Some Parochial Libraries in the East Midlands

Abstract

A number of parochial libraries survive from the counties of the East Midlands: Derbyshire (two), Leicestershire (five), Lincolnshire (six), Nottinghamshire (two), and Rutland (one). Among them are some of the most important in the country, such as the chained library at Grantham and the libraries housed in major churches at Boston and Newark. Three libraries are deposited at the University of Nottingham and are examined in detail. Oakham was founded by Lady Anne Harington in 1616 (a few volumes post-date this) and came to Nottingham in 1980; it consists mostly of theology, mostly in large folio volumes and including much early printing, with four incunabula. Elston is probably only a fragment of the library left by the Revd John Smith in 1732; only twenty-eight titles remain, the majority of them sixteenth–seventeenth-century continental theology. Coleorton is a recent deposit and has not yet been fully studied; it dates from a bequest of 1736 by the Revd William Hunt but had a number of later additions. Its seven hundred volumes range more widely than those of the other two libraries, though the majority are in English with a preponderance of theology but a good number of historical and political works. The location of such libraries in academic libraries offers opportunities for their better conservation and their availability for study, and can also lead to their being recorded in bibliographic resources, so contributing to scholarship both nationally and internationally.

Keywords:

• PAROCHIAL LIBRARIES
• PARISH LIBRARIES
• UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
• EAST MIDLANDS (ENGLAND)
• OAKHAM (RUTLAND)
• ELSTON (NOTTINGHAMSHIRE)
• COLEORTON (LEICESTERSHIRE)