Author Archives: ferguswilde

1. Harmonia Ruralis or an essay towards a Natural History of British Song Birds

   12th July 2024 4:12 pm 1 Comment

   Birds and bindings

   More than twenty years ago, in the dark and dusty underground reference stacks of Manchester Central Library, I first came across the two volumes of James Bolton’s illustrated book, Harmonia Ruralis. I was completely enchanted by his coloured images of British songbirds, their eggs, nests and habitat. The books were very fragile – the leather-covered spines and marbled boards had parted company and were held together with cotton tape but the pages were embossed with the 1851 stamp of Manchester Free Library. 1851 was the year in which Manchester became one of the first British cities to open a rates-supported library under the Public Libraries Act of 1850 and Bolton’s book had been selected as part of its first reference collection.

   

   Image 1 – Manchester Central Library Copy

   Many years later I joined Chetham’s library as a volunteer and was delighted to discover that the library also owned a copy of Harmonia Ruralis. There are- no provenance details but it was acquired after 1868 and has been rebound before any of the current staff were in post, but probably within the last twenty or thirty years. The book was among the first to feature in the online ‘101 Treasures of Chethams Library’.

   

   Image 2 – Chetham’s Library Copy

   I recently decided to look more closely at the copies of Bolton’s book in Central Library and in Chethams and was intrigued to note significant differences in the hand coloured illustrations in the books. A check on ‘Library Hub Discover’ (the JISC database recording the catalogues of 203 UK and Irish academic, national & specialist library catalogues) revealed only 11 copies of Bolton’s book, three of which are held in Manchester – at Chethams Library, Manchester Central Library and the John Ryland’s Library at the University of Manchester.

   A visit to the John Ryland’s library revealed that their copy of Harmonia Ruralis, in gold embellished crimson leather, was part of the 43,000 items in the Spencer Collection of books acquired by Henriqueta Rylands in 1892 and the coloured illustrations in this copy differed from both the Central Library and Chetham’s copies.

   

   Image 3 – John Rylands Library Copy

   Faithfully drawn, engraved and coloured after Nature.

   James Bolton was a Northerner, from Halifax, where he lived all his life. He was originally a weaver (as recorded on his marriage certificate) but reinvented himself as a naturalist, artist and author. His older brother Thomas was also a naturalist and the two young men became part of a community which included scientists, collectors and wealthy and aristocratic men and women. Access to these groups was often through the supply of specimens for private collections – eggs, nests and bird ‘skins’ for taxidermy and also live birds which could be kept in ornamental cages.

   Bolton states on the title page of his book Harmonia Ruralis that it is: ‘An Essay towards a Natural History of British Songbirds…illustrated with Figures the of Life, of the Birds, Male and Female in their most natural attitudes; their Nests and Eggs, Food, favourite Plants, Shrubs, Trees, &c.&c Faithfully drawn, engraved and coloured after Nature, By the Author on Forty Copper Plates’. 

   

   Image 4 – Harmonia Ruralis Title Page (Central Library Copy)

   Harmonia Ruralis was Bolton’s third book, his first was on fungi and the second, Filices Britannicae…… on ferns. He had written about his methods in the introduction to the book on ferns: ‘The drawing and etching of the figures are performed wholely by my own hands, from a close and careful inspection of the plants. The employing of an engraver would have been attended with a considerable and certain expense; and as the reimbursement was very uncertain, I chose to undertake it myself, though I had never before practised the art of etching, that I might hazard only the loss of so much of my own time. The truth of the drawing in all figures may be relied on, and the definitions are faithful. For the execution of the plates in the engraving part, and for the stile (sic) in writing, I can make no other apology than of throwing myself on the humanity of my friends and the public. Halifax, August 16th, 1785.’

   Turdus Musicus: the Song Thrush or Throstle

   Despite Bolton’s claim that he had personally ‘drawn, engraved and coloured’ each and every image, it is obvious that there is a great deal of variation in the colouring, as these images of a thrush, taken from the three Manchester books, demonstrate. Note particularly the colour and brush patterns of the land upon which the bird is standing and the shades and shapes of the markings on his body.

   

   Image 5 – Chethams Thrush

   

   Image 6 – Central Library Thrush

   

   Image 6 – John Rylands Thrush

   As I explored the three Manchester copies of Harmonia Ruralis I became increasingly curious about how the book had actually been made and I decided to approach Graham Moss of Incline Press to ask for his advice and insights. Graham is not only a practising printer but an expert on the history of printing and a very good friend to Chethams Library.

   Graham commented that, as this was Bolton’s third book, he would have been familiar with the printing and publishing process. Before embarking on the printing of Harmonia Ruralis, he would have issued a pre-publication Prospectus, through his chosen booksellers, which advertised the book and potentially enabled customers to place an advance order. Graham also explained that at this period books were not ‘Edition Bound’ by the printer (in this case George Nicholson of Manchester) or the publisher (Bolton).

   John Feather in his Dictionary of Book History, describes how the pages of text and illustrations would have been printed and then sold by the publisher to the bookseller ‘loose’ or in a simple trade binding. The customer could then have the pages trimmed and select a binding of their choice. Curiously the Chethams copy has untrimmed pages. Both the Chetham’s and John Rylands copies have volumes one (1794) and two (1796) bound together but the Central Library copy is in two separate volumes. Graham notes that the style, layout and motifs differ slightly between the two volumes, although both use Caslon which was a somewhat old-fashioned typeface but typical of a ‘provincial’ printer like George Nicholson.

   The system for colouring the printed pages was what Graham describes as a ‘cottage industry’ probably organised by the printer and usually undertaken by young girls, and possibly their mothers, working in their homes. They would have needed a clean, well-lit space to work in and somewhere to hang the prints to dry. Bolton would have produced accurate coloured ‘model’ images which were distributed to them.

   The reasons for variations in colour could have been due to differences in the amount of water used to mix the paint, and perhaps in the light conditions where the work was undertaken. The skill of the individual artists must also have contributed to the quality of the finished images. The copy at John Ryland’s is overall of a noticeably better quality than the other two in both colouring and brushwork. Is it possible that George John (1758-1834) 2nd Earl Spencer or his agent was able to select the best images or commission a specific artist? Graham suggests that the celebrated bibliographer Thomas Dibdin, who advised the Earl on his book collection and managed and catalogued his library, may have had a hand in this.

   The British Ladies…..

   

   Bolton’s dedication is both charming and slightly mysterious: ‘To the British Ladies, to Naturalists and to all such as admire the Beauty or Melody of the Feathered Warblers’. It is highly likely that he is referring to two particular ladies – the Duchess of Portland and Anna Blackburne of Orford Hall near Warrington in Lancashire. However, that is another story ………

   By Patti Collins

2. Tinkler, Tailor, Librarian, Thief

   27th June 2024 11:12 am Leave a Comment

   For as long as there have been libraries, there have been people willing to steal from them; and as a result, book-owners have always taken measures to prevent theft. From the ancient world into the medieval period, book curses were added to books by their owners, usually invoking divine retribution against would-be thieves. Medieval librarians added ownership inscriptions to institutional books to discourage the same thieves, and, when that didn’t work, they chained the books up so that readers had to consult them at desks. This practice continued into the early-modern period, and when Chetham’s Library was founded in 1653, it followed contemporary trends and chained its books to the shelves. Later, when the chains were removed, gates were added between the presses to keep visitors and readers out, and ex libris bookplates were added to the books to indicate their ownership, again reflecting broader trends in library history. 

   Even despite these precautions, though, theft continued to pose a threat to historic collections, a fact demonstrated by the story of one Chetham’s Librarian. His name was John Edward Tinkler. He was born in 1864, the son of a clergyman from Stamford in Lincolnshire, and sometime around 1882, he became Assistant Librarian at Chetham’s Library. It was here that he seemingly gained his first experience of working with rare books. He held his initial post for three years and was then appointed Chetham’s Librarian, a post he held for two more years. At least in some respects, Tinkler seems to have discharged his duties adequately. In the preface to The fellows of the collegiate church of Manchester (1891), Frank Renaud thanked Tinkler for his assistance; a few years earlier, John Radcliffe had thanked him in the preface to the first volume of his edition of the parish registers of St Chad in Yorkshire (1887). In that volume’s list of subscribers, Radcliffe named Tinkler as librarian; when the second volume was published in 1892, however, Walter Thurlow Browne had replaced him. 

   

   Fig 1: Tinkler named as Chetham’s Librarian in John Radcliffe’s The Parish Registers of St Chad, Saddleworth, vol. 1 (1887).

   The reason for Tinkler’s departure was his dismissal by the feoffees on account of his unsatisfactory conduct. Two years after he had taken up the librarianship, Tinkler was caught using Chetham’s stationery to conduct suspicious dealings with rare books dealers in Berlin, Munich and New York, buying and selling books and pocketing the profits. When they dismissed him, the feoffees covered the liabilities that he had incurred out of a sense of duty, and – perhaps in an attempt to keep him as far away as possible – they helped set him up as a fruit-grower in California. Nevertheless, five years later, Tinkler was back; he gave the feoffees two hundred pounds to cover part of his debt and requested and received permission to consult the collections again. This proved to be a mistake, however, when a Book of Hours bearing the autograph of the Manchester poet John Byrom went missing. When he next visited the library, Tinkler was challenged by Browne and promptly fled. Inexplicably, no proceedings were taken against Tinkler, and the book was not recovered.

   

   Fig 2: Byrom’s autograph in another Chetham’s Library Manuscript (shelfmark).

   Tinkler nevertheless found himself before the London sessions in 1904, accused of stealing books; he was convicted and sentenced to fifteen months in prison. While there, he was convinced by his fellow inmates to steal yet more rare books, this time from the library of Peterborough Cathedral, which was then undergoing restoration. At the time, the library was kept in a room above the porch on the west front, and Tinkler managed to gain access to it multiple times; he later boasted that he had a skeleton key that would open any church door in England. He sold the books he stole from the library to rare book dealers in England and America; when his buyers enquired where he obtained the books, he would tell them that he had bought them from an old library in Kent, or else from a gentleman in London. Tinker approached the London bookdealers through an accomplice, Arthur William Champion; Tinkler told Champion that he had debts that prevented him from approaching the London dealers himself. The two men regularly met in pubs to discuss the business, and Tinkler mentioned his trips to America to sell books.

   

   Fig 3: Peterborough Cathedral’s front porch, with the former library above.

   Eventually, in 1909, the thefts came to the attention of Peterborough Cathedral’s dean, Arnold Page, when he noticed a loose leaf from one of the cathedral’s books on the library floor. He realised that books were missing, and reported the theft to the police; when the library’s contents were checked against its catalogue, it was discovered that 215 rare books and pamphlets had been stolen, mostly valuable Americana. A list of the missing books was printed and quietly circulated among the involved parties, and in December 1910, a warrant for Tinkler’s arrest was issued. It was not until 6 February 1912 that the police caught up with Champion, and through him, Tinkler: Detective Inspector Vermer accompanied Champion to a pub where he was to meet Tinkler, and informed him of the warrant against him. At first, Tinkler was nonchalant: he declared that he had never been to Peterborough, but that he would assist the police as best he could. He was nevertheless charged with the theft of the books; on 22 April he appeared for trial at the Peterborough sessions, where he was found guilty by the jury and sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. 

   After Tinkler’s arrest, around fifty of the stolen books were identified as Peterborough books through their distinctive eighteenth-century inscriptions and shelfmarks, which Tinkler had unsuccessfully attempted to erase with chemicals. Some of the stolen books were traced to America; it was discovered that one had been sold to the American financier and collector J. P. Morgan (whose son founded the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York) for a four-figure sum – at least £95,000 today – and another had been sold to another collector for a similar value. Such impressive sums underline Tinkler’s excellent knowledge of rare books and the book trade, without which he could not have been as successful as he was. Two quotes from Tinkler’s trial encapsulate the dichotomy he represented: he was, at once, ‘the quintessence of cunning and the incarnation of a book thief’, and ‘one of the greatest experts in old and rare books living’. Tinkler’s story is perhaps the most ignominious of any Chetham’s Librarian but it is tempting to wonder what he might have achieved if he had kept on the straight and narrow so many years before at Chetham’s Library.

3. Chetham’s Library Hosts the Transnational Early Modern Book Conference

   21st June 2024 11:27 am Leave a Comment

   On 29th May, Chetham’s Library hosted the second day of the Transnational Early Modern Book Conference. Organised by postgraduate researchers Seren Morgan-Roberts and Ellen Werner, the conference brought together more than thirty researchers from six different countries to explore the ways in which books were objects of transnational exchange between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

   

   Postgraduate researcher Ellen Werner delivering a paper on Lawrence Langley’s Marginalia.

   The first day of the conference had taken place in the University of Manchester’s Oddfellows Hall and had included papers on subjects such as Latin as a language of international exchange and relations between early modern French and English book production. On the second day, the beautiful setting of the Baronial Hall provided the backdrop for a range of talks. The day’s panels focused on topics like religious networks of reading, gendered approaches to reading and publishing, international print production, and, fittingly, libraries as sites of transnational encounter. The day’s keynote lecture about ‘Early Modern Language Manuals in Transnational Perspective’ was given by Dr John Gallagher of the University of Leeds.

   

   John Gallagher’s keynote paper, ‘‘Everywhere, where they learn French’: early modern language manuals in transnational perspectives’.

   In addition, participants also had the opportunity to explore Chetham’s Library on a guided tour and to get a glimpse of the Library’s collection of Renaissance books, which was a beautiful link to the subject of the conference. It was fantastic to see how impressed attendees were by the building and collections and how well the venue lent itself to hosting a conference. The organisers would like to express their heartfelt thanks to the staff at Chetham’s Library, who ensured that everything ran smoothly throughout the day and without whom such an informative and enjoyable conference would not have been possible, as well as to the Northwest Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP), the Society for Renaissance Studies (SRS) and the University of Manchester’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Languages (CIDRAL) for their generous funding.

4. Thomas Jones: Chetham’s Greatest Librarian

   14th June 2024 3:10 pm Leave a Comment

   As we continue our journey through the lives of Chetham’s Librarians, one name stands out above all others: that of Thomas Jones, a man with a reasonable claim to the title of ‘Chetham’s greatest librarian’. Born in Margam, Glamorgan in 1810, Jones received his early education at Cowbridge Grammar School; this was one of Wales’ most famous schools, and also a feeder school for Jesus College, Oxford. Unsurprisingly, Jones subsequently attended the college, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1832. Although he had originally planned to take holy orders after his studies, Jones instead decided to pursue a career in the world of books; in 1842, he compiled a catalogue of Neath Library in Wales, and in March 1845 he was appointed as Chetham’s Librarian following the death of the former librarian, the Reverend Campbell Grey Hulton. Jones was to serve as Chetham’s Librarian until his death in 1875, making him one of the library’s longest-serving librarians – surpassed only by Robert Thyer before him, and Michael Powell after him.

