Possibly the books presented to the Library from
1608 to 1656 were simply allowed to accumulate in the Library rooms,
without any regulations in regard to their use and safe-keeping. That
the books were sadly neglected is very evident from a codicil to the will
dated September 18th, 1655, of John Carter, Rector of St. Laurence's
Church, Norwich, giving to the Library "divers books, etc." He revoked
his bequest by the following codicil, and "instead thereof gave 5 pounds
to each of the three united parishes of St. Laurence, St. Swithin, and
St. Margaret, for a stock of coals for ever": "nowe seeinge (to my no
small grief) that that library is locked up, ministers shut out of it,
and that it is never like to be of publique use againe, but that the
books are devoted to the wormes, dust, and rotteness, to the dishonour of
God, the damage of the ministry, and the wrong of the benefactors, the
dead, and the living, &c." {5b}
[Picture: Autographs of early members of the City Library 2]
By 1656, the year of Carter's death, the Assembly had evidently realised
the necessity for making regulations for the use of the Library, and had
drawn them up before the 16th January in that year, when it was "ordered
that the Articles moved touching the ordering of the Library be
continued.
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