Bromhead Library

The Bromhead Library is a collection of books, broadsides, directories, pamphlets, newsbooks, prints, proclamations, maps and manuscripts primarily on the history of London, published from the 16th to the early 20th centuries. All aspects of London's past are encompassed: culture, economy, politics, society and topography. The Library comprehends all of London, and the City of London is strongly featured. Another subject covered by the collection is the settlement of Australia.

The collection amounts to between 4000 and 5000 items, amongst which there are over 100 maps, nearly 700 folio volumes, 200 prints and 15 manuscripts. The 17th century is particularly well represented with around 1250 items, including material on Lord Mayors' pageants and a remarkable number of Civil War pamphlets. There are an estimated 800 18th century items, including some unknown to the Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue at the time of online cataloguing (1996). From the 19th and early 20th centuries there are a substantial number of scholarly and popular monographs. Among the notable manuscripts is a c.1557 document illustrating Anne of Cleves' funeral procession.

The Bromhead Library was donated in 1964 by the executors of the estate of Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Claude Bromhead (1876-1963), one of the co-founders of Gaumont Cinemas. The manuscripts also include personal diaries of Colonel Bromhead, including an account of his visit to Russia during the First World War.

To search for items in the Bromhead Library it is necessary to check the card catalogue on the web as well as the main catalogue. The manuscript collection is catalogued as part of the archives catalogue.

Related collections within the Senate House Library: Goldsmiths Library of Economic Literature, the Sterling Library and the History Collection.

shl.specialcollections@london.ac.uk 020 7862 8470