Samuel Sandars (25 April 1837, Chelmsford, Essex - 15 June 1894 [1] ) was an English bibliographer, barrister and university benefactor.
He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his BA degree in 1860 and became MA in 1863. Admitted to the Inner Temple in 1859, Sandars was called to the Bar in 1863. [2] In July 1863 Sandars married Elizabeth Maria, eldest daughter of Francis William Russell, MP for Limerick. [3]
Sandars was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Library Association and a member of the Bibliographical Society. [1] He became JP for Buckinghamshire, and shortly before his death in 1894 High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire. [1]
From 1869 onwards Sandars donated rare books to Cambridge University Library; he bequeathed 1,460 printed books to the library on his death. [4] [5] He was also a benefactor to the Fitzwilliam Museum, [6] Great St Mary's Church and the Divinity School in Cambridge, [7] .
Sandars bequeathed £2000 to Cambridge University to endow the Sandars Readership in Bibliography for the delivery of one or more lectures annually on "Bibliography, Palaeography, Typography, Bookbinding, Book Illustration, the science of Books and Manuscripts and the Arts relating thereto." [8] A checklist of the Sandars Lectures from 1894 to 1983 by David McKitterick was published in 1983. [9]
Alan Noel Latimer Munby was an English librarian, bibliographical scholar and book collector. He is also remembered as the author of a volume of ghost stories written in the tradition of M. R. James.
John Waynflete Carter was an English writer, diplomat, bibliographer, book-collector, antiquarian bookseller and president of the Bibliographical Society in 1968. He was recognized as one of the most important figures in the Anglo-American book world. He was the great-grandson of Canon T. T. Carter
Sir Emery Walker FSA was an English engraver, photographer and printer. Walker took an active role in many organisations that were at the heart of the Arts and Crafts movement, including the Art Workers Guild, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.
Ronald Brunlees McKerrow, FBA was one of the leading bibliographers and Shakespeare scholars of the 20th century.
Fredson Thayer Bowers (1905–1991) was an American bibliographer and scholar of textual editing.
Howard Millar Nixon OBE was a British librarian and historian of bookbinding. He was a librarian at the British Museum then Librarian of Westminster Abbey from 1974 until his death.
Edward Gordon Duff, known as Gordon Duff, was a British bibliographer and librarian known for his works on early English printing.
Sir Harold Herbert Williams was an English scholar, priest, lawyer, politician, bibliophile, and expert on the works of Jonathan Swift.
George Thomas Tanselle is an American textual critic, bibliographer, and book collector, especially known for his work on Herman Melville. He was Vice President of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation from 1978 to 2006.
The Sandars Readership in Bibliography is an annual lecture series given at Cambridge University. Instituted in 1895 at the behest of Samuel Sandars of Trinity College (1837–1894), who left a £2000 bequest to the University, the series has continued to the present day. Together with the Panizzi Lectures at the British Library and the Lyell Lectures at Oxford University, it is considered one of the major British bibliographical lecture series.
The Lyell Readership in Bibliography is an endowed annual lecture series given at the University of Oxford. Instituted in 1952 by a bequest from the solicitor, book collector and bibliographer, James Patrick Ronaldson Lyell. After Lyell's death, Keeper of the Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, Richard William Hunt, writing of the Lyell bequest noted, "he was a self-taught bibliophile and scholar of extraordinary enthusiasm and discrimination, and one who deserves to be remembered not only by Oxford but by the whole bibliographical world."
Christopher Francis Rivers de Hamel is a British academic librarian and expert on mediaeval manuscripts. He is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and former Fellow Librarian of the Parker Library. His book Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts is the winner of the Duff Cooper Prize for 2016 and the Wolfson History Prize for 2017.
Philip Gaskell was a British bibliographer and librarian.
Nicolas John Barker is a British historian of printing and books. He was Head of Conservation at the British Library from 1976 to 1992.
David John McKitterick, is an English librarian and academic, who was Librarian and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile was a British librarian, and Secretary to the British Museum from 1926 to 1940.
David Fairweather Foxon, FBA was an English bibliographer. Noted for his study of books and literature in 18th-century England, he was the Reader in Textual Criticism at the University of Oxford from 1968 to 1982.
Donald Francis McKenzie, FBA was a New Zealand bibliographer and literary scholar. He was professor of bibliography and textual criticism at the University of Oxford from 1989 to 1996.
Paul Needham is an American academic librarian. From 1998 to 2020, he worked at the Scheide Library at Princeton University. A Guggenheim Fellow and Bibliographical Society Gold Medallist, Needham has delivered the Sandars Readership in Bibliography at the University of Cambridge, the A. S. W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Lyell Lectures at the University of Oxford. His focus is on incunabula, the earliest printed books in Europe.
Anthony Robert Alwyn Hobson, FBA was a British auctioneer and historian, specialising in the history of books.