community lending libraries in eighteenth-century ireland

Community Lending Libraries in Eighteenth-Century IrelandAuthor(s): Richard C. ColeSource: The Library Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Apr., 1974), pp. 111-123Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4306377 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 23:54

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TheLibrary Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.251 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 23:54:44 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4306377?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


COMMUNITY LENDING LIBRARIES IN EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY IRELAND

Richard C. Cole

Although library resources available to the public at large were not extensive in eighteenth-century Ireland, they were far greater than has been shown previously. From eighteenth-century Irish newspapers and lists of subscribers to books published in Ireland by subscription, this paper identifies eighteen commercial lending libraries and eleven book clubs not hitherto mentioned in studies of Irish libraries of that period. The paper also discusses early catalogs of the two public libraries established by act of Parliament during the eighteenth century and stresses the importance of the borrowing record of the Armagh Public Library as the only document of its type surviving from eighteenth-century Ireland.

In an important article in the Library Quarterly ten years ago, Paul Kauf- man examined six community lending libraries in eighteenth-century Ireland [1, pp. 300-306]. Commercial lending establishments included the English, French, and Italian Circulating Library in Cork, A. Stuart's Cir- culating Library in Dublin, and Mrs. Lord's Circulating Library in Dublin. Kaufman also described three nonprofit subscription library societies: the Dublin Library Society, the Cork Library, and the Belfast Society for Promoting Knowledge. That Ireland lagged far behind in its eighteenth-century community libraries became increasingly apparent as Kaufman, in a series of illuminating articles in the next few years, brought to view for the first time the extraordinary development of community libraries in England and Scotland during the eighteenth century [2].

Kaufman deplored the paucity of evidence for Irish libraries, but he did note that the late development of the three subscription libraries sug- gested that commercial lending libraries existed earlier for which no evidence had survived, and that these libraries met the needs of the Irish reading public before the subscription libraries developed [1, p. 305]. Kaufman was certainly correct in his hypothesis that circulating libraries existed, as this article will demonstrate. On the basis of advertisements in Irish newspapers of the time and lists of subscribers to books published in Ireland by subscription, it is possible to identify at least eighteen commercial lending libraries in addition to the three cited in the Kaufman article, and to show that these libraries were supplemented by a number of book clubs, eleven of which are cited by name. Besides these twenty- nine community libraries and the six cited by Kaufman, there were the two public libraries, the Marsh Library in Dublin and the Armagh Public Library, both of which were established by act of Parliament during the

[Library Quarterly, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 111-123] ( 1974 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

ill



112 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

eighteenth century specifically as public libraries. The borrowing record of the Armagh Public Library, to my knowledge the only document of its type to survive from eighteenth-century Ireland, offers more reliable evidence of what books were actually read than does evidence provided by lists of subscribers to books, newspaper advertisements, or library catalogs. Also worthy of note, but outside the scope of this paper since they were not open to the public, are the libraries of Trinity College, Dublin; the Royal Dublin Society; the Royal Irish Academy; and the Edward Worth Library of Dr. Stevens' Hospital in Dublin.

Eighteenth-century Irish newspapers survive in Irish archives in large numbers, and they provide excellent sources of information on all aspects of book production and distribution. Booksellers not only advertised their books for sale, but, especially during the last two decades of the eighteenth century, many of them also noted their books for hire. Little information is given on most of these circulating libraries, usually maintained by booksellers in Dublin, Belfast, and Cork; but the list itself of these libraries is impressive, and, as the century nears its end, advertisements become more frequent and detailed. Kaufman did not ignore this important newspaper resource but was misled by an index in the National Library of Ireland of all Dublin newspapers for the period 1760-80, which indicated there were no advertisements of circulating libraries [1, p. 301]. Since newspaper searching is tedious, time consuming, and often unrewarding, it is generally wise to trust an index; but in the course of studying the newspapers for Irish editions of eighteenth-century literary works, I have come across numerous references to circulating libraries that ought to be presented to set the record straight.

