The Bowdlers

The nucleus of the Lampeter Tract Collection is the collection of over 9,000 pamphlets which came to Lampeter soon after the death of Dr Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), better known as the expurgator or 'bowdleriser' of Shakespeare (1818).

Dr Thomas Bowdler was not himself the collector of the "Bowdler" pamphlets. But he was the last owner of a family collection which stretched back through three earlier generations of Bowdler collectors to the eve of the Civil War (about 1638) and about 150 years of further accumulations which ended in 1785 with the death of Thomas Bowdler III (1706-85), of Ashley, near Bath. 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 in 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 library at Lampeter, 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 to be 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 (another major collector) 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 (fl.1638-1700), in 1701 and began collecting in earnest, acquiring ready-made collections such as those of the deposed bishop of Ely, Francis Turner (18 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 titlepage) 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 35 out of the 40 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 VII 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.

Bibliography/Further reading

A Catalogue of the Tract Collection of Saint David's University College, Lampeter [compiled by B.Ll.James] (London: Mansell, 1975).
Introduction, pp. xiii-xix.

L. J. Harris and B. Ll.James, 'The tract collection at St. David's University College, Lampeter', Trivium, 9 (1974), 100-109.

James David Smith, 'The Bowdler Collection as a Resource for the Study
of the Nonjurors' in The Founders' Library University of Wales, Lampeter: Bibliographical and Contextual Studies. Essays in Memory of Robin Rider,
edited by William Marx. Trivium 29 and 30 (1997),
pp.155-167.

Provenance of the volumes in the Bowdler Collection

Thomas Bowdler I (fl. 1638-1700)

Tract volumes 61, 86, 118, 122-124, 126-130, 174, 176-178, 182-183, 287, 309, 313, 317, 504 and 508

Thomas Bowdler II (1661-1738)

Tract volumes 1-23, 25-40, 42, 45, 47-51, 53, 55, 57-60, 62-85, 87-92, 94-96, 101-116, 119-121, 125, 131-142, 144-171, 173, 175, 180-181, 184-185, 190-209, 211-213, 215-234, 236, 238-275, 278-283, 285, 289-308, 310, 312, 314, 316, 318-338, 342-344, 347-348, 350-351, 355, 358, 360-367, 369-375, 377-383, 385, 387-418, 439-444, 446-449, 452, 455-459, 461-463, 465-475, 482, 487, 489-498, 500-503, 505-507, 510-528, 546-551, 565, 801

Thomas Bowdler III (1706-1785)

Tract volumes 24, 41, 43-44, 46, 52, 97-100, 143, 189, 237, 359, 368, 421-438, 476, 483-486, 509, 539-543, 554-559, 626-678, 774

Thomas Burgess

The Tract Collection includes 51 pamphlets from the library of Thomas Burgess, Bishop of St Davids (1803-25), later Bishop of Salisbury (1825-37), and Founder of St David's College, Lampeter (1822).

In addition to being its Founder, Burgess was one of the principal founders of its library. Even before Lampeter was chosen as the location for his new foundation, he had secured gifts of about 4000 books from friends and well-wishers following an appeal in 1807. In addition to donations during his lifetime, he bequeathed the whole of his library (estimated at 8000 volumes) in 1837.

Burgess' library was primarily a working collection, built up over a lifetime devoted to the study of Classics, literature, history, antiquities, and above all theology. Many of his books are annotated, particularly classical texts and theological polemic. He had been a formidably gifted student of Greek at Winchester and Oxford and maintained a life-long interest in erudite points of text-criticism and philology. Beside biblical studies and patristics, his theological preoccupations centred round his controversies with Rome, especially, later on, the issue of Catholic Emancipation, as well as Unitarianism - a 'problem' (as he saw it) rife in his own diocese of St Davids.

His pamphlets are mainly of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, though there are two volumes from the period of the Popish Plot and others of the reign of James II and VII. Most of the pamphlets take the form of sermons and theological polemics, but learned controversies (such as that between Richard Bentley and Conyers Middleton) are also represented.

