History of the collections

The RCM Library has existed since the College’s foundation in 1883, its rich collections built up from a variety of sources, by gift and purchase. Most importantly, the Library of the Sacred Harmonic Society was purchased for the College by public subscription in 1883. Soon after, Queen Victoria presented the library of the Concert of Ancient Music, in 1990 the library of the Musical Union was transferred from the Victoria & Albert Museum, then duplicates were received from the British Museum and material donated by the Library of Congress. Since those early days, the library has benefited from continuing gifts of early printed music, manuscripts and more modern repertoire, literature and recordings and has developed collections of materials for research, loan and listening. The wide range of special collections held by the Library are listed in the Catalogues page of this website.

Shortly after the second world war the College’s manuscripts, including important autograph works by Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, were loaned to the British Museum, while the C.S. Terry and Heron-Allen collections were loaned to the Faculty of Music in Oxford. All these collections returned to the College in 1961.

The reference and loan collections were separately organised until 1985 when the Parry Room Library and Wolfson Lending Library were brought together in refurbished premises in the College’s main building.