John Rylands Library I listed status in 1994, is maintained by the University of Manchester and open for library readers and visitors. Enriqueta Rylands purchased a site on Deansgate for her memorial library in 1889 and commissioned a design from architect Basil Champneys. Rylands commissioned the Manchester academic Alice Cooke to index the vast library of the 2nd Earl Spencer which she had purchased and another collection of autographs. Mrs Rylands intended the library to be principally theological, and the building, which is a fine example of Victorian Gothic, has the appearance of a church, although the concept was of an Oxford college
Rylands v Fletcher been concerned that the reasonable use test, which appears in nuisance, is not applicable to cases brought under "Rylands". The first requirement under "Rylands" is that the defendant "for his own purposes brings onto land and collects and keeps there". In "Rylands", this was the keeping of water in a reservoir; other cases in England and Wales have illustrated what sort of material is considered. In "British Celanese v AH Hunt", the accumulation was of metal foil strips. "For his own purpose" is not understood to be "for his benefit", although that was what Blackburn was referring to at the