Sir Henry Ellis

Sir Henry Ellis (29 November 1777 – 15 January 1869) was an English librarian and antiquarian, for a long period principal librarian at the British Museum.

Born in London, Henry Ellis was educated at the Mercers' School, and at Merchant Taylors' School, where his brother, the Rev. John Joseph Ellis, was assistant-master for forty years. Having gained one of the Merchant Taylors' exhibitions at St John's College, Oxford, he matriculated in 1796.

In 1798, through his friend John Price, Ellis was appointed one of the two assistants in the Bodleian Library, the other being his future colleague in the British Museum Henry Hervey Baber. He took the degree of B.C.L. in 1802. He was a Fellow of St John's till 1805. In 1800 he was appointed a temporary assistant in the library of the British Museum, and in 1805 he became assistant-keeper of printed books under William Beloe. The theft of prints which cost Beloe his appointment in the following year raised Ellis to the headship of the department, and Baber became his assistant.

Ellis's promotion coincided with a period of increased activity at the museum. The printed catalogue of the library was at that time comprised in two folio volumes, full of inaccuracies, but provided with a manuscript supplement, and to a considerable extent revised and corrected in manuscript by Beloe's predecessor Samuel Harper. Ellis and Baber commenced their work of reconstruction in March 1807, and completed it in December 1819. Ellis had meanwhile been moved to the manuscripts department (1812), accepted (1814) the then almost sinecure office of secretary to the museum, and in the same year became secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of London. During the forty years for which he held the post, he only missed two meetings. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May, 1811.

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