All editions of the Herball are a part of the William C. Gibson Memorial Collection in the RBSC.  William C. Gibson was a part of the UBC Faculty of Medicine from 1950-1978 (“Fonds”).  He was a collector of medical and history related books, and donated his collection to the UBC Charles Woodward Memorial collection (“Fonds”).  From my experience in the UBC RBSC, there are books from the Woodward Memorial collection (in Woodward library) that have been moved to and archived in the RBSC.  It should be noted that the 1597 edition of the Herball is cataloged in the Messerschmidt collection as well as the Gibson collection.  There is not a lot of information available on Henry Messerschmidt, aside from the fact that he donated 55 item collection to the library in the 2006/07 school year, and this collection contains “vernacular and Latin editions from German printers from the 15th to 18th centuries” (“The Report”).   Upon investigation, I found that Gerard’s book was one of the only English books in the collection; the majority of Messerschmidt’s collection is Latin.  The reason for the 1597 edition being a part of the Messerschmidt and Gibson collection is unknown; perhaps Messerschmidt and Gibson had some kind of collaboration, or perhaps one person bought the book from the other’s collection, but since the donation records are not made available to students, the reason why is left up to speculation.

Works Cited

“Fonds- William C. Gibson Fonds.” MemoryBC, https://www.memorybc.ca/william-c-gibson-fonds. Accessed 16 April 2018.

“The Report of the University Librarian to the Senate.” UBC Library, 9 Dec. 2007, https://about.library.ubc.ca/files/2007/12/UBC_RS_2006-07.pdf.