Finding the evidence
Plan of Longford Park Estate (RYL/2/5/3)
Enriqueta kept her private life to herself, despite her growing fame. In her last will and testament she asked her sister Leocadia and her friend Fanny Huckett to examine her papers and destroy those they thought “ought not to be preserved”. Fortunately, she requested that any papers about The John Rylands Library be kept and sent to the Library. These surviving papers contain many clues about her life.
The Library holds other documents which can tell us about Enriqueta’s life. These include letters, photographs, account books, newspaper cuttings, and wills. Other evidence of her life survives in libraries, record offices and monuments around the world. For example, her birth certificate remains in Cuba and her mother’s grave can be found in Paris.
On this page you can see examples of the types of evidence we can use to piece together the story of Enriqueta’s life. The exhibits include legal documents, letters, newspaper articles and books. They come from different archives and collections which are held in the Library.
She did not like life in the eye of the world
Henry Guppy, ‘In Memoriam. Mrs Enriqueta Augustina Rylands’. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 1, no. 6 (1908), p. 358.
After Enriqueta died in 1908, many obituaries were published in the local and national press. They provide an outline of Enriqueta’s life, but few personal details.
Click on the arrows to cycle through the cuttings. View a demonstration.
Enriqueta’s will tells us much about her family life, her charitable concerns, and her artistic and cultural interests. Despite extensive gifts to charity during her lifetime, Enriqueta left more than three million pounds. This would be over £300 million in today’s money.
Amy Wilson was the matron of Corston House in the Isle of Wight, a rest home for ministers established by John and Enriqueta in the 1880s.
Enriqueta kept bundles of letters from her book agent, J. Arnold Green. In this letter Arnold apologises to Enriqueta for his “apparent rudeness at the Albert Hall” when he did not call on her. He also remarks on a pet dog she had found.
I am glad you have at last found a pet dog to satisfy you. It must be a beautiful little animal.
John and Enriqueta Rylands made their Manchester home at Longford Hall in Stretford. This map is from a volume recording properties owned by John and Enriqueta Rylands in Manchester, London, Torquay, Buxton, the Isle of Wight, Rome, and South Africa.