Grenville, Thomas
Owner Id3443
TypePerson
GenderMale
Biographical dates - Period of existence1755 - 1846
Other InformationPolitician and book collector, he left his fine collection to the British Museum; Grenville's collective sense was of the finest and he was among the first to buy Americana. He had little respect for old bindings or provenance, the former are generally replaced and the latter washed out (L. Clark, Collectors and owners, 1962). Grenville died on 17 December 1846. On 9 January 1847 the Trustees of the British Museum were informed of the bequest; the library was moved to the Museum at the end of January (P.H. Harris, A History of the British Museum Library, p. 207).
BIBL.: ODNB; J.T. Payne - H. Foss, Bibliotheca Grenvilliana, or Bibliographical notices of rare and curious books forming part of the library, London 1842; L.G. Clark: Bibliophile who left his fine collection to the British Museum, catalogue by Payne and Loss, 1842-1872; John Beckett, The Rise and Fall of the Grenvilles (Manchester, 1994), 216; K. Limper-Herz, "A Monument of the Love of Letters": The Right Honourable Thomas Grenville and His Library, PhD Thesis in Information Studies (History of the Book), 2012; for armorial stamp see Davenport 196).
Other Identifierhttp://thesaurus.cerl.org/record/cnp01275700
https://aeolus.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections/incunables/provenances_for_mei.xml#xpointer(//*[@id=
Activity
Start (year)1755
End (year)1846
MARC Area Codee-uk
Profession / Type of InstitutionPolitician
CharacterisationAristocracy
Last Edit2016-12-12 17:02:20