FAIRHURST PAPERS

The Fairhurst Papers concern the history of the Church of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were kept in the Archbishop of Canterbury's study at Lambeth Palace until the Civil War when they were removed for safety by John Selden. A list of them and of other papers was made in 1633-4 and is now preserved in Bodleian Library MS. Tanner 88, ff. 20-60. Part of the collection removed from Lambeth by Selden was subsequently deposited by him in the library of Lincoln's Inn, but the remainder passed with other papers into the hands of his executors on his death in 1654. For an account of the dispersal of Selden's library see D. M. Barratt, The Library of John Selden (Bodleian Library Record, 1951). The papers remained unknown to scholars, except the Nonjuror George Harbin, until the late 1930s when they were found by Mr. James Fairhurst. Those removed from Lambeth were then temporarily deposited in the library of St. Paul's cathedral, but were sold at Sotheby's in 1963, and were then and subsequently purchased by Lambeth Palace Library. They are Sotheby's catalogues 10 June 1963, items 161, 163, and 15 October 1963, items 493, 495-6, 498-500, 502-13, 515-17, 520-2, 524-8. Items 516 and 525 (MS. 2019) were purchased with assistance from the Friends of Lambeth Palace Library. Item 161 is now Estates Document ED 2068, and is described in J. E. Sayers, Estate documents at Lambeth Palace Library, 1965, 30-1.

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See E.G.W. Bill, A catalogue of manuscripts in Lambeth Palace Library. MSS. 1907-2340 (Oxford, 1976), pp. ix-xi, for the acquisition of the Fairhurst papers (MSS 2000-2019) by the Library.

Microfilm: Lambeth Palace Library MS Film 200-203

Micropublication of the Fairhurst Papers available from Primary Source Microfilm (Gale Cengage):

Reels 8-11 of 'unpublished Records of the Church of England from Lambeth Palace Library'

MSS 3470-3533, 4267-4269, 4270-77

See additional information on this manuscript in LR/L/13A