The original Deed of Association of the English and Bristol Channels Ship Canal. Contains about 600 signatures, opposite each of which are shown the number of deposits paid and amount subscribed, c1825.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing a list of twelve different castes of inhabitants of Bombay, India, 1828, with particulars of their trades, customs, countries, and food, with a few remarks on the names of their priests, holidays, dress, and marriage and burial customs.
Sans titreManuscript volume, 1590, entitled 'A generall collection of all offices of England with their fees in the Queenes gifte', giving details of the offices in the courts at Westminster, the Royal Household, military posts, and posts connected with royal houses, parks and forests. The manuscript also includes a valuation of clergy livings and the tithes payable to Queen Elizabeth I. An eighteenth century index is included.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing 'An essay on the causes and cure of a redundant agricultural population', written in Glasgow, 1832-1833. Inscribed by Herbert Somerton Foxwell as written 'By a boy under 16 years of age'.
Sans titreA series of letters from 1833-1836 concerning the possible establishment of a Bank of India. Letters included are from Horsley Palmer, Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Richard Carr Glynn, Thomas Tooke and James Cosmo Melvill.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing an account by Nassau William Senior of the Poor Law Amendment Bill conferences, 1834. Includes a transcript of a letter dated 2 Mar 1834 from Senior to Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquis of Lansdowne. A note by Sir George Nicholls, dated 1851, states 'This very interesting account...was given me by Mr Senior. The detail is valuable and instructive, and I trust Mr Senior will some day make it public. He has given me permission to make use of it in the Work I have commenced, but I purpose doing so in a way that shall not anticipate or interfere with his publishing of the entire, whenever he may determine on doing this'. Senior later gave the manuscript to Nicholls.
Sans titreCollection of manuscripts relating to bankruptcy, 1850-1851, comprising answers to questionnaires circulated by the Committee for the Improvement of the Law of Debtor and Creditor from business firms in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA. Many of the replies are on printed questionnaires addressed to the Chairman of the Committee, William Hawes, MP.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing an account of the discovery, trial and conviction of Antonio Calvocorressi and Thomas Moss for causing Turkish coin to be illegally made in Birmingham, 1858. Includes a prefaratory letter from the Turkish Consulate in Birmingham to the 'Monsieur Mussurus, Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, London', dated 15 Jun 1859.
Sans titreAuthenticated copy by Gobinet de la Court, tabellion (scrivener) royal of Laon, France, 31 Dec 1457, of letters of King Charles VII of France under the great seal dated at Tours on 31 Jul 1436, letters of the Generaux des Finances dated at Tours on 2 Aug 1436, and letters of the Gens de la Chambre des Comptes dated at Limoges on 16 Aug 1436, by which the Abbey of St Vincent was to pay to Poton, Lord of Xaintrailles and captain of royal troops in Laon, the sum of 3,000 livres for the prosecution of the war in return for an annual pension of 300 livres assigned on royal revenues in the Vernandois until the sum was repaid. An endorsement sets forth that the Dean and Canons of the Church of Our Lady at Laon have acquitted the King and all others concerned of the rent mentioned in the copied letters, and have delivered the originals to the King's Receiver.
Sans titreManuscript volume concerning the expenditure of the royal household of King Edward III, [1550], namely an abstract from the accounts of Walter Wentwage of 'the rates of wages of peace and warre, expenses necessarie of officers and other charges concerning the household', dating from 21 Apr 1344-23 Nov 1374 and mainly relating to armed forces. Includes a statement of the costs of diplomatic, military and naval activity taken from the accounts of William Norwell, Keeper of the King's Wardrobe, for the period 15 Jul 1348-25 May 1350.
