Francis Paul Richardson sadly died on 30 April 2009 at the age of 88. For many years Paul was very actively engaged in both traditional librarianship through his activities in the Library Association and in law librarianship as an early and very active, member of BIALL.

Paul was born on 10 April 1921. He was educated at Loughborough Grammar School and started his career in librarianship in Loughborough in 1937. During the Second World War he served in the RAF and then in the Royal Air Force Regiment when it was formed in 1942. and was then part of the first intake of students at Loughborough Library School in 1946–47. He became a Chartered Librarian in 1948 and a Fellow in 1968. His work in law librarianship began when he became Central Lending Librarian, with responsibility for law, at Hammersmith Public Library in 1975. He became the Librarian of the Law Society in 1969, co-incidentally the year in which BIALL was founded and remained there until his retirement in 1957.

BIALL

Paul was one of the earliest members of BIALL and, until ill health restricted his activities in 1976, he had been a key member of the Association. He was a member of the Committee which produced our first policy document and publication – the Report of the Committee on Co-operation (1971). As a result of this report, several committees were set up during 1971–72. One was the Sub-Committee on Acquisitions and Storage and another was the Standing Committee on Education and Training. Paul was a member of the former from its inception till late 1975. He was the first Chairman of the latter and remained a member until 1978. During his Chairmanship, he organised with Don Daintree our first one-day seminar entitled Educating the Library User and held at Trent Polytechnic in June 1972. Paul was also a tutor on our first week-end course on legal literature held at the University of Hull in 1974.

He was involved in the publication of the Bibliography on Community Law (1973) and the memorandum on the Provision for Law in the British Library (1974). He also contributed the chapter on reader services to the first edition of the Manual of Law Librarianship.

In late 1972 Paul was appointed to a small sub-committee to prepare a memorandum on the staffing and administration of court libraries, which was submitted to the Lord Chancellor's Department in the same year and was published in the Law Librarian Vol. 6, 1975, pp. 22–24. Paul was also involved in obtaining BIALL representation on the HMSO Service Working Party and was our representative in 1972–73 and 1976–77.

In 1972 he was elected to the Executive Committee and in 1974 he was appointed Chairman-Elect. In those days, the Chairman served for more than one year. Paul began his term of office in 1975 but unfortunately, due to ill health, he only served for one year, resigning to consternation all round at the annual conference held in September 1976 at New College Oxford, thus precipitating the first “constitutional crisis” of the Association's history. He was accompanied to the Conference by his wife, Tina, and this was probably the first occasion on which many BIALL members met her. He continued to contribute to BIALL's work as an ex-officio member of the Executive Committee, making considerable contributions to the revised Constitution and Regulations of 1983.

Paul retired from the Law Society Library in 1985 and Council elected him as an Honorary Life Member in the same year, in recognition of his great services to the Association.

Other professional activities

Paul was also an active member of the Library Association, holding the office of Councillor from 1983, and serving on the Manpower Services Standing Committee and the Disciplinary Committee.

Personal life

After the Second World War Paul was an active supporter of the Royal Air Force Regiment Association and he also supported the Royal British Legion throughout his life. In retirement, Paul was an active member of various Catholic organisations and assisted at his local church, St Edwards. He also sang in a choir and enjoyed a game of bowls.

Personal tribute

Paul was well-known in the late 1970s and early 1980s to us then young law librarians, as almost a father figure, who was deeply concerned for his staff's welfare, whilst also running the Law Society Library with a rod of iron. When Diane Raper took over from him as Librarian in 1985, she found an extremely well-run library which had a superb card catalogue, containing excellent subject headings, which meant that it was easy to locate material and to answer efficiently the type of enquiries the Law Society Library dealt with in those days.

Paul also displayed innovative skills – it was he who, in the early days of Lexis, managed to establish a mediated service for solicitors who were members of the Society to access Lexis via the library staff.

Whilst Paul could sometimes appear to be a slightly formidable person, particularly when one was undertaking committee work with him, as he was well-known for his strongly-held views and his insistence on adhering to the principles which he believed were right, he was at the same time a true professional. His attention to detail was legendary and he always expected high standards in any projects he was involved in.

He was the first professionally qualified librarian to be employed at the Law Society and he started the tradition of young law librarians cutting their teeth on legal information work in its comprehensive library. They then moved into the rapidly developing field of law firm information work, armed with excellent legal research skills.

He will be remembered with affection and he has left a lasting legacy in his early work for BIALL. We extend our condolences to his wife Tina and their daughter, in their sad loss.

Christine Miskin

With help from Diane Raper and Barbara Tearle