A Catalogue of the Shaw-Hellier Collection in the Music Library, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, The University of Birmingham.(Review)

A Catalogue of the Shaw-Hellier Collection in the Music Library, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, The University of Birmingham. Compiled by Ian Ledsham. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 1999. [xxx, 385 p. ISBN 1-85928-386-1. [pound]52.50.]

In this era of gargantuan bibliographical databases and instant information provision, how comforting it is to be reminded of Shiyali Ramamvita Ranganathan's law that books are for use. The uses that readers make of books is widely acknowledged as a cornerstone of liberty and personal fulfillment, though the specifics of use are little understood. Far from being a vanity publication for the present owner of the collection (now, typically, a public institution), the catalog of an individual's collection allows us a glimpse into the thoughts and activities of our predecessors, while accomplishing the more prosaic goal of bibliographic control.

Sir Samuel Hellier (1738-1784) was the last of his family to reside at the estate of Wombourne Wodehouse, Worcestershire, some four miles from Wolverhampton, then in the county of Stafford. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, Hellier devoted his life to the management of his estate, the enjoyment of music, and the encouragement of music performance and appreciation among his estate employees, local villagers, and those living elsewhere in the midlands. John Rogers, the agent in charge of his estate, was responsible for ensuring that the workers received the instruments, music, and training necessary for them to bring off performances of festival Te Deums (by Henry Purcell or George Frideric Handel) and even Messiah. Doubtless, Rogers hired staff on the basis of "gardener wanted, tenor preferred." Perhaps it is he who prepared the serpent fingering manuscript (item 623). The 165 letters between Hellier and Rogers dating from 1763 to 1784 provide vivid details concerning the supply of music and instruments, th e musical suitability of employees, and Hellier's enthusiasm. (Passages are transcribed in Percy Young, "The Shaw-Hellier Collection," in Handel Collections and Their History, ed. Terence Best [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993], 158-70).

Ian Ledsham has provided a thorough list of the collection's 860 items (as he numbers them), both printed and manuscript, now housed at the music library in the Barber Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Birmingham. Not all the items derive directly from ...