The Bridgewater Library was a family library, "the oldest large family collection in England to survive intact into modern times".
The library was begun by
Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley
Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley, (1540 – 15 March 1617), known as 1st Baron Ellesmere from 1603 to 1616, was an English nobleman, judge and statesman from the Egerton family who served as Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor for twenty- ...
at
Tatton Park
Tatton Park is an historic estate in Cheshire, England, north of the town of Knutsford. It contains a mansion, Tatton Hall, a medieval manor house, Tatton Old Hall, Tatton Park Gardens, a farm and a deer park of . It is a popular visitor attr ...
in
Cheshire, and added to by his son
John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater
John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater KB, PC (1579 – 4 December 1649) was an English peer and politician from the Egerton family.
The son of Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley and Elizabeth Ravenscroft, he matriculated at Brasenose ...
.
John Egerton, 2nd Earl of Bridgewater
John Egerton, 2nd Earl of Bridgewater PC (30 May 1623 – 26 October 1686) was an English nobleman from the Egerton family.
Life
He was a son of John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater and his wife Lady Frances Stanley. His maternal grandpar ...
also added to the library, and is said to have compiled a manuscript catalogue to it. Although the
third Earl of Bridgewater "made some additions to the library ... the great period of its growth were now over".
[ Most of the library was sold by the fourth Earl of Ellesmere to Henry Huntington in 1917 and now "forms the core of the Elizabethan and early Stuart collection at the ]Huntington Library
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Ma ...
.
See also
*Ellesmere Chaucer
The Ellesmere Chaucer, or Ellesmere Manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, is an early 15th-century illuminated manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales'', owned by the Huntington Library, in San Marino, California (EL 26 C 9). It is cons ...
References
Libraries in Cheshire
Private libraries in the United Kingdom
{{England-stub
Defunct libraries