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Lord Beaverbrook Rare Books Collection

The Beaverbrook Collection of Rare Books (HIL-SPECBC) was formed between the late 1940s and early 1960s through acquisitions by Lord Beaverbrook during his tenure as Chancellor of UNB. With over 1,700 rare books, this collection includes first, autographed, and special editions, books about Lord Beaverbrook, miniature volumes, Bible commentaries, sermons, theological treatises by Calvin and Knox, and early Canadiana. Beaverbrook donated some titles directly from his own personal library at his estate in Cherkley Court, England, such as the first editions of Dickens and the theological treatises by Calvin and Knox.1 A few books were donated by prominent figures in Beaverbrook’s circle.2  

Lord Beaverbrook, born William Maxwell Aitken, grew up in Newcastle, New Brunswick, made his wealth in securities trading at the turn of the 20th century, and immigrated to England where he pursued a successful political career during both World Wars and became a newspaper baron. In the late 1940s, he turned his focus to philanthropic work in New Brunswick and at UNB. The period between 1948-1951 was a time of intense library collections expansion; Beaverbrook funded the purchase of tens of thousands of books, manuscripts, and a new wing of UNB Library, re-named the Bonar Law-Bennett Library.3 These developments were a result of Beaverbrook’s professional relationship and friendship with Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey—the first History Professor at UNB and head of History (1938-69), an Honorary Librarian (1946-59), and Dean of Arts (1946-64). Bailey was on a mission to build expertise and develop scholarship in New Brunswick history, literature, and culture at UNB; this required research materials able to support serious academic work.4 Beaverbrook believed in the significance of Bailey’s mission and wanted to support it.5 Capitalizing on Beaverbrook’s generosity, Bailey and his staff established the direction of purchasing for the collections, articulated over many letters with book requests.6

Examples of first editions in this collection from the more prominent English and American authors include William Harrison Ainsworth, Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells, George Borrow, Charlotte Brontë, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, George Elliot, John Galsworthy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Paine, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alfred Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, and Mark Twain. Autographed titles include 26 books written and autographed by Winston Churchill and books autographed by Edward VIII, Robert Browning, Queen Victoria, John Kennedy, Harry Truman, David Low, Beverly Baxter, Arthur Koestler, and Aldous Huxley. The collection also contains miniature volumes of literary classics, such as Homer, Horace, Tasso, Terence, Virgil, Moliere, Petrarch, and Shakespeare. 

Included in the collection are three private libraries of Prime Ministers who were associates of Beaverbrook and whose private libraries (and papers, in the cases of Bennett and Bonar Law) Beaverbrook obtained for UNB. There are over 200 titles from R. B. Bennett’s library (Prime Minister of Canada, 1930-35), over 160 titles from Andrew Bonar Law’s library (Prime Minister of the UK, 1922-23), and over 60 titles from David Lloyd George’s library (Prime Minister of UK, 1916-22).

Another highlight of the collection is its Canadiana, with almost 300 items covering subjects such as exploration and travel literature, and early histories of British colonies and New Brunswick from the 17th to the 20th century. This portion of the Beaverbrook Collection of Rare Books is where Bailey and his staff had the most acquisition input.7

Approximately 750 books in this collection arrived at UNB during the period between 1948-1951.8 Bailey and his staff used catalogues from publishers, other libraries, and second hand and rare book dealers of both Canada and Great Britain to compile request lists of books and sent these to Beaverbrook for his staff to find and purchase.9 The rare books were originally housed in glassed-in shelves in the Beaverbrook Reading Room of the Bonar Law-Bennet Library and Bailey hired a succession of staff specifically for the Beaverbrook Collections, such as Moira Thompson, Audrey MacLaren, and Judith Waterson.10 Although a catalogue of the Beaverbrook Rare Book Collection was contemplated by Beaverbrook, with printing quotes provided by Michael Wardell, Bailey dissuaded him from this venture by suggesting saving the funds for other potential projects, such as an updated version of MacFarlane’s 1895 New Brunswick Bibliography: The Books and Writers of the Province.11

Related materials: Beaverbrook Fonds [UA RG 145; MG H 156], A. G. Bailey Fonds [UA RG 80]

  • 1A. G. Bailey, “History of the UNB Library to 1959” (N.d. [1981]), 20. Transcript. Bailey Fonds, MG H1, MS 4.7.1.7. UNB A≻ Barbara Murray, Report of the Beaverbrook Recreational Reading Room, Sept 1958-59, UA RG 80 A. G. Bailey Fonds, Series 6 Library, Case 52, File 2. UNB A&SC.
  • 2A. G. Bailey. “Lord Beaverbrook in New Brunswick: Reminiscences of Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey” (1975), 11. Transcript. MG H 1, Box 16, MS.4.7.1 3-422-23. UNB A&SC.
  • 3Bailey, “History of the UNB Library to 1959,” 18; Bailey, “Lord Beaverbrook in New Brunswick,” 20. Bailey writes that the library collections grew from approximately 15,000 to 80,000 volumes.
  • 4Bailey, “History of the UNB Library to 1959,” 18-20; Anthony Tremblay, The Fiddlehead Moment: Pioneering an Alternative Canadian Modernism in New Brunswick (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2019), 41-96; Anthony Tremblay, “Mid-Century Emergent Modernism, 1935-1955,” New Brunswick at the Crossroads: Literary Ferment and Social Change in the East (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurie University Press, 2017), 103.
  • 5Bailey, “Lord Beaverbrook in New Brunswick,” 11.
  • 6UA RG 80 A. G. Bailey Fonds, Series 6: Library, Case 52; Series 10: Beaverbrook correspondence (Cases 45-49); UA RG 145 William Maxwell Aitken Fonds, Series 4 Miscellaneous 1946-1959, Box 10 Beaverbrook Collection; MG H 156 William Maxwell Aitken Fonds, Cases 120-124; Bailey, “History of the UNB Library to 1959,” 18-21. UNB A&SC.
  • 7Moira Thompson to Lord Beaverbrook letter, UA RG 80, Series 10 Beaverbrook Correspondence, Case 45, File 4, A. G. Bailey Fonds, (July 20, 1951). UNB A&SC.
  • 8Moira Thompson to Lord Beaverbrook letter, UA RG 80, Series 10 Beaverbrook Correspondence, Case 45, File 4, A. G. Bailey Fonds, (July 9, 1951). UNB A&SC.
  • 9Bailey, “History of the UNB Library to 1959,” 18.
  • 10Bailey, “History of the UNB Library to 1959,” 17.
  • 11Lord Beaverbrook to A. G. Bailey letter, UA RG 80, Series 10 Beaverbrook Correspondence, Case 46, File 4, G. Bailey Fonds, (December 31, 1951); A. G. Bailey to Lord Beaverbrook letter, (January 23, 1953). UNB A&SC.