collections v: history of science in durham libraries

The British Society for the History of Science

Collections V: History of Science in Durham LibrariesAuthor(s): A. D. Burnett and D. M. KnightSource: The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Mar., 1975), pp. 94-99Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The British Society for the History ofScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4025837 .

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COLLECTIONS V

HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN DURHAM LIBRARIES INTRODUCTION

Durham is a small but venerable seat of learning, and its University, which was founded in I832 and obtained the right to grant degrees before that of London, is the third oldest in England. Scholarship and the libraries which it creates and fosters are, however, much older than the University, and the latter is consequently enriched by incorporated or associated collections variously and in some fields copiously representing earlier periods. Indeed, the major general weakness in holdings is for the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-the period after its foundation-since during this time library funds were negligible, and science, which had been taught here at first, was in any case developed at a daughter institution in Newcastle, since I963 an indepen- dent university. Therefore, books of interest to the historian of science in the University's collections have generally not been bought specifically for the teaching of science in the past; rather they are to be found in the various collections that have been given or entrusted to the University at different times or with which it is now associated. No survey of these resources has been published hitherto, although an exploratory and highly selective exhibition of some outstanding items from them was held and a catalogue of these issued in i965.' Many of these items were shown again for the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Durham in I970.

UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Edleston and Collingwood collections The collections within the University Library can be divided between those

which are wholly or largely scientific in content and those which are not, and hence between those which are highly relevant to this field and those which are less so. In the former category there is a collection of about a hundred titles contained in a larger collection given by Miss Alice Edleston in 1953 and derived from that formed by her father, the Revd Joseph Edleston, Wrangler and editor of Newton's correspondence with Cotes. It includes two copies of the first issue of the first edition in I 687 of the Principia (one with Dalton's signature) and Henry Cavendish's copy of the 1725 edition of Commercium epistolicum, the report by Collins on the discovery of the calculus, besides other Newtoniana and astronomical books. This collection has recently been augmented and usefully complemented by several dozen antiquarian books of Sir Edward Collingwood, F.R.S., the mathematician, received in 1971. However, the bulk of his mathematical library, consisting of more recent works and journals, is housed in the Mathematics Department of the University. Those branches of mathematical analysis and function theory in which he worked are, of course, especially well represented, but there are also considerable numbers of volumes in other fields, including many works on the history of mathematics. It is intended to make appropriate purchases to fill gaps and to maintain the currency of this collection as a working research library in mathematics.

Observatory and Museum Libraries In its early days the University had a Museum and an Observatory,

founded in I840, which has kept meteorological records continuously on the

I Durham University Library. Natural science in Europe before & after I665 (Durham, I965).



History of Science in Durham Libraries 95

same site since I847. The Observatory was furnished with the astronomical instruments of the Revd T. J. Hussey, and a number of books presented by him are to be found in its collection. In this Library, now housed in the Science Section of the University Library, there is a complete run of The nautical almanac from I767, Laplace's Traite' de m'canique celeste (of which two volumes in this set are in the first edition) with Bowditch's translation as well, and various books that came from Bishop Thurlow and ultimately from the cosmologist Thomas Wright, local author of the celebrated An original theory.2 Wright manuscripts, which need to be catalogued, are also held by the Univer- sity Library as well as by the Central Public Library at Newcastle, and material from both of these collections has recently been edited and published by Hoskin. 3 The Museum for its part appears to have collected considerable numbers of books on natural history. Little is known of its collection, of which a few titles remaining locally are housed in the Science Section of the University Library, but an auction catalogue of specimens and titles, a number of which were in natural history was issued in I 876 and gives some indication of its former scope.4

Cosin's Library Unlike the collections already mentioned, which are primarily scientific

in purpose and content, the University has been further enriched by several other collections which contain important works on science. In this category one of the most valuable and interesting is the library of Bishop Cosin who was appointed to the see of Durham at the Restoration in I66o. A useful account drawing upon contemporary sources has been published of Cosin and of the history and nature of his collections.5 His library, which consists of some five thousand titles and has been subsequently augmented, principally by the bequest of Bishop Trevor in I 770, includes some works on science, notably a number of astrological and medical manuscripts from the fifteenth century and some important printed books. Among the latter are a Vesalius in the superior second edition of I555 and other works on medicine, including the anatomies of his important predecessor Ryff and the later Bartholinus, besides works on natural history, in addition to others such as the I627 edition by Kepler of Brahe's Tabulae Rudolphinae and the I 665 first edition of Kircher's Mundus subterraneus.

