page_title: Robert Vaughan (antiquary)
section_title: The Hengwrt–Peniarth Library
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Vaughan (antiquary) / The Hengwrt–Peniarth Library
caption_attribution_description: English: Opening folio of the Hengwrt manuscript
context_page_description: Robert Powell Vaughan was an eminent Welsh antiquary and collector of manuscripts. His collection, later known as the Hengwrt–Peniarth Library from the houses in which it was successively preserved, formed the nucleus of the National Library of Wales, and is still in its care.
context_section_description: Vaughan's remarkable collection of manuscripts remained at Hengwrt in the care of his descendants, though his collection of early printed books was dispersed by a Bristol bookseller early in the 19th century. In 1905, after a long period of negotiation, Sir John Williams acquired a reversionary interest in the manuscripts from the Wynne family of Peniarth, William Watkin Wynne (1801-1880) having added substantially to the collection after being bequeathed it by Sir Robert Vaughan (1803-1859), the Member of Parliament for Merioneth. The Hengwrt–Peniarth library was then moved to Aberystwyth, where the National Library of Wales was to be established.
  Vaughan's collection contains several texts of great historical or literary importance, such as the Book of Taliesin, the so-called Hengwrt Manuscript of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, now thought to be the earliest known copy, and the Black Book of Carmarthen. He also owned the Hendregadredd manuscript for a period, though this was to disappear from Hengwrt before the end of the 17th century.
caption: Opening folio of the Hengwrt MS. of the Canterbury Tales, preserved in Vaughan's manuscript collection
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