Since Dublin was the capital, the leading city, and the intellectual and cultural center, its newspapers should be examined first for evidence about commercial lending libraries. The well-known publishing family of Hoey in Dublin, in addition to its printing and bookselling activities, was associated with circulating libraries for more than thirty years. In 1737, James Hoey, Sr., established "a large Collection of Histories, Ro- mances, Novels, Memoirs, etc," that could be rented for 8d. for a large book and 6d. per week for a small one. This was the first circulating library in Dublin and, insofar as I can establish, the first in Ireland. Whether the library existed continuously from 1737 is uncertain, but James Hoey, Jr., advertised his circulating library in 1775, and Peter Hoey, his in 1778. Other early circulating libraries in Dublin were Richard Watts's in 1754, Thomas Armitage's in 1762, James Williams's in 1765, and the Butler Circulating Library in 1774. Watts, Armitage, and Williams were prominent booksellers in Dublin, like the Hoeys, and I have found only two proprietors of lending libraries in Ireland who were not booksellers. The newspapers give no details except to mention Williams's rental fee of 16s. 3d. yearly or 6d. weekly, fees that became standard in Dublin in later years.' Of these early libraries those of James Hoey, Sr., and Richard Watts

1. General Advertiser, January 13, 1737; September 10, 1754. Pue's Occurrences, Janu-



IRISH LENDING LIBRARIES 113

have also been noted by Robert Munter in his study of the Irish newspaper [3, p. 49].

During the last two decades of the eighteenth century, circulating libraries in Dublin increased in number and prominence, and their advertisements occupy an increasing amount of space in the Dublin newspapers. The four leading libraries seem to have been the Apollo Circulating Library, Colbert's Circulating Library, Jackson's Circulating Library, and the Universal Circulating Library. The earliest of these, the Universal Circulating Library, appears at different times to have been called the Essex Gate Library or Spottswood's Circulating Library. Its name first appears in 1775, and its catalog was announced by W. Spottswood, a Dublin bookseller, in 1779 and again in 1782. Spottswood reported in 1783 that his charge of 16s. 3d. was the same as the charge at the famous circulating library at Bath, and he also observed that circulation in the Dublin area had been extensive. Like all circulating libraries of the commercial type in Ireland it seems to have been stocked primarily with the popular novels of the moment, normally imported from London. Spotts- wood had more than 10,000 volumes in 1784, mostly popular novels and prose romances, but The Beauties of Sterne, an anthology of excerpts from the works of Laurence Sterne, was added to the rental collection in the same year.2

Colbert's Circulating Library in Dublin, sometimes called the Estab- lished Circulating Library, seems to have led a somewhat longer existence. It was founded in 1778 by Samuel Colbert, a Dublin bookseller, with an initial stock of 3,000 volumes that had declined by 1780 to 400 volumes. Its main stock in trade was new novels imported from London, even though Colbert, like most Dublin booksellers, had London books reprinted in Dublin with his own imprint. One of the latter was The Beauties of Sterne, which Colbert reprinted in 1784 and added to his library with appropriate hyperbole: "A Selection of the Beauties of Sterne is what has been looked for by a Number of his Admirers for some time, well knowing they would form such a Volume, as this, nor any other Language could equal." Colbert had added a Dublin reprint of a similar work, The Beauties of Johnson, to his library in 1782. By 1786 Samuel Colbert was dead, and his widow Harriet Colbert was running both the bookshop and the circulating library. In that year she sold Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson in her bookshop, and she also added it to her circulating library. Her many announcements and lists in the newspapers for the eleven years make clear that for the most part she carried the latest novels imported from London, but her list in 1793 has, in addition to the new novels from London, several travel books and the

ary 12, 1762. Hibernian Journal, November 28, 1774; April 10, 1775. Sleater's Public Gazetteer, February 23, 1765. Dublin Evening Post, October 24, 1778.

