Enriqueta Augustina Rylands (31 May 1843 – 4 February 1908), philanthropist and founder of the John Rylands Library in Manchester, was the third wife of the cotton magnate John Rylands
English entrepreneur and philanthropist (1801–1888), owner of the largest textile manufacturing concern in the United Kingdom, and Manchester’s first multi-millionaire. (1801–1888), Manchester’s first multi-milionaire. She was born in Havana, Cuba, to Stephen Cattley Tennant (1800–1848), a partner in a Liverpool mercantile firm, and Juana Camila Dalcour (1818–1855). Tennant retired from business in 1848 and took up residence in Liverpool, but died shortly afterwards. His widow migrated to Paris, and Enriqueta was sent to a convent school in New York and finishing schools in London and Paris.[1][2]
Almost nothing is known of Enriqueta’s life until she became a companion to John Ryland’s second wife Martha (1806–1875) in the early 1860s, at the Ryland’s country seat at Longford Hall in Stretford
One of the four major urban areas in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, Greater Manchester.. Eight months after Martha’s death, Rylands, then 74, married the 32-year-old Enriqueta.[1] Their marriage was childless, but they adopted two children: Arthur Forbes, Enriqueta’s cousin; and Maria Castiglioni. When John Rylands died in 1888, Enriqueta inherited most of his estate, valued at £2,574,922, equivalent to about £407 million as at 2025.[3][a]Calculated using the retail price index.[4]
Enriqueta initially determined to commemorate her husband and reflect his “profound commitment to the study of the Bible”, by creating a theological library for the use of Nonconformist ministers and laity. But her direction of travel changed following her purchase in 1892, for the equivalent today of £17 million, of the 40,000-volume library from Althorp, which had been built up over thirty years from 1790 by the second Earl Spencer to become one of the most important private libraries in the world.[1][5] Enriqueta chose the site of one of Manchester’s most notorious slums for the site of her new library, which helped to transform Deansgate into one of the main civic thoroughfares it is today. She was also generous in her legacies to hospitals, ragged schools
School that provided free education to destitute children in 19th-century Britain., women’s charities, and educational foundations.[1]
John Rylands Library
The John Rylands Library took ten years to build and cost £224,086, equivalent to about £32.2 million as at 2025.[b]Calculated using the real cost using the GDP deflator.[4] It was inaugurated on 6 October 1899, the anniversary of Enriqueta’s marriage to John Rylands, and on that same day she was admitted to the Freedom of the City of Manchester, the first woman to be so honoured.[1]
Enriqueta set up a trust to maintain the library, which was abrogated in 1972 when it was absorbed into the library of the University of Manchester.[1]
Later life
From the 1890s Enriqueta began to experience symptoms of rheumatism, and spent frequent periods convalescing overseas. In 1894 she purchased a villa in Torquay, where she died on 4 February 1908. Following her funeral in Manchester her ashes were interred beside the remains of her husband, beneath the Rylands Memorial in the Southern Cemetery
Largest municipal cemetery in the United Kingdom, opened in 1879..[1]
