Department of Printed Books: acquisitions from the Broxbourne Library

Albert Ehrman was born in London on 6 February 1890. He was educated at Charterhouse and served as a Territorial in the Royal Fusiliers during the First World War. He succeeded his father in the family business and became a merchant in industrial diamonds. During a holiday at Eastbourne in 1920, Ehrman started to assemble what was to become one of the most important private collections of books in this country, with the purchase of a 1472 Venice book in its original binding. Albert Ehrman was for long in the habit of giving the British Museum a book every year on the occasion of his birthday. His son has proved no less generous. In 1977 John Ehrman presented the British Library with a superb collection of incunabula and sixteenth-century printed books, and allowed the Department of Printed Books to acquire several more treasures from his father's collection at, for the Library, advantageous prices.