Bibliography/Further reading.

A Catalogue of the Tract Collection of Saint David's University College, Lampeter [compiled by B.Ll.James] (London: Mansell, 1975).
Introduction, pp. xiii-xix.

Gwyn Walters, 'The Library of Thomas Burgess (1756-1837)', The Book Collector,
Vol. 43.3 (1994), 351-375.

Pamphlet volumes of Burgess provenance

Tract volumes 54, 117, 210, 214, 288, 353, 384, 460, 499, 538, 553, 576, 578, 603, 619, 623, 679, 691, 704, 712-714, 719-721, 731, 738, 743, 758-761, 767-768, 777, 782, 785-786, 788, 791, 793, 796, 800, 802, 804, 806, 814, 816, 818, 821, 824.

Thomas Phillips

The Tract Collection includes 169 volumes of pamphlets from the donation of Thomas Phillips (1760-1851).

Although born in London, Phillips was a Radnorshire man who became a surgeon employed by the East India Company, accumulating a substantial fortune after many years' service in India. Retiring to London in 1817, he devoted the rest of his life to furthering education in Wales, founding the public school at Llandovery in 1848.
He had already begun to establish small libraries in India with the aim of enhancing the minds and moral character of serving soldiers, and after retiring to Brunswick Square, he started to make substantial gifts of money, books and curiosities to many individuals and institutions, in London, the Welsh Borders and South Wales. St David's College, Lampeter was one of these beneficiaries, and during the years 1834 to 1851 he despatched 22,500 volumes to the library in 59 instalments, as well as endowing scholarships and a Chair of Natural Science. Although it is clear that some of these books had belonged to his own personal collection, most had been acquired in London sale-rooms and book shops for immediate despatch to Lampeter, and many contain provenance evidence and annotations of former owners, including some notable collectors of the eighteenth century.

Bibliography/Further reading.

A Catalogue of the Tract Collection of Saint David's University College, Lampeter [compiled by B.Ll.James] (London: Mansell, 1975).
Introduction, pp. xiii-xix.

D. T. W. Price, 'Thomas Phillips of Brunswick Square' in The Founders' Library University of Wales, Lampeter: Bibliographical and Contextual Studies. Essays in Memory of Robin Rider, edited by William Marx. Trivium 29 and 30 (1997),
pp.169-176.

Pamphlet volumes of Phillips' provenance

Tract volumes 93, 172, 179, 186, 188, 235, 277, 311, 315, 357, 376, 419-420,
451, 488, 529-534, 536-537, 545, 552, 560-564, 566-575, 577, 581-582, 586-599, 601, 604-616, 618, 620-621, 624-625, 680-681, 683-688, 692-703, 705-710, 715-718, 722-728, 730, 732-737, 739, 741, 744-746, 748-751, 755-757, 764-766, 769, 771, 773, 775-776, 778-781, 783-784, 790, 792, 784, 797, 799, 803, 807-813, 815, 817, 819-820, 822-823, 825-828.

Other early donations

Most of the remaining pamphlets in the Tract Collection came with the 'foundation collection' assembled by Thomas Burgess following his appeal for gifts and books in 1807 before the foundation of St David's College, Lampeter, in 1822. Among these is a set of seventeen numbered volumes labelled 'miscellanies', of the later seventeenth and early eighteenth century, with the ownership inscriptions of Alexander and Thomas Scott, but the actual donor is not recorded.

Bibliography/Further reading

A Catalogue of the Tract Collection of Saint David's University College, Lampeter [compiled by B.Ll.James] (London: Mansell, 1975).
Introduction, pp. xiii-xix.

Other donations

Tract volumes 56, 187, 249, 276, 284, 286, 339-341, 345-346, 349, 352, 354, 356, 386, 450, 453-454, 464, 477-481, 535, 544, 579-580, 583-585, 600, 602, 617, 622, 682, 689-690, 711, 729, 740, 742, 747, 752-754, 762-763, 770, 772, 787, 789, 795, 798, 805