Bamburgh Library Of more interest to the historian of science, however, is another collection

assembled by three generations of a prominent local clerical family, the Sharps, the first and most distinguished of whom, John Sharp, became Archbishop of York in I69I. The most recent printed catalogue, which is virtually complete, was issued in i859,6 and an account of the collection has also been published.7 This family library of some eight thousand titles is now known as the Bamburgh

2 F. A. Paneth, Thomas Wright and Immanuel Kant, pioneers in stellar astronomy. (The Royal Institution of Great Britain weekly evening meeting, Friday, 6 April 1951) (London, I95I).

3 T. Wright, Second or singular thoughts upon the theory of the universe; editedfrom the manuscript [in Durham University Library] by M. A. Hoskin (London, I968). T. Wright, An original theory or new hvpothesis oj the universe, 1750: afacsimile reprint together with thefirstpublication [from the manuscript in Newcastle Central Public Library] of A theory qf the universe, I734; introduction and transcription by M. A. Hoskin (London, I97I).

4 Durham University Museum. Catalogue of books English andforeign, stuffed birds ... etc., etc., to be sold by auction ... on Thursday & Friday, january 27th & 28th, I 876 (Durham, I 876).

5 C. E. Whiting, 'Cosin's Library', Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, ix ( 939), I 8-32.

6 Durham University Library. Catalogue of the library at Bamburgh Castle, in the county of Northum- berland (2 vols., London, 1859) .

7 A. I. Doyle, 'Unfamiliar libraries IV: The Bamburgh Library', The book collector, viii (1I959),1T4 24.



96 History of Science in Durham Libraries

Library because, before it was transferred to the University Library on indefinite loan by the Crewe Trustees in 1958, it had been housed since the late eighteenth century at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland. It is significant not only because of the range of works on natural philosophy and natural history that it contains, but also because it enables one to infer something of the interests of an intellectual family during the latter seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In addition to a copy of the first edition in I 620 of Bacon's Instauratio magna, it contains no fewer than twenty-four first editions of Boyle's works, a run (made up with some reprints) of the Philosophical transactions from the first volume in i665 to 1780, and another (also made up with some reprints) of Le journal des sfavans from its inception in i665 to I778, editions of The ornithologv (I678) of Willughby and Ray and of Hooke's Micrographia (i667), Moxon's Mechanick exercises of I677-8, and yet another copy of the first edition of Newton's Principia, besides numerous other standard works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Another interesting and rare work is Halley's Astronomiae cometicae synopsis of I705 in which he correctly predicted the return in 1758 of the comet since known after him. Some further accessions occurred in the early nineteenth century and the collection consequently contains a set of The cyclopaedia of Rees of I8I9-20 and Selby's Illustrations of British ornithology of I825-33, both in first editions.

Routh Library The largest and most valuable collection, comprising over sixteen thousand

titles, is that of the printed books of Dr Routh, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, received in i855 and earlier bequeathed to promote 'the glory of God through the advancement of good learning'. 8 This library is particularly strong in British seventeenth century history, theology, and patristics and was one of the great private libraries of early Victorian England, but it is none the less not without material of interest to the historian of science; it possesses, for instance, a copy of the I662 first edition of Graunt's Natural and political observations . . . upon the bills of mortality.

J4Vinterbottom and Maltbv collections Two other lesser collections also deserve notice. The first of these consists of

some four thousand non-medical titles from the library bequeathed in I859 bv Dr Thomas Winterbottom of South Shields in the north of the county. 9 The many valuable medical titles, of which an account has been published,Io in this collection were bequeathed to the then General Infirmary at Newcastle and thence transferred to the University Library there, but the remainder, which includes many French and German titles and books on travel, is preserved in the University Library at Durham. The collection includes a number of works on science such as Dalton's Meteorological observations in its first edition of I793, the third, 1760 edition of Franklin's New experiments, and Priestley's The history and present state of discoveries relating to vision, light and colours of I 772, as well as various works of natural history. In addition, there is the library of Bishop Maltby, who gave his collection of some sixteen hundred titles to the University on his retirement in I856. This collection, of which a catalogue has been

8 A. I. Doyle, 'Martin Joseph Routh and his books in Durham University Library', The Durham University journal, xlviii (1955-6), 100-7.

9J. S. Emmerson, 'Thomas Masterman Winterbottom, M.D., 1766-I859', University of Durham medical gazette, xlix (I 955), 23-7.

Io J. S. Emmerson, 'On the gallery [an account of the medical collection, including that of T. M. Winterbottom, in Newcastle University Library]', University of Dutrham medical gazette, xlvii (1953), 24-7.




published,"I resembles that of Dr Routh in that it is primarily humanistic in emphasis, but it does also contain some valuable works on science such as the first edition in 1704 of Newton's Opticks.

