Courtney Library

The Courtney Library and Archive is the Royal Institution of Cornwall’s collection of manuscripts, books, and archival materials, housed at Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery.

It is known as a unique Cornish history research centre for both Members of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, local and visiting academic researchers, and anyone who wants to access the rich and varied resources kept there.

The library holds some of the most significant collections of manuscripts relating to Cornwall anywhere in the world. Among other topics, we hold printed and manuscript books and documents covering: 

• Cornwall and its cultural heritage, artefacts and language
• The social history of modern Cornwall
• Medieval and early modern Cornwall, 12th to 18th century
• Mining, engineering, and smelting
• Cornish archaeology
• Place and locality

Some of our ‘star’ collections include original manuscripts by Poldark author, Winston Graham, and original correspondence from Cornwall’s own giant of steam, Richard Trevithick.

As a research library, The Courtney Library is open to the public by appointment only.

When the library is open and how to make a booking.

Appointments are available at the following times:

10am-1pm and 2pm-4pm Wednesday

10am-1pm and 2pm-4pm  Friday

To ensure we deliver a high-quality service to researchers, when the library is open we ask for at least a week’s notice when booking appointments. More complex research requests may take longer to facilitate.

Please let us know when booking the detail of the subject you wish to research with book titles and/or class marks, and archival reference numbers if possible.

To make an appointment, please email: RIC@cornwallmuseum.org

Research Pass: £4.50 for the day, this can be purchased at the Museum’s front desk. Members of the RIC go free, please bring your membership card and scan it at the Museum’s front desk.

Photography with own camera: 50p per image or £6 for a day’s camera use. (Please note that a copyright declaration form is required for this, and not all our manuscripts or books are able to be copied).

For digital copies of documents, an additional admin fee applies. Please email RIC@cornwallmuseum.org for advice on this.

A working copy of our library book catalogue is available to download below. There may be some errors in this document, as it is a working copy being continually updated by a group of dedicated volunteers.

We do not yet have a full catalogue for all the manuscript material we hold here. Some catalogues are available to view on site at the library. Some of our catalogues are available to search online at the National Archives website: search ‘Royal Institution of Cornwall’ plus either subject/name/place/date.

This working copy of our library book catalogue has circa 25,000 entries. Entries with no author appear at the end and ISBN and pagination columns have, of necessity, been ‘hidden’.

Book Catalogue – Excel Spreadsheet Download

For any other enquiries, please refer to the Collections Enquiries FAQs before emailing.