Enriqueta Augustina Tennant Rylands

Enriqueta Augustina Tennant Rylands (1843–1908)  was the third wife of the wealthy industrialist John Rylands (1801–88). After his death, she built a magnificent structure in honour of her husband. When it opened on 6 October 1899, the John Rylands Library was described in the Baptist Magazine as ‘an addition of rare value to the architectural wealth of Manchester’. The speaker at the inaugural address that day boasted that the architect ‘had adorned Manchester and enriched England with one of the most distinguished and the most perfect architectural achievements of this century’. John Rylands had affiliated at various times with both Baptists and Congregationalists. See James Stuart, ‘The John Rylands Library’, Baptist Magazine, 91.11 (1899), 511, 513.