Thomas Burgess Tracts

The Tract Collection includes 51 pamphlets from the library of Thomas Burgess, Bishop of St Davids (1803-25), later Bishop of Salisbury (1825-37), and Founder of St David's College, Lampeter (1822).

In addition to being its Founder, Burgess was one of the principal founders of its library. Even before Lampeter was chosen as the location for his new foundation, he had secured gifts of about 4000 books from friends and well-wishers following an appeal in 1807. In addition to donations during his lifetime, he bequeathed the whole of his library in 1837.

Burgess' library was primarily a working collection, built up over a lifetime devoted to the study of Classics, literature, history, antiquities, and above all theology. Many of his books are annotated, particularly classical texts and theological polemic. He had been a formidably gifted student of Greek at Winchester and Oxford and maintained a life-long interest in erudite points of text-criticism and philology. Beside biblical studies and patristics, his theological preoccupations centred on his controversies with Rome, especially, later on, the issue of Catholic Emancipation, as well as Unitarianism - a 'problem' (as he saw it) rife in his own diocese of St Davids.

His pamphlets are mainly of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, though there are two volumes from the period of the Popish Plot and others of the reign of James II and VII. Most of the pamphlets take the form of sermons and theological polemics, and learned controversies (such as that between Richard Bentley and Conyers Middleton) are also represented.

Bibliography/Furtherreading.

ACatalogue of the Tract Collection of Saint David's University College, Lampeter[compiled by B.Ll.James] (London: Mansell, 1975).

Introduction,pp. xiii-xix.

GwynWalters, 'The Library of Thomas Burgess (1756-1837)', The Book Collector,

Vol. 43.3(1994), 351-375.

Pamphletvolumes of Burgess provenance

Tractvolumes 54, 117, 210, 214, 288, 353, 384, 460, 499, 538, 553, 576, 578, 603,619, 623, 679, 691, 704, 712-714, 719-721, 731, 738, 743, 758-761, 767-768,777, 782, 785-786, 788, 791, 793, 796, 800, 802, 804, 806, 814, 816, 818, 821,824.