2. Hibernian Journal, November 17, 1775; September 13, 1782; April 23, 1784; June 28, 1784. Freeman's joutnal, November 8, 1779. Dublin Evening Post, January 15, 1786; April 18, 1786.




king of Prussia's Works in 13 volumes. Like other proprietors of Dublin circulating libraries, she issued catalogs from time to time, and she also charged the standard fee of 16s. 3d. a year.8

Another important circulating library of the latter years of the eighteenth century in Dublin was T. Jackson's, advertisements of which may be found in the Dublin newspapers from at least 1786 through 1799. Like his rivals, Jackson charged 16s. 3d. per year and advertised mainly the latest novels imported from London. On April 18, 1786 Jackson claimed that he had the largest circulating library in Dublin and that he had just added 300 new titles to his collection, one of which was James Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. Like Harriet Colbert, he added Mrs. Piozzi's Anec- dotes of Samuel Johnson to his rental collection in the spring of 1786. His catalog of 1792 does not survive, but it apparently consisted mainly of the latest novels from London. Jackson, however, did not lend merely the latest novel or romance. He announced on July 7, 1794 that he was importing from London Harrison's series of 60 classic novels, which included such novels by the great masters of the recent past as Samuel Rich- ardson's Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison; Henry Fielding's Amelia, Joseph Andrews, and Tom Jones; Tobias Smollett's six novels and his popular translations of Gil Blas and Don Quixote; Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey; Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield; and Samuel Johnson Rasselas.4

The last important commercial lending library of the eighteenth century in Dublin was the Apollo Circulating Library, founded by Vincent Dowling in about 1792. Dowling issued a catalog in 1794 of 2,000 volumes, which is probably the only catalog of an eighteenth-century commercial lending library in Ireland to have survived to the present day. Unfor- tunately, the copy listed in the catalog of the National Library of Ireland, a unique copy as far as I can determine, has been lost in recent years. The undated catalog consisted of 117 pages and was dated circa 1800 by the staff of the National Library, but it may have been the one issued in 1794. Dowling seems to have specialized less than his rivals in the latest novels and prose romances from London, and among a number of non- fiction works cited in his announcement of 1,000 new books on October 18, 1792 is James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, one of the masterpieces of the century but apparently not to be obtained from Dowling's chief rivals, T. Jackson and Harriet Colbert. Dowling advertised more than his rivals, and on January 22, 1794 in the Hibernian Journal claimed to have in his rental collection "Every new Book and Pamphlet, as soon as

3. Hibernian Journal, March 20, 1778; November 20, 1779; April 11, 1780; March 6, 1782; January 4, 1792; June 19, 1793; November 29, 1793; January 13, 1794; October 3, 1794; November 2, 1796; January 6, 1797; 1799 passim. Dublin Evening Post, January 15, 1786; April 18, 1786.

4. Hibernian journal, January 4, 1792; July 7, 1794; January 9, 1795; January 15, 1796; October 23, 1796; October 23, 1797; 1799 passim. Dublin Evening Post, April 18, 1786; May 27, 1786.




Extant, with all the Monthly Magazines of Dublin and those of London by Express." He also stressed the variety and breadth of his collection: "This Collection is by no Means confined to mere Novels and Romances, the usual Furniture of Circulating Libraries, but includes the best Au- thors in History, Biography, Natural History, Philosophy, Chemistry, Poetry, Dramatics, Politics, and Belles Lettres." On June 13 of the same year in the same newspaper Dowling identified himself as manager of the British Library, London, for many years. Also in this notice he again stressed the advantages his establishment offered to prospective patrons: "The Fund of Information and Amusement which this Establishment presents, must strike every discerning Mind, friendly to the Improvement of Knowledge and refined Taste, especially in the rising Generation, while the Terms of Subscription [16s. 3d. like the others] unite these Advantages with the strictest Economy, and point out a rational and most advantageous Source of Amusement to those who prefer 'The Feast of Reason and the well stored Mind' before Recreations of a much more expensive and less advantageous Nature."

Four other commercial libraries in Dublin near the end of the century can only be briefly identified, since they apparently did little advertising in the newspapers. Notices for Charles Brown's Circulating Library appear in the Dublin Evening Post for September 23, 1786 and again in the Hibernian Journal for April 14, 1794; its longevity suggests it was able to compete successfully, for a while at least, with Jackson, Colbert, and Dowling. The General Book Repository set up in 1788 by John Archer, one of the most famous booksellers in Dublin, may have been a literary society rather than a lending library, but it was clearly a library of some sort. In an announcement in both the Dublin Journal and the Dublin Evening Post for November 27, 1788, Archer describes a spacious room above his book shop for the use of the "Literati" from 10:00 A.M. tO 9:00

