2025 three grants were made from this fund of £27,963 (2024: two grants of £33,341) and the balance of this fund at the year-end was £185,914 (2024: £213,877).

The Endowment Funds

The General Endowment Fund, which is expendable, comprises the accumulated unrestricted reserves of the Charity. In 2025 £24,216 was transferred from the Unrestricted Operating Fund and investment management fees of £9,570 were charged to the Endowment Fund. In addition, the financial statements record unrealised gains on the investment portfolio of £277,425 (2024: £155,808). The General Endowment Fund amounted to £2,955,561 at the year-end (2024: £2,663,490).

The Permanent Endowment Funds comprise the Golden Jubilee Appeal Fund and the King’s 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 2025 no gifts were received by either fund (2024: £nil). At the year-end, the King’s Fund stood at £1,540,283 (2024: £1,540,283), and total Permanent Endowment Funds stood at £1,639,001 (2024: £1,639,001).

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The balance sheet

The balance sheet on page 215 shows net assets at 31 December 2025 of £6,659,758 (2024: £6,310,868), comprising the investment portfolio at its market value of £5,701,520 (2024: £5,341,563) and net current assets (mostly cash, less commitments to make grants) of £958,238 (2024: £969,305).

The investment portfolio at the year-end and the movements between 31 December 2024 and 2025 are summarised in note 7 on page 219.

Statement of cash flows

The statement on page 216 shows that proceeds from the sale of investments in 2025 amounted to £11,090 (2024: £10,799) and that £nil (2024: £nil) was spent on the purchase of new investments. Details of the cash flows on investments are given in note 7 on page 219.

The second 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 £318,586 (2024: increase £309,918).

Auditors

At the Annual General Meeting held on 18 June 2025, Knox Cropper LLP were reappointed as auditors with Mr Matthew Elkins as the Senior Statutory Auditor.

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. The Charity’s investment portfolio consists of a single holding in the Cazenove Sustainable Multi-Asset Fund. This is a long-term investment fund with a diversified strategy investing in equities, bonds, property and alternative assets. The Fund aims to provide income and capital growth in excess of the Consumer Price Index + 4% per annum (net of fees) over rolling ten-year periods.

Save for the restricted funds and the Permanent Endowment Funds, which are identified in the balance sheet on page 215, 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 facing 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 King’s Fund in 2017, which has now reached £1.5 million, and of the John R. Murray Fund in 2021 together with the most welcome addition of the Unwin Trust Fund in 2023 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.

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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.

The names of the Trustees at the date of this report are set out on pages 2-3. All served throughout the year 2025 except as indicated in the following paragraph.

At the Annual General Meeting held on 18 June 2025 Mr Geordie Greig, Chairman, and Mr Charles Sebag-Montefiore, Honorary Treasurer, were both re-elected. Joanna Barker, Mary Gibson and Christopher Whittick retired as Trustees having served three years. Tom Ayling, Stephen Clarke and Anthony Davis were elected to fill the trustee vacancies. Rebecca Lawrence, Chief Executive of the British Library, served as an ex-officio Trustee until 30 November 2025, when her permanent successor is appointed they will take up this role.

Trustees

The Trustees of the Charity are the Chairman and Honorary Treasurer, together with nine elected and six ex-officio Trustees. The Charity’s Secretary, who is also the fundraising and administrative 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.

Ethics Committee

The Ethics Committee met once in 2025 under the chairmanship of Stephen Clarke, to consider proposed donations to FNL of £25,000 and above as well as other matters within its remit.

Administration

Mrs Nell Hoare acts as the Charity’s Secretary and Paul Celerier FCA acts as FNL’s Membership Accountant. We are also most grateful to Dr Matthew Payne, Keeper of the Muniments at Westminster Abbey, who kindly assists the Secretary in the role of Expert Adviser.

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 for Trustees.

210 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Trustees’ Report 211

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 National Libraries 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. Such grants are reported in writing to Trustees at every meeting.

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:

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 2026 is to make grants from all funds of at least £275,000 excluding any special purpose grants, subject to the level of investment income to be received in 2026 not being materially less than that received in 2025.

Approved and signed on behalf of the Trustees on 4 March 2026 by:

GEORDIE GREIG CHARLES SEBAG-MONTEFIORE Chairman Honorary Treasurer

• 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.

212 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Financial Statements 213

Financial Statements

INDEPENDENT AUDITORS’ REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF FRIENDS OF THE NATIONS’ LIBRARIES

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Friends of Nations’ Libraries (the ‘Charity’) for the year ended 31st December 2025 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 2025 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.

