Talk:Thomas Phillipps

Million of Facts
I don't know others consider this to be of note, but it appears that Phillipps is the author of "The Million of Facts", which was used as the central reference by Francis Galton when he was writing "Hereditary Talent and Character", which initiated the eugenics movement. As such, it has an interesting place in the history of human genetics, statistics, and eugenics.

108.203.48.183 (talk) 02:38, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * "A Million of Facts" (not "The Million of Facts") was by Richard (not Thomas) Phillips (not Phillipps). PeterKidd (talk) 10:06, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Two years 250 men and 125 wagons
This sounds off to me so lets do a Fermi calculation... Broadway Worcestershire to Cheltenham is 16 miles. If we assume a laden wagon moves at walking pace, that will be a five hour trip. Allowing for loading and unloading, a wagon might just do a return trip in a long working day, but it would be a big stretch. So we allow for no work on Sundays (strictly required in the 19th century) and rest periods for the cartiers and call it 3 return trips per week per wagon.

Then over 2 years, 125 wagons will make 39000 trips. If we say the capacity of a wagon is 500kg, that's 19500 tons they've moved. That's obviously vastly more than can be crammed into 16 rooms of an English country mansion unless each room is warehouse-sized. Given Phillips' actual collection of 40000 books and 60000 manuscripts, two or three wagons could easily move it in 2 years.Catsmeat (talk) 10:52, 1 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Another book, Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions by John F. Michell gives 8 months and better detail. Rasmussen quotes no sources, and is himself slightly mystified by this figure of two years. Rasmussen actually gives different figures, namely 175 men (half of them I imagine, were carter's boys) for 125 wagons each pulled by two horses.


 * Even so, let's do the sums the other way round: how many books per wagon? Now, I hate doing maths in public, but according to an estimate on this blog page, a hardback book measuring 8x6x2 inches weighs approx 1 lb 15 oz (approx 0.85 kg). Let's say one medium large hardback weighs about 1 kg; Volume I of my Shorter Oxford English Dictionary weighs about 2.2 kg. Obviously there were lots of smaller 32mo books which would reduce the number of loads. Very very approximately, therefore, 1,000 medium-large-ish books weigh one ton, so 40,000 books could weigh around 40 tons = 80 wagonloads by your estimate of ½ ton.


 * However, Rasmussen also says that Phillipps had constucted a huge number of wooden coffin-like containers with drop-down sides to protect the collection in case of fire, so that they could be taken out in a hurry. These were stacked four or five high throughout the house, which is shown in this photo. These would probably have to be taken into account, but that involves wood density and size of timber etc. I can't find much at all about the weight of old vellum or parchment MSS, so I'm ignoring the the 60,000 MSS...


 * BTW, Halliwell, his son-in-law, seems to have been a book thief who stole Phillipps' copy of Hamlet and sold it to the BM minus the page with his book stamp, and who also (horrendously) cut out bits of old books and pasted them into scrapbooks. No wonder Phillipps was an "accomplished hater". >MinorProphet (talk) 04:58, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Munby: Phillipps Studies, vol.IV, p.133: "The scale and progress of the removal of the library can be traced in an account book kept by William Phillipps, a small tenant-farmer, who was responsible for the cartage. Between 10 July 1863 and 18 March 1864 one hundred and three waggon-loads of books were transported, drawn by a total of two hundred and thirty horses and escorted by one hundred and sixty men". This is not the full total, however, as "William Phillipps opened his account with the statement that many loads had already been moved". PeterKidd (talk) 12:07, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

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Reconstructing the Phillipps Collection: Toby Burrows
Wikipedia flagged this as a self-published source. True, but seems legit. Any alternative source or discussion is welcome. Twospoonfuls (εἰπέ) 08:03, 19 December 2022 (UTC)