Edward Nicholson

Edward Williams Byron Nicholson (16 March 1849 – 17 March 1912) was a British author and Bodley's Librarian. He was the head of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, from 1882 until his death in 1912. Nicholson was also an early advocate of animal rights.

Early life and career Nicholson was born in St. Helier, Jersey. His father, a former member of the Royal Navy, participated in the California Gold Rush and died in America, leaving Nicholson's mother in poverty. She moved back to her mother's house in Llanrwst, north Wales. Nicholson was educated at Llanrwst Grammar School, Liverpool College (for one term) and Tonbridge School. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford, from 1867, initially reading classics before obtaining a third-class degree in Law and Modern History in 1871. During his time at Oxford, he won the Gaisford Prize for Greek Verse in 1871 and the Hall-Houghton Junior Greek Testament Prize in 1872. After spending some time teaching, he became Principal Librarian and Superintendent of the London Institution in 1873. He reinvigorated the organisation, which promoted education through lectures and a library, and helped to increase its activities, membership and income, as well as the quality of its library. An international conference of librarians was held in London in 1877, largely through his work, leading with his help to the foundation of the Library Association of the United Kingdom. He was a council member until 1881, when he resigned complaining that the council had failed to instigate "one single improvement however trifling in library-management or library-appliances".

Animal rights

Nicholson was an early advocate of animal rights. He argued in his book, The Rights of an Animal (1879) that animals have the same natural right to life and liberty that human beings do, disregarding Descartes' mechanistic view—or what he called the "Neo-Cartesian snake"—that they lack consciousness. He argued that animals having no powers of reason is inconsistent with observations of household pets. Nicholson noted that animals like people, have nervous systems and experience pain and pleasure. He concluded that "animals have the same abstract rights of life and personal liberty with man."

Nicholson dedicated the book to Arthur Helps and John Lawrence.

The book was criticized in the Nature journal, in 1879. The reviewer commented that "animals, as sentient creatures, have some rights—i.e., that man may not kill or torture them needlessly without incurring some moral blame—no one nowadays would undertake to dispute. It therefore seems useless to fill, a number of pages with a number of truisms on the theme that animals have some rights in common with man."

Publications Nicholson published on various topics, such as classical literature and Celtic antiquities. His writings included: The Christ-Child, and other poems, 1877. The Rights of an Animal, 1879. The Bodleian Library in 1882–1887, 1888. Golspie, contributions to its folklore, collected and edited by Edward WB Nicholson London, 1897. The Gospel according to the Hebrews, 1879. Keltic Researches: Studies in the History and Distribution of the Ancient Goidelic Language and People. London, 1904. "The Vandals in Wessex", 1906. Can We Not Save Architecture in Oxford?, 1910.