Inner Temple Library

The Inner Temple Library is a private law library in Central London, England, serving barristers, judges, and students on the Bar Vocational Course. Its parent body is the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, one of the four Inns of Court.

Its law collections cover the legal systems of the British Isles (England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) and also Commonwealth countries. There are, in addition, extensive non-law collections covering such subjects as history, topography, biography and heraldry, and an important collection of legal and historical manuscripts.

History

See also: Inner Temple

The Library is first mentioned in 1440,, p. 234, Taylor & Francis, 1948, MacKinnon, Sir Frank Douglas, accessed 25 November 2009 then in the Inn’s records in 1506. The Library refused to accept John Selden's manuscripts in 1654, most likely because the size of the collection would have necessitated a new building, but it has been described as "the greatest loss which the Library of the Inner Temple ever sustained". One building burned down in the Great Fire of 1666, and in 1678 another was blown up to stop a fire from spreading in the Temple. In 1707 the Inner Temple was offered the Petyt Manuscripts (William...
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