University of St Andrews Prize Books

This blog was first issued as an article in St Andrews in Focus.

Students at the University of St Andrews in the 19^th century aspired to great things, and some of the most coveted examples of their success were prize books, or books presented for success in a specific subject area or class. From the mid-17^th century, schools, universities, and other academic institutions particularly in the British Islands and the Netherlands, would gift books to their top students. This tradition gave rise to the concept of prize bindings, beautiful and prestigious-looking bindings that made the prize books even more special.

Before around the 1830s, when publisher-bound books became commonly available, books were sold in their sheets to be bound by the receiver. This is why earlier prize bindings are often ornate and high-status; conferring all the honour the institution could bestow on the recipient. Later, however, books were often given in the publisher’s bindings, perhaps spruced up with the seal or motto of the institution. Recently, a collection of 19th century prize bindings was re-discovered in the University of St Andrews Muniment collection and transferred to the rare books department for cataloguing. They all boast beautiful gilt stamps of the university seal, and quite a few are found leather-bound. Examining them gives us a window into the academic culture in St Andrews in the 1880s and 90s, allowing us to deduce what was valued by professors and students alike.

James Patrick, the recipient of this prize books collection, was born in 1869, son of James Patrick, the Original Secession minister of Carnoustie. He attended Dundee High School, then proceeded to the University of St Andrews, being awarded a first-class honours degree in Classics in 1889 and a Bachelor of Divinity in 1891. While a student at United College and St Mary’s College, he was awarded several awards and bursaries that aligned with his wide-ranging interests, from chemistry to Greek, and judging by his extensive collection of prize books, he excelled in nearly every course he took. Patrick became a minister after university, with positions across Scotland. He died in 1948. James’ brother, Henry Niven Patrick, who also won one prize book which is part of the deposit.

Many of the books have small labels on their pastedowns which indicate the book was purchased from W. C. Henderson & Son, stationers in St Andrews. This company was located on Church Street from at least the late 19th century through to at least the 1980s. Throughout the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century they were specialist publishers and booksellers and would have been the factors through which academics sourced their prize books. Today there remains a storeroom with the W. C. Henderson logo located at the east end of Market Street.

Also visible on many of the books is a tiny stamp, reading “Bound by Mudie”.  Charles Edward Mudie was born in 1818 to Scottish parents in London and was educated in the family’s newspaper shop. In 1840, he opened his first shop which became a massively popular lending library, where subscribers paid a fee annually to be able to borrow one volume of a novel at a time. This was revolutionary, because it brought the cost of reading down to a point where middle-class families could afford to have a regular supply of books. His lesser-known pursuits included cheap but luxurious-looking bookbinding, which would have appealed to the university in purchasing prize books.

The books with the Mudie stamp in the university collections are all fully bound in leather, often dyed, with the seal of the university stamped in gold on the front covers. They have richly-hued marbled endpapers, and the edges of the text block are also marbled. For a student receiving one of these books, they would have been a prized possession in a time when the most common form of binding was simply publisher’s cloth over boards.

That is not to say, however, that some of the books are not cheaply bound. A fair portion of the Patrick prize books are simply bound in the publisher-issued cloth and board wrappings, but all have been finished with a gold-stamped seal of the University of St Andrews. They also contain either inscriptions or bookplates designating the course, year, grade, and the professor’s name. Some are in Latin, others English, but they all tell the tale of James Patrick’s remarkable academic career.

The collection of the Patrick family’s prize books is exciting as an example of late-Victorian culture. Through these books, we can see what was valued in a time of great social change, as their beautiful bindings, scholarly inscriptions, and local sources demonstrate a culture in which learning and academic success was cultivated and rewarded.

Beth Dumas
Former Rare Books Cataloguer

Students today are encouraged to build their own collections of printed, manuscript, or photographic material. The annual James David Forbes Collecting Prize is a competition open to all students at St Andrews, who have a passion for collecting items such as books, magazines, postcards, printed ephemera, or photographs. The student judged to have the best collection (age, number of items, and monetary value are not important – it’s the passion behind the collecting which we care about) will be awarded £500 towards building up their collection, and £250 to spend on an item for University Collections. The competition is now open (entries close at mid-day on Monday 10^th March), and further information can be found here. This year is particularly exciting as it marks the ten-year anniversary of the Prize. Keep your eye open for the beautiful posters and bookmarks which we’ve commissioned from the Crail Press (run by Dawn Hollis, the winner of the inaugural prize in 2015).