Manuscript volume containing a copy of the Scottish Act of Sederunt for the regulation of the prices of meat and other victuals in Edinburgh, [1688], entitled 'Coppie of the act of sederunt for regulateing the pryces of vivers', and beginning 'The Lords of Councill and Sessione considering the prejudice which his Majesties Leidges repairing to and resideing in this towne doe sustaine through the exorbitant rates exacted for fleshes and other vivers, they ordain that the rates and pryces of butcher fleshes...sold within the towne of Edinburgh, suburbs thereof and Leith shall not exceed these contained in the table underwryten'.
Sans titreContemporary copy of a treatise, 1603, by Sir Richard Martin, Master of the Royal Mint, on matters relating to the Royal Mint and solutions to the problems of coinage at the beginning of the reign of King James I. With a dedicatory epistle to King James I. Martin's Indentures for the coining of new monies, which are largely quoted in this treatise, were renewed by James I on 21 May 1603.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing an Order of the Warwickshire Quarter Sessions, 15 Jul 1740, fixing allowances for the conveyance of rogues and vagabonds. It is addressed to the Rev John Ingram [of Little Wolford, Warwickshire].
Sans titreManuscript volume containing a copy of a letter dated 9 Jun 1744 from Elizabeth Forbes of the School of Sprinning, Jedburgh, [Roxburgh], to David Flint, Trustees Office, Parliament Close, Edinburgh, complaining of her summons by the baillies of Jedburgh for contravening the 'Acts in the Trades Seal of Cause' by ordering equipment from Kelso.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing [a transcript of] a history of the House of Brandenburg, [1760], entitled 'Suite des mémoires de Brandenbourg composés par le Roy [Frederick II, King of Prussia] et imprimés à Potsdam 1751 en peu d'Examplaires', and mainly devoted to the life of Frederick William I, King of Prussia. A manuscript note below the title states that 'the contents of this Manuscript will be found printed in the Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de [la] Maison de Brandenburg, par Frederic II, Roi de Prusse (Berlin, 1767, volume II, p 67-176)'.
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, 1606, containing a list of all the Offices of England, with the fees belonging to them in the gift of King James I. It contains particulars of the offices connected with the Law Courts, the Court, the Royal Household, garrisons, towns, fortresses, castles, parks, forests, and bishoprics. Of the King's artificers, the Sergeant Paynter was at the head with £100, while the Keeper of the Libraries was at the bottom with £3 6s. 8d.
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 indictment of Elizabeth Dunn, late of the Parish of St Paul, Bristol, 1815, for having in her possession a forged Bank of England note. The manuscript is endorsed on the back with 'the list of the Grand Jury who found a True Bill'.
Sans titreManuscript volume, 1608, containing a memorandum outlining reasons why the States General (the Dutch National Assembly) should not abandon trade with the West Indies, entitled 'Memoire des très prégnantes raisons qui doisvent esmouvoir Messigneurs les Estats Généreaux des Provinces Unies pour n'abandonner le trafficq des Indes'.
Sans titreManuscript transcript by Richard Bateman, 1612, of a work by Benedictus Victorius Faventius containing a calculator or computer for increasing or diminishing figures, which was printed by Benedict Hector, bookseller of Bologna, in 1512. The text was copied by Bateman from a treatise of a revised edition by Dom. Gaetanus, Doctor of Medicine.
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 copy of Voltaire's La Pucelle D'Orleans, [1750], a satirical poem about Joan of Arc. The heading to each 'Chant' is written in green ink, with marginal notes in a different hand from the text. A letter from Dr Claudine I Wilson regarding the date of the manuscript is inserted.
