The Minute Book of the Bristol Library Society, 1772-1801

Founded at a series of meetings in December 1772, the Bristol Library Society aimed to connect one of the eighteenth century's most important transatlantic ports with a dynamic cultural movement which sought to bring books, knowledge and enlightenment to urban communities across the English-speaking world. Between 1731 and 1801, well over 350 subscription libraries were established across the British Isles and North America in towns ranging from tiny rural settlements like Wigtown in rural Scotland and Fredericktown on the Pennsylvanian frontier, through to rapidly growing industrial centres like Belfast and Leeds, and bustling transatlantic ports like New York and Liverpool. Subscription libraries - sometimes termed proprietary libraries or (especially in North America) social libraries - were based on a simple model, pioneered by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, whereby members paid a joining fee and an annual subscription to fund a common stock of books. The Bristol Library Society eventually become one of the largest of its kind, boasting nearly 300 members and around 8000 books by the early decades of the nineteenth century. While its unique run of surviving borrowing registers is an important source for understanding British reading habits, this edition of the Library Society's annual general meetings and administrative committee meetings - published on the 250th anniversary of its foundation - sheds fresh light on the operation of the library and the interests of the people involved in its foundation, including Bristol luminaries such as William Barrett, Richard Champion, John Prior Estlin, Samuel Farr and Jospeh Harford. Biographical information is given, not just on those active in the library committee, but numerous Bristolians recorded as owning or transferring shares in the Society. The volume also provides a bibliographical index of books recorded in the minute books