In the Vellum Book under date Dec. 12th, 1659, are entered 29 volumes as a gift from Thomasine Brooke, “Widow & Relict of Wm Brooke, Gent.” These were evidently purchased with a donation of £20, as under the same date in the Minute Book is the following: “Mr. Whitefoot acknowledged himself to have received of Mrs Brooke wid. to the use of the library to bee laid out uppon bookes by ye Consent of ye minrs. the summe of twenty pounds.”
Sir Thomas Browne, who made Norwich his home from 1637, gave in 1666 eight volumes of Justus Lipsius’ Works, (Antwerp, 1606-17), and under the entry recording this gift, which describes the donor as “Thomas Browne, Med: Professor”, has been written in a different hand, “Opera sua, viz. Religio Medicj, Vulgar Errors, &c.” (A reproduction of the page in the Vellum Book recording Browne’s gift faces page 46.) The latter volume was evidently a copy of his “Pseudodoxia Epidemica . . . together with the Religio Medici,” sixth edition, (London, 1672), which is still in the Library.
Another eminent benefactor was Thomas Tenison, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1694, and is noteworthy
to librarians as having established a public library in his parish of St. Martins-in-the-Fields, London, in 1695. Tenison was educated at the Norwich Free School, and in 1674 he was chosen “upper minister” of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, having been previously preacher at that Church. He was admitted to the use of the City Library on February 9th, 1673, and on March 2nd, 1674 and April 6th, 1675, he gave the following five volumes: Georgius Codinus’ “De Officijs et Officialibus Magnæ Ecclesiæ et Aulæ Constantinopolitanæ” (Paris, 1625); Edward Herbert’s “De religione gentilium” (Amsterdam, 1663); Peter Heylyn’s “Historia Quinqu-Articularis” (London, 1660); Archbishop James Ussher’s “Chronologia sacra” (Oxford, 1660); and the “Racovian Catechism,” which is entered in the 1732 catalogue as “Moscorrow’s Catechism.”
Nathaniel Cock, described as a Merchant of London, but who was doubtless connected with the county, is credited with a donation of 33 volumes in 1674. These volumes were evidently purchased with the legacy of £20 which Edmund Cock, his executor, paid to the Library-Keeper. This legacy is mentioned in the Minute Book, and also by Blomefield, [22] who states that he was the brother of Edmund Cocke, and that he also “gave the city chamberlain 100l, to be freely lent to five honest poor weavers, housekeepers and freemen, without interest, they giving security for the repayment at three years end.”
In 1676, the year of the death of Edward Reynolds, Bishop of Norwich, the Vellum Book records a donation from him of 24 volumes. These books, however, were probably purchased with a legacy, as in the Assembly Book, 21st Sept., 1676, it is stated that the Clavors [Keepers of City Chest] to pay Robt Bendish Esq. £20 to be pd to Mr John Whitefoot senr. to buy bookes for City Library according to will of Edward [Reynolds] late Bp. of Norwich.
Dean Humphrey Prideaux, the orientalist, was another distinguished benefactor. In August, 1681, he was installed as a Prebendary of Norwich, and in the following March he gave a copy of his edition of two tracts by Maimonides which he published with the title “De jure pauperis et peregrini apud Judæos” (1679), “and other money [£1] from many others
received” with which were purchased Joannes Caspar Suicerus’ “Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus,” 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1682), and J. J. Hoffman’s “Lexicon Universale Historico-Geographico-Chronologico-Poetico-Philologicum,” 2 vols. (Basel, 1677). When Dean of Norwich he gave a copy of the two works upon which his literary fame rests, “Life of Mahomet” and “The Old and New Testament Connected,” 2 vols. (1716-18), and also his “Validity of the Orders of the Church of England,” and “The Original and Right of Tithes,” (Norwich, 1710).
Three citizens and Aldermen of Norwich gave donations of money in 1678 amounting to £11, with which ten volumes were purchased: Augustine Briggs £5, Thomas Wisse £3, and Bernard Church £3.
In 1700 William Adamson, Rector of St. John’s Maddermarket, Norwich, who was buried therein in 1707, “gave to this Library three shelves full of books, viz. Classis 17, 18, and 19, the first in Folio, the Second in quarto, the third in Octavo, and are Specifyed in the Catalogue of the Library.” The total number of the books assigned to him in the 1732 catalogue is 118 vols.