The Caird Library was opened in 1937 to the public in the Maritime Museum and was founded by Sir James Caird. The collection is comprised of rare books, charts, manuscripts, journals which cover everything from immigration, piracy, navigation, astronomy, voyages, naval architecture, merchant/royal navy, and geneological sources. Modern materials are considered anything after 1850 of which there are 100,000 items. There is over 4 miles of shelving in the archives. It is a publicly funded institution. There are 3-4,000 visitors every year when they are open 6 days a week. As there is renovation being done at the moment they are only open for 3 days during the week.
We were separated into two groups and I went with Martin to talk about the archives (manuscripts). We saw several fascinating materials including an atlas from 1696 written by a pirate on The Trinity which had all the hazards marked. He also had a book of signal codes from 1800 which had lead shot in the spine so that it would sink if the ship was captured. Unfortunately, the ship it was on was captured and the battle was so quick (15 minutes) that there was no time to pitch it overboard.
Hannah talked to us about rare books. She had a copy of Domestic Medicine from 1779 which was bound in sail cloth and taken by mutineers to Pitcairn Island. The most fascinating were the little books bound in wood which were different editions of the account of the loss of The Royal George.
The library has a blog (yay blogs!) located here.
For a bit of a laugh, here I am posing with a statue inside the National Maritime Museum.
Very nice pose! And that's a great link to the library blog- just be sure to remove the period at the end so it works correctly.
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