In 1823 Perkins began to form a library at his residence, Springfield, near Tooting, Surrey. His interest has been attributed to the publicity around the sale of the library of John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe, which took place 1812/3. His collection was considered to have been founded at the 1824 sale of the library of Mark Masterman Sykes. He enlarged it at the sale of John Dent's collection of 1827. His brother Frederick began to collect Shakespearean works around 1825, and his collection was eventually sold by Sotheby's in 1889. Messrs. John and Arthur Arch of 61 Cornhill, London, were appointed buyers by Perkins, and supplied him with rare and valuable books. The main purchases were completed by 1830.
Perkins moved to Hanworth Park, Middlesex around 1836. He died at Dover on 15 April 1855, and his library went to his son, Algernon Perkins, who died in 1870.
Collection
The Perkins library was sold by Gadsden, Ellis, & Co. at Hanworth on 3, 4, 5, and 6 June 1873, the 865 lots producing £26,000, then the largest sum ever realised for a library on that scale. Included were:
The Mazarin Bible, two volumes, printed on vellum, purchased for £504, sold for £3,400; another copy, on paper, obtained for £195, brought £2,690;
Biblia Sacra Latina, two volumes, printed on vellum in 1462, the first edition of the Latin Bible with a date, bought at Dent's sale for £173 5s., sold for £780.
Miles Coverdale's Bible, 1535, imperfect, but no perfect copy known, purchased for £89 5s., brought £400.
Among the manuscripts were:
John Lydgate's Sege of Troy on vellum, which cost £99 15s., which went for £1,370;
Les Œuvres Diverses de Jean de Meun, a fifteenth-century manuscript of 200 leaves, which brought £690; and
Les Cent Histoires de Troye, by Christine de Pisan, on vellum, with 115 miniatures, executed for Philip the Bold, which sold for £650.
Family
Perkins married in 1803 Susannah Latham; they had one son and three daughters. Of the daughters:
The son, Algernon, married in 1835 Sophia Clementina Soltau, daughter of William Soltau. He left no children, and under his will the main beneficiaries, besides his wife who survived him, were his two surviving sisters, and his nephews Raymond South Paley and John Bagot Scriven.
House and estate
The Hanworth Park estate was broken up gradually by Paine & Brettell, solicitors, from 1873. Hanworth Park House, built c.1820, went in 1874 to Alfred Lafone. The lodges, by Thomas Cundy the elder, were demolished. Additions had been made in 1857, the west wing and clocktower.
