Henry Ellis

Sir Henry Ellis (29 November 177715 January 1869) was an English librarian and antiquarian, for a long period principal librarian at the British Museum.

Early years Born in London, Henry Ellis was educated at the Mercers' School, and at Merchant Taylors' School, where his brother, the Rev. John Joseph Ellis, was assistant-master for forty years. Having gained one of the Merchant Taylors' exhibitions at St John's College, Oxford, he matriculated in 1796.

Librarian In 1798, through his friend John Price, Ellis was appointed one of the two assistants in the Bodleian Library, the other being his future colleague in the British Museum Henry Hervey Baber. He took the degree of B.C.L. in 1802. He was a Fellow of St John's till 1805. In 1800 he was appointed a temporary assistant in the library of the British Museum, and in 1805 he became assistant-keeper of printed books under William Beloe. The theft of prints which cost Beloe his appointment in the following year raised Ellis to the headship of the department, and Baber became his assistant.

In 1827 Joseph Planta, the principal librarian, died, and Ellis, who had for nine years taken on much of his duties, expected to succeed him. When two names for the vacancy were submitted to the Crown, Henry Fynes Clinton, a protégé of Archbishop Charles Manners-Sutton, was placed before Ellis. Ellis intrigued successfully for the post, it is said by pursuing the carriage of the royal physician, Sir William Knighton, and enlisting his good offices with the king. He was appointed on 20 December 1827. In 1832 he was made a Knight of Hanover, an honour which he shared with John Herschel, Frederic Madden, and others; and he was knighted in 1833.

Ellis told the parliamentary committee of 1835 that if the museum were not closed for three weeks in the autumn, "the place would positively become unwholesome", and that it would never do to open it on Saturdays, when "the most mischievous part of the population was abroad". The committee's conclusions were enough to force the trustees to change management practices. They devolved the heaviest of the principal librarian's duties on the secretary, who became the most important officer in the museum. He was director of the Society from 1853 to 1857. For Rees's Cyclopædia, Ellis contributed articles on Antiquities and other subjects, but the topics are not known.

Catalogues and collections His catalogue of the manuscripts of the Society of Antiquaries was published in 1816. Also in that year he published on behalf of the Record Commission the indexes and additional texts to Domesday Book: his general introduction to Domesday, written in 1813, also appeared in separate form (in two volumes) in 1833. With John Caley and others, he published a new edition of William Dugdale's Monasticon between 1817 and 1833. He used his position as head of the manuscript department to publish Original Letters illustrative of English History, mostly drawn from originals in the Museum: Ellis also published several articles in the Numismatic Chronicle, including on stycas of Northumbria, and on the episcopal coinage of York.