A passion play

When Lord Brotherton’s first foray into the world of rare books ended in failure, it proved the catalyst for a passion that consumed the remainder of his life – and gave our University a wealth of resources for teaching, scholarship and research.

“I think of it as the one that got away,” says Rhiannon Lawrence-Francis, Collections and Engagement Manager in Special Collections at Leeds. 

In 1922, the City of Wakefield hoped to buy a medieval manuscript containing the Wakefield Mystery Plays – a cycle of religious dramas staged locally from the Middle Ages. It was being sold at auction and the city hoped to keep the manuscript local.  

The city fathers approached Dorothy Una Ratcliffe, who in turn asked her husband’s uncle, the wealthy industrialist and former Wakefield MP Lord Edward Allen Brotherton, to step in. “He was very fond of his niece-in-law,” Rhiannon explains.  “He had lost his own wife and daughter in childbirth and had grown very close to Dorothy.”   

The pair travelled to Sotheby’s in London, and once the bidding passed the British Museum’s own limit of £1,400, Brotherton threw his own weight into the auction, until the price more than doubled. “He was an entrepreneur and he understood money. He would only go so far.”  

The manuscript was bought by renowned American book dealer ASW Rosenbach – known as The Terror of the Auction Room – on behalf of Californian railway magnate Henry E Huntington. “At this time the building of libraries was bordering on obsession, particularly among American industrialists,” Rhiannon explains. Their interest in European culture spawned an exodus of cultural treasures.  

To make up for Dorothy’s disappointment, Brotherton took her to the booksellers Quaritch, where they purchased a beautiful 1681 first edition of Miscellaneous Poems by Andrew Marvell. “That was their first rare book,” says Rhiannon. “But I wonder whether, had they been able to secure the mystery play manuscripts, that would have been it – and there would never have been a Brotherton Collection at all.”  

“As it was, they quickly got the bug and began collecting in earnest. Brotherton decided to create a library representing the whole wealth and breadth of literature. Within a year he had appointed local bookseller John Alexander Symington as librarian at his Roundhay Hall home in Leeds, and together they bought rare books and manuscripts on an almost industrial scale. “It’s quite incredible,” says Rhiannon. “They would be sent catalogues from auctioneers and from libraries which were being dispersed – and simply buy the whole lot.” 

Between the fateful auction in 1922 and Brotherton’s death in October 1930 they amassed 35,000 books, 400 manuscripts, 4,000 deeds, and 30,000 letters – that’s more than 20 items a day. “At the time when they were collecting, not long after the end of the First World War, many booksellers were on their uppers, and buyers got great value for their money.” 

Among the collection were high-quality examples of incunabula – books printed during the earliest flourishing of typography in the 15th century – early modern and modern books, letters, charters and diaries. “I think they always had an eye on what was going to be useful in the future, but their first love was English Literature,” says Rhiannon. 

“The Holy Grail of book collecting is a full set of 17th Century folios of Shakespeare’s plays. Within four years, Brotherton had acquired all four, including a 1623 First Folio, which he effectively repatriated by purchasing it from the estate of New York industrialist Theodore Vail. They are stunning.” 

It was fashionable at the time to have books cleaned and re-bound; that Brotherton didn’t do this has given Leeds complete, unaltered copies of these rare documents – along with the notes, scribbles and annotations that make even printed items unique. 

It is unclear when Brotherton decided to gift the collection to Leeds, though this last period of his life coincided with the University’s first significant fundraising campaign, one of the prime aims of which was to furnish the institution with a library befitting its growing status. 

In 1927, he donated £100,000 to build this new library, which was modelled on the reading room of the British Museum – but slightly bigger. Though he didn’t live to see it completed, Brotherton spoke of his hopes when laying its foundation stone: “A great library in a great University is a trust for the nation at large and should not be looked upon as exclusively available for its own students.” 

It’s a principle that holds true today: “Here we are 100 years later and it’s exactly what we do,” says Rhiannon. “The collection is here for everyone. People don't need any more reason to visit than just wanting to see these books and manuscripts for themselves.”