Sans titreA book of accounts, 1603-1655, relating to the pier at St Peter's Port, Guernsey.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing a transcript, 24 Mar 1722, of the Glasgow letters of guildry dated 6 Feb 1606, with the minute of the City Council of 16 Feb confirming them.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing a treatise by Samuel Lambe, [1657], headed 'Seasonable observations humbly offered to his Highness The Lord Protector', advocating the increase of Britain's naval strength, the establishment of banks and a 'Court of Merchants' as a means of encouraging trade. The following papers were either inserted in the volume or came from the binding: orders of 24 Apr and 14 May 1629 signed by John Jordan of Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire, to the constables of Fawley, Buckinghamshire, concerning the collection of the composition for 'His Majestie's provision' and the maintenance of a night watch.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing 'A particular of the several sets of Commissioners [of Excise] that have been commissionated from the first setting up of the duty', [1664], comprising a list of Commissioners from 11 Sep 1643 to 20 Mar 1664.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing accounts of a sinking fund, 1718-1728, entitled 'Accounts shewing the surplus's on the several Fonds composing the sinking fond from the first establishment thereof to Michaelmas 1728'.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing a report giving a list of all the costs of the upkeep of a galley in a squadron, [1700-1750], requested by 'S R Gerosna', entitled 'Relazione distinta di tutta la somma che si spende e consuma per il manteninento di una galera dalla squadra di questa S R Gerosna'. Includes frequent references to the port at Malta, and to Sicily, Sardinia and other islands in the Mediterranean, and notes of advice for captains of galleys trading in the area.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing a copy of a petition to the House of Lords by the wool producers of Suffolk, 1788, protesting against the bill 'for preventing the exportation of Live Sheep Wool'. The manuscript is endorsed 'Mr Kirby's brief'. The petition was drawn up at a public meeting held at Ipswich on May 29th, 1788.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing an anonymous tract relating to the income tax proposed by William Pitt the younger, Prime Minister, 13 Dec 1798, entitled 'An humble attempt at removing one serious objection to Mr Pitt's new (intended) tax upon income', with particular reference to Bristol (where the manuscript is dated). The author counters the objection of many business men to disclosing their financial situation to commissioners, by suggesting that it should be optional for any person to elect to disclose his affairs to a Court composed of members not belonging to his district.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing a translation, [1800], by Charles Hutton of 'Book the 9th of the miscellaneous questions and inventions of Nicholas Tartalea (Niccolò Tartaglia) of Briscia: concerning the sciences of arithmetic, geometry and algebra and almucabala, commonly called the Rule of Coss, or Ars Major; and especially of the discovery for the case of the cube and first power equal to a given number, and its other cases...'. Reginald Rye, Goldsmith's Librarian of the University of London, states that the manuscript is in the handwriting of Charles Hutton.
Sans titreManuscript volume, c1527, containing translations into English of a collection of treatises and diplomatic documents, mostly of the fourteenth century, comprising a list of coronation claims of Richard II, [1377]; a treatise on the form and manner of holding the English Parliament; a treatise on the office of Earl Marshal, described in the table of contents as 'The Erle Marshal's Boke', with details of Henry VIII's reform of the office and its duties in time of war; a collection of documents relating to ordinances for war, [1350-1514], notably the Scottish campaigns of 1350 and 1385, the statutes of the Order of the Garter as renewed by Henry VIII in 1522, and the creation of dukes and earls, including the creation of Charles Brandon, Viscount Lisle, as Duke of Suffolk (1514); an incomplete history of the kings of England, ending with the coronation of Richard II in 1378; a collection of treaties concerning diplomatic events during the reign of Edward III, notably documents relating to the Treaty of Brétigny (October 1360), documents relating to treatises between Edward and John II, King of France (1360-1366), letters of Alfonso X, King of Castile (1254), letters of Edward concerning a treaty with Peter the Cruel, King of Castile (1369), and an indenture recording the terms of the treaty of Berwick between Edward and David II, King of Scotland (1357). A table of contents shows that the manuscript is unfinished, and that it lacks several folios.
Sans titreManuscript account and memorandum book relating chiefly to the 'Morley Estate', that is Morley St Botolph, near Wymondham in Norfolk, and including accounts for buying and selling land, transactions with tenants, taxes and tables of crop rotation. The entries are made in an old notebook with the running title 'Memorandum 1763', and many pages are ruled and dated with one week to a page. The notes relating to Morley St Botolph occupy 49 leaves. Some entries were apparently written by George Cook, and there are frequent references to Daniel Ganning.
Sans titreManuscript volume, [1610], containing a treatise by Sir John Davies, Attorney General of Ireland, on royal regulation of commerce, beginning 'This question concerning your Majesties prerogative in laying Impositions upon Marchandizes'.
Sans titreA collection of horoscopes, [1840].
Sans titreManuscript account book for an estate at Darley, Yorkshire, 1813-1826, including prices for materials, repairs and labour for an estate comprising a house, garden, cottages, stables, farmlands, and St Catherine's Chantry. Some of the leaves have notes and figures in pencil.
Sans titreAccount book, 1611-1642 containing around 7000 entries relating to the manor of Barton, Berkshire, and Brockett Hall, Hertfordshire, giving prices for food, clothing, wages, education.
