John Rylands John Rylands John Rylands (7 February 1801 – 11 December 1888) was an English entrepreneur and philanthropist. He was the owner of the largest textile manufacturing concern in the United Kingdom, and Manchester's first multi-millionaire. After having learned to weave, Rylands became a small-scale manufacturer of hand-looms, while also working in the draper's shop which his father had opened in St Helens. He displayed a "precocious shrewdness" for retailing, and in partnership with his two elder brothers expanded into the wholesale trade. So successful were they that, in 1819, Rylands' father merged his retail business with theirs, creating the firm
John Rylands Library include medieval illuminated manuscripts and examples of early European printing, including a Gutenberg Bible, the second largest collection of printing by William Caxton, and the most extensive collection of the editions of the Aldine Press of Venice. The Rylands Library Papyrus P52 has a claim to be the earliest extant New Testament text. The library holds personal papers and letters of notable figures, among them Elizabeth Gaskell and John Dalton. The architectural style is primarily neo-Gothic with elements of Arts and Crafts Movement in the ornate and imposing gatehouse facing Deansgate which dominates the surrounding streetscape. The library, granted Grade