Phillipps, Thomas, Sir, 1792-1872

English antiquary and collector. He began collecting while at Rugby School and Oxford. On inheriting his father's estate at Middle Hill in Worcestershire, Phillipps embarked on a career of collecting manuscripts and books. His collection of manuscripts eventually numbered over 60,000 items. During Continental trips in the 1820s Phillipps bought heavily, and back in England he continued to do so, often buying up entire estate libraries at auction. He collected Eastern, Greek and Latin and Continental manuscripts as well as English ones and printed some of them at his Middle Hill Press. In 1864-1865 he moved his household and his collections to Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham. In addition to manuscripts of entire works, Phillipps also collected thousands of fragments in order to save them from possible destruction.

The manuscript fragments in this collection are housed in their original Middle Hill wooden boxes used by Phillipps to store his books and manuscripts. Phillipps does not seem to have had the slightest interest in the appearance of his library, his main concern being a fear of fire. These coffin-like boxes were piled one on top of the other, so that in an emergency the books could be carried out in their shelves. (The effect is described by E. Edwards in 1859, Memoirs of Libraries, II, p. 159-60.) The boxes are at least as old as 1854, when Sir Frederic Madden described seeing "in every room piles of huge boxes up to the ceiling, containing the more valuable volumes" (A.N.L. Munby, Phillipps Studies, IV, 1956, p. 88).

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