   The librarianship proved to be a role that Jones was particularly well-suited to. The Manchester bibliophile James Crossley – a founder of the Chetham Society (an antiquarian society dedicated to the study of Lancashire and Cheshire history) and its president from 1847-83 – characterised Jones as ‘one who was seemingly designed by nature for the place and whose whole soul was in his work’, while Jones’ obituary described the library as ‘the sphere for which he was excellently adapted’. Diaries kept by Jones reveal the consistency with which he carried out his responsibilities: most days began with dusting and cataloguing (perennial tasks in a library like Chetham’s), and in the afternoons he attended to readers. During his librarianship, Jones was also responsible for more than doubling the library’s holdings, which increased from 18,000 to 38,000 volumes. This was often achieved through Jones’ personal intercession, and the accessions register from this time records books entering the collection through ‘the librarian’. Crossley too played an important role in this expansion, acquiring books for the library, and the two men formed a close working relationship. Later, Crossley would become an honorary librarian after Jones’ death. 

   

   Fig. 1: Thomas Jones’ diary from 1866.

   In addition to increasing the library’s holdings, Jones took great pains to ensure that they were accessible to those who wished to use them. He compiled a Catalogue of the collection of tracts for and against popery (published in and about the reign of James II) in the Manchester library founded by Humphrey Chetham, which was published by the Chetham Society in 1859. Then, he prepared two volumes of catalogues of the library’s general holdings: first, a continuation of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century catalogues produced by Chetham’s Librarians John Radcliffe and William Greswell, which was published in 1862, and then an alphabetical catalogue published the following year. Lastly, he began work on a biography of John Dee (warden of Manchester’s collegiate church from 1596-1608/9) and an edition of some of his letters, under the title A selection of the letters written by Dr Dee with an introduction of collectanea relating to his life and works. This work was still incomplete upon his death and was never published, but Jones’ manuscript copy of it is preserved in our collections, written on the blue paper that he preferred to use. 

   

   Fig. 2: The alcove where Marx and Engels studied in the summer of 1845.

   During Jones’ librarianship, use of the library flourished, and it was soon after he took up the post, in the summer of 1845, that the library received two of its most famous visitors: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. At the time, Engels lived in Manchester and was employed by his father’s firm, which manufactured cotton thread, while Marx lived in London and frequently travelled to Manchester. The two men spent six weeks that summer studying together in an alcove in the Reading Room, a period of intellectual activity that ultimately led to the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848. The original books that they consulted are still held by the library, and can be seen on the shelves by the landing; meanwhile, facsimiles are kept in the alcove where they studied for visitors to peruse. When Marx and Engels visited, it is likely that Jones located these books and brought them to the Reading Room, and they undoubtedly benefited from Jones’ extensive knowledge of the collections which led to his description, in his obituary, as the library’s ‘living index’.

   

   Fig. 3: Obituary of the late Mr Thomas Jones, B.A, F.SA., Librarian of Chetham’s Library, 1875.

   Nevertheless, in his old age, Jones struggled to discharge his duties as librarian. Writing to Marx in 1870 after another visit to Chetham’s Library, Engels remarked that ‘during the last few days I have again spent a good deal of time sitting at the four-sided desk in the alcove where we sat together twenty-four years ago. I am very fond of the place. The stained-glass window ensures that the weather is always fine there. Old Jones, the Librarian, is still alive but he is old and no longer active. I have not seen him on this occasion. Despite his infirmity, Jones would continue as the librarian for another five years until his death, following a short illness, on 29 November 1875. His successor and friend Crossley lamented that ‘I seem to have lost half of myself…I am too much affected to say more.’ He was buried at St Mark’s Church in Cheetham Hill, only a stone’s throw away from where he had spent the majority of his life, and where his dedication to the books and cultivation of the collection undoubtedly shaped Chetham’s Library into what it is today. 

   By Megan Devereux  and Emma Nelson.

5. Robert Thyer: Sophistication and Simplicity

   3rd June 2024 3:04 pm 1 Comment

   Thyer was Chetham’s 9th librarian, its first layman and up to that point its longest serving incumbent; he held the post for over 30 years from 1732 to 1763. He was a Manchester man, the son of a silk weaver, educated at Manchester Grammar School and Brazenose College, Oxford. Thyer’s appointment is recorded in the Feoffees’ minutes but we do not know how he achieved this position at the early age of 23. Then, as now, contacts were important and Thyer was a great cultivator of friends, many of whom were influential.

   

   Robert Thyer Paper Portrait Silhouette, by Dorothy Byrom. Manchester Art Gallery.

   In affectionate letters to his relations later in life, Thyer was at pains to let it be known that he was meeting with the country gentry on intimate terms. He may have been acquainted with George Booth, the 2nd Earl of Warrington at Dunham Massey who sent troops in support of the Jacobites, a cause espoused by Thyer, in 1745. More significantly, Thyer had a family relationship with Booth’s neighbour, Samuel Egerton, grandson of the 2nd Earl of Bridgewater: Thyer’s wife had previously been married to John Leigh, Egerton’s cousin. Egerton succeeded his childless brother as owner of Tatton in 1738 and when his wealthy uncle, Samuel Hill, died, he inherited significant additional estates as well as a fine collection of art and books, many acquired in Italy. Egerton had intriguing links, familial, political, artistic and social, all over England. He became an MP and a leading, if eccentric, figure in Cheshire society. While renovating his ancestral home at Tatton, one of his most important projects was the building of a new library for his uncle’s outstanding collection of books.

   The combination of a family connection, Egerton’s Tory sympathies, and his rare and valuable book collection drew him into friendship with Thyer, who spent many long periods at Tatton after his retirement. A letter from Egerton’s daughter to Thyer pleads for his presence and indicates that he was always a welcome and honoured guest. Egerton was not only good company, but a source of funds for the comparatively poor librarian. Thyer eventually benefited from Egerton’s will, writing to his stepdaughter in 1780 that he was overjoyed that his debts had been forgiven and that he was to receive £200 a year and ‘the 40 pounds a year I have enjoyed from him for some time past’. He adds, ‘This is enough for a Philosopher’ and he assures his stepdaughter that he will not let his riches affect him. He was only to enjoy this modest wealth for a year before he died.

   Thyer’s earlier intimate circle was more literary. He was a close friend of John Byrom, the Manchester poet and inventor of a system of shorthand, known later for the lyrics of the stirring hymn, ‘Christians Awake!’ The French scholar, Henri Talon, in his ‘Selections from the Journals and Papers of John Byrom’ of 1950, paints a vivid picture of the friendship of these two literati. They walked and dined together; Byrom would keep an eye on the library when Thyer needed some time off for exercise or to watch a foot race; they sent effusive greetings to each other’s wives. Byrom’s wife created an affectionate silhouette of Thyer, now in the Manchester Art Gallery.

   Thyer would sometimes emulate Byrom’s light-hearted verse. When his cobbler provided shoes that were too big, Thyer sent them back with an admonitory note:

   How couldest thou get in thy pate.

   A foot like mine, so small, so neat,

   So pretty, if the beaus say true,

   Could ever fill so huge a shoe?

   The reference to that much-satirised mid-18th century phenomenon, the beau, might have been influenced by Byrom’s poem ‘The Dissection of a Beau’s Head’, a grisly description of what might be found on opening up a fashionable dandy, which begins

   We found by our glasses that what at first sight

   Appeared to be brains, was another thing quite,

   continues for several pages to examine intimate body parts which are not what they seem and ends with the promise ‘we’ll reserve the Coquet for another occasion’.  This and other poems were painstakingly copied out by Thyer in a manuscript collection held in the library, indicating that he fully supported Byrom’s scorn for high fashion.