General collections Finally, in addition to these collections independently created by particular

individuals or bodies, the University Library has miscellaneously acquired or been presented with many important works on science, while building up its general collections. These include, for example, the first edition in I6io of Galileo's Sidereus nuncius, the posthumous and enlarged i633 edition by Thomas Johnson of Gerard's Herball, the I689 English translation of Glauber's works, the I 7I2 edition of Flamsteed's Historia coelestis edited by Halley and superseded bv the author's improved version of that year, the tenth I758 edition of Linnaeus' Systema naturae, an incomplete set from I790 to I805 of the first edition of Sowerby's English botany, and the first, I822 edition of Fourier's Theorie analytique de la chaleur. Further, as one might expect or, at least, wish for a University on a coalfield whose Science Section Library is built over a former mine shaft, Durham has also among its holdings a valuable collection of geological works, including early illustrated works on fossils and first editions of both Lyell and Playfair.

OTHER LOCAL LIBRARIES C,athedral Library

Resources at Durham are by no means confined to the University Library and attention must be drawn also to two other major local collections which are of interest and value to the historian of science and which are likewise readily accessible. The first of these is the Library of the Dean and Chapter, which is housed in buildings facing on to the Cathedral Cloister, some two hundred yards from the University Library at Palace Green. The most substantial, though unfortunately not definitive, account of it is that by Hughes,1Z but another short account has been published more recently.I3 As with the Bamburgh Library, this collection is interesting for the light it throws not merely upon the literature of science but also upon the intellectual communities in which it developed-in this case upon the Dean and Chapter, a body which for some centuries in its wealth, privileges and culture bore some resemblance to an enlightened small German court. As one would expect, the Library, which contains nearly forty thousand volumes, is primarily a theological one, but it is much less narrowly so than that of the Bishops of Durham at Auckland Castle which was chiefly assembled in the later nineteenth century. In the Cathedral Library, whose beginnings can be traced to the original monastic library and which has been carefully nurtured and built up for several centuries past, there are now many treasures. In the field of science there are, for example, first editions of the following: Plot's The natural history of Oxford-shire (I676) and his Stafford-shire (1686), The history of the Royal Society (I 756-7) by Birch, and the first three volumes (I779-84) of Lord Monboddo's curious Antient metaphysics with its evolutionary speculations. There is, in addition, a lengthy run of the Acta eruzditorum from its beginning in I682 to I76I-another to 1769 being in the Bamburgh Library-together with a fair collection of standard works on the

- Durham University Library. Catalogus librorum impressorum quios legavit Universitati Dunelim- ensi E. Maltby (London, I 863).

12 H. D. Hughes, A history of Durham Cathedral Library (Durham, 1925). 13 M. Johnson, 'Durham Cathedral Library', The Library Association record, lxvi ( 1964), 388-



98 History of Science in Durham Libraries

Newtonian system and on natural history. The Library also possesses the i636 edition of Mersenne's Harmonie universelle and, from the nineteenth century, a set of Cuvier's Le retgne animal of I836-49 and the first edition in I871 of Darwin's The descent of man, besides parerga such as Whiston's theological writings and the 1767 English translation of Lomonosov's work on Russian history.

Ushaw College Library Perhaps the most interesting collection of all is that in Ushaw College, four

miles north-west of Durham. This foundation, since I968 a licensed Hall of Residence in the University, is a theological college for the training of candidates for Holy Orders in the Roman Catholic Church. It springs from the English College at Douai which was founded by William Allen in 1568 and which was expelled from France in I 793. Its present Library, which has been built up since the early nineteenth century and now contains some forty thousand volumes, is unlike that of any of the other Durham antiquarian collections in that it was built up, at least in part, specifically for the purposes of teaching and research. '4