Sans titreA Minute Book, 1766-92 of the Water Court of the Manor and Hundred of Faversham.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing writings on mathematics, [1668], and entitled 'The use of the rule and compass in drawings of lines, angles, parallels and geometrical superficial figures comprehended in eight practices, together with notes on decimal arithmetic, logarithms, mensuration, fortification, dialling and other branches of mathematics. The handwriting and watermarks are of the seventeenth century, and the date 1688 appears on the verso of leaf 68, where adjoining a 'Table for the declination of the sunne', is written 'Example for the 22th May 1668'. On leaf 112 appears 'A particular of all my mathematical instruments and the severall prices I paid for them'.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing tracts on coinage by Leon Lee, [1628-1633], namely proposals on the coinage addressed to Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland and Treasurer of England, a paper outlining methods of preventing abuse of the coinage, and an explanation of the exchange. The volume also contains a [presumably unrelated] account of the reception of Princess Elizabeth of England, at Frankenthal, for her marriage to the Elector Palatine Frederick V, later King of Bohemia, Jun 1613.
Sans titreAccount books, 1743-1772, recording profits and rents due to Francis Naylor for land owned in various parts of Sussex.
Sans titreVolume containing a miscellaneous collection of legal documents relating to Kent and Sussex, 1588-1814, mainly comprising printed bonds completed in manuscript, with a small number of articles of covenant, abstracts of title, letters of attorney and quitclaims. Includes a letters of 1691 to Mrs James Iggelden of Benenden, Kent, and papers relating to her family, 1691-1730.
Sans titreManuscript volume entitled 'Suspiria piae et acclamantis animae, or meditations, thoughts, ejaculatory prayers. On severall Occasions for private Benefit. But Made publick as they may be Applicable to ye private Necessities of any under the same Sentiments, Conditions and Temptations', [1677-1682].
The book is dedicated to "Mary Wife of Thomas Brocas of Beurepaire in ye County of Southampton Esq.", with the suggestion that she might have it printed, if she thinks it of sufficient merit; this she appears not to have done.
Manuscript volume containing a transcript of English bards and Scotch reviewers: a satire (James Cawthorn, London, 1810), copied by Anne Livie and signed on 20 Nov 1817.
Sans titreBundle of receipts illustrating Secretary and Italic hands between 1613 and 1758.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing a law compendium, [1619-1628], compiled for the use of a Justice of the Peace, with notes under headings arranged alphabetically, giving references to Elizabethan and Jacobean statutes. It contains references to alehouses, archery, armour, artificers, assault, sadlers, drovers, bastardy, brewer, burglary, butchers, captains, soldiers, churchwardens, clergy, clerks of the market, cloth and dyers, witchcraft, constables, correction houses, coopers, coroners, counterfeiting, extortion, fairs and markets, forcible entry, forgery, goldsmiths, guns and crossbows, hawking, highways, bridges, horses, the hue and cry, hunting, husbandry, indictments and presentments, informants, enrolements, jurors, juries and inquests, labourers, servants and apprentices, larceny, liveries and retainers, manslaughter and murder, masons, matrimony and bigamy, mortuaries, Parliament, petty treason, plague, plays and games, preachers and ministers, prison and prisoners, bail, rape, recusants, restitution, riots, routs, unlawful assemblies, robbery and theft, sheriffs, transportation, treason, treasurers, trespass, vagabonds, usury, watch and ward, weights and measures, wines, wool and yarn.
The manuscript cites early editions of Ferdinando Pulton A Kalender, or Table, comprehending the effect of all the statutes that have been made and put into print beginning with Magna Charta...(Company of Stationers, London, 1606) and Michael Dalton The countrey justice, conteyning the practice of the Justices of the Peace out of their Sessions. Gathered for the better helpe of such justices...as have not been much conversant in the studie of the lawes of this realme (Company of Stationers, London, 1618).
Sans titreManuscript volume containing a detailed description of the medieval Mappa Mundi in Hereford Cathedral, [1900-1925], including illustration copied from the map.