Responsibilities of trustees

As explained more fully in the trustees’ responsibilities statement, 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.

There are inherent limitations in the audit procedures described above and, the further removed non-compliance with laws and regulations is from the events and transactions reflected in the financial statements, the less likely we would become aware of it. The risk of not detecting a material misstatement due to fraud is higher than the risk of not detecting one resulting from error, as fraud may involve deliberate concealment by, for example, forgery or intentional misrepresentations, or through collusion.

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

1 May 2026

Knox Cropper 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.

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Financial Statements 215

FRIENDS OF THE NATIONS’ LIBRARIES

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES for the year ended 31 December 2025

Note Income from: donatons and legacies 2 investments 3 Total Expenditure on: grants to insttutons for the purchase of books, manuscripts, archives and bookbindings 4 raising funds 5 Total Operatng result Net gains/(losses) on investments 7 Net income/(expenditure) Transfers between funds Net movement in funds Reconciliaton of funds Total funds brought forward Total funds carried forward	Unrestricted Restricted Endowment Total Total fund funds funds 2025 2024 £ £ £ £ £ 185,653 35,398 – 221,051 524,219 181,562 54,958 – 236,520 241,305
	367,215 90,356 – 457,571 765,524
	262,689 124,023 – 386,712 675,150 79,893 3,552 9,570 93,015 78,285
	342,582 127,575 9,570 479,727 753,435
	24,633 (37,219) (9,570) (22,156) 12,089 – 93,621 277,425 371,046 208,372
	24,633 56,402 267,855 348,890 220,461 (24,633) 417 24,216 – –
	– 56,819 292,071 348,890 220,461 – 2,008,377 4,302,491 6,310,868 6,090,407
	– 2,065,196 4,594,562 6,659,758 6,310,868

FRIENDS OF THE NATIONS’ LIBRARIES

BALANCE SHEET as at 31 December 2025

Note Fixed assets Investments 7 Current assets Debtors 8 Cash at bank Total current assets Liabilites Creditors: amounts falling due within one year 9 Net current assets Total net assets Representng The funds of the charity 10 Unrestricted income fund: Operatng fund 11 Restricted income funds: Philip Larkin Fund 12 Unwin Fund 13 John R Murray Fund 14 Other restricted fund Endowment funds: Expendable 15 Permanent 16 Total funds 17 Approved by the Trustees on 4 March 2026 and signed on their behalf by GEORDIE GREIG CHARLES SEBAG-MONTEFIORE Chairman Honorary Treasurer	2025 2024 £ £ 5,701,520 5,341563 106,091 261,355 894,915 1,074,465
	1,001,006 1,335,820 42,768 366,515
	958,238 969,305
	6,659,758 6,310,868
	– –
	351,567 335,696 185,914 213,877 1,525,715 1,458,804 2,000 –
	2,065,196 2,008,377
	2,955,561 2,663,490 1,639,001 1,639,001
	4,594,562 4,302,491
	6,659,758 6,310,868

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Financial Statements 217

FRIENDS OF THE NATIONS’ LIBRARIES

STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS for the year ended 31 December 2025

			2025	2024
			£	£
Cash fow from operatng actvites
net income/(expenditure) for the year – see page 214			348,890	220,461
Adjustments for:
(gains)/losses on investments			(371,046)	(208,372)
income from investments			(236,520)	(241,305)
increase/(decrease) in commitments to make grants			(318,586)	309,918
(increase)/decrease in income tax recoverable			5,264	(4,422)
changes in other debtors and creditors			144,838	(144,426)
net cash provided by / (used in) operatng actvites			(427,160)	(68,146)
Cash fows from investng actvites
income from investments			236,520	241,305
proceeds from sale of investments			11,090	10,799
purchase of investments			–	–
deposited with investment manager pending investment			–	–
net cash provided by / (used in) investng actvites			247,610	252,104
Change in cash and cash equivalents in the year			(179,550)	183,958
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year			1,074,465	890,507
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year			894,915	1,074,465
Movement in Net Funds
	Cash at bank		Cash held by	Total
			Investment
			Managers
	£		£	£
As at 1 January 2025	1,071,319		3,146	1,074,465
Movement	(177,833)		(1,717)	(179,550)
As at 31 December 2025	£893,486		1,429	894,915

FRIENDS OF THE NATIONS’ LIBRARIES

NOTES ON THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 31 December 2025

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.

