A.D. 1770
The Library was largely enriched with books which were then modern, in which it appears to have been very deficient, by the legacy of the library of Rev. Charles Godwyn, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College. The collection, which is still in the main kept undivided (although a few folio and quarto volumes are placed in the general class marked Art.), consists chiefly of works in English and general history, civil and ecclesiastical, published in the eighteenth century, and includes besides the later Benedictine editions of the Fathers. There is also a series of theological and literary pamphlets; to which have been added of late years upwards of 2400 volumes, of all dates and on all subjects, which are now all alike numbered, for convenience sake, in connection with Godwyn’s own. The residue of his property, after payment of all claims and bequests, formed a further portion of his legacy; and the interest upon £1050 which accrued from this source, still forms part of the annual income of the Library.