Francis Douce ( ; 175730 March 1834) was a British antiquary and museum curator.

Biography

Douce was born in London. His father was a clerk in Chancery. After completing his education he entered his father's office, but soon quit it to devote himself to the study of antiquities. He became a prominent member of the Society of Antiquaries, and from 1799 to 1811 served as Keeper of Manuscripts in the British Museum, but was compelled to resign owing to a quarrel with one of the trustees.

In 1807 he published his Illustrations of Shakespeare and Ancient Manners (2 vols. 8vo), which contained some curious information, along with a great deal of trifling criticism and mistaken interpretation. An unfavourable notice of the work in The Edinburgh Review greatly irritated the author, and made him unwilling to venture any further publications. He contributed, however, a considerable number of papers to the Archaeologia and The Gentleman's Magazine. In 1833 he published a Dissertation on the various Designs of the Dance of Death, the substance of which had appeared forty years before.

In 1807 the British Museum recruited him to the Department of Manuscripts, where in the same year he succeeded Robert Nares as Keeper. His relationship with the museum was uneasy from the start, so that after only five years' service he resigned in 1811.

In 1823 he received a bequest of £50,000 from the estate of the sculptor Joseph Nollekens, which enabled him to buy the finest printed books and manuscripts that came on to the market.

He died on 30 March 1834.

Reasons for resignation

In 1811 Douce resigned from the British Museum citing a series of reasons that have become legendary in institutional circles. The letter is preserved in the Bodleian Library.

His list of complaints runs as follows:

  1. The Nature of the constitution of the M[useum] altogether objectionable.
  2. The coldness, even danger, in the frequenting the great house in winter.
  3. The vastness of the business remaining to be done & continually flowing in.
  4. The total impossibility of my individual efforts, limited, restrained & controlled as they are, to do any real, or at least much, good.
  5. An apparent, & I believe real, system of espionage throughout the place & certainly a want of due respect towards and confidence in the officers.
  6. The total absence of all aid in my department.
  7. The apartments I reside in are dangerously cold in winter & like an oven in summer. The whole damp, especially the lower room where my books are in great jeopardy & which I never entered, even in summer time, without being sensibly affected with some kind of pain or unpleasant sensation.
  8. The general unwholesomeness of the air from sinks, drains, the ill-contrived & filthy water closet; & most of all the large & excessively cold bed chamber with an opening to the back kitchen & all its damp & cellar like smells.
  9. The want of society with the members, their habits wholly different & their manners far from fascinating & sometimes repulsive.
  10. The want of power to do any good, & the difficulty to make the motley & often trifling committees sensible that they could do any.
  11. The general pride & affected consequence of these committees.
  12. Their assumption of power, that I think not vested in them.
  13. The fiddle faddle requisition of incessant reports, the greatest part of which can inform them of nothing, or, when they do, of what they are generally incapable of understanding or fairly judging of.

Collection

Douce collected a vast array of manuscripts and books, and formed an extensive library containing numerous manuscripts and printed books. Through his collection, Douce wished to illustrate the manners, customs, and beliefs of people throughout the ages and it is particularly strong in history, biography, antiquities, manners, customs, the fine arts, travel, archaeology, witchcraft, the ‘Dance of Death’, and in foreign books. Although his collection spans a number of different languages, it has particular strengths in English literature, especially Shakespeare, illuminated Books of Hours, and French romances. A catalogue of his manuscripts and printed books was published in 1840 by Henry Octavius Coxe, and later supplemented by entries in the Summary Catalogue.

Douce bequeathed over 19,000 volumes of printed books to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, including 479 incunabula (15 of which are items printed by Caxton); Bibles; Books of Common Prayer; Psalters; early-printed editions of medieval romances; editions of novels and tales, including 17th and 18th century French fiction; original and early editions of 17th and 18th century English drama; a collection of poems, songs, and ballads; almanacs and prognostications from the 17th and 18th centuries; sale catalogues; books in fine bindings; and a Chinese collection which although small, contains several rarities. In addition, the Bodleian also holds 420 of Douce's manuscripts (two thirds of which are medieval or 16th century, including Books of Hours, French romances and early English literature, all notable for their illustrations), as well as Douce's correspondence and a series of notebooks. The collection also contained 27,000 prints, 1,500 drawings, and a hoard of medals and coins which were relocated to the Ashmolean Museum, also in Oxford; only those prints belonging to, or closely connected with books as distinct from pure art, were retained in the Bodleian.