Dr Fred Ratcliffe CBE (1927-2026)
College members will be deeply saddened to learn of the death on 16 April of Fred Ratcliffe CBE, Parker Librarian 1995-2000 and Life Fellow.
Dr Jessica Gardner, Cambridge University Librarian & Director of Library Services, writes:
Dr Frederick William Ratcliffe CBE, was Cambridge University Librarian (1980-94) and a Life Fellow and former Parker Librarian (1995-2000) of Corpus Christi College.
From 1965-1980, Dr Ratcliffe was the Manchester University Librarian, including serving from 1972-80 as the Director of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester (now called the John Rylands Research Institute & Library).
John Ratcliffe CBE was born in Leek, Staffordshire, in 1927, and was proud to be ‘the first non-Oxbridge graduate to head either of the two ancient University Copyright Libraries’. Serving 45 years in academic libraries, Dr Ratcliffe started as a cataloguer in Manchester and his career also included roles at the universities of Glasgow and Newcastle.
Manchester shaped Ratcliffe’s career. An interest in rare books kindled during his time there as an undergraduate and through his early visits to the John Rylands ‘added a new dimension to my concept of libraries … [and] its exhibitions of manuscripts and printed books opened a door into a world of such rarities as I had imagined could only ever be seen in the British Museum’. His PhD (Manchester) was on the medieval poet and composer Heinrich von Mügeln, and while studying for his doctorate he began to collect German incunabula and other early printing.
His own collecting passion was reflected in a period of significant expansion of the Cambridge University Library’s own Special Collections. He considered their acquisition a ‘key aspect of my librarianship’. During his tenure, the collections grew with the acquisition of rare books (including the Keynes, Leigh, Waddleton collections) and archives (including the deposit of the Bible Society library and archive, Greenwich Observatory library, and acquisition of the Royal Commonwealth Society library and archive).Other distinctions of his career include his election as Sandars Reader in Bibliography for 1988-89 and his role as one of the founders of the Consortium of University Research Libraries (now Research Libraries UK).
