Historic Collection Destroyed
in Glasgow Fire
The Botany Departmental Library of the University of Glasgow, Scotland, was destroyed in a fire October 24 that resulted in £7 million ($10 million U.S.) in damage and the loss of a collection that contained valuable first editions by Charles Darwin and original manuscripts by 19th-century British botanists. The cause of the fire is not yet known.
The blaze broke out around 1:30 in the afternoon on the third floor of the Bower building, which also housed the Biomedical and Life Sciences Department and one of Britain’s earliest biological laboratories.
Department Dean John Coggins said in the October 25 Scotsman that the books and manuscripts were prized because they once belonged to pioneering botanist Sir Joseph Hooker (1817–1911), a friend of Darwin; and Frederick Orpen Bower (1855–1948), the chair of the botany department after whom the building was named. “Although we may have duplicates of these in the university’s library,” he said, “it is tragic that we have lost the originals.”
University officials announced that the building, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in June, will retain its historic façade, but the interior will be rebuilt.
Posted October 29, 2001.
|
