The Willan Library is split between two sites. The older books (pre-1930) are located in the Willan Room at Royal College of Physicians (RCP). The more recent books (post 1930) known as the Bateman collection are housed at Willan House. An appointment is required to see any of these books. For books held in the Willan Room the RCP Library requires at least 3 working days notice, please book an appointment via the RCP library. 

For books in the Bateman Collection please use the contact form at the bottom of this page.

The Willan Library catalogue is a ‘closed’ special collection in the RCP Library catalogue and is available to search here. 

To search for a specific book, just type in the surname of the author (except Willan, as that is the name of the collection!) or a few words from the title and press return. If it is an edited book the editor’s names do not appear as the authors, but you can search for the book using their names. NB: Donors names are also indexed, so if the author you are looking for has donated books to the Willan Library these books will also appear in the search results. To see the whole collection just press return.

By default, the results appear in descending date order so the most recently published appear first, you can change this to ascending if required. The results can also be sorted by author, title, publisher, or document type. The records are site specific, so if there are two copies, one held in the Willan Room and one in the Bateman Collection, there will be two entries in the catalogue.

The historical books from the Willan Library that have been digitised are now available to read here.

We welcome any enquiries about further donations to fill in the gaps. Please use the form at the bottom of this page.