Samuel Fancourt

Who was Samuel Fancourt?

Samuel Fancourt, was a dissenting minister and projector of circulating libraries.

Fancourt is said to have been a native of the west of England. One of ‘the four London ministers’ of 1719 was his tutor, and another his predecessor at the place from which he removed to Salisbury. This probably indicates that he was trained for the ministry by Benjamin Robinson at Hungerford, and succeeded Jeremiah Smith as pastor at Andover. From 1718 to 1730 he was minister and tutor in Salisbury. On the occasion of the controversy which arose in consequence of the proceedings at the Salters' Hall conference of London ministers in February 1719, he wrote two tracts on the side of the dogmatists.

Some years later he involved himself in a controversy about free-will and predestination, which eventually resulted in his having to leave Salisbury. He went to London and there established what was said, about forty years afterwards, to have been the first circulating library. A library conducted by him, in which the subscription was a guinea per annum, was dissolved at Michaelmas 1745, and he then carried out a new plan. This plan is described in the ‘Alphabetical Catalogue of Books and Pamphlets belonging to the Circulating Library in Crane Court’, 2 vols. 8vo, 1748, which he issued in parts between 1746 and 1748. According to this scheme for ‘The Gentlemen and Ladies' Growing and Circulating Library,’ any one might become a proprietor by an initial payment of a guinea and a quarterly payment of a shilling. The proprietors were to choose trustees in whom the library was to be vested, Fancourt himself being appointed librarian during good behaviour. Each proprietor was to be allowed to take out one volume and one pamphlet at a time. ‘He may keep them a reasonable time according to their bigness; but if they are not wanted by others he may keep them as long as he has a mind.’