The Tome Raider
William Simon Jacques was born in
1969, the son of farmer William Jacques and
his wife Elaine. He grew up at
Cliffe, near
Selby in
North
Yorkshire. In October
1987 he went to
Jesus College,
Cambridge, to study
economics. He was a fairly talented, though not exceptional, student, and
graduated three years later with an
upper second. He became a
chartered
accountant, and lived a quiet, solitary life in
Maida Vale, north
London.
Apart from his reportedly high
IQ, there was nothing to distinguish him from
any other bookish accountant. But in
1994, the year he gained his
MA,
Jacques embarked on a five year career of crime which would see him become the
most prolific book thief in
British history.
He started at
Cambridge University Library, a large building said to be one of
the inspirations for the ministry buildings in
George Orwell's
1984. With
the aid of as yet unnamed accomplices, he was able to extract numerous rare
volumes from the library's stores, beginning in July 1994. The following year he
gained admission to the
British Library, claiming he was doing research into
economics, and the year after he joined the private
London Library in
St
James' Square. For a total of five years he was able to procure the valuable
books and sell them on through auction houses and bookshops.
But in February
1999, a book dealer who did not know Jacques bought a
first
edition of
Pure Logic of Quality by
William Stanley Jevons
from
Bloomsbury Book Auctions. The book was valued at £120. When the dealer
tried to sell the book to specialists
Pickering and Chatto, it was noticed
that the book had been damaged to remove library markings, and then repaired.
Pickering and Chatto contacted the London Library, who confirmed that the book
had been stolen from them. Bloomsbury Book Auctions were contacted by the
police, and told them that the book had been part of a batch put up for sale by
Jacques. When interviewed, Jacques asserted that he had obtained the books from
'a scruffy man' at the
Portobello Road market in west
London. He could not
produce any evidence of this transaction. The police investigated further, and
found that books had been put up for auction by Jacques at
Christie's in
London, and at
German houses
Zisska and Kistner and
Galleria Gerda
Bassenge. The auction houses investigated the lots and found them to have been
tampered with in the same was as the Bloomsbury volume.
Jacques was arrested, but failed to answer bail and fled to
Cuba in May of the
same year. Clearly he had realised that the game might be up, because he had
made a transfer of £360 000 from his main bank account in
Gibraltar to one in
Havana after his first meeting with police. A note left with his solicitor
informed police of safe deposit boxes in London, Cambridge and
York. When
raided, the boxes yielded sixty-four rare books, a forgery kit and a collection
of blank sheets of old and yellowed paper, used for covering library markings or
replacing removed pages. Six weeks after his departure, for no apparent reason,
Jacques returned to
Britain and was promptly arrested. During his
interrogation by police he remained uncommunicative and arrogant, responding 'no
comment' to most queries. He was first brought to trial in March
2001, but
reporting restrictions were imposed, possibly to aid police in tracing Jacques'
accomplices. At that trial, he was convicted by a 10:1 majority verdict of
nineteen counts of theft, covering 180 books with a total value of around £860
000. At a second trial at
Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court, concluding on
April 29, 2002, he admitted two further counts, and
Judge Derek Inman
ordered a further twelve charges to remain on the file. On
May 2,
he was sentenced to four years imprisonment for his crimes.
The total cost of Jacques' activities is hard to gauge, but it is thought that
he stole some 412 volumes, hundreds of which have never been found, with a total
value of £1 100 000. His forgery in concealing or removing library marks has
caused permanent damage to the fabric of the books, and compensation is being
considered. Among the books known to have been stolen are copies of:
Galileo
Galilei's
Sidereus Nuncius (
1610, £180 000) and
Dialogo (
1632, £28 000);
Sir Isaac Newton's
The
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in two volumes (
1729, £6
000),
Opticks (
1704, £14 000) and two
Principia
Mathematica (
1687, £35 000 and £100 000);
René
Descartes'
Discours
de la Méthode pour Bien Conduire sa Raison (
1637, £30 000);
Johannes Kepler's
Astronomia Nova (
1609, £75 000) and
Prodromus Dissertationum Cosmographicarum (
1596, £15 000);
Malthus'
An Essay on the Principle of Population (
1798, £40
000); and a second edition of
Jeremy Bentham's
Letter to Lord
Pelham (
1802, £2 000).
Karim Khalil, the prosecutor, said that Jacques 'has effectively plundered
these historic collections in our principal libraries' and that '(h)e was
looking to make a pile of money'.
Ian DuQuesnay, Jacques' tutor at Jesus College, gave evidence at the trial,
and afterwards described the crimes as 'equivalent to daubing paint on the
Parthenon'.
Jacques' parents were unavailable for comment. New security measures have been
introduced at the libraries affected. The source of the epithet 'Tome Raider' is
unclear, but looks like typical UK press
dumbing down of a case otherwise
lacking in populist content.
Sources: articles on page 5 of the Times for April 30, 2002 and page
6 of the Guardian for May 3, 2002.