Librarian
In 1798, through his friend John Price, Ellis was appointed one of the two assistants in the Bodleian Library, the other being his future colleague in the British Museum Henry Hervey Baber. He took the degree of B.C.L. in 1802. He was a Fellow of St John's till 1805. In 1800 he was appointed a temporary assistant in the library of the British Museum, and in 1805 he became assistant-keeper of printed books under William Beloe. The theft of prints which cost Beloe his appointment in the following year raised Ellis to the headship of the department, and Baber became his assistant.
Ellis's promotion coincided with a period of increased activity at the museum. The printed catalogue of the library was at that time comprised in two folio volumes, full of inaccuracies, but provided with a manuscript supplement, and to a considerable extent revised and corrected in manuscript by Beloe's predecessor Samuel Harper. Ellis and Baber commenced their work of reconstruction in March 1807, and completed it in December 1819. Ellis had meanwhile been moved to the manuscripts department (1812), accepted (1814) the then almost sinecure office of secretary to the museum, and in the same year became secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of London. During the forty years for which he held the post, he only missed two meetings. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May, 1811.
In 1827 Joseph Planta, the principal librarian, died, and Ellis, who had for nine years taken on much of his duties, expected to succeed him. When two names for the vacancy were submitted to the Crown, Henry Fynes Clinton, a protégé of Archbishop Charles Manners-Sutton, was placed before Ellis. Ellis intrigued successfully for the post, it is said by pursuing the carriage of the royal physician, Sir William Knighton, and enlisting his good offices with the king. He was appointed on 20 December 1827. In 1832 he was made a Knight of Hanover, an honour which he shared with John Herschel, Frederic Madden, and others; and he was knighted in 1833.
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Famous quotes containing the word librarian:
“In early days, I tried not to give librarians any trouble, which was where I made my primary mistake. Librarians like to be given trouble; they exist for it, they are geared to it. For the location of a mislaid volume, an uncatalogued item, your good librarian has a ferret’s nose. Give her a scent and she jumps the leash, her eye bright with battle.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)