A.D. 1841
The very large and valuable MS. collections of the Rev. John Brickdale Blakeway, relating to the history of Shropshire, were presented by his widow. Mr. Blakeway was minister of St. Mary’s Church, Shrewsbury, for thirty-two years, and died March 10, 1826. He was long engaged in gathering materials for a county history, and his collections now form fifteen closely-written volumes in folio, nine in quarto, and two in octavo, arranged, and lettered on their backs, according to their several subjects, viz. Pedigrees, County History, Parochial History, &c. A list of them is given at the end of the Annual Catalogue. They were supplemented in 1850 by the purchase (for £42) of a copy of Mr. T. F. Dukes’ Antiquities of Shropshire (4o. Shrewsbury, 1844), divided into two large volumes, and enriched by the author with many MS. additions and copies of ancient deeds, and with upwards of 700 portraits and original drawings of churches, fonts, &c. relating to almost every parish in the county. As Mr. Blakeway’s collections are not accompanied with engravings or drawings, these volumes largely assist to make the materials for the history of this county complete.
A parcel of 136 early French and Anglo-Saxon coins was presented by Her Majesty the Queen, out of a mass of upwards of 6700 which were found in digging at the bank of the river Ribble, at Cuerdale, in Lancashire, and were adjudged to belong to Her Majesty in right of the Duchy of Lancaster. The largest part of the Saxon coins were of the reigns of S. Edmund of East Anglia (in number 1770) and of Alfred (793); of the Continental, of Charles le Chauve (712) and, apparently, of Charles le Simple (2942).
Some rare and interesting books issued by English printers about the middle of the sixteenth century were acquired in this year; among them, the Boke of Common Prayer, printed by Oswen, at Worcester, in 1552, bought for the very moderate sum of £3 16s. Two rare American Psalters were purchased, the one called The Massachuset Psalter, printed at Boston in 1709, for £2, and the other, the Psalms in blank verse with tunes, printed at Boston in 1718, for £1 19s.
Shakespeare, Henry VI. See 1834.
American Tracts. See 1836.
Donatus. See 1840.
The hitherto somewhat narrow funds of the Library received in this year a welcome increase by the bequest of the large sum of £36,000 in the Three per Cents. from Rev. Robert Mason, D.D., of Queen’s College, deceased Jan. 5. He bequeathed also a further sum of £30,000 for a new library to his own College. In commemoration of this munificent legacy, one room, devoted to the reception of costly illustrated works, and works of some degree of value or rarity in various languages, has been styled the Mason Room (see p. 251). The elegant model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, now exhibited in the Library, came by his bequest, together with a painting of the Zodiac of Tentyra, in Egypt, which is hung in the Picture Gallery.