   

   ‘The Dissection of a Beau’s Head’ by John Byrom, in Robert Thyer’s hand. In Chetham’s Library.

   All this friendly simplicity is in contrast to the sophisticated scholarship for which Thyer was renowned. His meticulous manuscript commonplace book of 1743 consists of a series of essays, mostly in Latin but partly in Greek, with titles such as ‘On the Thief upon the Crop and the Case of Deathbed Repentances’ and ‘On the Descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove’. 

   

   A page from Robert Thyer’s Commonplace Book, 1743, in Chetham’s library.

   In further scholarly endeavour, he supplied notes for a new edition of Paradise Lost compiled by Thomas Newton, who described Thyer as ‘a man of great learning and as great humanity.’ He went on to edit ‘The Genuine Remains in Verse and Prose of Samuel Butler,’ much praised, albeit controversially, by Dr Johnson. A new edition of ‘The Remains’ came out in 1827 long after Thyer’s death, which included a copy of the Romney portrait (below). John Hill Burton 40 years later in his ‘Bookhunter’, thinking Thyler had in some way been responsible for this vainglorious inclusion, spoke waspishly of ‘drudging Thyer’s respectable and stupid face.’ It is not clear how Burton formed this opinion, but all the evidence indicates that Thyer, although indeed respectable and perhaps a little ‘drudging’ in terms of his conscientious and scholarly approach to his various projects, was far from stupid.

   Manchester Grammar School remained close to Thyer’s heart and he contributed for many years to their rather solemn and admonitory Christmas celebrations. In the early 1760s, he wrote a verse prologue and two speeches. After his retirement, he produced three lengthy essays for the school. The first, in 1773, was a denunciation of avarice, urging ‘the proper use, not the hoarding’ of riches. It ends with a striking simile. Riches, ‘judiciously scattered’ are like water, ‘which, purified by continual motion, and skilfully conveyed in different rills to ye parts which want it, diffuses plenty and beauty wherever it flows; but, if suffered to stagnate in one place becomes putrid, loathsome and prejudicial to that very land which it was designed to enrich.’

   The second essay, written in 1779, is a diatribe against the use of malicious satire in literature. The end of all wit, he advises, should be humane and benevolent, and should never ‘torture a man for being odd and singular’. The essay ends: ‘He that is malevolent enough to laugh today at his neighbour’s expense, should consider that tomorrow he may be ridiculed at his own; and he will then too late find by experience that the Sensibilities of Men are not to be dallied with and may feelingly say with the Frogs in the Fable – what is sport to you my Lads is Death to us.’

   Finally, in 1780, his advice to pupils was encapsulated in Simplex Munditiis, in which he argued that ‘there is a certain dignity in simplicity which will always please’ and maintained that ‘the simplicity of Nature is the ground and foundation of every real excellence.’ In literature, ‘words are the dress of Thought as Cloaths are of the Body’ and in personal appearance ‘charms borrowed from Art are incapable of attracting…the Admiration and Esteem of the other sex.’ Thyer’s essays seem to illustrate his character perfectly – a man of gentle and kindly humour, humane, fond of fun but somewhat straitlaced, an advocate of a simple and thoughtful life, and an enemy of the fashionable and false – ‘the coxcomb, foppishness, the Friseur and the Rouge Box.’

   Librarians at Chetham’s traditionally trod carefully in matters of politics and religion. Thyer however made no secret of his Tory and Jacobite sympathies. When Charles Stuart arrived in Manchester in November 1745 on a recruiting mission, Hanoverian troops were sent to root out Jacobite sympathisers. A family anecdote relates that Thyer took refuge in Heaton Hall. When the soldiers searched his house in Long Millgate for treasonable papers, his wife showed her spirit by suggesting they should look under the winter’s supply of coal for there they might find her husband as well as the papers they sought. Throughout this period Thyer supported his friend Byrom in local controversies with the Whigs. Particularly bitter was the friends’ condemnation of Josiah Owen, a Presbyterian minister from Rochdale and a voluble and virulent opponent of the Stuart cause, who in 1746 celebrated its eventual defeat with a Sermon entitled, All is well; or the Defeat of the late Rebellion … an exalted and illustrious Blessing. John Byrom retaliated haughtily, referring in An Epistle to a Friend (possibly Thyer) to ‘the low-bred O——ns of the age’, and publishing a scurrilous ballad on The Zealot of Rochdale, under the title Sir Lowbred O .. N, or the Hottentot Knight. Although he joined in the fray at the time, this brand of satire would not have been approved by the older Thyer.

   Thyer married Silence, widow of the well-connected John Leigh, in 1741 when he was 32. She died 12 years later and all that remains of her is her list of the birth dates of her children written in an uncultivated hand and her complicated will constructed in 1751. The couple had no surviving children, but his stepdaughter, Elizabeth Leigh, filled the role of housekeeper when Silence died. After he retired, and when she had become Mrs George Killer, the wife of a hatmaker, he gave the couple use of his house and wrote warm and loving letters to his dear Bessie, signing himself ‘your affectionate Pappa”. He considered her children, Elizabeth, Robert and John, to be his close family. Letters to the younger Elizabeth, whom he called Bet, are full of elaborate compliments and encouragement. He makes frequent reference to her brother Jack, enquiring after his health and sending love. The other brother, Robert, was taken by Thyer to Liverpool when he was 11 to recover his health and enjoy the sea-bathing.  Staying in fashionable Wolstenholme Square, the Manchester Grammar School student ‘[wrote] his Latin every day’ but found time to buy a gift for his elder sister – an expensive sixpenny coconut which disappointingly went bad. Both Robert and John became respected doctors in Manchester and Stockport. Robert was later known for treating the poor without charging for his services.

   

   Last page of Silence Thyer’s will. In Bellot papers, held by John Rylands University Library.

   Although single for many years Thyer was certainly not lonely or reclusive. In his letters to Bessie he reports many tea parties, balls and dinners with a wide range of friends, alludes frequently to the delicacies of the table, and in Liverpool one evening he ‘had the pleasure of a lady’s company to sup and drink a glass of wine with me.’ Earlier, two grammar school boys, John and Richard Arden, lived with him for a period and received tuition. He maintained his interest in horse racing in later life and rather sportingly travelled by boat in 1778 from Altrincham to Manchester when returning home from Tatton. He did, however, regret the passing of time and his inability to grow young again, as he reported to Bessie, despite ‘taking the bitters’ as she had recommended. There are many references to his rheumatism and walking difficulties, his state of health being ‘better or worse according to the weather.’ He reported more cheerfully to Bessie from Liverpool that ‘my bathing agrees extremely well with me and from the most shocking extremity I am, thank God, restored to a more probable way of mending.’ He was always concerned too about the health of others, and especially his step-grandchildren. In a last letter to Bet he wrote ‘I give you no advice about your conduct, which I am sure will be right, but let me advise you to take care of your health.’ Sadly, Bet did in fact die six years later at the age of 24.

   

   One of Thyer’s letters to his stepdaughter in which he shows how important to him was the esteem of his friend Samuel Egerton, and tells a comical story about a drunken boatman. In Bellot Papers, JRUL

   As for Thyer’s work as a librarian, he was always active, compiling the first catalogues, travelling either to buy books in London or to supervise the estates of the foundation in Lancashire and Yorkshire. His successor, Robert Kenyon, ‘enriched the library with a large collection of books pertaining to Natural History, engravings etc’ according to the next librarian, John Radcliffe who took over in 1787. But Radcliffe’s most lavish praise was reserved for Thyer. He explained that two catalogues were compiled during Thyer’s tenure ‘by one who can never be mentioned without praise, to whom Milton is indebted for much light thrown upon his immortal poems…and for almost all of (the library’s) elegant and choice selection of books.’ The two catalogues compiled by Thyer were said to have been created according to the plan of Middleton who advocated the use of alphabetical order together with ‘the indication of the class and place of a book to use as an index so that we may impart to learned men…the publication of a distinguished catalogue (which) confers the greatest benefit to the world of literature, and the greatest assistance in promoting and perfecting literary studies.’

