King's Library

[4] On becoming king he quickly began assembling a new collection of mainly scholarly works, the project beginning in earnest in 1762–1763 with the purchase of the library of Joseph Smith.

The collection was notable for its 260 incunabula, including many early Venetian and north Italian volumes with fine illumination and bindings.

A particularly important period was 1768–1771, when Frederick Augusta Barnard, one of the library staff, travelled extensively in Europe on the king's behalf, and made major purchases.

[2] Important acquisitions later came from the libraries of James West, Anthony Askew, Richard Farmer and Grimur Jonsson Thorkelin as each of these came on the market.

It seems unlikely that Dalton had any major influence over the way the collection was to develop, but that Barnard played a central role, for instance making many, or perhaps most, of the decisions about what books to buy.

[4] The library was open to anyone with a genuine scholarly purpose, and in George's lifetime was visited by John Adams and Joseph Priestley as well as Johnson.

[7] These issues were resolved in January 1823 when, after a period of negotiation with the government, George IV wrote to Prime Minister Lord Liverpool offering the library to the nation.

[7] By giving away the library, the king was able to avoid the expense of its upkeep (over £2,000 per year) at a time of financial difficulty and also facilitate the redevelopment of Buckingham Palace, a project of great importance to him.

[8] Within months Parliament had agreed that the British Museum was to be the collection's new home, although some newspapers and public figures still argued for the establishment of a new library to house the books in a different part of London.

While the government had for some time resisted the museum's requests for money for this project, the need to provide a fitting home for the library meant that it now agreed to fund the building work.

Furthermore, many of the King's Library's strengths, such as geography, theology and Spanish and Italian literature, were areas which so far had been rather poorly represented among the museum's books.

George IV also kept back two manuscripts: one by Samuel Johnson, containing plans for projected books, and a copy of the Vedas in Sanskrit, made in Benares in 1776.

This percentage declined as the museum's book collection grew in subsequent decades, but the King's Library remained well-used.

[2] Towards the end of the First World War, an increased number of air raids led the museum to move the most valuable books out of London, many going to the National Library of Wales.

[9] Historians agree that George III intended the library to be a comprehensive resource for scholars, rather than a collection of rare volumes or fine bindings.