Working in ‘The Cause of Bibliomania Throughout the World’: Sir Thomas Brooke (1830–1908), a Yorkshire Businessman-Bibliophile

Abstract

Sir Thomas Brooke (1830–1908), a Huddersfield woollen cloth manufacturer and company director, was a major collector of books and manuscripts. His library, valued at his death at over £25,000, was one of the more notable of Victorian Britain. This article provides some biographical information about him and his family and describes the scope and areas of particular interest of his library. It includes the books and manuscripts that he bequeathed to the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, whose president he was for 42 years from 1866 until his death. It also considers some aspects of the dispersal of his library after his death.