John Rylands Library Manchester University Library. Stella Butler, a medical historian, was Head of Special Collections from 2000 until 2009, and she moved to the University of Leeds in 2011 as University Librarian. Since 2009, Rachel Beckett has been Head of Special Collections and she was appointed as the Associate Director of The John Rylands Library in 2013. Jan Wilkinson has been the Director of The John Rylands Library, as well as University Librarian, since 2008. Acting Librarian David Miller founded the John Rylands Research Institute in 1987, to promote, fund and stimulate research on the primary material held at Deansgate. The John
John Rylands He employed 15,000 people in his 17 mills and factories, which produced 35 long tons (39 short tons) of cloth a day. From 1857, John Rylands lived at Longford Hall, in Stretford, an Italianate mansion he built on the site of an earlier house. In 2009 the local council placed a "blue plaque" at the site of Longford Hall to commemorate John and Enriqueta Rylands. He was a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Curriers. Rylands was retired and reserved except in the company of his friends, and always shrank from public office of any kind, although he was not