Lambeth Palace Library

Apologies for any inconvenience caused!

⛄️The countdown to Christmas has officially begun! ⛄️

🎄Last week, our staff had a wonderful time decorating the Christmas Tree to get us in the festive mood!🎄

#CountdownToChristmas #LambethPalaceLibrary

#NationalIllustrationDay #ArchbishopBenson #RareBooks #LambethPalaceLibrary

[Gerald Eversley's Friendship, BNS 12p110]

This particular copy belonged to E.F. Benson (one of Archbishop Benson's six children) and has been interleaved and used as an album. It features 50 lively cartoons in pencil, crayon, ink and watercolour, most likely created by the 3 Benson brothers.

This hand-drawn illustration comes from Gerald Eversley's Friendship: A Study in Real Life (1895), a public school novel by J.E.C. Welldon, 1895.

Today is National Illustration Day!

CDs are on sale for £15 plus packing and postage. All proceeds from CD sales will be donated to the Friends of Lambeth Palace Library 📚

Look what has arrived at the Library 👀

Physical copies of the 2 disc CD set are available to pre-order by emailing LPLStaff@churchofengland.org, official release is next Friday, 28 November and will be available on Spotify, Apple Music, and other major digital platforms 💿

open.spotify.com/album/6REf2r...

✨Introducing the world premiere recording of seven choral works from the Arundel Choirbook, one of the most significant collections of English polyphony from the early 16th century.

The full album will be available 28th November but you can listen to a single now on Spotify ✨

At Lambeth Palace Library we are celebrating National Corduroy Day in style!

Why today? It’s the date that most closely resembles the corded pattern, 11/11.

#CorduroyDay #LambethPalaceLibrary

#RemembranceDay #LambethPalaceLibrary

[Davidson v.22, 22]

This is a list of relatives & friends of members of Archbishop Davidson's household who were serving, had been wounded, were missing, or had fallen during the First World War.

It includes William Munday, a footman at Lambeth Palace, killed in 1917.

A long exposure photo of the front of Lambeth Palace Library.

📢 Invitation to tender: we are inviting tenders for a consultancy to advise on the replacement of our current collections management system for archives and manuscripts.

Deadline for applications:

Closing date: 23:00, Thursday 27th November 2025

www.lambethpalacelibrary.info/about-lambet...

The noted astronomer Tycho Brahe died #OnThisDay in 1601.

Here is a biography of Brahe by another astronomer and philosopher, Pierre Gassendi, who also died #OnThisDay in 1655.

[VB41 1.01]

#LambethPalaceLibrary #History #Manuscript #Brahe

#LambethPalaceLibrary #BHM #BettyCudjoe #Archives #BlackHistoryMonth

We can choose to think of Betty’s life amongst this discourse over property and religion. In this moment we can think of Betty preparing for her marriage, as a shining moment, and the joy she would have had in choosing to spend her life with her husband. It is a small act of resistance.

The attorneys insisted the banns should not go ahead because of property rights, Luckcock insisted they should on religious rights. Betty’s own experiences do not matter to these men. We don’t even know if she got married in the end.

But, he asserts that marriage of an enslaved person does not confer civil rights which would clash with the enslaver’s rights. For Luckcock, and others, Christianity was compatible with enslavement but the plantation system should not interfere with Christian rights.

Betty is in the archive because Revd Benjamin Luckcock published the marriage banns stating that he cannot prevent that Christian rite, and he acts with the authority of the Bishop of London.

This statement shows the controls on enslaved people but also shows that the dominant power structure felt threatened by ordinary acts of Black people. Enslavement required tight control and was used as a tool of oppression.

‘such marriages if allowed will in their immediate effects be injurious to the Estates the slaves so marrying belong to and threaten eventually to destroy the rights of the lawful owners of slaves by their intermarrying particularly with Free Persons’

The plantation attorneys objected to Betty marrying a free man or anyone not from the same plantation as her under the grounds that:

Betty was 48 years old. Finding out her age at The National Archives was surprising. As a woman with some years behind her, perhaps it makes sense that she was ready to act in defiance to the norms of the plantation.

Betty is found in the historical record in 1828 because she wanted to get married whilst she was also enslaved. She and her betrothed, William Harris, lived in Montserrat, he was a free Black man but Betty was enslaved on Farrels plantation.

Call for papers for @eccleshistsoc.bsky.social's upcoming Winter meeting!

Further information on our upcoming Careers Open Day on Thursday 30 October!

Book your space here 👇
www.lambethpalacelibrary.info/event/lambet...

This flyleaf comes with real flies!

This early 18th century book has four flies preserved between the paste-down and the flyleaf.

We wonder how they got there!

[Sion A61.4/Ex1]

#LambethPalaceLibrary #RareBooks #Flyleaf #SionCollege