Bowdler Tracts

Exactly how the Bowdler pamphlets reached Lampeter some time before 1836 is still uncertain. But it is clear that Thomas Bowdler IV, who had moved in 1811 to the Rhyddings in Swansea (then in the diocese of St David’s), was well acquainted with Burgess and shared the same circle of pious friends including William Wilberforce, Hannah More, and other members of the Clapham Sect. In fact, Bowdler and his sister, Henrietta Maria (editor of the first edition of The Family Shakespeare (1807) were both early contributors to Burgess’ building fund for the future college. Furthermore, Dr Bowdler presented Burgess with copies of a number of his publications (and those of others) which are still extant in the Roderic Bowen Library and Archives, and in the year before he died, he had addressed the Royal Society of Literature, founded by its long-serving President, Thomas Burgess. Burgess’ known book-collecting interests may have served as the final stimulus in encouraging the gift of the pamphlet collection to Lampeter.

The main collector, however, was Thomas Bowdler II (1661-1738) who was sent to London from Dublin as a boy. He was brought up by his uncle, a city merchant, who had started the family tradition of collecting pamphlets. As a young man, Thomas entered the Navy Office under Samuel Pepys (himself a major collector of tracts) and in the Revolution of 1689 he followed Pepys’ example in resigning, rather than take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary. He remained a staunch Jacobite and devout Nonjuror to the end, a fact which is reflected in the 539 pamphlets in his collection which relate to that communion.

Thomas had begun collecting in his youth, but a further spur to this interest came when he inherited the pamphlet collection of his uncle Thomas Bowdler I (active 1638-1700) in 1701. He began collecting in earnest, acquiring ready-made collections such as those of the deposed Bishop of Ely, Francis Turner (eighteen volumes), the family collection of John Gauden (1605-1662), Bishop of Worcester, and a number of items which had belonged to the Nonjuror and Anglo-saxon scholar, George Hickes (1642-1715) in his capacity as Hickes’ executor. 

By the year 1709, Thomas Bowdler II’s hobby had grown into an obsession. He was purchasing any item that came his way, frequently noting (at the bottom edge of the title page) the exact date of purchase and the book-agent, and detailing each item (tied up in bundles) in a handwritten catalogue which survives to this day. Thomas II made few purchases after 1720, but he bequeathed the pamphlet collection to his elder son, Thomas Bowdler III, who made more modest, though still significant additions to the family collection before it passed to Dr Thomas Bowdler IV.

Scope of the Bowdler Collection

The Nonjuror outlook of Thomas Bowdler II imposed no restriction of subject matter on the collection which was as wide ranging as pamphleteering itself, ranging from the high-minded to political satire, the scurrilous and the bawdy. Predictably, issues of religion and politics abound, reflecting the preoccupations of this most turbulent period of eighty years, or so, following the outbreak of the Civil War in 1640.

In addition to a major collection of 539 Nonjuror pamphlets (including thirty-five out of the forty items known to relate to the Usages controversy), issues of church and state, religion, politics and the freedom of the press are well represented: from the years of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis, through the reign of James II and the Revolution to the Convocation Controversy, Occasional Conformity, the impeachment of Sacheverell and the Bangorian Controversy early in the eighteenth century. While the sympathies of the Bowdlers lay with the High-Church Tories in these disputes, the opposing publications of Catholics, Low Churchmen and Dissenters abound in the collection, including those of the Quakers. The Dissenter, Daniel Defoe is the writer most frequently encountered in the collection.

But there are also many pamphlets relating to Irish affairs, the Navy, foreign trade and the colonies, as well as literary, philosophical, economic, scientific and medical subjects, some interspersed with manuscript items including complete pamphlets, letters, poems and ballads. There is also evidence of considerable interest in contemporary theatre, including music theatre. Among the numerous ephemera are accounts of contemporary scandals, trials and public executions, piracy and witchcraft, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, strange occurrences and supernatural portents, and whatever at the time happened to occupy the public attention. It is precisely this diversity that makes the Bowdler collection so fascinating for the modern reader and such a rich resource for the student of social and cultural history.