P.M.; in these quarters the Literati would be free from "the intrusion of the vulgar, and the indiscriminate intercourse, which a shop is liable to." Two of Archer's catalogs for his bookshop survive in the National Library of Ireland, one of 1789 listing 4,004 titles and one of 1793 listing 5,418 titles, but it is not known how many of these made their way upstairs to the General Book Repository. This library probably was the predecessor of the Dublin Library Society founded in 1791, discussed by Kaufman. Another Dublin bookseller, Bernard Dornin, who emigrated from Dublin after 1800 to the United States, announced on May 9, 1794 in the Hiber- nian Journal a reading room and library where one book at a time would be lent out between 7:00 A.M. and 10:00 P.M. for a fee of one guinea a year; this fee was somewhat higher than the 16s. 3d. charged by his competitors. Dornin modestly added: "The above Plan for acquiring a Fund of entertaining and useful Information, being the most reasonable one ever set on Foot in this or any other country, the Proprietor hopes for public Patronage." The last circulating library to be set up during the century was the Hope Circulating Library, identified in the Dublin Eve-




ning Post for May 19 and May 31, 1796 as a new circulating library on Exchequer Street.

Although the Marsh Library on the grounds of Saint Patrick's Cathe- dral in Dublin did not lend books, it was set up in 1707 by act of Parlia- ment as a "public library." Strictly speaking, there were no public libraries in the United Kingdom until the Public Libraries Act of 1850 created the library open to all people without charge. Certainly the term "public library," as applied to the Marsh, was something of a misnomer, since library rules restricted use of the library to "gentlemen and graduates." The Marsh Library consisted in the eighteenth century, as it does today, primarily of books of seventeenth-century theology and related fields given in the early eighteenth century by Archbishop Marsh, Bishop Stillingfleet, and Bishop Stearne. Nevertheless, there were books of a more secular and contemporary nature added later in the eighteenth century, even though the sum of only 10o per year was allotted for book purchase, and gifts were few. Books by the major contemporary writers naturally included the Works of Jonathan Swift, dean of Saint Patrick's Cathedral from 1713 until his death in 1745, and Swift's friend, Alexander Pope, whose poems and letters were frequently reprinted in Dublin. From the second half of the century there were Samuel Johnson's great Dictionary in the first London edition of 1755, his collected Works in the 14-volume London edition of 1792, and his standard edition of Shakespeare's Works in the 15-volume London edition of 1793; Edward Gibbon's monumental De- cline and Fall of the Roman Empire in both the London edition of 1782 and the Dublin edition of 1781-88; and Oliver Goldsmith's popular His- tory of the Earth and Animated Nature in the fine subscription edition published in Dublin in 1777 in 8 volumes. Needless to say, there were no novels that gentlemen and graduates could read in the library, although some were added in the nineteenth century [4]. It is doubtful, however, that gentlemen and graduates came often to the library to read; an ob- server in 1811 commented on the Marsh Library: "Books are extremely old, and on such subjects as but little interest the general reader, and the sum of lO1 a year allowed to purchase new ones, is altogether inadequate. . . .the solitary individual now and then found in it, is a melancholy proof of its inutility" [5, pp. 940-41].

Lending libraries were by no means limited to Dublin in the eighteenth century. Kaufman has described two Cork lending libraries, the English, French, and Italian Circulating Library, whose catalog of 1803 survives, and the Cork Library, founded in 1792 as a proprietary library. To these two should be added John Connor's Circulating Library, notices of which appear in both Cork and Dublin newspapers after 1794. Advertisements in the Hibernian Chronicle of Cork for August 17, 1795 indicate that Connor, like his competitors in Dublin, specialized in the latest novels from London, though some histories and books of travel also appear in his list. He sometimes lent his own reprints of London novels, such as Fanny Burney's Camilla, which he announced in the Dublin Evening




Post for September 7, 1796. His subscribers paid only 14s. annually rather than the 16s. 3d. usually charged in Dublin, and they could also subscribe for six months, three months, or even a week. Connor's catalog of over 2,000 volumes was published in the early fall of 1795. This circulating library seems also to have served as a kind of clearing house for information on schools and teachers in county Cork and as a meeting place for teachers seeking employment. Of the several teachers mentioned from time to time in the Hibernian Chronicle who could be found at Connor's library, the example of M. lacquottin is worth citing in view of his later career. M. Jacquottin in 1794 was a teacher of French and Italian who could be found at Connor's Library, but toward the end of the century he or his wife must have opened the French and Italian Cir- culating Library, whose catalog of 1803 is discussed in the Kaufman article [1, pp. 300-301]. Connor was the publisher of the Cork Directory as late as 1812, and his circulating library was still in existence at that time.

