Christie-Miller, Samuel (1810 -1889)

Samuel Christy, the second son of Thomas Christy, of Brooklands in Essex, and Rebecca Hawlings, was the Member of Parliament for Newcastle under Lyme from 1847 to 1859. He inherited the collection of William Henry Miller from the surviving member of the two Miss Marshes, Sarah and Emma, the nieces to whom Miller had left his books, and in 1862, changed his name to Christie Miller by royal licence. In 1852, with the assistance of David Laing, he printed thirty copies of a Specimen of a proposed catalogue of a portion of the library at Britwell House (Edinburgh, 1852). He discarded a number of books in two sales at Sotheby's “English poetry from the extensive library of an eminent collector” 29 June 1854, and “Duplicates from the historical and geographical portions of the Britwell Library 27 June 1881”. He had the whole library overhauled by the bookseller, Thomas Thorpe, constructing a special fireproof library to house the collection, and many of the more important books were bound or rebound. Books from Miller's original collection were rebound with Miller's arms. For his own extensive additions special `Britwell Library' stamps were cut. Many Miller items bear collation statements and notes of binding of 1870. In 1873 he published two volumes of a Catalogue of the library of S. Christie Miller, Esq., Britwell, Bucks, a third volume being issued in 1876. The subjects were Divinity, Voyages and Travels, and British History. Portions of other volumes exist in proof, but none of the few copies of these catalogues that were published left Britwell. He married 20 April 1842, Mary Hardcastle, but their only son, William Henry Archibald Christie Miller, who was very interested in the library and is probably the W C M of some collation statements of 1870, died before his father, without issue, and consequently on 5 April 1889, the library passed to Samuel's nephew, Wakefield Christie Miller..