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
Dadie Rylands involved in the theatre. He directed and acted in many productions for The Marlowe Society, and was chairman of the Cambridge Arts Theatre from 1946 to 1982. Rylands' 1939 Shakespeare anthology "Ages of Man" was the basis of John Gielgud's one-man show of the same title. Though Rylands specialised in directing university productions at Cambridge, he also directed Gielgud in professional productions of "The Duchess of Malfi" and "Hamlet" in London in 1945. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1961 and a Companion of Honour (CH) in 1987. Dadie Rylands George Humphrey