As with the Library of the Dean and Chapter, it also is of value in illustrating scientific interests and concerns in a collegiate community of scholars, in this case Roman Catholic rather than Anglican. Among its collections, which are largely and properly theological in emphasis but are none the less remarkably diverse, are to be found a first edition of I 66o of Boyle's New experiments physico- mechanicall, touching the spring of the air, both the first and fourth editions of New- ton's Opticks of I 704 and I 730 respectively, and the first, I 859 edition of The origin of species. But perhaps more valuable and unusual are the holdings of continental authors, in particular eighteenth-century mathematicians-Euler and the Bernouillis, for example, being especially well represented. In addition, there are writings by Mersenne, Gassendi, Pardies, Boerhaave, and other standard authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is also interesting to find here The discovery of a world in the moone by Wilkins in the first edition of I638 as well as other works by him. In consequence, one might suspect that attitudes to Copernicanism could be profitably investigated in this collection, and such is indeed the case, for Dr Michael Sharratt has recently discovered a few manuscripts indicating varying degrees of acceptance of Copernicanism, the earliest being from I638. One which may prove to be of interest is a dictate from the English College at Lisbon. Its date is I752 and the lecturer is John Preston, who is said to have been one of the first to introduce Newtonianism into Portugal.15 The College has recently been entrusted with a selection of books and manuscripts from the English College at Lisbon which includes a fair number of interesting scientific works. The Library also holds a complete run from 1726 to I830 of the proceedings of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg and printed sheets and pamphlets of topics defended in disputations in all fields, including natural philosophy, at Douai from the early eighteenth century up to I790-the first of these to deal with science dating from I 758. The latter holding also includes some similar contemporary material containing science from English Colleges abroad and subsequently at Ushaw College until I890.

CONCLUSION

Although the various collections in and close to Durham contain a substantial number of major texts in first or otherwise rare editions, it should not

'4 A. I. Doyle, 'The significance of the Big Library today', Ushaw magazine, lxxxiii (1972), 3-6.

'5 W. Croft, Historical account of Lisbon College. With a register compiled by J. Gillow (Barnet, 1902).



The very rare engraving (90 x 61I cm) of ancient and modern solar systems, the Copernican in the middle, as described in Thomas WVright's Clavis coelestis, London, I1742. It is the largest unit of a number of folding plates designed to make up a single display occupying 24 sq. ft. This reproduction is taken from the copy in Durham University Library, which has the chief collection of manuscripts and printed works of the author, who was born in I1711 at Byers Green near Bishop Auckland in County Durham and died there in 1 786.

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be supposed that they are primarily those of bibliophiles. In fact, the reverse is the case, since they have been built up by individuals, families, and institutions to provide for their intellectual pursuits and interests, and it is for this reason that the collections are in sum so representative, both of the rare and no less usefully of the common. Taken together, the collections represent a very good holding of standard works, often in a number of different editions, including the works of popularizers as well as those of original thinkers and experimentalists. If one also takes into account relevant resources in the various libraries in Newcastle, fifteen miles away, the coverage of the historical literature of science in this neighbourhood may justly be described as excellent.

In addition to material on local scientists and men of science such as Wright, Spencer Cowper, Emerson, and Tristram, these collections have a further particular, as distinct from general, value in that they will undoubtedly reward study by those interested in discovering what constituted science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and how scientific ideas were disseminated outside the circles of active natural philosophers in the days before science could be regarded as a profession as well as a vocation. In particular, these collections must interest those concerned with the relationship between science and theology, since most of them were formed by prominent Anglican individuals or institutions and one by a Roman Catholic seminary. Their study might lead one to question claims for the primary role of the Dissenting Academies in the dissemination of science in this country during the period of their formation.

Finally, it must be noted that not only is coverage good, but so also is access to the material covered. In the first place, the collections are physically contiguous: those in Durham itself are either adjacent or but a few minutes' walking distance from one another, while those in Ushaw College and Newcastle are readily accessible by road and, in the latter case, by rail as well. Secondly, there is a further economy of use in that the host libraries and the demands made upon them are relatively small, so that service is both quick and efficient. Nor is the diversity of the collections an impediment to retrieval, since the University Library not only maintains catalogues of its own collections but also those of others in the neighbourhood, including those of the Libraries of the Cathedral and of Ushaw College. It is true that these collections are not yet fully catalogued to modern standards, and some items consequently need to be searched for thoroughly if they are to be found: for example, in the catalogue of the Bamburgh Library the I684 edition of the Essayes of the Accademia del Cimento is entered only under their translator, Richard Waller. However, such difficulties are not typical, and for most works the use of the catalogues is perfectly straightforward. Moreover, recataloguing is being undertaken. A further advantage is that these libraries offer the amenity of quiet and comfort- able study in buildings of character and even of great antiquity. They are, furthermore, situated in an attractive small county town where during the University vacations accommodation in a College can be easily secured. Given the growing burdens upon and the inconveniences attendant upon the use of the major national collections, historians of science, as already scholars in other disciplines, may turn increasingly and confidently to Durham to satisfy their needs.

A. D. BURNETT D. M. KNIGHT16

16 The authors would like to thank Dr A. I. Doyle, Dr P. J. FitzPatrick, Dr C. W. Gibby. Miss E. M. Rainey. and Dr M. Sharratt for their helpful comments upon drafts of this paper.



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