Books and Borrowing 1750-1830

List of libraries

Selkirk Library

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selkirk

Also known as Selkirk Subscription Library. Located in Selkirk. Founded in 1772. Type of library: Subscription. Collection: Dispersed and lost.

This bar chart shows borrowings by year, for the period 1799-1816. All borrowings from the 2 ledgers for Selkirk Library have been fully transcribed. We are grateful to Viv Dunstan and Mark Towsey for kindly donating their initial transcriptions.

["1798","1799","1800","1801","1802","1803","1804","1805","1806","1807","1808","1809","1810","1811","1812","1813","1814","1815","1816"]
[{"name":"Borrowings per year","data":[1,313,668,763,875,581,518,418,342,561,614,718,950,920,1190,1341,932,67,12]}]

Library description

The library was founded in 1772 at the promptiing of the Revd Robert Douglas. The initial subscription fee was 2 guineas to join plus an annual fee of 7s, 6d; the library was clearly designed to appeal to those in the middling to upper classes. Admision was raised to 5 guineas in 1801. However, as early as 1779 non-members were allowed to borrow books for half a guinea annually, thus bringing the library's books to a wider readership. Borrowing records begin in 1799 and continue until 1816. 

Borrower description

Mark Towsey describes the Selkirk borrowers as 'a healthy mix of urban professionals and tenant farmers drawn from a wide hinterland' (Mark Towsey, Reading the Scottish Enlightenment (Leiden: Brill, 2010), p.69).  Borrowers also included at least ten landowners and eight ministers from the local Prebytery of the Church of Scotland, as well as some tradesmen, and Napoleonic French Prisoners of War (who were allowed to borrow from the library between 1811 and 1814). 

Holding description

No catalogue survives before the printed catalogue of 1856, the Catalogue of the Selkirk Library, instituted 1777 (Selkirk, 1856). The library contained in descending order of popularity, Novels, History and Lives, Voyages and Travels, Poetry and Plays, Periodicals, some Theology, Natural Philosophy, Politics, Education and Miscellaneous works. The size of the library in our period can only be conjectured, though well over 700 separate titles appear in the borrowing records.

Sources

  • Other: Selkirk Subscription Library Register and Day Book 1799-1814

Secondary sources

Vivienne Dunstan, 'Reading habits in Scotland circa 1750-1820' (PhD, University of Dundee, 2010)

Margaret Tait, 'French Prisoners of War on Parole at Selkirk in 1811', Scottish Historical Review, 32/113 (1953), 57-60. [includes transcribed list of prisoners from 1811]

John T. Thorp, French Prisoners' Lodges: A Brief Account of Twenty-six Lodges and Chapters of Freemasons, Established and Conducted by French Prisoners of War in England and Elsewhere, between 1756 and 1814 (Leicester: Gibbons, 1900), available at https://archive.org/details/cu31924030291102/page/n5/mode/2up

Mark Towsey, 'Imprisoned reading: French prisoners of war at the Selkirk Subscription Library 1811-1814', in Erica Charters et al. (eds), Civilians and War in Europe, 1618-1815 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012), pp. 241-61.

Mark Towsey, ‘Store their Minds with Much Valuable Knowledge’: Agricultural Improvement at the Selkirk Subscription Library, 1799-1814', Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 38/4 (2015). 569-84.  

Sources outside the period

Catalogue of the Selkirk Library, instituted 1777 (Selkirk, 1858)

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Aberdeen Theological Library

Location: Aberdeen
Foundation date: 1700
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 7
Number of books: 360
Number of borrowers: 278
Number of library records: 3333

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Advocates Library

Also known as Advocates' Library

Location: Edinburgh
Foundation date: 1682
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 54
Number of books: 5899
Number of borrowers: 932
Number of library records: 11812

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Chambers' Circulating Library

Also known as Robert Chambers' Circulating Library

Location: Edinburgh
Foundation date: 1828
Type of library: Other
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 919
Number of borrowers: 311
Number of library records: 7319

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Craigston Castle Library

Location: Craigston
Foundation date: 1604
Type of library: Other
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 396
Number of borrowers: 189
Number of library records: 684

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Dumfries Presbytery Library

Location: Dumfries
Foundation date: c.1706
Type of library: Other
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 636
Number of borrowers: 249
Number of library records: 3475

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Edinburgh University Library

Also known as University of Edinburgh Library

Location: Edinburgh
Foundation date: 1582
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 36
Number of books: 2339
Number of borrowers: 2069
Number of library records: 14638

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Glasgow University Library

Also known as University of Glasgow Library

Location: Glasgow
Foundation date: 1451
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 8
Number of books: 3476
Number of borrowers: 1013
Number of library records: 15372

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Haddington Library

Also known as John Gray Library

Location: Haddington
Foundation date: 1717
Type of library: Other
Number of library registers: 2
Number of books: 462
Number of borrowers: 743
Number of library records: 5187

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Hunterian Museum Library

Location: Glasgow
Foundation date: 1807
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 244
Number of borrowers: 42
Number of library records: 368

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Innerpeffray Library

Also known as The Library of Innerpeffray

Location: Innerpeffray
Foundation date: 1680
Type of library: Other
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 793
Number of borrowers: 1182
Number of library records: 5393

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Inverness Kirk Sessions Library

Also known as Inverness Presbyterial Library

Location: Inverness
Foundation date: 1706
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 38
Number of borrowers: 20
Number of library records: 61

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Leighton Library

Also known as Bibliotheca Leightoniana
Leightonian Library
Library of Dunblane

Location: Dunblane
Foundation date: 1688
Type of library: Subscription
Number of library registers: 5
Number of books: 809
Number of borrowers: 306
Number of library records: 6737

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Orkney Library

Also known as Kirkwall Library, Orkney Subscription Library

Location: Kirkwall
Foundation date: 1683
Type of library: Subscription
Number of library registers: 4
Number of books: 236
Number of borrowers: 127
Number of library records: 1636

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Royal High School of Edinburgh

Also known as High School of Edinburgh

Location: Edinburgh
Foundation date: 1658
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 5
Number of books: 1966
Number of borrowers: 2410
Number of library records: 19968

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Selkirk Library

Also known as Selkirk Subscription Library

Location: Selkirk
Foundation date: 1772
Type of library: Subscription
Number of library registers: 2
Number of books: 832
Number of borrowers: 179
Number of library records: 11812

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St Andrews University Library

Location: St Andrews
Foundation date: 1612
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 25
Number of books: 7560
Number of borrowers: 673
Number of library records: 21578

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Wigtown Subscription Library

Location: Wigtown
Foundation date: 1795
Type of library: Subscription
Number of library registers: 4
Number of books: 345
Number of borrowers: 103
Number of library records: 6230

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