Recycled ephemera in the Bodleian Library

'What can be done to treat the background of our English civilization with the same care we treat the ancient?'

In the early 1930s, the famous Bodleian Library in Oxford was having a crisis of space. Its Broad Street premises wasn’t built yet, and its collection was ever-increasing. 

First opened to scholars in 1602, the Bodleian is a legal deposit library with a commitment to preserve its collection in perpetuity. But in 1938 it agreed a new clause to its statute to begin eliminating ‘materials of no literary or artistic value or of an ephemeral nature’. 

Luckily for future historians, researchers, and ephemera fans, Oxford was also home to John Johnson.  

Johnson (1882-1956) was a papyrologist (an expert on papyrus and ancient writings on papyrus) who’d spent many years “digging the rubbish-mounds of Graeco-Roman cities in Egypt for the written materials – the waste paper – of those ages”.

It was during this time that he began to wonder “what could be done to treat the background of our own English civilization with the same minute care with which we scholars were treating the ancient?”. 

Ill health led to a career change – into the printing profession – and the time and space to indulge his wonderings and begin collecting ephemera. Unlike others, Johnson didn’t focus on one topic or type of material, he collected everything, to “illustrate at one and the same time the historical development of our social life and the development of printing”. 

And thanks to his friendship with Bodleian sub-librarian, Strickland Gibson, Johnson took on the care of many of the ephemeral items ‘eliminated’ by the library in the 1930s and 40s. 

A handbill, estimated to be from 1795, announcing the opportunity to see a live elephant. Admission was one shilling, or sixpence for ‘servants &c’. Image courtesy of the Bodleian Library, (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 DEED).

A trade card for Philip W Nix, a watch and clock maker with many other talents, too, estimated to date from 1880-1890. Image courtesy of the Bodleian Library, (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 DEED).

A playbill for Drury Lane Theatre’s production of Macbeth on 29 September 1795. Image courtesy of the Bodleian Library, (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 DEED).

A game entitled ‘The solar system’, dating from 1830. The comets and planets appear to have been hand coloured. Image courtesy of the Bodleian Library, (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 DEED).

An advertisement for ‘The Mermaid!’ being exhibited at the Turf Coffee-house, 39 St James's Street, in 1822. Image courtesy of the Bodleian Library, (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 DEED).

A used writing blank entitled ‘The origin of the days of the week as deriv'd from ye planets formerly worship'd on those days’ completed by George Phillips, Christmas 1768. He writes of the virtues of busyness and good books. Image courtesy of the Bodleian Library, (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 DEED).

A writing blank celebrating the coronation of King William IV and Queen Adelaide at Westminster Abbey on 8 September 1831. Image courtesy of the Bodleian Library, (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 DEED).

Skip to May 1968 and Johnson’s 1.5million-item collection – which is divided into 1,000 subject categories – was donated to the Bodleian Library. 

The John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera is one of the largest, and considered one of the most important, collections in the world. 

And within it, you’ll find multiple items that feature a ‘cancelled’ Bodleian Library stamp from when they were victims of space saving efforts 80-odd years ago.