218 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Financial Statements 219

	Unrestricted	Unrestricted	Restricted	Endowment	Total	Total
		fund	funds	funds	2025	2024
		£	£	£	£	£
2.	Income from donatons and legacies
	Grants receivable
	for the Charity’s general purposes	–	–	–	–	–
	for Alan Turing’s papers (the Delilah Project) –		–	–	–	250,000
	for the Sarum Bible	–	35,398	–	35,398	90,438
		–	35,398	–	35,398	340,438
	Membership subscriptons
	annual membership	36,604	–	–	36,604	38,484
	life membership income tax recovered on subscriptons	3,600 6,091	– –	– –	3,600 6,091	2,400 5,632
		46,295	–	–	46,295	46,516
	Other donatons and legacies	139,265	–	–	139,265	137,025
	Other income	93	–	–	93	240
		185,653	35,398	–	221,051	524,219
3.	Income from investments
	distributons from investments	162,829	54,939	–	217,768	219,004
	interest on bank balances and deposits	18,733	19	–	18,752	22,301
		181,562	54,958	–	236,520	241,305
4.	Grants to insttutons for the purchase of books, manuscripts, archives and bookbindings
	from unrestricted funds for the
	purchase of books and manuscripts	261,207	–	–	261,207	194,803
	from the Philip Larkin Fund for the
	purchase of modern literary archives
	and manuscripts	–	20,000	–	20,000	13,610
	from the John R Murray Fund
	for the purchase of manuscripts
	and archives	–	42,568	–	42,568	61,554
	from the B. H. Breslauer Fund
	for the purchase of printed books
	and bookbindings	–	–	–	–	29,894
	from the Unwin Fund
	for the purchase of printed books
	and manuscripts	–	27,964	–	27,964	33,341
	from restricted grants
	for Alan Turing’s papers (Delilah Project)	–	–	–	–	250,000
	for the Sarum Bible	–	33,398	–	33,398	90,438
	total of direct costs	261,207	123,930	–	385,137	673,640
	support costs (see note 6)	1,482	93	–	1,575	1,510
		262,689	124,023	–	386,712	675,150
	Details of the grants made are set out on pages 32 to 197.

Unrestricted Restricted Endowment fund funds funds £ £ £ 5. Expenditure on raising funds consultants’ fees and expenses 50,714 – – investment manager’s charges – 3,228 9,570 other direct costs 6,181 – – total of direct costs 56,895 3,228 9,570 support costs (see note 6) 22,998 324 – 79,893 3,552 9,570 6. Support costs governance costs: annual report annual general meetng audit fee other Support costs were allocated in 2025 as set out in note 1(c), as follows: grants to insttutons (note 4) 1,482 93 – raising funds (note 5) 22,998 324 – 24,480 417 –	Unrestricted Restricted Endowment fund funds funds £ £ £ 5. Expenditure on raising funds consultants’ fees and expenses 50,714 – – investment manager’s charges – 3,228 9,570 other direct costs 6,181 – – total of direct costs 56,895 3,228 9,570 support costs (see note 6) 22,998 324 – 79,893 3,552 9,570 6. Support costs governance costs: annual report annual general meetng audit fee other Support costs were allocated in 2025 as set out in note 1(c), as follows: grants to insttutons (note 4) 1,482 93 – raising funds (note 5) 22,998 324 – 24,480 417 –	Total Total 2025 2024 £ £ 50,714 41,884 12,798 12,701 6,181 6,111
	56,895 3,228 9,570 22,998 324 –	69,693 60,696 23,322 17,589
	79,893 3,552 9,570	93,015 78,285
	as set out in note 1(c), as follows: 1,482 93 – 22,998 324 –	19,636 14,406 2,111 1,673 3,150 3,020 – –
		24,897 19,099
		1,575 1,510 23,322 17,589
	24,480 417 –	24,897 19,099

7. Investments

The Charity’s investment portfolio consists of a single holding in the Cazenove Charity Sustainable Multi-Asset Fund, a long term investment fund with a diversified strategy investing in equities, bonds, property and alternative assets. The Fund aims to provide income and capital growth in excess of the Consumer Price Index + 4% per annum (net of fees) over rolling ten-year periods. The portfolio as at 31 December 2025 is summarised in the following tables:

Mult-asset funds Other investments Movements in year: Market value at start of year Cost of purchases Proceeds of sale Realised gains/(losses) Unrealised gains/(losses) Prior year adjustment Movement in year Market value at end of year	Cost Market Prospectve value annual income £ £ £ 5,464,381 5,701,520 217,658 – – – 5,464,381 5,701,520 217,658	Yield £ 3.82% 0.00% 3.82% 2025 2024 £ £ 5,341,563 5,143,989 – – (11,090) (10,798) 247 75 370,800 208,297 – –
		359,957 197,574
		5,701,520 5,341,563

