The 6th Randolph Vigne Memorial Lecture, 2023

Smuggling, Stealing, Selling & Shooting the books of Dr Élie Bouhéreau

A public lecture by

Dr Jason McElligott, Director of Marsh’s Library in Dublin.

Image: A book from 1662 damaged by machine-gun fire in 1916.

The important personal library of the Huguenot refugee Élie Bouhéreau arrived in Dublin in 1697. Visitors to Marsh’s Library are often told that the personal collection of our first Keeper survives intact in its original form on the shelves. This is not quite true. Certainly, over 2,200 volumes remain in the room in which they were originally placed when the library first opened to the public. Yet, perhaps as much as 10% of the original collection has gone missing through a mixture of theft, war damage, and a sale of ‘duplicates’ in 1833. This talk will examine what is missing from Dr. Bouhéreau’s library and what these lost items tell us about the nature and scope of the original collection.

Time & date: 6.00 pm on Tuesday 14 November 2023

Location: The Medical Society of London, Lettsom House, Chandos Street, London W1G 9EB.

Randolph Vigne (1928-2016) was a very courageous anti-Apartheid activist in South Africa, as well as a scholar of Huguenot history. This is the 6th annual memorial lecture organised in his honour by the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

Free entry.

All welcome.