To Kaufman's account of the Belfast Society for Promoting Knowledge, established in 1788, should be added the fact that printed catalogs of the society for both 1793 and 1795 survive today in the Linen Hall Library of Belfast, the present-day descendant of the society on Donegal Square. The society's lending library of 137 titles in 1793 had no novels or plays, but it did contain such masterpieces of the later eighteenth century as James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and the massive Hume-Smollett History of England. By the time the 1795 catalog was printed, Samuel Johnson's complete Works and his Lives of the Poets had been added.

The Belfast News-Letter, a source not used by Kaufman, shows that there were at least two commercial lending libraries in Belfast before the founding of the Belfast Society in 1788. The Belfast printer and bookseller John Hay announced his Belfast Circulating Library on September 12, 1775, issued a catalog shortly afterward, and charged only 13s. a year compared witlh the standard fee in Dublin of 16s. 3d. and the 14s. charged I)y Connor in Cork. Another Belfast printer and bookseller, Hugh War- rin, opened his circulating library in Belfast in 1772, and it existed until at least January 3, 1792, when he announced his twentieth anniversary. On December 3, 1782 he reported that his new catalog added over 700 volumes to his original catalog of over 1,000 volumes. Works available at his lending library, in addition to the latest novels from London usually featured by the circulating libraries, included the popular Beauties of Samuel Johnson, novelettes of Oliver Goldsmith and Elizabeth Griffith, and Goldsmith's Poems and Plays.

The most important addition to Kaufman's survey of community lending libraries in eighteenth-century Ireland is the Armagh Public Library. Manuscript materials in the Armagh Public Library today make possible a more complete description of the stock and operation of this community lending library than that of any eighteenth-century library in Ireland




of any type. Because its borrowing record survives, it must be ranked with the Bristol Library Society and the Innerpeffray Public Library, Perth- shire, Scotland, the only eighteenth-century British libraries, according to Kaufman, whose borrowing records survive [2, p. 154].

Richard Robinson, archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland from 1765 until 1794, had the library built adjacent to the Church of Ireland Cathedral in 1771 and gave his own private library as the nucleus for a library open to the public. He also provided an endowment, unlike Archbishop Narcissus Marsh in Dublin, for the purchase of books after his death. Following the example set by the Marsh Library in Dublin in 1707, the Armagh Library was established in 1774 as a public library, the second in Ireland, by act of Parliament. Archbishop Robinson gave the library the motto Psyches Iatreion, "the medicine house of the soul" [6, pp. 139-47]. Although the library was established in 1774 as a public library, the borrowing records that survive begin with 1796; and it appears that there was no lending of books until after the death of Arch- bishop Robinson, now Lord Rokeby, in 1794. His original collection presented to the Armagh Public Library in 1771 was heavily theological, but the first classification system, based on that of the Marsh Library in Dublin, also used the headings of law, history, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, classics, and controversy, and the archbishop had books for all these categories. There was little contemporary literature but a good collection of classical literature and English literature before 1700.