   Thyer’s diligence as librarian was certified by the trustees on his retirement and in the Latin preface to the library catalogue of 1791. He continued to travel, write, and socialise, sometimes at Tatton and sometimes at his house in Long Millgate, until he died on 27 October 1781 aged 72, leaving Chetham’s library a richer and more orderly place of learning. He was buried with some ceremony with his ancestors at Manchester Collegiate Church.

   By Kath Rigby

6. Richard Johnson, the First Librarian: No Surplus Surplice?

   5th April 2024 12:19 pm 3 Comments

   Richard Johnson is said to have been Chetham’s very first librarian, but his back story and relationship with Humphrey Chetham is better documented than his time in that post. His life spanned the first three quarters of the 17 th century; at least until he was 60 he was a key figure in the prevailing religious and political strife. Born in Buckinghamshire and graduating from Brazenose, Oxford, Johnson was a scholarly defendant of the Anglican settlement and prayer book established during the reign of Elizabeth I. Appointed curate of Gorton in 1628 he became its minister shortly after, in which post he befriended Chetham, who owned the neighbouring Clayton Hall and its extensive lands and was already a powerful civic figure. Perhaps as a result of this friendship Johnson became a fellow of Manchester Collegiate Church in 1632.

   The lives of Johnson and Chetham were thereafter intertwined. Chetham was conscientious in cultivating friends from all parties but Johnson saw it as his calling to maintain the collegiate church as a bulwark against growing puritanism around Manchester and the entrenched catholicism in the rest of Lancashire. This was no easy task. In the year of Johnson’s appointment another fellow of the college, Daniel Baker, drowned under Salford Bridge. Either he was ‘overcharged with drinke’ or, as was alleged with several other protestant clergy, he was murdered. This was a time when men, even scholarly clerics, went about their business armed with daggers. The affairs of the collegiate church were in disarray, partly as a result of the absentee wardenship of John Dee and then Richard Murray. When Johnson took up his fellowship he was shocked: he wrote to Chetham that Richard Murray had fallen or been thrust into ‘recklessness of most unclean living’ and subsequently he became embroiled in a confused and distinctly ungodly tale of greed, accusation and counter- accusation. Murray was eventually imprisoned for embezzlement and bastardy. His supporter Peter Shaw claimed that some were ‘seeking to disgrace him by secret calumnies and slanderous letters.’ Shaw accused Johnson in his turn of embezzlement, failing to wear the surplice, administering the sacrament to private seats, omitting parts of divine service, and neglecting Gorton chapel. It is ironic that some of these sins, seen as signs of non-conformity, were imputed to Johnson, who was entirely conformist. Humphrey Chetham, now Receiver of the College Revenues, was well aware of the situation, and Johnson was effusive and frank in his thanks to Chetham for his ‘warninge concerning our subtile and wily enemye’ and opined that Murray would ‘lye in prison till hee stinks before he will pay.’ This was hardly the language of devout Anglican scholarship. He went on to make a not altogether convincing defence against the allegations to Archbishop Laud, including the statement that he had constantly worn the surplice ‘unlesse it were some one day or another in the washinge … or through the negligence of the clerk.’ Was there no surplus surplice?

   

   Metal cut showing an Anglican Priest in his surplice, as he might have appeared circa 1600.

   Despite all the skullduggery, Johnson emerged as the man to negotiate with Archbishop Laud and the privy council for a new charter and reform of the Collegiate Church. Encouraged and financed by Chetham, and thanking him for his support, Johnson set off for London to plead his case and secure agreement about the future management of the church. This was an onerous task, as Johnson made clear in letters to his friend. By August 1635 nothing was settled, and he wrote: ‘I must stay till ye Kinge cometh agayne to London before I can have his hand or knowe who shall be Warden. Charter must pass through three seales and be foure tymes transcribed in parchment or in vellum … Letters of sequestration of ye tythes are in forgeinge. I use my skill. God bless you.’

   Even at this time Johnson was aware ofthe dangers of such free expression of opinion. He urged Chetham, clearly to no avail, to ‘do as much for this letter as I did for yours; sacrifice it to Vulcane.’ The closeness of the two men is further illustrated in a letter from Johnson to Chetham about the christening, at which he was sponsor, of the latter’s nephew and namesake. Eventually Johnson was vindicated, the charter was sealed and a new warden appointed, Richard Heyrick. Although at that time showing non- conformist tendencies and later joining the presbyterians as a covenanter, Heyrick was a man Chetham could do business with. Building work was undertaken in the collegiate church, partly financed by Chetham. Posts, wages and finance were settled. Johnson retained his fellowship and served alongside his ‘wily enemye’ Peter Shaw. Johnson had demonstrated his skills as a negotiator and ambassador, but felt he owed a great debt to his deare friende. His letters show the staunch support he in his turn provided to Chetham in times of trouble. The first of these was when Chetham was accused of ‘borrowing’ a coat of arms from another family and not following proper heraldic practice. In a long letter in June 1635, Johnson wrote ‘I might justly be condemned of a pragmatical humour, or as a busy body in other men’s matters if I had not been intreated to yeild my advise, Sir, I perceive that some malicious knaves have endeavoured to disgrace you about your Coate of Armes.’ He went on to warn Chetham to be careful of certain alliances as some of the Lancashire (no doubt catholic) gentry were displeased with his presumption. In the end, Chetham’s loyal work as Sheriff, and some greasing of palms, saved his reputation and secured the arms we now see in the library.

   Further moral support was given when Chetham was involved in disputes and accused of fraudulence over leases of the church lands, and later when he upset tenants with his attempts to boost income from his estates. Chetham survived these setbacks and when he reluctantly accepted the post of Sheriff of Lancashire (which made him a glorified tax collector for the King) he appointed Johnson, still in London, as his chaplain. So effective in performance of his onerous duties was Chetham during the early reign of Charles I that years later, in November 1648, Parliament nominated him again as ‘Sheriffe of the Countie of Lancaster’. This time there followed a bitter struggle to evade the honour, in which he was once again energetically supported by his friend Johnson, who joined others in the effort to get the nomination annulled. During this campaign Johnson wrote to Chetham: ‘Sr, we will doe what we can, be of Good cheere, I think you may with conscience, beinge so ould (he was 68) and weake and broken with cares, pleade want of abilitie in memory and understanding and thus be released from the burden.’ Johnson opined that some rich and great man may be found. He had been talking to his contacts in Parliament and suggested that if the plan did not work Chetham should petition Parliament to appoint two under-sheriffs to do most of the work. Johnson was well aware that any resistance to Parliament was dangerous. Referring to another letter, he wrote: ‘I did not for a tyme dare to write an answer for some letters use to be opened, I think you understand mee.’ He was full of a sense of doom. ‘The Lord have mercy on us … men’s mouths are sewed up … if the Soldiery take all ye power and new modell ye kingdom, it is a question how little will be left to you to doe, and it may be the lesse the better’. The crisis was all over for Chetham by April 1649. The King was dead, the Commonwealth established, and John Hartley of Strangeways was appointed sheriff.

