The one that got away: the Brotherton backstory
The story of how Lord Brotherton lost out on a book and founded our library is now available to read.
Special Collections Curator, Rhiannon Lawrence-Francis tells of how the Library’s greatest benefactor began collecting as part of a new publication: “The pre-modern manuscript trade and its consequences, ca. 1890-1945”, now available in Library search in print and digitally.
The University of Leeds Libraries would be a very different place without him.
Rhiannon’s chapter is titled, ‘The One That Got Away: How Lord Brotherton Lost Out on a Book and Founded a Library’. She says,
“[It] explains how our very own Lord Brotherton came to be a collector of books and ended up with a collection and a library bearing his name”.
Both a businessman and political figure, Lord Brotherton only started building his collections in his 60s. His book-buying adventure began in 1922 after losing a bid to buy a medieval manuscript with connections to his constituency of Wakefield. Instead, urged on by his niece-in-law, Dorothy Una Ratcliffe, he purchased a first edition of fellow Yorkshireman Andrew Marvell’s Miscellaneous Poems, printed in 1681. Following this first successful rare book purchase, Lord Brotherton was hooked.
“The whole volume is about the wheeling and dealing that took place between 1890 and 1945 as medieval manuscripts and rare printed books were traded across the world for huge sums of money, including Shakespeare’s First Folio, which formerly belonged to a New York entrepreneur Theodore Vail before Lord Brotherton repatriated it to Yorkshire. The University of Leeds Libraries would be a very different place without him”.
Since that first auction in 1922, Lord Brotherton went on to collect an impressive 35,000 books, 400 manuscripts, 4,000 deeds and 30,000 letters. Brotherton donated his collection, along with the funds to build the Brotherton Library, to the University. At the ceremony to lay the foundation stone, Brotherton spoke of his vision:
“I like to think that all students will have the opportunity to wander freely through the rooms of a great library. But a great library in a great University is a trust for the Nation at large, and should not be looked upon as exclusively available for its own students. I hope that in the course of time, this library building may be rich enough in books of all kinds to attract scholars from all parts of Great Britain and from countries abroad.”
Brotherton’s sentiments still resonate today in our Libraries vision for 2030: Knowledge for All. Digital technologies have changed the way that knowledge is created, accessed and preserved beyond recognition, but we still strive to find new ways to open our collections to audiences around the world, and enrich the academic and cultural life of the University and our communities.
Read more about Brotherton’s collection in the full chapter:
‘The One That Got Away: How Lord Brotherton Lost Out on a Book and Founded a Library’, chapter 10 in “The pre-modern manuscript trade and its consequences, ca. 1890-1945”.
Visit the online exhibition featuring highlights of the Brotherton Collection: A library and a Legacy: celebrating 100 years of the Brotherton Collection.
Explore the full collection in our Special Collections catalogue.
