13
the Church” at Skipton, Yorkshire, but allowed that they might be
placed elsewhere ‘‘for the use of the Grammar School” [21];
Archbishop Harsnett asked that his books should be given “a decent
room to set them up in, that the Clergy of the Town of Colchester and
other Divines may have free access for the reading and studying of
them” [22] but final discretion was left to the recipients of these
libraries.
Even the Pepysian Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, was
not originally built as a house for Samuel Pepys’ books and manuscripts,
although he nominated the building as their home in his Will [10(a)].
The only two libraries purpose-built in England during the 17th century
of which this writer is aware, and excepting those built for colleges and
cathedrals, are Dr Plume’s in Maldon and another which Dr Thomas
Tenison asked Sir Christopher Wren to design for St
Martin-in-the-Fields parish in 1684, which opened in 1685 [9.5]. Indeed,
the two foundations were similar in two respects: both buildings
incorporated grammar schools; both were conceived as public libraries,
except that where Tenison’s was intended for young clergymen and
tutors living in the City, to keep them out of coffee houses and taverns
(
he had a horror of card-playing clergy), Plume’s Will states that his
was not only for the use of the clergy of the Maldon area but also for
“
any Gentleman or Scholar” who wished to use it. Another public
library planned during his lifetime was that created by Archbishop
Narcissus Marsh at Dublin, whose construction was superintended by
Sir William Robinson at the same time as this one was being built at
Maldon.
A fashion for public libraries was under way by the time the books
came toMaldon [59] and even if Dr Plume’s was not the first of its kind,
its place among the first emphasises the deliberation with which it was
created. The careful thought which went into the planning is evident in
the arrangements made for its maintenance as much as by its design.
There was to be a well- qualified Librarian, “a scholar that knows
books,” who was to be at least a Master of Arts and (as the holder of the
key) a clerk in holy orders. His salary of £40 was expected to be an
addition to another income as a Minister or as Master of the Grammar
School, so it would have assured him a very comfortable income