A librarian’s business

Humfrey Wanley, an English librarian, palaeographer and scholar of Old English, died 300 years ago today. He was employed by manuscript collectors and was the first keeper of the Harleian Library. He left behind a rather unusual diary: although little more than a banal record of a librarian’s day-by-day business in the early 18th century, it is considered an important record for the history of book collecting.

Wanley was born in Coventry in 1672, the youngest son of the clergyman and author Nathaniel Wanley. Apprenticed to a Coventry draper while still in his teens, he developed an extraordinary fascination with medieval manuscripts, teaching himself to read and copy ancient hands in every spare moment. His talent attracted the attention of William Lloyd, whose patronage enabled him to enter Oxford in 1695. Although he never took a degree, his remarkable expertise in palaeography quickly earned him a place as an assistant in the Bodleian Library; there he began work that established him as the foremost Anglo-Saxon manuscript scholar of his generation.

During the following decade Wanley became indispensable to the study and cataloguing of England’s medieval manuscripts. He travelled widely in search of Anglo-Saxon books, compiled the pioneering catalogue of Old English manuscripts published in 1705, and gained the confidence of the great manuscript collector Robert Harley. From 1708 he served as keeper of the Harleian Library, helping to build one of Britain’s greatest manuscript collections, now preserved in the British Library. His meticulous cataloguing and formidable knowledge of early English texts made him one of the founders of modern manuscript scholarship.

Wanley married Anna Bourchier, the widowed Bernard Martin Berenclow, at St Swithin, London Stone, in 1705. Their three children all died in infancy, and Anna herself died in 1722. He later married Ann Lloyd. Frequently troubled by poor health, Wanley nevertheless continued working almost until the end of his life. He died of dropsy in London on 6 July 1726 and was buried in St Marylebone Parish Church. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, Kemble College, The British Academy or an article in The Scribe Unbound.

Wanley’s diary covers the final eleven years of his life, from March 1715 until June 1726. Kept primarily as a working journal, it records his daily dealings with booksellers, collectors, scholars and aristocratic patrons, especially the Harleys, alongside visits to auctions, coffee houses and libraries. Rather than offering introspective reflections, it provides an unusually detailed picture of the London book trade, the formation of great manuscript collections and the practical business of scholarship in the early eighteenth century. It has become an indispensable source for historians of books, libraries and antiquarian learning.

Although long known to scholars in manuscript, the diary was not published until 1966, when the Bibliographical Society issued The Diary of Humfrey Wanley, 1715-1726 in two volumes, edited by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright. The full text can be read online at Internet Archive. Here are several extracts - including a part of the introduction - that give a flavour of the full published work.

Introduction: ‘Humfrey Wanley’s Diary or Journal, here printed for the first time in its entirety, was kept by him while Library-Keeper in the service of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, and Edward, his son, the 2nd Earl, and runs from 2 March 1714/15 to 23 June 1726, with, however, a considerable gap (except for one entry under 18 July 1716) between 22 August 1715 and 11 January 1719/20, when the Diary was resumed by my Lord Harley’s Order. It records the visits of, or to, booksellers and dealers, and negotiations with them; lists of manuscripts and printed books offered for sale, purchased, or received by gift; conversations with various people about library business; the visits of scholars and others to the Library, either as students there or as sightseers, and so on. It is in fact a record of the day-by-day business of a working librarian and is in no sense, therefore, a diary such as Pepys’s or Evelyn’s: apart from occasional references to his health, Wanley’s allusions to personal affairs are few, for instance, a reference to the sudden death of his wife (on 3 January 1721/22) - ‘my late grievous Calamity’ under the entry 15 January 1721/22 - and to the death of his landlady (under 10 November 1724), but a simple direct style, happy choice of descriptive word and phrase, skill in recounting an incident (such as the oft-quoted Warburton-Genoa Arms ‘frolick’ under 13 July 1720), a sarcastic, caustic tongue and occasional use of ‘asides’ (as when he says that Mr. Hugh Thomas ‘came to Study, as he think’s’ combined with the interest of the subject matter (at any rate to all those whose ways lie in the paths of librarianship) make it absorbing reading. The entry under 11 January 1719/20 suggests that when the Diary was begun in 1715 it was done so by Edward Harley’s instructions and that it was, in a certain sense, intended to be an official record of his work as custodian of the Library. It is preserved in two quarto-size volumes in the Lansdowne Collection.’

10 June 1715

‘My noble Lord Oxford was pleased to bring in an Original Letter of the Elector Palatin to Qu. Anne: and an Extract from a letter of the late Emperor of Morocco to her Majestie, in Arabic; with an English Version.’

14 June 1715

‘My Noble Lord Oxford was pleased to send in an Original Letter of Louise Princess of Holstein to Queen Anne.’

15 June 1715

‘My Noble Lord Oxford was pleased to send in an Original [letter] of Victor Amedeo the present King of Sicily, to himself.’

4 May 1720.

‘I went to Stafford-house, upon information that there are two very fine MSS which will be sold at the Sale of the late Earl of Stafford’s things, which Commence’s to morrow. I found the one to be a sort of Breviary, the other to be a kind of Diurnal, both very finely Illuminated.

A Letter was Sent to Mr Tanner, desiring him to attend my Lord this day by two of the clock. (in Order to receive my Lord’s Commissions for Buying at the Sale abovementioned).

Mr Sanderson sent me a Letter, with the Price he putt’s upon his Things; which price I think too dear, because very many of them His Lordship doth not want, or intend’s to buy: many other’s he hath already; and the remainder not considerable enough to induce him to part with so much as Mr Sanderson ask’s.

I went to Mr Warner the Goldsmith, desiring him to execute my Lords Commission for buying the MSS. abovementioned, and some other things at Stafford-house, which he readily undertook. I also bought of him the old Gyllyngham-Silver-Spoon for my Lord.’

28 June 1721

A Letter sent to Mr Noel, about a time when he is to wait upon my Lord.

Mr Charles Davis brought a MS. mostly Hebrew, written by a Christian, and partly Latin; being upon the Subject of Conjuration. I rejected it now; as I remember I did before about 7 or 8 years ago.

Mr Bogdani came, & took away the old Leaves he left with me.

Mr Cart came, enquiring about Mr Morley & A Bp. Sancrofts Papers.

Mr Bacon came, & told me that he had lately seen in a Booksellers Hands, one part of a Septi-partite Indenture between King Henry VII, and others, dated 16 July, anno regni 19, which is to be sold. But that the Seal & Bosses are taken off. I desired him to buy it for my Lord as cheap as he can; & he promised to do so.’