Chapter IV - The Library

Summary

The Founder was very anxious about keeping safe the books he gave to the Library, and Corrie has written a good account of his work in this direction, which is printed below, with the kind permission of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society (Vol. i).

There are no accounts of receipt and expenditure down to 1683, and from that date to 1740 the only regular emolument of the Library was £2 from each Fellow Commoner.

After 1740 a rent of £5 is brought to account from lands at Over, but we do not know how these lands came into the possession of the College. Various gifts came to the Library from Francis Tilney in 1703, Francis Neale in 1705, John Addenbrooke in 1718, Dr Crosse in 1728, Mr Halfhyde in 1730 and Thomas Bence in 1737. But the great benefactor was Dr Sherlock, once Master, who in 1756 gave £600 for the renovation of the Library and £21. 95. id. in 1760. He left the College by will his books and lands in order to pay £20 a year to a Librarian Scholar and £4 a year for his rooms. Sherlock also put up the rails in Queens’ Lane, leaving money to keep them in repair.

Soon after 1871 the Junior Library of modern text-books was separated from the Fellows’ Library, and the volumes were housed in the Sherlock Building, pulled down in 1935. In 1919 the books were removed to Old Lodge and in 1933 to the basement of 68 Trumpington Street.