> Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2013 20:39:08 +0100
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Mendham Collection - post-sale round-up
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> As foreshadowed in our last post on this subject (of 29 May 2013), the Law Society of England and Wales commenced its break-up of the Mendham Collection today, with a sale of 142 lots at Sotheby’s in London.
>
> The auction had become inevitable following:
>
> 1) The Society’s failure to accept the University of Kent’s offer to purchase the entire collection, notwithstanding the Society’s stated willingness in principle to accept less than the market value of the collection
>
> 2) The failure of the University of Kent’s legal challenges, via the Charity Commission and the Attorney General, to establish whether the collection was held as a charitable trust, which would have precluded the Society from selling it
>
> 3) The failure of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund to offer funding towards the purchase of the collection
>
> 4) The decision of King’s College London not to seek an injunction against the sale on the basis that, back in 1869, it had been the donor’s second choice as recipient of the collection, in the event that the Society declined the offer and the conditions on which that offer had been made – the College’s potential “locus standi” had been identified in a reply from solicitor and property lawyer Michael Hall to a comment on his blog on 31 May 2013 at:
>
> http://michaeljameshall.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/sale-of-the-mendham-collection/
>
> 5) The Society’s dismissal of all appeals (made from various legal, ethical, heritage, scholarly, and public interest perspectives) to keep the collection together, including – latterly – a fair number of appeals from members of the Society
>
> At the eleventh hour, after a period in which it did not respond to press enquiries, the Society ended its silence by speaking to Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent of THE GUARDIAN, which published a widely redistributed story about the sale in its online edition on 3 June 2013. See:
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/03/law-society-mendham-collection-auction
>
> Bowcott’s article highlighted the financial challenges facing the Society as a driver for the sale of the collection, including the fact that the number of registered solicitors on the Society’s roll fell in 2012 for the first time in more than two decades. The Society, however, preferred to speak in terms of the need to bolster its capital reserves in the face of cuts in legal aid.
>
> The Society has given somewhat different explanations for the sale in other contexts, including the need to raise money to support the costs of the Society’s own library, which it is refocusing as a practitioner service.
>
> Against this background, we can now consider the outcome of the auction, which can be studied in more detail through the annotated, post-sale version of the Sotheby’s e-catalogue at:
>
> http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/the-mendham-collection-l13409/lots.list.0.html
>
> Of the 142 printed and manuscript lots on offer, 36 did not sell, with an aggregate upper estimate of £368,700 (of which lot 15, a six-volume polyglot Bible of 1514-17, alone represented £100,000), and 106 were sold, with an aggregate hammer price (with buyer’s premium) of £1,180,875 (52% above the aggregate upper estimate of £775,200). The sold lots evenly divided into those which, including buyer’s premium, exceeded the upper estimate and those which did not.
>
> The three most expensive items sold were:
>
> Lot 64 – £116,500 – Thomas Martin’s 1554 treatise on the marriage of priests, with extensive manuscript notes in the hand of John Ponet
>
> Lot 104 – £86,500 – a Sarum Missal of 1510
>
> Lot 36 – £68,500 – an illuminated manuscript book of hours of the mid-fifteenth century
>
> It is, of course, too soon to know whether any of these items have been bought by UK public institutions, and thereby saved for the nation. There has been some talk recently of a boycott of the sale, such was the strength of feeling of many professional librarians and archivists that, setting aside the contested legal situation, the Society certainly did not occupy moral high ground in its decision to dismember the collection. In fact, several UK institutions were known to be bidding today, although it would be surprising if some of the choicer items did not end up abroad.
>
> It remains unclear what will happen next. The collection is now effectively in three parts: a) lots which were offered for sale today but which failed to find a buyer, and which are with Sotheby’s; b) other items removed by Sotheby’s from Canterbury Cathedral last July, with a view to sale, and which are presumably still with Sotheby’s; c) the substantial "rump" of the collection which remains at Canterbury, at least pending the expiry of the loan agreement with the Society on 31 December 2013.
>
> Even at this late stage, it is to be hoped that the Society will wish to reflect on the damage which it has done to the national heritage and scholarship, as well as on the many criticisms which it has brought upon itself (including from some of its own members), and will call a halt to any further dispersals from the collection. A belated gesture of magnanimity on the Society’s part would not be amiss.
>
>
> Dr Clive D Field, OBE
> email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> webpage: http://clivedfield.wordpress.com/
>
> ########################################################################
>
> To unsubscribe from the RELIGIOUS-ARCHIVES-GROUP list, click the following link:
> &*TICKET_URL(RELIGIOUS-ARCHIVES-GROUP,SIGNOFF);