H John Symons and the Wellcome Institute and Library

The following is an interim description which may change when detailed cataloguing takes place in future:

Papers of H John Symons on the Wellcome Museum, Library and Institute and history; they mainly include correspondence with former staff, research notes for his work on the history of the library, and copies of obituaries of former staff.

1960s-2005

4 transfer boxes

2005

John Symons (1943-2009) was a librarian at the Wellcome Library for over forty years. He studied at St. Johns College Oxford reading Literae Humaniores graduating in 1966. After working for a year at the library in University College London he qualified as a librarian in 1968, and he then took up the post of cataloguing the early books at the Wellcome Library. In 1982 he became Chief Cataloguer and then in 1988 the Curator of Early Printed Books. He worked on producing a printed catalogue of the Wellcome Library early book collections for most of his career, the first volume being printed in 1966 and the last in 2006, as well as compiling a history of the library in The Wellcome Insitute for the History of Medicine: A Short History in 1993. John took early retirement in 2005.

This collection is currently uncatalogued and cannot be ordered online. Requests to view uncatalogued material are considered on a case by case basis. Please contact collections@wellcomecollection.org for more details.