The Richard Baxter Collection comprises three major components: Correspondence; Treatises and the Reliquiae Baxterianae.
The Richard Baxter Collection
This material is held atDr Williams's Library
- Reference
- GB 123 DWL/RB
- Dates of Creation
- 1615-1691
- Name of Creator
- Language of Material
- Greek English French Latin
- Physical Description
- Six volumes of Baxter letters (621 separate items). 31 volumes of the Baxter ‘Treatises’, the first seven of which contain 274 separate items. Fourteen slighter volumes contain 86 items which take the total of items in the Baxter Treatises to 362. Many of the items are subdivided and some are physically bulky.
Scope and Content
Access Information
An appointment must be made at least one week in advance to view manuscripts.
Other Finding Aids
See existing printed lists available at Dr. Williams's Library
Custodial History
The Baxter manuscripts as a whole became part of the library’s collection in the early eighteenth century, though the precise circumstances of their coming to the library are unclear. The nineteenth century cataloguer, William Henry Black (1808-72) , wrote of the gift of Matthew Sylvester and of the subsequent arrival of the Baxter manuscripts from such a named person to this library in 1733. Baxter’s executor, Matthew Sylvester, had died in 1707/8 (some eight years before Daniel Williams’s own death) yet his son was also named Matthew so it is probable that they came from him.
Accruals
As some materials described by previous custodians and editors of the collection are no longer present at the Dr. Williams' Library, discoveries may occur in related collections.