Sans titreManuscript book containing various tracts and writings concerning the monarchy, constitutional history and royal revenue compiled by Sir Richard Grosvenor, 1637, and copied 'at Sir Roger Mostyn of Mostyns house at my being there from Christmas to May, which was drawen out of the books of . . . Richard Grosevenor Esqr sole son and heire until Sir Richard Grosevenor Knight and Barronett of Eathen [Eaton]-Coate in Cheshsire . . . finished and bound upp the 25th of Aprill 1637". A list of contents shows 23 items: 'An appollogy for the raigne of Queene Eliz'; 'A discourse of Courte and Courtiers'; 'Consideracions of Intercourse dedicated to the Kinge'; 'De sepultura by Sir Hen.Spelman'; 'A tracte sheweinge howe all the kings of England . . . have made meanes for money in their wants, with an Abstracte of the Revenue of most of the Princes of Christendome'; 'The Cause of the Marches of Walles'; 'Off the office of Composicions for Alienacions by Sir Francis Bacon'; 'A Treatise of the Lawe of wrecke of the sea, of the Inundation of the sea, and Cases uppon the Comission of Sewers'; 'The oppinion of the Judges uppon divers questions Concerninge parishes, and . . . toucheing the Comission, by which the Comissioners sitt at Newegate, 1633'; 'Letters of Sir Francis Bacon uppon several occacions'; 'Mr Cuff his letter to Secretary Cecill declareinge the Instruccions [of] the Earle of Essex, to the scottishe Ambassador touchinge the Kings Tytle to the Crowne of England'; 'The Lord Norris his letter to the Kinge after hee had slayne a servant of the Lord Willoughbies; 'The Lord Chancellor Ellesmore his letter to King James desireinge to bee dischardged of his office'; 'A Letter by the Lords of the Counsell to King James toucheinge meanes to advance the Kings Revenues by unusuall wayes soe as the Kinge would take the Acte uppon himself'; 'A Letter from the Bishopp of Lincolne to the Minister of Grantham concerninge the placeinge of the Communion Table' [1636]; 'Twoe Lettres . . . one from the States of Bohemia to the Elector of Saxony, the other from the Pope to the Emperor concerninge the Trobles of Germany'; 'Sir Tho. Smythe his protestacion toucheinge the speeche used to the Earle of Essex'; 'An admonition from a friend nameles to Sir Edward Cooke after his degradation 1616'; 'A Speech of Sir Francis Bacon Lord Keeper at the takeinge of his place in Chancery 1617'; 'Sir Edw.Cooke his speech at the instellation of 11 Serjeants 1614'; 'The lyfe of Sir Tho. Bodley'; 'The death of Queene Eliz'; 'Mr Seldens discourse of the twoe greate offices of state, the Chancellorshipp and Keepeinge of the greate seale of England 1617'.
Sans titre'Fragmenta regalia, or, Observations on Queene Elizabeth her tymes and favorites' by Sir Robert Naunton. An autograph letter accompanying it, from T.R. Maynard, 1845, suggests that this is the original MS. It was first published, posthumously, in 1641. Internal evidence points to c. 1630 as the date of composition.
Sans titre'To Maister Anthonie Bacon. An Apologie of the Earle of Essex, against those which falsely and maliciously taxe him to be the onely hinderer of the Peace, and quiet of his Countrey'. The text differs slightly from that of the first printed edition of 1603.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing the second part of a treatise on English trade and commerce attributed to Sir William Sanderson, 1629, entitled 'A treatise of state marchant (merchant) and of marchandizing state, consisting of commerce, trade and traffique, and upheld by the King's Royal Exchangers Office', with a dedicatory epistle to King James I.
Sans titreA collection of fifty testimonials collected by James Hudson, 1837, to support his application to be Clerk of the University of London.
Sans titreJournals of Sir Charles Bell's tour of Italy in 1840. Volumes contain notes and watercolour sketches.
Sans titreManuscript volume entitled 'Mémoire sur l'administration des Finances', 1787, signed by Séguy de Fontigny, giving an account of the financial reforms undertaken by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Torcy, and highlighting their present relevance. The manuscript is addressed to the Contrôleur Général des Finances.
Sans titreManuscript account of expenses occurred by Dr Thomas Hume for the printing by John Stockdale's firm of Odes of Anacreon, translated by the poet Thomas Moore, 1800. The discharged account bears a note 'Settled in full November 11th 1800', and the signature of Thomas Hume. With a duplicate receipt for £181.18.0 signed by John Stockdale.
Sans titreManuscript copy of the Charter of incorporation granted to the Gas, Light and Coke Company by King George III, dated 30 April, [1812].
Sans titreManuscript bill of expenses incurred by Charles Frotté for a journey from Istanbul (Constantinople) to London for King George III during July, 1801. With a receipt for £420.2.6. dated November 16th, 1801, and signed by Frotté.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing 'Observations upon the Amendments made by the Parliament of Scotland in the Articles of Union', [1706], mainly relating to the 6th to 8th articles concerning duties.
Sans titreMemorial signed by Thomas Wroe of Hollinwood near Manchester, cotton manufacturer, addressed to the Rt Hon Spencer Perceval and the Lords of the Treasury, seeking compensation for the loss of his steam-powered cotton mill at West Houghton, which was destroyed by a 'riotous mob', dated 24th April, 1812. Endorsed to the effect that there does not appear to be any means of indemnifying Mr Wroe.
Sans titreAccount books kept by the Gough family, 1574-1832.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing part of a formulary (items numbered 17-42) of private deeds, [1600], including the following types: Bargain & Sale, Lease, Agreement, Recognisance, Award, Gift and Inquisition Post Mortem (the last two types in Latin).
Sans titreA manuscript Bible containing both Old and New Testaments copied out in shorthand, 1846-50. Included is a treatise on the system of shorthand used and a watercolour portrait of Thomas Bourne.
Sans titre