ABSTRACT
The King's library was followed by some important, if much smaller, collections which enhanced the Museum's importance and helped towards the more truly national position which the Library was now beginning to attain, both in fact and in the public estimation. In 1827 the Museum's county topographical collections, already rich, were increased by Adam Wolley's bequest of his charters and other Derbyshire MSS., and in the next year by that of Thomas Kerrich's of architectural drawings, including many by James Essex. The reading room in consequence experienced the same congestion as the shelving. Then the department of manuscripts was enabled to occupy the rooms, which properly belonged to it, the two Eastern rooms of the North wing being by this time ready to serve as reading rooms, which they did till the opening of the present reading room in the quadrangle in 1857.
