Esmond de Beer, Wenceslaus Hollar, and William Dugdale: The Antiquarian Recording of Old St Paul’s

Abstract

A copy of William Dugdale’s History of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, from its foundation until these times was given to the University of Otago Library by Esmond de Beer, an important benefactor to the University. Based in England, de Beer donated to the library rare books he had collected while researching seventeenth-century England. The copy presented to Otago was printed in 1658 and is enriched with engravings by Wenceslaus Hollar. Like de Beer, Dugdale and Hollar were members of an antiquarian intellectual network. They had been determined to record and preserve England’s medieval heritage. Their work together provided an important record of the appearance of London’s St Paul’s Cathedral before the Great Fire of London in 1666. This record has continued to be used by architectural and urban historians.