FAMOUS LIBRARY

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 142, 13 December 1923, Page 15

FAMOUS LIBRARY

AT THE GUILDHALL

FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OF CHANGE

MANY RARE TOMES STOLEN.

Richard Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London—ha was never Sir Richard, despite the universally popular ascription—died in March, 1423, with his bedesmen of the charity that has lasted to this day gathered about him $0 pray for his departing soul, and at the bedside stood John Carpenter. The last was the most famous of town clerks of this famous city of London, and the dying man's firm friend. Of Whittington there should be no fear that the good should lie interred with his bones. Much good he did in life. Dying an old man, his wife having predeceased him, childless, with wealth considered almost fa/ bulous in his age, he left the whole of his fortune for pious, civic, and charitable uses; and the public works accomplished with it, which included the substantial rebuilding of Newgate, the city gaol, large repairs to St. Bartholomew's Hospital and Guildhall itself, and much besides, kept his memory green, and no doubt these public benefactions are largely responsible for the legends that have grown about his name. The fifth centenary fell in the early part of this year, says Walter G. Bell, in the "Daily Telegraph," and it was not altogether creditable to the city that it should have been allowed to pass unnoticed. The city is surprisingly negligent in recognition of the great figures of its long history, as the most casual acquaintance with the statues set up in the "square mile" will show. It has been ■willing to honour all men, so long as they are not Londoners. But lam glad to see that at last Guildhall Library is intent on making some observance in its. founder's memory. Whittington's wealth gave to the city. this_ institution for learning, and for storing the books his executors erected "a fayre and large library," adjoining the old Guildhall Chapel on its south side. John Carpenter associated himself with it, and when his turn came to pay mortality's debt he left by will to the library such "good and rare books" as * might eeem neceseary for the profit of students ' and those discouraging to the common people." It was not the limited gift that we might imagine, for remember that one able to read and write waa j rare in those early days. The very fact that a man could do so raised him to the rank of "clerk," about his fellows; a status very serviceable should he happen to be charged with serious crime, for then he could plead his clerkship and thereby escape the more grave penalties. Every man who could read was by needs student. A third person whose name is joined as founder is William Bury. Nothing is known of him save that his initials were carved in stone on the building opposite those of Whittington, as old Stow tells; but when Stow wrote his description of London in Queen Elizabeth's reign the Guildhall Library had fallen on evil times. ■ The building had been lofted through, and being then let to Alderman Sir John Ayhff, had become a common market house for the sale of clothes—maybe of old clothes, a descent in status that is saddening. SOMERSET'S THEFT. There have been tragedies of' libraries since fire got into that at Alexandria, occasioning the most notorious of early holocausts of books. But I do not know another case of a complete library being borrowed and not returned. That w,as the,fate.df Whittington's foundation at Guilldhall. The Protector Somerset m the boy King Edward VI 'g short reign had aspirations to raise a fine palace to noose his magnificence.' The stones of St. Mary's Church in the btrand went to its building. He would equip * with iare books. What simpler course than to borrow them? He sent three carries" to Guildhall, the carii of his day, wherein were loaded the store of volumes from the library. The civic fathers apparently dare not say nay Somerset was a powerful man and brusque in his methods, whose illwill none would venture. He promised. that they should be restored shortly Much else besides book-readingocc£ P'f, fornerset's brief autocracf; hV head fell O n Tower Hill. The books were never returned. must have been many of its LrlLt pro ductsm those three cartloads taken away rare incunabula for possession of. which collectors would compete with offers of thousands sterling for a single volume m the sale-room.. .In.illuminated- manuscripts I do,ubt not it was as rich. An odd thing that none "of the biokshas ever been traced... They must have borne some library mark. They have wholly disappeared. *

With the loss of these incomparable treasures civic enthusiasm for the learning that radiates from a great library seems to have gutted out like a candle in its socket. There is a period of nearly three centuries of darkness, as complete as that of i the cen turies that had followed the Eoman withdrawal from Britain. Nothing was done, The city, for all the purposes of a modern library, did not poa-" sess a book. It was the year 1824 before • the library which Whittyigton's executors had piously rounded for the ad- > vancement of learning, and had foste-ed was re-established as the Guildhall Lib-' rary we now possess. The plan was a modest one. It should be a library of all matters relating to the city, the Borough of Southwark, and the County of Middlesex. True to that first project, Guildhall has gone on storing volumes relating to the city, ■ Southwark, and Middlesex, till it possesses to-day the finest library of London books that exists, made readily accessible to student* by the exhaustive, card index that has been prepared under the direction of Mr. Bernard Kettle, the librarian; but Guildhall Library has extended its scope much wider, and is replete with books, numbering some 190,000 in all, which contain most things the inquirer is likely to ask for, whatever his particular interests may be. BOOKS AND EELICS. The extension that has made this laudable civic enterprise one of the greatest and best equipped libraries of London is largely due to the perseverance of a physician practising in the city, Dr. Sedgwick Saunders. For many years he was chairman of the Library Committee, and at his instigation the Corporation erected, from the designs of Sir Horace Jones, then the city architect, the lofty and spacious hall that not only serves as a reading room, but is familiar to all who attend Mayoral banquets and public functions as the apartment in which the Lord Mayor receives his guests—a purpose for which it is admirably fitted. It vas formally opened in Nevember, 1872. The library was not always freely available to the public. Corporators enjoyed the privilege of granting tickets of admission to readers. This restricted a» did us.t n^iy, jffld wjtJj 4.c build-

ing of the modern library it was thrown open' to all without charge, and for readiness of reference and speed of service of books by a courteous staff it stands second to none.

London Guildhall Library has more than its 190,00 printed books. Its manuscripts numb.er some 12,000, and for those who seek knowledge of the most intimate phases of London's life and government in the past there are in the town clerks' department, under the skilful care of Major A. H; Thomas, the matchless Guildhall archives. These go back in an almost unbroken line to the first charter granted by William the Conqueror to the City of' London, a tiny slip of parchment bearing sixty-six words, so small that one could crush it in the fingers. They, too, are equally accessible to students. No city in the world has kept its records over the centuries in such continuity as has the City of London, a matter for which historians are devoutly thankful.

# Then in the museum, an adjunct of the library, are the records in stone and bronze and clay and glass which carry history back far behind the days of the Norman rulers, when a Roman governor held sway in Londinium, an invaluable collection. I could have wished that this city museum had been better housed than in a Guildhall crypt, wherein artificial littht is always neceßsary, for it would become better known. Some day, Perhaps, a benefactor —a ' modern Dick Whittington—will find the money that will raise an adequate building in -which to store these treasures, that thereby knowledge of London in its earliest days may be spresd. JTo foundation is ever dug in city soil but Mr. Lambert, from the museum, attends to see if any ancient courses are disclosed by the spade or domestic utensils brought up, and so the collections receive constant additions. Each one tells something more of Roman and medieval life in the old city.