Companion
Fanny Sharman Huckett bookplate (RYL/2/4)
Fanny Sharman Huckett (1858-1928) was Enriqueta's personal companion. She was intimately involved in Enriqueta's family life and in her philanthropic and collecting activities.
Fanny and her sister Lucy (who married the Manchester musician Walter Beer) were recorded in the 1901 census as Rylands’s ‘adopted nieces’. Their brother Walter later worked for Enriqueta as a personal secretary. Fanny Huckett was one of the main beneficiaries of her will.
After Enriqueta’s death, Fanny lived for a time at Fairholme, Torquay. She commissioned a bookplate in 1925, which represents The John Rylands Library and a pile of books from Rylands’s private library at Longford Hall. Fanny died suddenly in 1928 at Gstaad, Switzerland. Her memorial is next to the Rylands memorial in Manchester's Southern Cemetery.
I quite realise and believe that you had a direct message from Mrs Rylands, for I always think that the spirits of those who have left us are very much nearer to us than we imagine
Fanny Sharman Huckett
A testament to the close relationship enjoyed by Fanny and Enriqueta is the design of Fanny Huckett's personal bookplate- a sketch of The John Rylands Library and various books and manuscripts from Enriqueta's private library.
In this letter to Henry Guppy, the Rylands librarian, Fanny commends the donations made by the Library to Leuven Library. The library at Leuven was destroyed in World War I and she notes that Enriqueta would have approved.
Fanny later wrote to Guppy: "I quite realise and believe that you had a direct message from Mrs Rylands, for I always think that the spirits of those who have left us are very much nearer to us than we imagine".
Fanny Huckett gave to the Library the bronze maquette of the marble statue of Enriqueta by John Cassidy. Most of the books and paintings she inherited from Rylands passed to her nephew, Lucy's son Adolphus Beer.
After Fanny Huckett died in 1928, her nephew Adolphus wrote to Henry Guppy that her important role in the founding of the Library should be remembered.