   Johnson had every reason to be cautious. In 1646 parliamentary supremacy in Manchester had led to the suppression of the Church of England and the establishment of presbyterianism in a ‘godly reformation.’ Johnson’s Anglicanism and suspected royalism led him to lose his fellowship in the chaotic early days of the Commonwealth, when the college was dissolved and the warden and fellows dismissed. It was said, clearly by a fellow royalist, ‘Ye greatest sufferer was Mr Richard Johnson, fellow, a pious, learned and sober man. He was carried to Lancaster or Chester Jail, and stoned in the streets here and they carryed him to prison for his loyalty and because he was utterly against ye Republicans, and Cromwel’s tyrannous usurpation. The fellows who seized him would not permit him to put on his boots, but he was forced to twist whisps of straw or hay round his legs to defend him from the dirt; and in this posture they mounted him upon a poor, ragged little beast’. Despite this ignominy Johnson returned to London on his release, first as preacher then as Master of the Temple Church, in which role he became involved in the acquisition of scholarly and religious books for its library, the Inns of Court being at that time both a training ground for lawyers and a finishing school for the gentry. He may have become acquainted with Robert Littlebury, a renowned buyer and seller of books and a man of ‘composed and serious countenance’ who later played animportant part in supplying books for Chetham’s library. Johnson continued his frank correspondence with his friend, sending dramatic accounts of riots and disturbance in the capital against the new regime and saying that he proposed to stay at the Temple until ‘ye Lord be pleased to putt ye Kingdome in some more peaceable and stable condicion.’

   

   A woodcut image of the Temple Church.

   When Chetham died in September 1653 Richard Johnson was of course remembered in his will. He featured in the list of feoffees as ‘Gentleman Richard Johnson Clerke late one of the Fellows of the College in Manchester’ and was nominated as one of a trio entrusted with the acquisition of books for the church libraries. Johnson and Chetham’s friendship, their affiliation to Gorton and Johnson’s skill as a preacher no doubt influenced the choice of Gorton as one of the parishes where a library would be established. Chetham also requested that Johnson should preach his funeral sermon and further decreed: ‘I give unto my lovinge friend Mr Richard Johnson preacher att the Temple London three score pounds’. At the famously lavish funeral Johnson was furnished with a mourning suit for which £7 was provided from the expenses. Even before the scholarly library was established Johnson, together with Richard Hollinworth and John Tilsley, began the business of acquiring ‘godly books (in English) for the edification of the common people’ for the parish libraries. After the Restoration in 1660 Johnson’s fellowship of the collegiate church was restored. He seems to have acted with prudence and discretion working alongside colleagues with different religious and political allegiances. In 1660 one of his renowned sermons began: ‘The name of Liberty is very precious. The thing which men call Liberty is desired by all, abused by many, understood by very few.’ As a feoffee of the Chetham foundation he now took a leading role. Their minutes of 27 May 1661 note: ‘Mr Johnson and Mr Edward Chetham at the desyre of the other feoffees doe intend to meet at London about this day six weeks to endeavour the Incorporating of the Hospital and Librarie from his Majestie.’ The instructions for this charter include the provision: ‘Mr Johnson to be named the present Librarie Keeper in the foundation for his life (if hee accept of it) with such yearly stipend and salaries as shall be thought fit by the feoffees.’ The royal charter was finally granted four years later on 10 th November 1665.

   The earliest acquisitions for the library were, appropriately, of a theological nature, geared towards the concerns of local preaching clergy and scholars. Invoices covering the period of Johnson’s tenure provide rich evidence not only of the books acquired but of other expenses in getting them delivered from London. For example, on 2 August 1655 we learn that the cost of ‘carriage of it (the consignment) with ye chains, Rods, ye chains for patternes’ was £0.2.5d.’ After the first theological purchases, the librarians began to collect classical works, and then branched out into natural history, travel, law, medicine, history and science. During Johnson’s period of office at least two English works of distinction were acquired:

   

   The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton, 1658, is a vast medical textbook, but also a work of literature, science and philosophy, both serious and satirical in tone. In the preface Burton explains ‘I write of melancholy by being busy to avoid melancholy.’ It cost ten shillings.

   

   Francis Bacon shown in The Advancement of Learning of 1605. He broke new ground by arguing that the only knowledge of importance was that which could be discovered by observation- ’empirical’ knowledge rooted in the natural world. The book cost 8 shillings.

   The most valuable book acquired during this period was Besler’s Hortus Eystettensis (The Bishop’s Garden) of 1613.

   

   A detail from this botanical masterpiece, which measures 55 x 44cm and takes two people to lift. It is printed from elaborately prepared copper engravings and has 367 plates illustrating more than 1000 species

   

   A very few copies of the Hortus Eystettensis were printed on special paper and hand coloured by teams of illuminators

   It is to be hoped that Johnson took some pleasure in the acquisition of such treasures in the name of his old friend. The library keeper’s footprint grows fainter towards the end of his life. He remained nominally in post but took up a living as rector of St Paul’s church, Broadwell, Gloucestershire, whose clergy house was at Adelstrop, while Robert Browne and then Edward Lees acted as deputies at Chetham’s Library. Johnson continued to preach thoughtful and scholarly sermons, and died in 1675, perhaps having finally enjoyed some respite from religious strife away from the turbulence of Manchester.

   

   Title page of one of the coloured editions. Both the above reproduced in Hortus Eystettensis : The Bishop’s Garden and Besler’s Magnificent Book> Nicolas Barker, 1994

   Title page of one of the coloured editions. Both the above reproduced in ‘Hortus Eystettensis : The Bishop’s Garden and Besler’s Magnificent Book.’ Nicolas Barker 1994

   Sources

   Cunliffe Shaw, R. ‘A Lancashire Clerical Family of the 16th and 17th centuries.’ Historic Society of Lancashire and Chesire, 1963

   Groves, Gill. ‘Reverend Daniel Baker – Murder Victim?’ Ashton and Sale History Society Journal 32 2017

   Guscott, S. J. Humphrey Chetham 1580-1653. Chetham Society 2003

   Purdy, J G. Parish Libraries and their Readers in Early Modern England. PhD thesis, MMU 2021

   Raines, Robert et al. The Life of Humphrey Chetham. Chetham Society, 1903

   Raines, Robert. The Fellows of the Collegiate Church of Manchester Chetham society, 1891 ; Digitized, Aug 8, 2005.

   Snape, Anne. ’17th Century Book Purchasing in Chetham’s Library.’ Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester 1985

   Yeo, Matthew. The Acquisition of Books by Chetham’s Library 1655-1700. Leiden, Boston 2011

    

   By Kath Rigby

7. Chetham’s Librarians: Lives and Legacies

   21st March 2024 9:46 am 2 Comments

   All good things must, as the saying goes, come to an end. This is sadly true of our recent exhibition, A Woman’s Write, which has been running since last summer; in that time, we’ve explored the stories of the remarkable women who made their mark on history with their literary endeavours (who you can still learn about in recent blog posts). At the same time, one thing’s ending is another’s beginning, and the same can be said of Chetham’s Library at the moment: our current librarian, Fergus Wilde, will soon be retiring, and his successor, Julianne Simpson, has recently been announced. We’ve chosen to mark this occasion by looking backwards as well as forwards, with a new exhibition that focuses on Chetham’s Librarians throughout history.

   

   Fig 1: Our new exhibition on Chetham’s Librarians.

