Detail View: Rylands Collection:

Image Number: 
JRL21040635
Reference Number: 
VOB.18
Parent Work Title: 
Fragments from the ashes of the University of Leuven (Louvain) Library
Date Created: 
c1914
Description: 
Cardboard box with hinged lid; written on the lid in black and red ink: ‘Bibliotheca Lovaniensis Irata Germaniae Feritate In Coneres Redacta. Amica Sollicitudine Henry Guppy Resvrgit.’ [Destruction of the library due to German violence, and due to the friend Henry Guppy, a resurgence…] Inside the box the charred remains of printed document. The inside lid of the box has the inscription: ‘Picked up from amongst the ruins of the University of Louvain in October 1914 by De Vocht’. [Professor Henri De Vocht, 1879-1962]. The University of Leuven (Louvain) Library was destroyed on the night of 25 August 1914. The university library was burnt to the ground; around three hundred thousand books and a thousand manuscripts were destroyed. Henry Guppy, the Librarian of the John Rylands Library, spearheaded the campaign to collect books for Leuven. By the end of 1915 some 6,000 volumes had been collected or promised. When the appeal closed in 1925, 55,782 volumes had been donated. Sadly, Guppy’s and others’ efforts were in vain: the library was destroyed for a second time by German forces in 1940.
Category of Material: 
Visual
Sub-Category: 
Objects
Time Period Covered: 
20th Century CE
Places Covered: 
Belgium: Flanders: Vlaams-Brabant: Leuven
People Covered: 
Guppy, Henry, 1861-1948
Item Height: 
205 mm
Item Width: 
145 mm
Current Repository: 
The University of Manchester Library, U.K.
Rights Holder - Image: 
The University of Manchester Library
Rights holder - Work: 
The University of Manchester Library
Access Rights: 
Creative Commons License
Date Captured (yyyy-mm-dd): 
2021-04-20
Image Creation Technique: 
Digital capture by The University of Manchester Library
Date Image Added (yyyy-mm): 
2021-05
Metadata Language: 
eng-GB
Collection Code: 
Rylands