The Congregational Library - UK

27/08/2026

Boxes, boxes, and more boxes ... ooh, and enquiries, unpacking, and heat 🥵: all this and more in August's Congregational Library update! https://conglib.ac.uk/congregational-library-update-august-2026/

17/07/2026

Our librarian is doing a bit of research into the oldest book we have on the open shelves: a copy of Ludovicus Bologninus's "Decretalium domini pape Gregorii noni" from 1505 (CL 131.6.8 ). On the title page we have a couple of manicules (WE LOVE MANICULES) and the inscription of a former owner, which we think is as follows:

"Me possident Thomas Yale Domus Coll: Reginae ii

Anno 1548"

If we are correct, this book probably belonged to Thomas Yale, Chancellor and Vicar General to the Archbishop of Canterbury and one of the people responsible for Elizabeth I's education as a girl (see his Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Yale_(chancellor) #). He was closely associated with Queens' College, Cambridge, hence the "Coll: Reginae".

But why the "ii" at the end? We understand some book owners wrote "ii" to denote a second copy of a book. So we are now on a mission to try and work out whether Thomas Yale might have owned more than one copy of this work.

We have contacted Queens' College Library and will be doing some further digging. We will keep you posted on what we find!

16/07/2026

For those wondering about the desk situation... I won

(Also: it's grey)

16/07/2026

Boords, boards, and [very old] books: we skipped June by accident, but here is July's monthly update for the Congregational Library! Also includes a little run-down of the LondonRareBooks 2026; more on that to follow in a future blog post. https://conglib.ac.uk/congregational-library-update-june-july-2026/

(pic CL 131.1.5)

16/07/2026

Feeling a little bit snowed under with mess! Operation "Find Out What Colour My Desk Actually Is" has therefore begun...

09/07/2026

If you're in the Bedford area this summer, come and see the new exhibition at the John Bunyan Museum behind Bunyan Meeting Church: "Howard 300", celebrating the life of the prison reformer John Howard. Running 6 August to 5 September.

Our wonderful neighbours at the Panacea Museum invited us into their temporary exhibition space to share the story of John Bunyan and Bunyan Meeting. 

09/07/2026

All Things New: a history of New College, London, 1850-1977 has just been published, edited by Clyde Binfield and Robert Pope - currently available from the publisher Shaun Tyas, and from Abe Books.

09/07/2026

Sometime in the 17th century George Thickness drew a bird, sorry, a boord in his parents' copy of Thomas Harrison's "The soule's vocation, or effectual calling to Christ" (1638). (CL 129.3.13)

21/05/2026

Nineteenth-century marbled bindings, a hand-coloured eighteenth-century frontispiece, and a tiny bat (not a real one!): only a few of the beautiful books we've unpacked this month. Read more at https://conglib.ac.uk/congregational-library-update-may-2026/

06/05/2026

Dr Livingstone, I presume...

(and it is!)

(CL 117.4.5)