The very large and valuable MS. collections of the Rev. John Brickdale
Blakeway, relating to the history of Shropshire, were presented by his
widow. Mr. Blakeway was minister of St. Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, for
thirty-two years, and died March 10, 1826. He was long engaged in
gathering materials for a county history, and his collections now form
fifteen closely-written volumes in folio, nine in quarto, and two in
octavo, arranged, and lettered on their backs, according to their
several subjects, viz. Pedigrees, County History, Parochial History, &c.
A list of them is given at the end of the Annual Catalogue. They were
supplemented in 1850 by the purchase (for £42) of a copy of Mr. T. F.
Dukes' _Antiquities of Shropshire_ (4^o. Shrewsbury, 1844), divided into
two large volumes, and enriched by the author with many MS. additions
and copies of ancient deeds, and with upwards of 700 portraits and
original drawings of churches, fonts, &c. relating to almost every
parish in the county. As Mr. Blakeway's collections are not accompanied
with engravings or drawings, these volumes largely assist to make the
materials for the history of this county complete.
A parcel of 136 early French and Anglo-Saxon coins was presented by Her
Majesty the Queen, out of a mass of upwards of 6700 which were found in
digging at the bank of the river Ribble, at Cuerdale, in Lancashire, and
were adjudged to belong to Her Majesty in right of the Duchy of
Lancaster. The largest part of the Saxon coins were of the reigns of S.
Edmund of East Anglia (in number 1770) and of Alfred (793); of the
Continental, of Charles le Chauve (712) and, apparently, of Charles le
Simple (2942).
Some rare and interesting books issued by English printers about the
middle of the sixteenth century were acquired in this year; among them,
the _Boke of Common Prayer_, printed by Oswen, at Worcester, in 1552,
bought for the very moderate sum of £3 16_s._ Two rare American Psalters
were purchased, the one called _The Massachuset Psalter_, printed at
Boston in 1709, for £2, and the other, the Psalms in blank verse with
tunes, printed at Boston in 1718, for £1 19_s._
_Shakespeare_, _Henry VI._ See 1834.
_American Tracts._ See 1836.
_Donatus._ See 1840.
The hitherto somewhat narrow funds of the Library received in this year
a welcome increase by the bequest of the large sum of £36,000 in the
Three per Cents. from Rev. Robert Mason, D.D., of Queen's College,
deceased Jan. 5. He bequeathed also a further sum of £30,000 for a new
library to his own College. In commemoration of this munificent legacy,
one room, devoted to the reception of costly illustrated works, and
works of some degree of value or rarity in various languages, has been
styled the _Mason Room_ (see p. 251). The elegant model of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, now exhibited in the Library, came by
his bequest, together with a painting of the Zodiac of Tentyra, in
Egypt, which is hung in the Picture Gallery.