Dr Williams’s Library
A partnership between The John Rylands Library at The University of Manchester and the Dr Williams’s Library.
Our collaboration unites the world's finest collections of non-conformist religious social history in Manchester, a city celebrated for its historic role in nonconformity and dissent. It will provide opportunities for enhanced scholarly research, connecting researchers with our collections and expertise, while fostering greater public understanding of the legacy and ongoing contribution of dissent across the UK and beyond.
About the collection
The Dr Williams’s Library contains around 135,000 printed volumes, incunabula, manuscripts, pamphlets, and books. The collection focuses on three main subject areas: Byzantium, Biblical Materials, and Theology. These areas encompass a wide range of topics, including ecclesiastical history, Christian theology, other religions, and philosophy. Approximately half of the collection dates back to pre-1851.
The collection is particularly rich in primary sources relating to the history of nonconformity and English Protestant dissent from the sixteenth to the nineteenth-centuries. It includes a wealth of autobiographical material and correspondence from the seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries. Additionally, the library contains a small but intriguing assortment of portraits of dissenters, photographs, prints, maps, and various other objects and artefacts.
Special Printed Collections
Specialist printed collections held in the Library include the Walton Collection, (one of the best collections of English Protestant mystical material available), the Norman Baynes Library of Byzantine history and culture, the Liberation Society Library, and the books and manuscripts from New College, London. The latter includes the libraries of some of the most important early dissenting academies, such as that of Philip Doddridge at Northampton.
There are a number of important collections for English literature including The George Henry Lewes Library, and the Henry Crabb Robinson manuscript collection. Robinson corresponded with many leading German and British Romantic figures of the first half of the nineteenth century, including Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Wordsworth, Southey, Walter Scott, as well as the anti-slave campaigner Thomas Clarkson, Elizabeth Reid (who founded Bedford College for women) and Harriet Martineau.
Manuscript collections
The manuscript collections include items dating back to the sixteenth-century, notably a rare surviving Puritan minister's diary (1587-1590) and the 'Second part of a Register' providing a valuable calendar of manuscripts. The archive’s seventeenth-century collection is particularly notable. Highlights include the papers of Richard Baxter, John Quick (Lives of French Protestant Ministers) and Roger Morrice, whose ‘Ent’ring Book’ a key resource for late seventeenth-century history. The Library also holds the original minutes of the Westminster Assembly published in 2012.
The eighteenth-century archive also offers a rich source of material and includes the correspondence of Philip Doddridge, Theophilus Lindsey and the theologian and scientist Joseph Priestley amongst others; the nineteenth century that of James Martineau and Thomas Belsham. Many of the records of the major nonconformist institutions of the nineteenth and twentieth century have been deposited in the Library, such as the British & Foreign Unitarian Association, The Inquirer Publishing Company, the General Assembly of Unitarian & Free Christian Churches, and the Free Church Federal Council. Other collections on deposit include the Presbyterian Fund, the Congregational Fund and the records of the General Baptist Assembly.
Access
We are currently assessing the collection ready for curation and will provide more information on access and timescales when available.
Events and announcements
Please see our recent news announcement. Further information will be added when available:
Contact us
For further information regarding the partnership and collections, please direct enquiries to: