Frederick William Ratcliffe

Who is Frederick William Ratcliffe?

Frederick William Ratcliffe is an English philologist and librarian. He has a Ph.D. in German, given for his thesis on Heinrich von Mügeln at the University of Manchester. From 1954 he was an assistant librarian or sublibrarian in the universities of Manchester, Glasgow, and Newcastle upon Tyne. He succeeded Moses Tyson as the University Librarian at Manchester in 1965 and from 1972 was additionally director of the John Rylands University Library. In 1980 he became University Librarian at the University of Cambridge where he remained until his retirement in 1994. From 1995 to 2000 he was Parker Librarian at the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College. He has written a number of papers on the subject of librarianship including the preservation of library materials.