Andrew Watson, F.S.A., F.R.Hist.S

Andrew George Watson, a former Vice-President of the Bibliographical Society and its Gold Medallist in 2001, died on 15 September 2017, aged 92. The son of George and Eleanor (Beattie) Watson, Andrew was a proud Scotsman born at Kingussie in the Highlands in 1924, where his father was a local bank manager for the Bank of Scotland. When he was seven, the family settled in the Borders at Kirkcudbright, where Andrew was educated at Kirkcudbright Academy. In 1942 he began an Arts degree at Edinburgh University but was called up the next year. Most of his time in the army was spent in North Africa, chiefly at Benghazi (known to the troops as Benghastly), where he served as a sergeant in the Royal Signals.

Demobilized in 1947, Andrew was accepted to read music at Lincoln College, Oxford, but on arrival there found that he had been selected to read English instead. He chose to study Course I, the medieval and philological option, to which he added a paper in Anglo-Saxon palaeography taught by the eminent palaeographer, Neil Ker (himself the Society's Gold Medallist in 1975). This option first kindled his life-long interest in the study of medieval books, and Andrew duly repaid the scholarly debt he owed to Ker when in later years with another of Ker's students, Malcolm Parkes, he edited a Festschrift for him, Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries (1978). Later still, he acted as Ker's literary executor, publishing a collection of his essays under the title, Books, Collectors, and Libraries: Studies in the Medieval Heritage (1985). He further edited a supplement to Ker's Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (1987) and provided indexes and addenda to another invaluable reference work, the final volume of Ker's Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, V (2002).

After graduating in 1950 Andrew worked for a time in the reference library of St Marylebone Public Library and in the Guildhall Library, before joining the staff of the School of Library, Archives and Information Studies (now Department of Information Studies) at University College London, where he remained throughout his career, eventually becoming its Director, 1984–90. There he introduced a course in palaeography and codicology for those students who wished to work with historical collections. While he did not neglect a practical approach to the subject, requiring students to transcribe facsimiles and setting questionnaires which, by requiring them to seek answers in the library, brought familiarity with essential reference works, he actively encouraged academic research. Among those who profited from his teaching are David McKitterick and Teresa Webber, themselves now distinguished scholars.

But Andrew's influence on the subject was felt beyond the immediate confines of UCL. It was at his suggestion that in 1977 the inter-collegiate London seminar in Palaeography was refounded after a lapse of ten years. Now known as the Medieval Manuscripts Seminar, this is still running successfully and attracts both national and international speakers.

Andrew's first publication focussed on a recently acquired manuscript in the British Museum Library, MS Egerton 3138, containing a list of manuscripts bought by the antiquary, Sir Simond D'Ewes, between 1623 and 1640, some of which came from John Dee's collection (The Library, V, 13 (1958), 194–98). A more detailed study, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, a revision of his Oxford BLitt thesis (1961), was published by the British Museum in 1966. Later still, with Julian Roberts, Andrew published John Dee's Library Catalogue (Bibliographical Society, 1990). Not only did Dee and D'Ewes attract his notice, but other less well-known individuals who also acquired medieval manuscripts in the aftermath of the dissolution of the monasteries and consequent despoliation of these libraries. By their activities, recognized by Andrew, they saved for future generations a substantial part of our literary and cultural heritage. His interest in early collectors was pursued in a series of articles on men such as Thomas Dackomb, a minor canon of Winchester, the Londoners Christopher and William Carye, Robert Green of Welby, Robert Hare, John Twyne of Canterbury, Sir Walter Cope...