Sir Thomas Bodley

Sir Thomas Bodley was the son of a Protestant family that had to leave the United Kingdom during the reign of Queen Mary. They returned when Sir Thomas was a teenager, in time for him to attend Oxford.

He graduated with a BA in 1563, in 1564 was appointed Oxford’s first lecturer in Greek, then went on to serve in various other positions including Dean and Garden Master (Clennell 2000).

Bodley was clearly an outstanding scholar, especially in languages. Even before he studied at Oxford he was fluent in Greek, Hebrew and Latin. During further travel in Europe in the 1570s, he acquired Italian, French and Spanish. Indeed, it was this expertise that led to him working for the British Secret Service throughout Europe during this time.

In 1584 Bodley was elected as a Member of Parliament back in England, but was soon back in diplomacy, and in 1588 carried letters written by the Queen herself to royalty in France and Denmark.

Bodley married a wealthy widow, Ann Ball, in 1586. This is where a lot of his money came from, and enabled him to embark on his next project.

He tired of diplomacy and politics by the end of the 16^th century, and decided:

“at the last to set up my Staffe at the Library doore in Oxford; being thoroughly perswaded, that in my solitude and surcease from the Common-wealth affaires, I could not busy my selfe to better purpose, then by reducing that place (which then in every part lay ruined and wast) to the publique use of Students”. (Clennell 2000)

From the time the Bodleian opened, until Bodley’s death in 1613:

“the library was, to an extent perhaps unique among such enterprises, identified with the Founder, with his breadth of vision, encyclopaedic collecting, supervision of the minutest detail of the organisation, his genius for public relations, and the singleminded application of his wealth…”.(Clennell 2000)

Even when he did pass away from a long illness, he still ensured that “his” library would be well provided for into the future. He never had any children, so the Bodleian was really his heir. To quote his will, his major concern was “the perpetuall preservation support and maintenance of the Publique Librarie in ye Universitie of Oxon”, saying that this “dothe greatly surpasse all my other worldly cares”. (Vaisey 2000)

Yet another contribution to the literary world was Bodley’s autobiography. Written in 1609, and published in 1647, it was the first autobiography ever written in English. I was lucky enough to obtain a copy of this from Monash’s offsite store.

I have been doing some research on the Internet, but have found it nowhere near as successful as my first search through the Matheson library. I did find some brief information on the Bodleian Libraries website (see the link to the left). I searched Monash’s electronic holdings of various library journals, but only found one relevant article.

I was quite surprised to also find footage on YouTube. This will come in especially useful when I'm researching the architecture, but here is something else I found.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNUuiVXYpQw 

REFERENCES

Bodley, T, c1906, The Life of Sir Thomas Bodley: written by himself together with the first draft of the statutes of the Public Library at Oxon, Boston, Merrymount Press.

Clennell, WH 2000, ‘Bodley before the Bodleian’, Bodleian Library Record, vol. 17, pp. 371-383.



Gogan M 2006, Bodleian Library - a Virtual Experience', November 9, viewed Sepember 4 2010, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNUuiVXYpQw>.

Vaisey D 2000, ‘The Legacy of Sir Thomas Bodley’, Bodleian Library Record, vol. 17, pp. 419-429.