Brian North Lee

Elected to the Fellowship in 1978

The following obituary, written by our Fellow John Blatchly, first appeared in the Independent newspaper on 5 March 2007. Further tributes to Brian North Lee appear on the website of the Bookplate Society, which he co-founded.

Brian North Lee, Bookplate historian and collector, born Syston, Leicestershire 27 December 1936, died London 24 February 2007 as a result of bowel cancer.

Brian North Lee was an indefatigable scholar and historian of bookplates, producing a stream of books on the subject. "There is something beguiling," he wrote, "in the prospect of an exploration which could fill lifetimes of leisure", and he argued cogently not only for the value of his work in exploring the history of collecting and the taste (and genealogy) of collectors, but also for the importance of bookplates and book labels as, often, artistic examples of printed ephemera. In 1972 he was a co-founder of the Bookplate Society, which promotes the study, exchange and sale of bookplates, arranging meetings and publishing books (often by him) and a journal (which he edited for many years).

Lee was born of Leicestershire yeoman stock, one of twin boys, in 1936. After local schooling, he served in the RAF at Watton, before beginning to train for the Anglican priesthood at Kelham near Newark, mother house of the Society of the Sacred Mission. The religious life, he realised, was not for him; instead he trained to teach at the College of St Mark and St John, Chelsea, in London. His first post was at St Mark's Church School in Fulham, and after a formative experience in Ghana he returned to London in 1962 to teach English in Kingston.

He was a born collector with a sharp eye for bargains, particularly in the treasure-chests of Cecil Court, off Charing Cross Road, but bookplates soon held a special fascination for him and he joined the Bookplate Exchange Club in 1969. Tom and Isobel Owen of Hampstead Garden Suburb shared their immense knowledge of the subject, leaving Lee well placed in 1972 to play a leading part with David Chambers and Peter Summers in setting up the Bookplate Society within the Private Libraries Association.

The Bookplate Designs of Rex Whistler (1973) had some characteristics of a first book, but its introduction demonstrated the author's easy and elegant writing style. Early Printed Book Labels (1976) was a confident piece of scholarship of which he was rightly proud to the end of his life, and election as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries followed within two years.

The copiously illustrated British Bookplates (1979) came next and his first study of the work of a major British engraver, The Ex-Libris of Simon Brett, in 1982. That year at the Oxford Congress of the Federation of International Societies and Associations for Ex-Libris, Lee's contributions were an exhibition and a lecture on "British Pictorial Bookplates". Exhibitions were also held at the National Book League and links were made with the Society of Wood Engravers.

During the 11 years of the Bookplate Society's joint existence with the PLA, Lee was secretary and newsletter editor, but when in 1983 the society became independent he became editor of the Bookplate Journal and, eventually, the society's president.

British Royal Bookplates (1992) brought that subject up to the beginning of the present Queen's reign. Almost two dozen other titles include studies of the work of Claud Lovat Fraser, Leo Wyatt, Philip Hagreen, Edmund Hort New, and, most recently, Richard Shirley Smith. Lee had just finished writing Scottish Bookplates (with Sir Ilay Campbell Bt) when his last illness struck.

Brian North Lee was a knowledgeable collector, too, of pilgrim badges and of fossils and armorial porcelain. He worked for the Terrence Higgins Trust as a volunteer and in 2002 raised the funds required to build a new church in Ghana.

His wide circle was international and he claimed that he had more black friends than white; they included artists, writers and educationalists, though in recent times it was up to them to come to him, for he was happiest in his Chiswick home of 40 years. His kindness, his wit and his readiness to help scholars made every journey worthwhile.

Lee's vast collection of some 70 volumes of bookplates, particularly rich in royal, West Indian and Indian examples, will be sold at Bonhams later this year.

The following obituary web first appeared on the website of the International Federation of Ex-libris Societies (FISAE)

Today, not only the Bookplate Society but the entire ex-libris community is in mourning.   Brian North Lee, writer, collector and historian of bookplates died of cancer in London on 24 February 2007.

Founder of the Bookplate Society in 1972 and its president for a great part of its existence, Brian was the most prolific author on ex-libris in the history of British bookplate collecting, with many of his works (for example Early Printed Book Labels [P.L.A. and Bookplate Society, 1976], British Bookplates [David and Charles, 1979], etc.) being standard reference books not only for British collectors but used worldwide. He stands without doubt alone of his generation as the epitome of the serious collector and erudite researcher on bookplates. Although his interests centred on British ex-libris and Royal bookplates, his interests were wide and he was knowledgeable on subjects as far apart as mediaeval German ex-libris or contemporary Scottish ones (a book on Scottish bookplates which he wrote with Sir Ilay Campbell is still under press). In 1995, he went to Belgrade as a member of the jury of the 'World of Ex-libris' competition, and his comments and observations showed that he also had a good eye for contemporary bookplates - as long as they were real ex-libris, and not small free graphics in disguise.

By training, after an attempt at religious life, Brian became an English teacher and taught many years at a school for educationally difficult children. He delighted in language and literature and each letter one received from him was a small masterpiece. It was a tragedy for him that in the 1980s the school was closed and he was made redundant, with a very modest pension - but for bookplate enthusiasts, it was a gift, as Brian from then on spent nearly all his time and energy on ex-libris. He also, by the way, built up a breath-taking collection of mediaeval pilgrims' badges, with many pieces coveted by the British Museum.

Brian's house at 32 Barrowgate Road, Chiswick, was for over a quarter of a century the place where bookplate enthusiasts from all parts of the world went for counsel and information - and to whiff an atmosphere of the England of our childhood, with mahogany and oak furniture, fine china and a grandfather clock which never worked - normal, as time stood still. Privileged visitors met the tortoise in the garden, and also Prince Stanley Hanuman, a very Royal plush monkey which went back to Brian's childhood. Talk was nearly always about bookplates - projects of articles and books, queries as to style, owners, artists, motifs - and Brian always seemed to have that snippet of information one had been looking for in vain. His memory was exceptionally good, and he was sometimes disgruntled when people, over a few years, asked him the same question twice. His deep knowledge of ex-libris was not acquired perchance: he had read all the literature on the subject of the 1860-1920 period, including all the volumes of the Ex-libris Journal, many times. I remember asking him a question about an early armorial once, and he pulled out one of the ELJ volumes, flipped the pages and came to a lengthy article on the subject of my query, written in 1906... he pushed the book in front of me , and said "It's all there!" - and I felt sheepish.

Of all Brian's publications, the one which best reveals his enquiring spirit and gently caustic wit is Some recollections of a bookplate collector, which was privately published in the late 'eighties. I have just taken it from my bookshelf, and will start re-reading it when I get home tonight. Perhaps it will be a way to cheat his departure for a few days. All his friends, and especially the West Indian ones, who were the closest to him, sorely miss him. Thank you Brian, for all you have given us.