RCB Library Notes06 Jul 11

New acquisitions at the RCB Library

The RCB Library, the repository for the Church’s written heritage, has recently acquired two important collections of papers, donated by Dr Alec Lyons. Dr Lyons, retired consultant psychiatrist and an active Council member of the Royal Dublin Society, is a parishioner of Gilford parish in the diocese of Dromore. An avid book collector and antiquary, he was keen to see a home for two collections that he had acquired from his father, the Revd Robert Nevin Lyons (1884-1961) who was a Reformed Presbyterian minister serving for many years in Grosvenor Road Presbyterian Church, and from whom Alec inherited his passion for collecting.

The first collection is a miscellaneous set of autograph letters and other ephemera, 1820-77, mostly from Church of England clergy, bishops as well as theologians connected with Cambridge University, addressed to the Revd Peter Charles Mellish Hoskin, a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge (BA in 1839 and MA in 1843), vicar of Whittlesford, Cambridge, 1845-62, who organised Bible Society meetings for clergy and academics connected with the Cambridge branch of the Cambridge British and Foreign Bible Society. One of these correspondents was the Revd Edward Wilmott Blyden, 1832-1912, better known as ‘Blyden of Liberia’, as a native of that country served as a Presbyterian minister and teacher of Classics in Liberia College, and was a positive advocate for pan-Africanism.

The second collection covers the often thorny issue of theological training for the Church of Ireland and specifically a proposed charter for a new Divinity Hall for Trinity College Dublin, in 1839, which was largely due to the effort and direct negotiation with government by Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin. Whately wished that divinity training for Church of Ireland clergy would become more independent of the university, and he desired that Church of Ireland ordinands might be trained separately from others reading divinity. This controversial proposal was opposed by staff of the existing School of Divinity and the powers that be in the University of Dublin, who wished to keep control of the teaching of divinity. Their efforts were successful, and a separate and modified Divinity Hostel was not in fact established until 1913.

In a series of seven letters (all of which are either addressed to, or in the hand of Lord John George Beresford, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland 1822-62) the basis of opposition to Whately’s proposals is revealed. This includes one particularly stern letter from C.R. Elington, Regius Professor of Divinity, as well as the views of two episcopal colleagues, the Samuel Kyle, bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, 1831-48, and Stephen Creagh Sandes, Bishop of Cashel, Emly, Waterford and Lismore, 1839-42, both of whom objected.

Through the mediation of Dr Mary Kelleher, formerly Librarian in the RDS Library, who connected Dr Lyons with the RCB Library, both collections were transferred last year to the RCB Library in Dublin, where they have been catalogued and are now available for public consultation.