Philip Gaskell (6 January 1926 – 31 July 2001) was a British bibliographer and librarian.
Life
He was born on 6 January 1926 in Highgate, London, the son of John Wellesley Gaskell, director of an engineering company, and his wife, Olive Elizabeth Baker, who was a Quaker. He was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, and at Oundle School. In 1947, after army service, he went to King's College, Cambridge, and studied English under Dadie Rylands.
At Glasgow University, Gaskell worked from 1962 as keeper of the early books in the library, and master of Wolfson Hall. He then served as librarian and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was at Trinity and the Wren Library from 1967 to retirement in 1986, initially a period of the Library's reconstruction.
Gaskell later taught as a visitor at Caltech during the period 1983–1988, while investigating the possible application of bibliographical techniques to film. His pupils included Donald Francis McKenzie, professor of English at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, then Oxford, and James Mosley, librarian of the St Bride printing library.
