Nineteenth‐Century ‘Swingers’: The Movable Press at the British Museum

IN A LIFETIME OF SERVICE to the British Museum Library, Richard Garnett was especially proud of one contribution for which he had difficulty in getting recognition. This was the ‘hanging’ or ‘sliding’ or ‘swinging’ extension press, a movable book case which he claimed the honour of having introduced into the library in 1887 to accommodate some of the overflow of acquisitions then plaguing the Department of Printed Books. Unfortunately, he let another share in the invention and came close to losing all credit for it.