Inner Temple Library

The Inner Temple Library is a private law library in central London serving barristers, judges, and students on the Bar Vocational Course. Its parent body is the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, one of the four Inns of Court.

The Library is first mentioned in the Inn’s records in 1506, but it probably had its origins in the previous century. Its law collections cover the legal systems of the British Isles (England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) and also Commonwealth countries. There are, in addition, extensive non-law collections covering such subjects as history, topography, biography and heraldry, and an important collection of legal and historical manuscripts. The history of the Library is discussed in some detail in the introduction to J. Conway Davies's "Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple" (Oxford, 1972).

The former Library building was destroyed during the Second World War: several thousand volumes of printed books (but none of the manuscripts) were lost. The destroyed books were mostly replaced, either by gift or purchase, over the next thirty years or so. The present building was completed in 1958 to the design of T.W. Sutcliffe, and is in the style of the eighteenth century.

The Library is not open to the public, although non-members may be admitted, upon written application to the Librarian, to consult material not available elsewhere.

External links

* [http://www.innertemplelibrary.org.uk/ Inner Temple Library web site]
* [http://www.accesstolaw.com/ Access to Law: annotated legal links maintained by Inner Temple Library]

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