With the endowment left by Robinson contemporary literature was purchased, and the first important manuscript catalog, prepared by the Rev. Dr. Richard Allott in 1815, lists among the nearly 5,000 titles many works by the great writers of the second half of the eighteenth century [7].5 James Boswell's three major works were represented: An Account of Corsica, in both the London edition of 1768 and the Dublin reprint of the same year; the Tour to the Hebrides; and the Life of Samuel John- son. Henry Fielding's complete Works were included and a separate edition of his Amelia. Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in both the expensive London edition in 6 volumes quarto and the cheap Dublin reprint, was represented, but not Gibbon's popular Miscellaneous Works of 1796. From Oliver Goldsmith there were the Works and a separate edition of his Vicar of Wakefield. Samuel Johnson, as always, was very heavily represented: his Dictionary, in both the Lon- don first edition of 1755 and the fine Dublin quarto edition of 1775; his Rasselas; his Political Tracts; his Lives of the Poets accompanying the 75 volume edition of the English poets; his Rambler; his Idler; his Fugitive Pieces; his edition of Shakespeare's Works, in both the London edition and the Dublin reprint; his Prayers; his Tour to the Western Isles of

5. I am grateful to the Very Rev. Henry A. Lillie, dean of the Armagh Cathedral, Church of Ireland, for permission to examine and cite manuscript materials in the Armagh Public Library.




Scotland; and his life and personality as captured by Sir John Hawkins in his Life of Johnson. No novel by Tobias Smollett was in the library, but both his History of England and his popular translation of Don Quixote were there. The other two leading novelists of the eighteenth century, Samuel Richardson and Laurence Sterne, were not represented at all. Since almost all the works noted appear in the borrowing record, it is clear they were in the library in the eighteenth century and not added between 1800 and 1815 when the Allott catalog was prepared. It is worth noting that though there were few novels in the library, there was not the same prejudice against that literary genre as was true of the Marsh Library in Dublin and the Belfast Society for Promoting Knowledge.

The borrowing record of the Armagh Public Library does not begin until 1796, and how many readers used the Library as a reading room or as a reference library rather than as a lending library is unknown. Since the cost of borrowing was so high, the number of actual users may well have exceeded the number of borrowers. But a study of the borrowing record from 1796 through 1802 [8], although it reflects a limited use of the lending privilege, may nevertheless provide some insight into the reading patterns of the time. The high level of education and culture of those who did borrow books is shown by the fact that all but three of the thirty-three borrowers during this period of seven years read at least one of the literarily significant works of the later eighteenth century. The favorite work of the thirty-three borrowers was Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which was checked out either in separate volumes or as a whole eighteen times during the period of seven years. Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson was a close second at fifteen; Smollett's translation of Don Quixote was third, at eleven. Other books by major contemporary authors that were taken out several times during the seven-year period included Jolhnson's Lives of the Poets, checked out eight times; and several works taken out four times: Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Fugitive Pieces, Idler, Rambler, and Rasselas.

The borrowing system of the Armagh Public Library was different from that of other lending libraries in Ireland or in the British Isles as a whole. I have found no record of its use of a set fee such as the 16s. 3d. usually charged by Dublin circulating libraries. Rather, the borrower had to deposit a sum equal to and sometimes in excess of the cost of replacing the book; in fact, the borrowing record is called a "book of deposits." For example, George Pepper deposited 5?. 2s. 4d. on September 4, 1798 and was then permitted to check out Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the first two volumes, the next two volumes on Sep- tember 20 after returning the first two, and finally the fifth and sixth volumes on October 9 after returning the third and fourth. The edition is not specified, but the London 6-volume quarto edition in the Armagh Public Library sold for 6L. 6s. in London, while the 6-volume Dublin reprint in the Library cost only I?. 19s. in Dublin bookshops. Presumably George Pepper got his large deposit back when he returned the last two




volumes. He did not borrow a work by a major author again until August 22, 1799, when he deposited 3?. 8s. 3d. for the privilege of taking out the first two volumes of Johnson's Lives of the Poets and the third and fourth volumes on August 28. Pepper must have been especially interested in Johnson's Lives of the Poets because he checked out the second and third volumes again on August 17, 1801 and yet again on September 1, 1802. The Rev. Dr. Hugh Hamilton, the dean of Armagh Cathedral, had to deposit 5L. 13s. 9d. on January 23, 1797 in order to borrow the London 2-volume quarto edition of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, which sold in London bookshops for two guineas. He returned the books on February 9 and did not check out another significant literary work until July 24, 1798, when he deposited 2L. 5s. 6d. in order to borrow Smollett's translation of Don Quixote. Borrowing records are always more indicative of what people actually read than library catalogs or advertisements in newspapers, and this is probably especially true of the Armagh borrowing record, since few people would fail to read a book for which they had deposited so large a sum.

