Preserving the History of British Congregationalism

The founders of the Congregational Library in Boston in 1853 drew inspiration not only from the creation of historical societies in the United States, but also from earlier efforts across the Atlantic.
The Congregational Library and the Congregational Union of England and Wales (the body which it was designed to serve) are coeval, the Library having been opened and the Union founded on successive days in May 1831. Joshua Wilson (1795-1874), the son and biographer of Thomas Wilson, chapel builder and major benefactor of Congregationalism, first proposed the idea for a library and made a founding donation of 4,000 volumes. After his death, his widow gave the Library his entire remaining collection of printed books and manuscripts (a far greater number), which for a century and a half have been the core of the Library’s holdings.
Dr Williams’s Library, the leading library of English Dissent, traces its origins back a century earlier. It was established by the will of Dr Daniel Williams, a leading London nonconformist minister of his day, who died in January 1716. He left instructions for his trustees to house his collection as a public library and to make it available to nonconformist ministers, tutors, and students in the City of London. However, the opening of the Library in 1730 was largely due to the selfless efforts of his trustees who contributed and raised the necessary funds to build and equip a separate library building. Among the original 56 books owned by the Congregational Library, Boston, at its founding were two volumes of an 1841 catalog of the Dr Williams’s Library collection.
Learn more about the histories of the Congregational Library’s sister institutions in this program--from what motivated their formation and early collections to how they have developed over time--from scholars who know their histories intimately.
You can visit our free "Founding 56: The Congregational Library's Original Collection" digital exhibition at congregational...
Visit Dr Williams's Library online at dwl.ac.uk/
Visit the Congregational Library, London online at conglib.ac.uk/
You can purchase Alan Argent's "Dr Williams's Trust and Library: A History" here: boydellandbrew...
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CHAPTERS:
0:00 Welcome and Introductions
3:42 Dr. Alan Argent on Dr Williams's Library's History
28:28 Dr. David Powell on the Congregational Library, London's History
48:28 Q: What role do you see these libraries playing within the life of a church across history?
52:48 Q: Do you see digitization project in the future of these libraries?
55:07 Q: When do libraries become archives?
56:52 Q: Would these libraries be created differently today than they were centuries ago?
59:21 Final Thoughts and Thanks
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