Alfred Henry Huth

From a banking family, he followed his father Henry Huth's interest in book collecting, and helped found the Bibliographical Society of London.

Born in London on 14 January 1850, he was second son of Henry Huth and Augusta, third daughter of Frederick Westenholz of Waldenstein Castle in Austria.

When not quite 12, Huth was taken away, with an elder brother, from school at Carshalton, to travel in the Middle East under the care of Henry Thomas Buckle, the historian.

[1] By his will, Huth directed that on the sale of his collection the trustees of the British Museum should have the right of selecting 50 volumes from it; a catalogue of the books chosen was published in 1912.

The first portion of the library (A–B and Shakespeariana) when sold in November 1911 fetched £50,821, exclusive of the Shakespeares bought privately by Alexander Cochrane for presentation to Yale University.