Bayer Collection

A collection of approximately 200 Chinese and other oriental books and manuscripts, including:

• palmleaf books in Tamil and Telugu
• notes on oriental history and philology
• correspondence with the Jesuits in Peking

Originally collected by Theophilus (Gottlieb) Siegfried Bayer (1694-1738), sinologist and Professor of Greek and Roman Antiquities at St Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1726-1738), whose library was sold by his widow to Heinrich Walter Gerdes (d. 1741), a Lutheran pastor in London.

It was subsequently purchased from Mrs Gerdes by William Hunter (1718-1783) and incorporated into his collection. Under the terms of Hunter’s will, his library and other collections remained in London for several years after his death - for the use of his nephew, Dr Matthew Baillie (1761-1823) - and finally came to the University in 1807.

How to find material from the Bayer Collection

• This collection is partly catalogued, see MS Hunter B or locate items using the manuscripts search
• See Knud Lundbaek,  T.S. Bayer (1694-1738) : pioneer sinologist London: 1986.