There is enough evidence to make possible a brief analysis of the thirty persons who borrowed works by the major writers of the time from the Armagh Public Library, as shown in table 1. The borrowers were com- moners but from the upper classes who were able to deposit sizable sums of money for the privilege of borrowing books. At the same time they probably did not have the wealth or perhaps the inclination to assemble large private libraries, of which there were a good many in eighteenth- century Ireland. No peer, baronet, or other large landed proprietor in the county of Armagh borrowed a book; they, presumably, had their own libraries. The majority of the borrowers were of the landed class, and they borrowed more books than the other groups.

Surgeons in the eighteenth century lacked the social standing of the other three groups, but they were far above the great mass of Irishmen. The vast majority of Irishmen were in the lower classes, and no one from these groups borrowed a book from the Armagh Public Library. Some of these people may have read or consulted books in the library itself, but the heavy deposit must have prohibited them from borrowing books. The typical worker in Ireland was a cottier or farm laborer with a daily wage

TABLE I

BORROWING FROM THE ARMAGH PUBLIC LIBRARY, 1 796- 1802

Average Rainge Social Class or No. of in No. of

Profession No. Books Read Books Read

Landed gentry: Gentlemen 10 6 1-8 Gentlewomen 7 3 1-5

British army officers 7 3 1-5 Anglican clergymen 3 4 1-5 Surgeons 3 3 1-4




at the turn of the century of 10d. [9, p. 230]; this typical Irishman probably never had enough cash at one time to borrow any book in the Armagh Library. It should be noted, however, that though heavy deposits were required, the library was a free public library, since the borrower got his money back and apparently paid no fees of any kind as he would have done in Dublin, Belfast, and Cork.

The patrons of the Armagh Public Library had little opportunity to read novels, the staple fare of circulating libraries in Ireland, but they did not borrow in any number even the few that were available to them. Fielding's Amelia was borrowed only twice during the seven-year period, and unspecified sections of his complete Works were borrowed twice. Nothing by Goldsmith, not even his popular novel, The Vicar of Wake- field, which went through fifteen Irish editions in the eighteenth century, was ever checked out. This fact provides good evidence of the danger of regarding catalog entries as accurate indications of what people actually read. Of works of prose fiction in general, only Smollett's Don Quixote and Johnson's Rasselas were borrowed by this upper-class group of readers. They preferred to borrow the great works of discursive prose such as those by Boswell, Gibbon, and Johnson when they wanted to read literary works, and other borrowed books that were not specifically literary were also works of discursive prose. Aside from the contemporary masterworks, they preferred to read, as did readers in England and Scotland, travel books, history books, sermons, and periodicals like the Annual Register. As Irishmen, they read works of specifically Irish interest and quite often combined their interest in religious writings with their interest in Irish books in such a work as Mervyn Archdall's Monasticum Hibernicum. The only novel in the book of deposits that was likely to be found in the typical circulating library in Ireland was Charlotte Lennox's Female Quixote. Among the older literature a few classics, some Swift, and the British Theatre were most apt to be listed in the book of deposits.

Yet another type of reading center to be found in eighteenth-century Ireland was the book club or reading society. Kaufman has presented considerable evidence of such organizations in England, Scotland, and Wales but notes that "no such records have come to light in Ireland" [1, p. 310]. As with community lending libraries of the three types, commercial, proprietary, and public, Ireland seems to reflect the English, Scots, and Welsh pattern in the book club. One good repository for information about book clubs and reading societies is the list of subscribers at the front of books published by subscription, of which there were a great many in Ireland especially during the late eighteenth century. As a part of a study of the book trade in eighteenth-century Ireland, I have examined 61 individual books or sets of books published by subscription in Ireland from 1730 to 1800. Among the subscribers may be found the names of book clubs and "libraries," as well as individuals. For example, William Crawford lists 1,470 subscriptions to his History of Ireland published in Strabane, county Tyrone. Among the subscribers were the Bal-