   On display at the moment are various items from our collections connected with past Chetham’s Librarians. One such item is an obituary of Thomas Jones, one of our longest-serving librarians, who held the post for thirty years from 1845 to 1875. It was a role for which he was particularly well suited, and his friend and successor James Crossley described him as ‘one who was seemingly designed by nature for the place, and whose whole soul was in his work’. Jones’ diaries reveal the minutiae of his daily life and the consistency with which he carried out his responsibilities. Most mornings were spent dusting and cataloguing, and throughout his librarianship, Jones produced several volumes of catalogues, making the collections accessible to those who wished to use them. In the afternoons, he attended to readers’ needs, and it was soon after Jones took up the librarianship that two of the library’s most famous visitors, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, visited the library. They spent six weeks studying together in the Reading Room, and must have become acquainted with Jones during this time; years later, Engels fondly recalled him, and in a letter he wrote to Marx in 1870, he noted that ‘Old Jones, the librarian, is still alive but he is very old and no longer active. I have not seen him on this occasion.

   

   Fig 2: Thomas Jones, Chetham’s Librarian from 1845-75.

   Two further highlights from our current display are an advertisement for the librarianship when it was vacant in 1944, and a list of applicants for the role. One of the nineteen applicants was Hilda Lofthouse, who was ultimately appointed as Chetham’s Librarian, becoming the first woman to hold the position (although there had previously been a female assistant librarian). Hilda’s employment by the foreign office during the Second World War prevented her from taking up the librarianship until the end of the war the following year, and the task facing her when she did so was immense: a report made in 1943 had highlighted the library’s neglect during the war, and noted that ‘the books are most regrettably uncared for, covered with a dust that is thick and greasy, and full of the acids common to Manchester dirt’. Hilda therefore undertook a programme of cleaning aided by two library assistants, Pauline Leech and Kathleen Mark. A private log kept by these three women, in which they recorded their daily activities accompanied by pithy observations, is also on display.

   

   Fig 3: Private log kept by Hilda Lofthouse and her assistants, 1947.

   Rounding out our exhibition are some more recent items from our collections relating to the librarianship of the late Michael Powell, our longest-serving and dearly missed librarian, who held the post for thirty-five years from 1984 to 2019. During his lengthy tenure as Chetham’s Librarian, Michael was instrumental in guiding the library into the twenty-first century, and a newspaper cutting from 1988, currently on display, illustrates this perfectly: the cutting describes the adoption of an innovative technological approach to the conservation of the library’s books, described as a ‘sci-fi venture’, which Michael advocated for. Michael was also a vigorous promoter of the library, and a photo displayed alongside the cutting reflects this: it shows him and a much-younger-looking Fergus Wilde welcoming Prince Edward during a visit to the library in 2004, one of several visits to the library by members of the royal family during Michael’s librarianship.

   

   Fig 4: A photograph of Michael Powell, taken in 1995.

   Much more remains to be said about our past librarians and their assistants: Chetham’s Library has a storied history, and there are many more stories to be told. Among them are instances of book theft and imprisonment, codebreaking and scandal, and several large personalities. Over the coming months, we’re looking forward to sharing these stories in greater depth, showcasing the lives and legacies of individual Chetham’s Librarians and examining how they have shaped this library’s history over four centuries – so be sure to keep an eye on this space!

    

   By Volunteer Emma Nelson

8. Humphrey Chetham’s Dinner

   12th March 2024 1:20 pm Leave a Comment

   There have been no verses addressed to our eponymous founder this century, we believe, until now. Volunteer and friend of the Library Kath Rigby sets that right:

   Humphrey Chetham’s Dinner

   What was for dinner Humphrey?
   Surely not a mince pye, banned
   with Cromwelly rigour
   lest it encourage gluttony?

   Did you take a Neat’s foot and mince it
   very Small with a pound of Beef suet?
   Then beat eight Egg yolkes with whytes,
   a penny Loaf grated, half a pound of Currants,

   a little Nutmeg and salt?
   Did you mix them well together
   and let it boyle, and for ye Sauce
   use butter, sugar and a little Sack?

   Then did you slip on your embroidered hat,
   smooth down your Van Dyke beard,
   brush the crumbs from your ruff,
   pick up your fringed gloves?

   Was it time to call in some debts,
   survey your growing demesne,
   enclose some land, evade some tax,
   collect some subsidies?

   did you then commend yourself to God,
   in the writing of your will,
   making your to-do list –
   Item: endow school and library
   Item: cure ignorance
   Item: overcome poverty?
   And so to bed

   The thoughts above arose while looking at the portrait of a stern Humphrey Chetham in the Reading Room of Chethams Library. He’s so hard to read and he left few clues as to what his life was really like. The poem is a fanciful imagining of some of those details (and incorporates a recipe found among many in the library).

   

   The Reading Room portrait of Humphrey Chetham (1580-1653), founder of Chetham’s

   We know from Humphrey’s careful accounts and correspondence that he acquired great wealth, first from trading in textiles and later, as was often the way with seventeenth-century merchants, from money-lending and rents from his extensive lands and properties. It is clear that he had a sharp business brain and was not always scrupulous in his dealings with tenants and debtors. He reluctantly but efficiently discharged his public duties when appointed sheriff. A quiet Anglican, and financial if not ideological supporter of Cromwell, he appears to have lived frugally but well. Although he had no children of his own, he was generous to his wider family and, as his wealth grew, so did his grand scheme to ‘overcome ignorance and poverty’ by founding a school for poor but respectable boys, a library for ‘schollars and others well-affected’ in which ‘no-thing should be asked of any man’, and five chained parish libraries to contain godly books for the ‘edification of the common people’.

   Humphrey’s plans evolved and changed; this is reflected in the various wills he prepared during his lifetime. He lived in an age when a new, secular conception of giving to others was beginning to replace the focus on the donor’s immortal soul, but the poem suggests that there was no harm in hoping that through his philanthropy he would find favour with his God.

9. Morbid Curiosities: Gothic Stories In The Library

   25th January 2024 3:02 pm 4 Comments

   If you have been on a tour of Chetham’s Library before, you might have heard that the cabinet at the end of the Library’s Mary Wing used to contain a real human skeleton, rather than the books that now occupy it. To the modern mind, a skeleton seems like a fairly strange thing to find in a library, but libraries in the early modern period – besides keeping books – fulfilled a similar function to museums today, displaying ‘curios’ to excite the interest of visitors. Chetham’s Library was no exception, and our collections once included a variety of curiosities – some of them morbid, such as the hand of a mummy from Thebes – which were shown off to visitors by boys from Chetham’s hospital school. In the same spirit, and in conjunction with our new ‘morbid curiosities’ tour, we’ve gone in search of sinister stories from the archives to share with you.

   

   Fig 1: The death mask of Thomas Whitaker in the library.

   For almost all of recorded history, people have been fascinated by death. The famous expression ‘memento mori’ (‘remember that you must die’) originated in the ancient world and has persisted ever since, although its meaning has changed during that time. Initially intended as a reminder to enjoy life’s pleasures (as in the phrase ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’), it took on a more sombre tone in the medieval and early modern periods, and instead reminded the recipient to live a godly life to secure a place in heaven. ‘Memento mori’ jewellery incorporating skeletal imagery came into fashion in the fifteenth century, and developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into mourning jewellery commemorating specific individuals’ deaths. It was in the nineteenth century, though, that this morbid preoccupation reached startling new heights. This period witnessed extremely high mortality, and reminders of that were very much in-vogue; photographic portraits were made of the recently-deceased, plaster death masks were taken from them (including a death mask of Thomas Whitaker in the Library), and mourning jewellery was made from their hair.

   

   Fig 2: The Castle of Otranto (1764).

