Isobel Mitchell (fl1667)

'Henderson's Donations Book' (EUA IN1/ADS/LIB/2/Da.1.31) detailing gift from Isobel Mitchell

Wife of the City Treasurer, Edinburgh

Little is known about Isobel Mitchell and she would have disappeared completely from the pages of history had she not been generously inclined. The wife of John Scott, a merchant and Treasurer to the City of Edinburgh in the mid-17th century, she became the first female donor to the University Library, donating 26 books, including a Hebrew Bible printed in Amsterdam in 1657. Thomas Craufurd, a Regent in the College 1626-1662 and the first historian of the University, describes her donation:

There is a gift in this Library of one Mrs Scott to the value of 30 lib. the more esteemed because it is from a worthy matron and lover of learning, a good example to all others of her sex

In the Librarian’s list of 'Books presented to the College Library' for 1671, Isobel Mitchell is quoted as:

a pious and virtuous matron at the time of her decease which was upon the 19th of October 1667. There was left as a token of her great love to the flourishing of piety and Good Learning the sum of a hundred merks scots which was not only well and honestly paid by her husband John Scott, merchant burgess of Edinburgh and late Treasurer thereof after her death but also most generously and freely in compliance with the foresaid design he augmented the said sum to sixteen pounds sterling wherewith was bought these books.

Twenty-six books, 'gilded and filletted with gold', were purchased by Mr William Henderson, the Librarian of the day, and were installed 'under a gold inscription' in the Library on 15th April 1671, possibly under a bust, or at least the name, of the Earl of Hopetoun who was a benefactor. 'All these are new books, well bound and printed cum notis variorum.' [with diverse notes].

In those days the benefactors were treated with a rather grand display and their names even publicly declaimed:

All the Benefactors names are inserted in the books of the Town-Council and in the register of the Library; and are also drawn in golden letters upon several places in the walls of the Library, together with their several donations; and also at the time of the public commencement, which is once every year, they are recited viva voce. ....God bless all our noble patrons the Good Town of Edinburgh and all our benefactors with all prosperity. Amen.

Acknowledgements

Adapted from text kindly supplied by Fiona Morrison-Graham

All or some of the text on this page originally appeared in the Gallery of Benefactors

• Books donated by Isobel Mitchell
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