Lucius Wilmerding (1880-1949)
Book Collector & President of the Grolier Club, of 134 71st Street, New York City
He was born in New York City and was educated at St. Paul's School before graduating from Harvard (1901). He became a stockbroker and towards the end of his career was made a limited partner in Harris, Upham & Co. He was a trustee of the Bank of New York and the Fifth Avenue Bank. He was a director of the City & Suburban Home Company and an active member of the Citizen's Budget Committee that protected tax payers by opposing unreasonable expenditure by the city government. He served one year on the Municipal Art Committee and was a trustee of the Museum of the City of New York. When still a young man, he was appointed by the New York Public Library to its committee on circulation and in 1930 he became a trustee. He was Vice-President of the American Library in Paris, President (and trustee) of the Grolier Club (1928-32), President of the Genealogical & Biographical Society, and a member of the Club of Odd Volumes. He was an active supporter of the New-York Historical Society, serving as a trustee, secretary for domestic correspondence, treasurer, and committee member. In 1937, he succeeded Frank L. Polk as President of the Knickerbocker Club, New York City, serving until his death in 1949 when he was succeeded by Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler.
He is best remembered as a bibliophile and collector, specializing in French and English literature, colored plate books, and historical bindings. The talk he gave on Renaissance bindings before the Grolier Club was printed in 1937; he was elected to the American Antiquarian Society in 1938; and, in 1948 he gave the New York Public Library one of the two original drafts of the Olive Branch Petition of 1775. His vast library noted for its decorative French bookbindings from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries was auctioned off in New York in 1950 and 1951. He married Helen, daughter of "that supreme aristocrat" Robert Fulton Cutting, and sister of the explorer Charles Suydam Cutting. They had four children and lived between New York City and their summer home at Far Hills, N.J.
He is best remembered as a bibliophile and collector, specializing in French and English literature, colored plate books, and historical bindings. The talk he gave on Renaissance bindings before the Grolier Club was printed in 1937; he was elected to the American Antiquarian Society in 1938; and, in 1948 he gave the New York Public Library one of the two original drafts of the Olive Branch Petition of 1775. His vast library noted for its decorative French bookbindings from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries was auctioned off in New York in 1950 and 1951. He married Helen, daughter of "that supreme aristocrat" Robert Fulton Cutting, and sister of the explorer Charles Suydam Cutting. They had four children and lived between New York City and their summer home at Far Hills, N.J.
