George Thorn-Drury

George Thorn-Drury KC (1860-1931) was an English barrister and literary scholar.

Life

Thorn-Drury was born in 1860, the eldest son of George John Drury of Canterbury,[1] an ironfounder.[2] In 1879 he matriculated at Worcester College, Oxford, later becoming an Honorary Fellow of the college.[3][4]

Having been admitted as a student to the Inner Temple in 1880, Thorn-Drury was called to the Bar in 1885.[2] He was appointed KC in 1913 and elected Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple in 1921.[4] Thorn-Drury held the office of Recorder of Dover from 1920 until his death.[5]

Literary scholarship

A scholar in the literature of the Caroline and Restoration periods and a specialist in minor Restoration poets, Thorn-Drury produced authoritative editions of the works of Edmund Waller (in 1893) and Thomas Randolph (in 1929) and collated several anthologies of miscellaneous verse.[6] Under the initials 'G. T. D.' he penned entries for the Dictionary of National Biography on writers such as James Mab, Thomas Meriton, Katherine Philips, John Quarles, Thomas Mayne Reid and Henry Reynolds.[7]

Collections

Over many years of study Thorn-Drury built up a significant library of 17th- and early 18th-century literature, which after his death was auctioned at Sotheby's between 1931 and 1932.[8]

In 1931 the Bodleian Library purchased around 70 volumes from Thorn-Drury's library, mostly late-17th-century English poetical texts as well as reference works. All of these are heavily annotated by Thorn-Drury himself, and many are grangerised and indexed.[9] Additional material, including notes, transcripts and miscellaneous papers, were acquired in 1947 and 1952.[10][11] Altogether the Bodleian's collection represents the unpublished portion of Thorn-Drury's life work and preserves a significant quantity of bibliographical information on the poetical writers of the Restoration and of earlier and slightly later periods.[12]

Songbooks from Thorn-Drury's library were bought by Walter Harding; these in turn arrived at the Bodleian in 1975 within Harding's vast bequest to the library on his death in 1973.[12]

References
  1. Foster, Joseph (1887). "Drury, George Thorn". Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886. 1. London: Joseph Foster. p. 389.
  2. Foster, Joseph (1885). "Drury, George Thorn". Men-at-the-Bar (2nd ed.). London: Reeves and Turner. p. 130.
  3. "Drury, George Thorn-, (1860-14 Jan. 1931), KC 1913; Recorder of Dover since 1920". Who's Who & Who Was Who. 1 December 2017. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U208792 – via Oxford University Press.
  4. "OBITUARY: Mr. G. Thorn Drury". The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959). 16 January 1931. p. 4.
  5. "Death: George Thorn-Drury". The Times. 16 January 1931.
  6. Beal, Peter (2010). "Thorn-Drury, George". In Suarez, Michael F., S.J.; Woudhuysen, H. R. (eds.). The Oxford Companion to the Book. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198606536.
  7. "Author: George Thorn-Drury". Wikisource. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  8. Thorn-Drury, George (1931–1932). Catalogue of the very extensive and well-known library of English poetry, drama and other literature, principally of the XVII and early XVIII centuries. London: Sotheby & Co.
  9. Craster, Herbert Henry Edmund (1952). History of the Bodleian Library, 1845-1945. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 277.
  10. Clapinson, Mary; Rogers, T.D. (1991). Summary Catalogue of Post-Medieval Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford: Acquisitions 1916-1975. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press. nos. 43727-47.
  11. "Collection: Papers of George Thorn-Drury | Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts". archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-12-14.
  12. "Rare Books Named Collection Descriptions". Bodleian Libraries. July 2009.
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