Spotlight on the collection: Political Economy

The latest section to be added to the Portico's online catalogue is Political Economy, and one of the treasures unearthed is The Gilbart prize essay on the adaptation of recent discoveries and inventions in science and art to the purpose of practical banking [Kl 25], by Granville Sharp, an accountant in the East of England Bank, at Norwich. 

The prize winning essay was originally published in Banker’s Magazine, winning a £100 prize. Applicants were asked to write an essay or pamphlet based on the Industrial Exhibition of 1851. Also known as the “Crystal Palace Exhibition”, the fair was prompted by the great success of the French Industrial Exhibition on 1844, the first in a series of popular 19^th century World Fairs, displaying industry and culture with a particular focus on new manufactured products. World expositions of this period were often focused towards industry and trade, making Sharp’s reflections applicable not only to banking but “to any and all large commercial establishment [...] this essay should be read with interest by every employer and employee connected with business and trade” – Daily News.

This volume is the third edition of the essay - the only illustrated publication, containing numerous plates, including cheque specimens, bank notes, and patent plans, as well as 15 remarkable wax seals mounted on the back pastedown of the book, as shown below.

 For  access to the Library's online catalogue visit http://www.theportico.org.uk/library/catalogue. 

Treasures of Travel - April Exhibition

The Portico Library presents an exhibition in celebration of the commencement of its Retrospective Cataloguing project.  The Voyages and Travels section is truly a demonstration of the travel habits, both for exploration and leisure, of the 19th century society which the Library represents and this exhibition highlights the treasures of this section.

Lyons McLeod (frontispiece portrait of the author) from

Travels in Eastern Africa; with the narrative of a residence in Mozambique

London: Hurst and Blackett, 1860 (Me 45-1)

Voyages and Travels is classified under the letter ‘M’ and contains 2088 titles within 2747 volumes.  The works range from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and cover travel and voyages to all parts of the world. The collection encompasses military, adventure, diplomacy, leisure and exploratory travel and works by women travellers are a highlight.

Constance Gordon-Cumming (frontispiece portrait of the author) from

Wanderings in China

London and Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1886 (My 231-2)

The exhibition opens today and will run until the 30th April. The Gallery is open to members and the public Monday to Friday, 9.30 - 4.30 and has late night openings to 7.30 pm on Thursdays.  Entry is free.

Sidy. Hafsan, Late Bey of Tripoli (frontispiece portrait) from

Narrative of a ten year's residence at Tripoli in Africa...

by Richard Tully, London: Henry Colburn, 1816 (Mz 35)

Retrospective Cataloguing

The Library has intended, for many years, to initiate the cataloguing of the collection on an online database.  There have been a few non-starters and there has certainly been a great deal of work by a number of people to finally get to this point now, where we have catalogued 3,700 of our approximately 25,000 volumes. We are working clockwise around the Library and have completed Voyages and Travels, Fine Arts, and Local History and have begun work on the Poetry and Drama.

The Library currently works off of a card catalogue, which, though effective, harbours some inaccuracies. Using Heritage Library Management System to create an online catalogue has allowed us to realize where books have gone missing, discover volumes that we did not know we had, and better appreciate the breadth and variety of the collection.  You may have noticed a number of empty shelves on recent visits to the library; an added bonus of the catalogue project is that we have been able to re-shelve the collection more efficiently, creating extra space and allowing for maintenance and repair of the shelves kindly carried out by our Chairman, Edward Thorp. 

Our cataloguer is able to catalogue approximately 30 volumes a day – people have asked why it takes so long!  The catalogue record for each volume contains basic bibliographic information such as author, title, and publication data, but we are going further than this to include information that will be useful both to the library and its members, and to researchers and general users.  Additional information that we note includes condition and binding of the volumes for future conservation projects and Adopt-A-Book activities; instances of marginalia (readers’ handwritten notes and comments); any unique details about the specific volume; details on maps, illustrations, frontispieces, plates and photographs and those responsible for them; dates of admittance to the Library; donations; sponsorship for conservation; general layout and description of the book; classification details; series titles and editors and related works.

Once the catalogue is online users will have the option of browsing by subject area or searching by keyword, author, title, etc.  As such, it is also an important aspect of the catalogue that we assign appropriate keywords and subjects to each volume to ensure that anyone searching the catalogue on a particular topic will be presented with all relevant book results.  We are also customising the keywords so that users are provided with alternate synonyms by which to search, for example: when a search for ‘student’ turns up the system will recommend the user to also search for ‘pupil’.  The catalogue should be available for online search within the next 4 months and will look like this:

Keep an eye on the website as we will be including and updating a ‘Catalogue’ page where you can find more immediate information on our progress and, once we go live, a direct link to the catalogue itself! If you would like more information on the Catalogue please contact Taylor Bishop at the catalogue desk, by phone (0161-236 6785) or email at catalogue@theportico.org.uk

Cataloguing Fine Arts

Our Fine Arts section is relatively small with approximately 346 titles out of 462 volumes, yet the breadth of what our 19th -century antecedents considered to be the Fine Art is substantial, including Hunting, Fishing, Music, The Art of War, Field Sports, Cricket, Nursing, Interior Decoration, and of course, the ‘true’ Fine Arts.  This section contains an (almost) complete Badminton Library series covering numerous sports and games and a full set of John Stevenson’s (1818) A selection of Irish melodies, with symphonies and accompaniments, comprised of lyrics and leaves of musical scores and "harmonised airs". Another interesting work is Charles Eastlake's (1868) Hints on household taste in furniture, upholstery and other details with its 19th century coloured wallpaper samples!  The Fine Arts also contains a first edition Florence Nightingale Notes on nursing: what it is, and what it is not and Henry Augustus Dillon's two volume (1811) A commentary on the military establishments and defence of the British Empire. Needless to say, the Fine Arts section is certainly varied and cataloguing it perhaps took longer than necessary due to the inherent distraction in looking through old books! It is one of the sections to which we add supplementary volumes more regularly.  We have also managed, through a bit of rearranging, to fit all of the Fine Arts section back into the window bays which are, as designated in gold lettering, for the Fine Arts.

Cataloguing Local History

Work on our new (ish) online catalogue is progressing steadily.  Though we are not yet 'live' with the catalogue, behind the scenes we have catalogued 3614 volumes of our approximately 25,000 and have completed the 'Voyages and Travels' and 'Fine Arts' sections. 

We are currently working on our specially dedicated 'Local History' section which we are moving to a more prominent position in the Library as we go - it can now be found next to the 'Fine Arts' at the front of the Library. 



Our Local History Collection ranges from Memorials of St. Ann's Church, Manchester by Charles Wareing Bardsley, 1877 to Criminal and Miscellaneous Statistical Returns of the Manchester Police: for the year ended the 29th September, 1880 by the Watch Committee of the City of Manchester, 1880 to a number of more recent publications including a variety of pictoral works on Manchester by Chris Makepeace. We even have The Manchester Cookery Book compiled by the Cookery Staff of the Municipal Training College of Domestic Economy, 1937 full of recipes!

From architecture to chess, crime to art, the breadth of our Manchester and Greater Manchester History Collection is exciting, and we still don't know the extent to which more volumes are hidden throughout the Library!