Edward Augustus Bond
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Sir Edward Augustus Bond (born December 31, 1815 in Hanwell , † January 2, 1898 in Bayswater, London ) was an English librarian, historian and paleographer . He was the chief librarian of the British Museum .
Bond was the son of a pastor and director of a private school and attended the Merchant Taylors School in London from 1830. In 1833 he became an assistant in the Public Record Office , where he acquired a thorough knowledge of medieval manuscripts, and in 1838 an assistant in the manuscripts department of the British Museum, where he was promoted by its director Frederic Madden . In 1850 he became Egerton Librarian , 1854 Assistant Keeper ( replacing John Holmes) and 1866 Keeper in the manuscripts department as successor to Frederick Madden. Even as Assistant Keeper, he had an expanded role, as Madden did not get along well with the library manager Anthony Panizzi . In 1878 he became chief librarian (Principal Librarian) to succeed John Winter Jones after Charles Thomas Newton had turned down the post. In 1888 he went into retirement.
He reformed the organization of the manuscript collection, took care of its cataloging with precise descriptions of the manuscripts and increased the efficiency of the department's publications. Under his direction, the extension of the museum's White Wing was completed and the separation from the Natural History Museum was completed.
With Edward Maunde Thompson he founded the Palaeographical Society in 1873 .
In 1883, Bond took care of the acquisition of the Stowe Manuscript Collection, a collection of around 2000 Irish, Anglo-Saxon and medieval manuscripts owned by the Duke of Buckingham and named after his country estate, Stowe House .
He received an honorary doctorate (LLB) from Cambridge, was accepted as a Companion in the Order of the Bath in 1885 and knighted as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1898 .
He edited several volumes of Anglo-Saxon legal documents (Anglo-saxon charters) and the speeches in the trial of Warren Hastings (4 volumes 1859-1861). He was at the forefront of the controversy over the dating of the Utrecht Psalter . He edited the Chronica Monasterii de Melsa for the Rolls Series (1858) and 1856 travelogues by Englishmen in Russia in the 16th century for the Hakluyt Society ( Giles Fletcher 's Russe Commonwealth and Sir Jerome Horsey ' s Travels in Russia ).
In 1847 he married Caroline Frances Barham, daughter of Richard Harris Barham (author of the Ingoldsby Legends), with whom he had five daughters.
literature
- Richard Garnett: Edward Augustus Bond . In: Dictionary of National Biography , Online
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bond, Edward Augustus |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British librarian and paleographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 31, 1815 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hanwell |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 2, 1898 |
| Place of death | London |