Cambridge Antiquarian Society; Octavio Publications No. XXIX (29)

Date:
1897
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/52/30
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cambridge Antiquarian Society; Octavio Publications No. XXIX (29). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE. A GOOD many years ago I began filling up fragments of time by working out a complete list of my predecessors in the Librarianship of Trinity College, and adding any biographical details concerning them which came in my way. As time went on, the details grew considerably, and ultimately took form in a book, which the Cambridge Antiquarian Society is kind enough to think worth publishing. It is doubtless true that a majority of the Librarians spoken of in the following pages were little known beyond the bounds of their own College and University ; still, carefully worked-out details of the past, however trifling, often have an importance indirectly to historical workers, and I am hopeful that some of the points established here may be not without their value. Moreover, the special character of the Librarianship gives it, I think, an additional interest. It is, to the best of my belief, the only College Librarianship in either University, which forms an integral part of the foundation of its College ; and further, the curious provision in the will of the founder, by which the Archbishop of Canterbury was empowered in certain cases to interpose, has more than once led to a curious history’. 1 Of course the College would necessarily require some official to take charge of the Library before the Stanhope foundation ; but the Library-keeper of those earlier days was evidently merely a College servant, whose position relatively to others is amusingly shown by a Conclusion of 25 Feb. 1604, which rules con- cerning payments made at graduation to ‘the two chief Butlers and Tonsor, the Janitor, Chapel-Clerk, and Library-Keeper.”
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