For the aristocracy and the gentry the English country house was the proof of social status. Often palatial in scale these great houses were decorated with extraordinary collections of art and antiquities. Many also had great libraries. For outsiders wishing to join this elite a country house was a must and in this lecture Shane Carmody will tell the stories of Baron Ferdinand Rothschild; Huttleston Rogers, First Baron Fairhaven; and Sir Paul Getty, the libraries they created and some of the extraordinary books that they contain.
SHANE CARMODY is a historian with a great love of Libraries and Archives. He has worked for the National Archives as State Director for Victoria, the State Library of Victoria as Director Collections and Access and is currently at the University of Melbourne Library as Senior Development Manager.
He is widely published on the history of Libraries and collections. Shane has managed major international exhibitions including The Medieval Imagination: Illuminated Manuscripts from Cambridge, Australia and New Zealand (State Library of Victoria 2008) and Love and Devotion: From Persia and beyond (State Library of Victoria 2012). Each year he leads a tour of the Great Libraries of England with Australians Studying Abroad.
Image:The Library at Anglesey Abbey, image supplied and used with permission
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