Bookcases for the Royal Library

The first bookcases for the Royal Library were made by local joiner John Austin in the old Law School, thereafter known as the West Room. Once the Senate House was opened in 1730 the old Regent House could at last be fitted out for the remaining books, with James Essex’s rather ornamental cases occupying what then became the Catalogue Room, shown here in 1934 before the move to the present Library building. Essex’s cases were moved to the ground floor of the North Front, housing classes E to M (broadly, sermons, law, natural sciences and philosophy.

UA ULIB 12.3.9(3)