X-Nico

5 unusual facts about John Rylands Library


Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford

The manuscript collections (including Chinese and Japanese printed books) were sold in 1901 to Enriqueta Augustina Rylands for the John Rylands Library.

Crawford Aramaic New Testament manuscript

It is held in the John Rylands Library in Manchester, and is sometimes called the "Crawford MS" because it is so inscribed on the backstrip after having previously been in the library of the oriental manuscript collector Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres.

John Rylands Library

The library holds personal papers and letters of notable figures, among them Elizabeth Gaskell and John Dalton.

Liturgy of St Cyril

the John Rylands parchment 465, written in Greek in the 6th century and badly conserved, includes the text from the first epiclesis up to the end of the anaphora.

Rahman Baba

There are over 25 original hand-written manuscripts of the Dīwān scattered in various libraries worldwide, including ten in the Pashto Academy in Peshawar, four in the British Library, three in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, as well as copies in the John Rylands Library in Manchester, the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the University Library Aligath.


Aldine Press

The most nearly complete collection of Aldine editions ever brought together was in the Althorp library of the 2nd Earl Spencer, now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester.

George Bellairs

Harold Blundell's personal papers are held by the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester, England.

Priestnall School

They are all named after Manchester landmarks – the Bridgewater Hall, the Imperial War Museum, Urbis, the John Rylands Library, and Victoria Baths.


see also

Alphonse Mingana

The expedition was sponsored by John Rylands Library and Dr Edward Cadbury, the Quaker owner of the famous chocolate factory at Bournville, who Mingana had met through Rendel Harris.