Sir Edward Bond's career as Principal Librarian repeated the history of his keepership upon a larger scale. As before, he was inflexibly diligent in his attention to routine duties, and boldly original when an emergency arose requiring special action. He saw that the time had come for the introduction of electric lighting into the Museum, and achieved this invaluable improvement in the face of many discouragements. The enormous bulk of the catalogue threatened to drive everything else out of the Reading Room. Sir Edward Bond first curbed the evil by introducing print for the accession titles, and then induced the Treasury to consent to the printing of the entire catalogue, a vast undertaking now on the verge of completion. His openness of mind was shown in no respect more forcibly than in his prompt appreciation of the sliding-press, an idea altogether new to him. An ordinary official would have hesitated, objected, and deferred action until some other institution had shown the way. Sir Edward Bond no sooner saw the model than he adopted the invention, and won the honour for the Museum. In his time the separation of the Natural History departments from the Bloomsbury Museum was consummated, and the White Wing erected with its newspaper rooms and admirable accommodation for the departments of MSS. and prints and drawings. The facilities for public access to the Museum were greatly extended under him. Of the many important acquisitions made in his term of office, the Stowe Manuscripts were perhaps the most remarkable. He retired in 1888, among the most gratifying testimonies of the respect and affection he had won for himself. His manner had been thought cold and reserved, and such was indeed the case; but the better he was known the more apparent it became that this austerity veiled a most kind heart and a truly elevated mind, far above every petty consideration, and delighting to dwell in a purely intellectual sphere. After his resignation he spent upwards of nine years in an honoured and dignified retirement. He had been made a C.B. while Principal Librarian, and his last days were solaced by the bestowal of the higher distinction of K.C.B., which ought indeed to have been conferred much sooner. He died at his house in Bayswater on January 2, 1898, two days after completing his eighty-second year.