Anne James on an exhibition that pays homage to one of city’s greats

This exhibition has been mounted to coincide with 300th anniversary of John Radcliffe’s death. It explores Radcliffe’s life and the substantial legacy that he left the nation and Oxford in particular. Radcliffe never married and on his death he left legacies to his two sisters and his nephews, some money to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, but the undoubted main beneficiary of his estate was Oxford and its university. Here he left money to build and stock a library, initially know as the Radcliffe Library and latterly becoming the Radcliffe Camera with a separate science library, an observatory, now part of Green College and the Radcliffe Infirmary.

In addition to this colossal legacy, he also established a sizable charitable trust which gave its trustees the power to do “as they in their discretion, shall think best”. The Radcliffe Trust is still at work today, its current programme considerably helped by a subsequent endowment that boosted its income considerably, when in the 1970s agricultural holdings that Radcliffe had bought during his lifetime were sold to build the new town of Milton Keynes.

The trust has used these monies to support and promote the arts, and in particular music. Its sponsorship includes academic musical research, high-standard youth groups such as the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and music for and with adults and children with special needs.

The exhibition includes information on the trust’s work and the opportunity to hear some of the music it has spon-sored. The trust is also sponsoring part of a series of talks and demonstrations running throughout the exhibition. On show are three spectacular artworks created thanks to sponsorship by the trust. One, Spiritus Centrepiece, is a large silver spiral by Theresa Nguyen. Inspired by the rich undulation of seaweeds off the coast of Orkney, its remarkable sinuous and continuous surface is wide in parts, slim and cylindrical in others, which captures an extraordinary sense of movement, created by the use of complex traditional silver smithing techniques.

The story of Radcliffe’s rise to fame and fortune is told through a series of well constructed dis-plays, that include original documents, books and artefacts, each accompanied by a helpful legend. There is a prescrip-tion written in Radcliffe’s own almost indecipher-able medical hand, and signed with a flourish: a bold JR. There are his pocket book almanacs, one listing patients and fees received, another dispensing good advice for each month of the year. Also included are the arrangements for, the newspaper reports of and the bill for Radcliffe’s funeral: a staggering £570.15s, equivalent to well over £100,000 today.

It was two years before his death that Radcliffe began to explore the idea of founding a library. Although unsigned, the designs have been unanimously attributed to Nicholas Hawksmoor whose elegant pen and ink elevations bearing testament to his vision and his superb eye for detail. After his death the building was completed by James Gibb, whose 1747 engraving of the library is shown above.

Radcliffe intended the library to refl-ect his interest in the arts and culture as well as the sciences. So, for example, the library possesses a substantial Hebrew collection: an exquisite illumin-ated Hebrew Bible is included in the exhibition. The first librarian Frances Wise did his utmost to discourage read-ers. Correspondence in the exhibition shows that when Wise padlocked the library’s door, this enraged the Vice Chancellor who ordered the padlock’s removal and in a letter to Wise descr-ibes the act as a “ strange and unprovo-ked insult upon me and the whole university”. However, the letters also show that Wise promptly reinstated the padlock, causing the Vice Chancellor to go to the library and break the padlock open himself. Wise stuck to his guns and four years later was still writing that it would be better for readers to go to the Bodleian as it was in need of readers and visitors, of which he clearly felt his library had no need!

The exhibition has been beautifully curated by Stephen Hebron and it provides a scholarly expose of a remarkable man: John Radcliffe. His appreciation and investment in art, culture, medicine and science: the former testified to by the bill of sale for the contents of his house, upon his death and the latter by his medical and scientific books and letters.

Remembering Radcliffe: 300 years of science and philanthropy
Bodleian Library, Oxford
January 5 until March 20