220 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Financial Statements 221

8. Debtors income tax recoverable other debtors 9. Creditors: amounts payable within one year commitments to make grants other creditors and accrued charges	2025 2024 £ £ 6,091 11,355 100,000 250,000
	106,091 261,355
	2025 2024 £ £ 37,114 355,700 5,654 10,815
	42,768 366,515

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 John R. Murray Fund and the Unwin 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 John R. Murray Fund and the Unwin Fund are identified separately, but there are no restrictions on expenditure from these funds whch can be put towards the purchase of manuscripts, archives and printed books. Grants and donations received for the 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. Operatng fund at beginning of year income in year expenditure in year transfer (to)/from general endowment fund at end of year	2025 2024 £ £ – – 367,215 369,815 (342,582) (261,808) (24,633) (108,007) – –

12. Philip Larkin Fund at beginning of year income in year investment management charges expenditure in year investment gains/(losses) transfer from general endowment fund at end of year 13. Unwin Fund at beginning of year income in year expenditure in year at end of year 14. John R Murray Fund at beginning of year income in year expenditure in year investment management charges investment gains/(losses) at end of year 15. Expendable Endowment Fund General fund at beginning of year investment management charges investment gains/(losses) transfer from/(to) operatng fund transfer (to) restricted funds at end of year	2025 2024 £ £ 335,696 323,479 13,562 13,628 (797) (775) (20,000) (13,610) 23,106 12,974 – –
	351,567 335,696
	213,877 247,218 – – (27,963) (33,341) 185,914 213,877
	1,458,804 1,441,492 41,396 41,643 (42,568) (61,554) (2,432) (2,367) 70,515 39,590
	1,525,715 1,458,804
	2,663,490 2,409,323 (9,570) (9,314) 277,425 155,808 24,216 107,673 – –
	2,955,561 2,663,490

222 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

Financial Statements 223

16. Permanent endowment funds

at beginning of year received in year at end of year Analysis of net assets between funds Unrestricted fund Restricted funds: Philip Larkin Fund John R Murray Fund Sarum Master Fund Unwin Fund Endowment funds:	Kings Golden Total Total Fund Jubilee 2025 2024 Appeal Fund £ £ £ £ 1,540,283 98,718 1,639,001 1,639,001 – – – –
	1,540,283 98,718 1,639,001 1,639,001
	Net current Total Total Investments assets 2025 2024 £ £ £ £ – – – – 355,071 (3,504) 351,567 335,696 1,083,311 442,404 1,525,715 1,458,804 – 2,000 2,000 – – 185,914 185,914 213,877 1,438,382 626,814 2,065,196 2,008,377 4,263,138 331,424 4,594,562 4,302,491
	5,701,520 958,238 6,659,758 6,310,868

17. Analysis of net assets between funds

18. Comparative Statement of Financial Activities for 2024

The table below is given in compliance with the SORP requirements in order to provide the split between the operating and endowment funds for the previous year, 2024.

Note Income from: donatons and legacies 2 investments 3 Total Expenditure on: grants to insttutons for the purchase of books, manuscripts, archives and bookbindings 4 raising funds 5 Total Operatng result Net gains/(losses) on investments 7 Net income/(expenditure) Transfers between funds Net movement in funds Reconciliaton of funds Total funds brought forward Total funds carried forward	Unrestricted Restricted Endowment Total fund funds funds funds 2024 2024 2024 2024 £ £ £ £ 183,781 340,438 – 524,219 186,034 55,271 – 241,305 369,815 395,709 – 765,524
	196,224 478,926 – 675,150 65,584 3,387 9,314 78,285
	261,808 482,313 9,314 753,435
	108,007 (86,604) (9,314) 12,089 – 52,564 155,808 208,372
	108,007 (34,040) 146,494 220,461 (108,007) 334 107,673 –
	– (33,706) 254,167 220,461 – 2,042,083 4,048,324 6,090,407
	- 2,008,377 4,302,491 6,310,868

19. Transactions with trustees and connected parties

• The trustees received no remuneration or reimbursement of expenses.

Other than regular membership subscriptions, certain trustees, or persons or charitable organisations connected with them, made donations to the Charity of £100,000 during the year (2024: £100,000).

224 Friends of the Nations’ Libraries

www.fnl.org.uk

Registered Charity number 313020

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