   Unsurprisingly, this fascination with death extended to literature as well, with the development of the new ‘gothic’ genre characterised by its focus on horror, haunting, the unnatural and the supernatural. These elements had existed in storytelling for centuries; ghost stories have survived from the ancient world and the medieval period, and Shakespeare’s plays utilised ghosts, omens and the supernatural as narrative devices in ways that notably foreshadowed the genre’s development. It was in the second half of the eighteenth century that the genre truly took shape, though. Our collections include a copy of The Castle of Otranto (1764), a work widely regarded as the first gothic novel and described as such from its second edition onwards. The novel’s narrative revolves around the inheritance of a southern-Italian castle, and features paintings that seem to move, doors that close by themselves, and skeletal and ghostly apparitions. Originally passed off as a genuine translation from an Italian manuscript, the work was a success and spawned various imitators in the years that followed. This early popularity of the genre is reflected in another gothic novel found in our collections, Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (written 1803, first published 1818), which subverted the genre’s expectations through a heroine who avidly devours gothic fiction but foolishly mistakes it for real life.

   

   Fig 3: The ‘penny dreadfuls’.

   The nineteenth century saw the flourishing of the gothic genre, and the circulation of gothic fiction in increasingly accessible format. This phenomenon is best exemplified by the so-called ‘penny dreadfuls’, which, as their name suggests, were morbid stories sold for a penny apiece. Published weekly from the 1830s onwards, these cheaply produced booklets featured sensational narratives of body snatchers, murderers and highwaymen. They were wildly popular, especially among the working classes, and even poor working-class boys who couldn’t afford the penny a week to purchase them would form clubs, splitting the cost of the booklet and passing it from reader to reader. Despite their seemingly humble format (and perhaps on account of their broad appeal), some of the serial stories published in penny dreadfuls even shaped gothic fiction as a genre. Varney the Vampire (1845-7) introduced many of the most recognisable stylistic cues of the subgenre of ‘vampire fiction’, and paved the way for one of the most famous gothic novels ever written, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Another serial story, The String of Pearls (1846-7), introduced the famous character of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street who murdered his customers and sold their bodies to make pies.

   

   Fig 4: An illustration of Marley’s ghost from A Christmas Carol (1843).

   Of course, no discussion of gothic fiction would be complete without mentioning the Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843). Written and published in a hurry following the failure of Dickens’ previous serial story, Martin Chuzzlewit (1833-4), the new novel was an immediate success, selling out of its first print run in only four days. Its narrative reflects Dickens’ horror at the real conditions of working-class children, but its supernatural elements place it firmly within the gothic genre; Dickens described it as a ‘’ghostly little book’, and Scrooge’s remarkable transformation from a miserly old man into a kind, generous one, following ghostly intervention and premonition, perfectly reflects the medieval and early modern reforming tradition of the ‘memento mori’ expression. It also establishes a connection between long winter nights and morbid tales.

   By Emma Nelson.

10. ‘Strange Knowledge of a Crow’: A Yeoman Farmer Annotates Holinshed’s Chronicle

    30th November 2023 11:28 am 6 Comments

    One of the most striking annotated books in the collection of Chetham’s Library is a copy of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, annotated by a yeoman farmer from the North of England (Radcliffe Collection 2.H.2.15). Better known simply as Holinshed’s Chronicles, the volume is an extensive account of the history and topography of the British isles and published in 1577, with a revised edition following ten years later.

    Although they later came to be most closely associated with the name of its chief contributor, Raphael Holinshed, the Chronicles were a multi-author venture, both relying on many ancient and medieval source texts and including contributions from a number of prominent sixteenth-century scholars. The work is in two volumes, which in turn consist of different sections focussing on individual countries and their geography and history. The work, detailed and wide-ranging even as it currently stands, started out as a ‘cosmography’, a description and history of the world. Although the scope of the project diminished during the lengthy writing and publication process, it retains elements of its original ambition: the Chronicles are more than historiography and include lengthy descriptions of the topography of the countries discussed, as well as reprinting some source texts at full length. This wealth of mixed-genre materials was part of the attraction the Chronicles held for their readers – the best-known of whom, William Shakespeare, drew on the Chronicles to write his history plays.

    Another reader who was fascinated by the Chronicles and the wealth of historical and topographical information they provided was Edward Ollerenshawe, a yeoman farmer from Chapel-en-le-Frith in the Peak District. Hailing from a prominent local family, Ollerenshawe signed his copy on the title page and stated on the final page that he had read the book in 1588.

    

    Title page with Ollerenshawe’s signature.

    

    Final page with inscription by Ollerenshawe: ‘historia hec est lecta 1588’ (‘This history was read in 1588′).

    Ollerenshawe’s annotations in the Chronicles display a keen interest in a number of topics, ranging from agriculture to history and from myths to linguistics. In addition to comments on all of these subjects, his book features doodles of animals, places or objects mentioned in the printed text, such as his drawing of a bow and arrow next to a passage about Robin Hood and Little John. By illustrating his copy in this way, Ollerenshawe created a visually striking means of marking passages to which he wanted to return. Frequently, such doodles accompany references to magical or legendary items and stories, such as a drawing of a harp illustrating the tale of a harp hanging on the wall playing of its own accord. Another such illustration is Ollerenshawe’s rather charming rendering of a crow, illustrating the tale of a crow saving a miner by stealing his purse and thus luring him away from a mine that was to collapse shortly thereafter, an occurrence on which Ollerenshawe comments: ‘Strange knowledge of a crow.’ Miraculous stories such as this seem to have exercised a particular fascination for Ollerenshawe and led him to mark them with his illustrations.

    

    Illustration of the crow.

    This interest in visual representation of the text’s contents also informed Ollerenshawe’s most arresting additions to the Chronicles: his book features hand-drawn maps of Scotland and England, as well as a more detailed map of the area around his own home in the Peak District. His maps represent an interest in the areas that provided the setting for the history in Holinshed’s Chronicles, but they also demonstrate Ollerenshawe’s fascination with local history and a desire to see his native region represented within the picture of Britain drawn by Holinshed. His map of England, for instance, features Chapel-en-le-Frith rather prominently – arguably lass an accurate representation of the geography of England than a visualisation of Ollerenshawe’s own mental map of the country, where his hometown would naturally have taken centre-stage. His map of the North West, too, features information that would have been of practical use to Ollerenshawe, such as local market towns. In addition, he carefully includes the most important estates, halls and parks in the area, many of which still stand today, such as Lyme Park, Dunham Massey and Tatton Park.

    

    Image of the map of England.

    

    Image of local map.

    Ollerenshawe’s preoccupation with local history and topography also led him to be particularly thorough in his annotations of those passages in the Chronicles that give accounts of regions Ollerenshawe knew well, chiefly in North West England. On a page listing market days and fairs all over England, for instance, Ollerenshawe has added a date for the fair in ‘Garstan in Lanksh’ (Garstang in Lancashire) and crossed out the market date of 17 July in Chapel-en-le-Frith. He also supplies units of measurement that were in use locally and provides corrections where he disagrees with the Chronicles’ spelling of North English place names, adding his local knowledge to the bigger picture of the Chronicles.

    This Chetham’s Library copy of Holinshed’s Chronicles shows a reader’s intense engagement with a book. Edward Ollerenshawe not only read his Chronicles, but annotated and illustrated them, demonstrating his interest both in the information the book provided about the history and geography of Britain and his passion for – and detailed knowledge of – the characteristics of his native region. His annotated Holinshed is a representation of his interests and requirements as a reader, combining an interest in practical matters like agriculture with a fascination for the strange and supernatural and an interest in national and international concerns with a love for the local and with practically useful place-specific information: Ollerenshawe’s annotations are the product of a rich and complex reading life lived in North West England.

    By Ellen Werner