Queens' College : Queens' College Donors’ Book

Queens' College

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Begun in 1631, the Donors’ Book was used primarily to record seventeenth-century bequests. However, it also contains the College’s early book donations going back to 1562, some of them from Queens’ members such as <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(5);return false;'>Sir Thomas Smith (1513—77)</a> and <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(23);return false;'>John Smith (1618—52)</a>, and others from figures otherwise not known to have had links with the College such as <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(41);return false;'>Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623—73)</a>. The final entry was made in 1820.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The book reveals not only the College’s desire to acknowledge the generosity of its donors, but also its aspiration to record the history and ongoing development of its prestigious library. Created in an age when books were expensive and the library was a hugely significant college asset, the Donors’ Book sheds invaluable light on the intellectual, political and religious networks of which the College was a part.</p>