Add MS 74254

Robert Proctor: letters from Edward Gordon Duff, bibliographer (b.1863, d.1924), and Charles Harold St John Hornby, printer and collector (b.1867, d.1946), to Robert George Collier Proctor, bibliographer (b.1868, d.1903); 7 March 1892 - 16 May 1902, n.d. Proctor succeeded Duff as cataloguer of incunabula at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, between 1891-1893. In 1893 Proctor transferred to the Department of Printed Books at the British Museum. He became an expert in typography and worked in the Department until his death. For Proctor's letters and diaries, see Add MSS 50190-50196, especially 50196 for letters from Proctor to Duff, 1889-1892 . Transferred from the Department of Printed Books.

Paper; ff. 129. British Library arrangement as follows:

1. ff. 1-125. Letters from Duff to Proctor; 7 March 1892 - 16 May 1902, n.d. The majority of letters contain references to books and items which Duff asks Proctor to identify either at the Bodleian Library or at the British Museum. During this period Proctor wrote several books, including the Index of early printed books from the invention of printing to the year MD (1898), whose publication is noted at ff. 44-45. Other subjects include Duff’s role as Librarian (appointed 1893) to Enriqueta Augustina Tennant, third wife of John Rylands, his supervision of the opening of the John Rylands Library in Manchester in 1899 (f. 63), and his resignation in 1900 (f. 65). There are also references to the Bibliographical Society passim, and the death of the bibliographer Marie Pellechet in 1900 (f. 67). For her letters to Proctor, see Add MS 79532, ff. 1-10.

2. ff. 126-129. Two letters from St John Hornby to Proctor; 14 Feb. and 10 Oct. 1901. Both letters relate to printing types; the second encloses proof of a new type designed by him, dated Sept. 1901.