lyaston Book Club and the Patrick Library of county Tyrone and the Doagh Book Club of county Antrim. Clement Cruttwell's New Universal Gazetteer was reprinted in Dublin in 1800 and sold by subscription. Among the 1,227 subscriptions were two by the Banbridge Reading So- ciety of county Down and the Galway Amicable Society of county Galway. The Downpatrick Literary Society of county Down took one of the 647 copies of the Dublin reprinting of Smollett's translation of Don Quixote in 1796. The Purdy'sburn Reading Society of county Down took 4 of the 820 copies of John Corry's Odes and Elegies published in Newry, county Down, in 1797. Among the 280 subscribers to John Tisdall's Flora's Ban- quet, a Collection of Poems, published in Belfast in 1782, was the Mount- hill Literary Club of county Antrim.

Other evidence about book clubs is provided by the correspondence of Dr. William Drennan, a prominent physician and leader in the United Irishmen. Dr. Drennan wrote to his friend, the Rev. Dr. William Bruce of Belfast, on several occasions in 1785-86 about activities of the Newry Book Society, Newry, county Down, a group in which both men were active [10]. Mrs. McTier, Dr. Drennan's sister, wrote to him on October 28, 1792 from Belfast that there were two reading societies there that for three years had been collecting such books as the Encyclopaedia Britannia and the Parliamentary Statutes. These societies had been organized by people of the working class, and there was no one of higher social position than "McCormick the gunsmith" or "Osborn the baker" [11].

This survey of community lending libraries in Ireland in the second half of the eighteenth century has demonstrated that there were many more institutions of this type than has been shown previously. The eighteen commercial lending libraries, the eleven book clubs, and the two public libraries discussed in this paper, when added to the six community libraries described by Kaufman, still add up to few reading centers for a country with a population of over 4 million at the end of the century. They also cannot be compared favorably in number and quality with community libraries in England during the eighteenth century. Clearly, the three Irish private subscription libraries represent an insignificant number when compared with the fifty-eight Kaufman has identified in England, even when the difference in population is taken into account [2, p. 26]. Similarly, the twenty-one circulating libraries in eighteenth- century Ireland offered few opportunities to readers when compared with the astonishing total of 380 circulating libraries that Kaufman has un- covered in England [2, p. 10]. The eleven Irish book clubs and reading societies are also unimpressive when measured against the 1 10 in England [2, pp. 39-43]. But Irish community libraries may be compared to ad- vantage with similar institutions in parts of the British Isles other than England itself. The twenty-one circulating libraries in Ireland do com- pare favorably in number with the twenty-five circulating libraries in Scotland during the same period [2, p. 135], and they far exceed in number the seven circulating libraries and other community libraries in




Wales [1, pp. 306-10]. It seems fair to conclude that, albeit in a modest way, Ireland was a part of the mainstream in the development of community libraries in the British Isles in the eighteenth century.

REFERENCES

1. Kaufman, Paul. "Community Lending Libraries in Eighteenth-Century Ireland and Wales." Library Quarterly 33, no. 4 (October 1963): 299-312.

2. Kaufman, Paul. Libraries and Their Users: Collected Papers in Library History. London: Library Association, 1969.

3. Munter, Robert. The History of the Irish Newspaper, 1685-1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.

4. Second MS Catalogue. Bibliothecae Marisanae Dublinensis. Ca. 1745, with additions to ca. 1830.

5. Warburton, J.; Whitelaw, J.; and Walsh, R. History of the City of Dublin. London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1818.

6. Simms, Archbishop George 0. "The Founder of Armagh's Public Library: Primate Robinson among His Books." Irish Booklore 1, no. 2 (August 1971): 139-47.

7. MS H. II. 3. Armagh Public Library. Armagh, Northern Ireland. 8. MS H. II. 12. Armagh Public Library. Armagh, Northern Ireland. 9. Newenham, Thomas. A View of the Natural, Political and Commercial Circum-

stances of Ireland. London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1809. 10. MS D. 0. D. 553. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. Belfast. 11. Chart, D. A., ed. The Drennan Letters, 1776-1819. Belfast: His Majesty's Stationery

Office, 1931. 12. Kaufman, Paul. The Community Library: A Chapter in English Social History.

Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1967.



community lending libraries in eighteenth-century ireland

Documents