Description of the attraction
The John Rylands Library is located in the center of Manchester in a beautiful neo-Gothic building. The library was opened in 1900 by Mrs. Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her late husband. Her husband John Rylands was a renowned British entrepreneur and philanthropist, owner of the United Kingdom's largest textile concern and Manchester's first multimillionaire.
The building was designed by the architect Basil Chempnis. Since the library was supposed to specialize in theological literature, the building resembles a Gothic church in many ways. Manchester was a major industrial city at the time, plagued by smog, smoke and air pollution. To protect the books from harmful substances, a very sophisticated ventilation system with water filters and electric fans was installed in the building, which was an advanced solution at that time. The library was illuminated not with gas lamps, but with electric ones. they do not pollute the air, give more light and are safer.
The core of the collection was made up of 40,000 volumes collected by George John Spencer and purchased from him. The rarest books are kept here: the first printed Bible of Gutenberg, a fragment of the earliest extant New Testament, a collection of papyri, the apocryphal gospel of Mary and many others.
In 1972, the John Rylands Library and the University of Manchester Library merged.