Sans titreManuscript volume entitled 'Laborers Book', containing accounts of the wages paid to agricultural and building workers on an unidentified estate (possibly in Wales or on the Welsh border) between December 1766 and December 1770. The account states the days worked by each man and his total weekly wage, and the amount paid each week to the bailiff or similar official in settlement of wages. Between December 1766 and September 1767, the men are divided into 'Laborers in Husbandry' and 'Laborers in Building'. After this date, the lists are combined, and a footnote is added each week giving the cost of husbandry, medicines and repairs.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing a draft of a petition of the inhabitants of Russell Street, London, 'whose houses were burnt and blowne up and that lost their goods by the late fire that began in the Theatre Royal' to the Justices of the Peace at Hicks Hall, 1672. The document also contains a list of the men appointed to examine the petitioners, and a list of the petitioners and the value of their losses in goods and property.
Sans titreA journal kept by William Hoskins from 1 December 1655 to 13 November 1667.
Sans titreManuscript volume containing notes in Latin on Samuel Stryk's Examen iuris feudalis, which was first published in 1675 and was widely used as a legal text-book due to its brevity and clarity.
Sans titreManuscript transcription, [1650-1700], of a late medieval prose chronicle giving an account of the Battle of Ransbeek (1143), in which the lords of Grimbergen (Limberg?) were defeated by the guardians of Godfrey III, Duke of Lothier (also known as the Duke of Lorraine or Brabant). The manuscript is entitled 'Comment ceux de Brabant et de Grimburghe eurent moult forte at grande baittaille l'un contre l'autre aupres de Grimburghe en plain champ'.
Sans titre6 letters from Richard Doddridge Blackmore of Gomer House, Teddington, [Middlesex] to Blackmore's publishers, Messrs Smith, Elder and Co of 15 Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, London, 1876-1879. Mainly concerning the publication and sales of Blackmore's novel Erema (1877). All letters are autograph, with signatures (except the last, from which the signature appears to have been cut away).
Sans titreLetter from Thomas Clarkson of Playford [Hall, Suffolk] to Dykes Alexander, c 1830-1840. 'I am going to do a thing, which through delicacy I have never yet been able to do, though I have been at Playford for twenty three years; - that is, to ask you and your cousin Samuel [Alexander] to give a trifle, however small, to the inclosed case...'.
Autograph, with signature. Dated 'Friday afternoon'. With a list of charitable subscribers, including William Allen '... and your son Richard has fiven me a sovereign unasked ...'.
Sans titreLetter from George Rose of Old Palace Green to John Baker Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield, 11 May 1814. Covering letter accompanying a printed copy of a speech delivered by Rose in the House of Commons on 5 May 1814, in favour of the status quo with respect to Corn Laws. He states: 'I am for a full and fair protecting price to the grower'.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from John Woodrow of the Cannon Hotel, Cockspur Street to [Patrick] Colquhoun, 26 May 1818. Covering letter sending a copy of his pamphlet on savings banks and friendly societies.
Written in another hand and signed by Woodrow.
Sans titreLetter from H Jones of 54 Dorset Street, Fleet Street, London to Colonel [Charles Richard] Fox, 24 Jun 1841. Covering letter (written on behalf of the Property Tax Association) to a printed copy of Joshua Scholefield's speech, (made in the House of Commons on 23 Mar 1841) proposing that a property tax be substituted for the existing customs and excise taxes. Jones forecasts that the proposed property tax 'is likely to become a populat topic at the [forthcoming] elections' and expresses the hope that Fox would be elected MP for Tower Hamlets.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titre2 letters sent from officers of the Sambre and Meuse Central Railway Company, London, to John Philippart, 1845. Describing developments and public interest in the Belgian railway and asking for Philippart's support as a member of the managements committee; an explanatory pamphlet accompanied the first letter.
Both letters are autograph, with the signatures of company employees: (i) Osmund Lewis; (ii) G D Carvalho.
Sans titreLetter from William Cobbett of Botley, Hampshire to an unknown recipient, 20 Jul 1808. Recommending Mr Dickins of No 1 Borough Road, 'not a damned roguish author, but a person of great literary talents, great taste in writing ... He has, by causes, arising not from his vices, by [sic] from unavoidable misfortune, been, for sometime past, in the King's Bench (the rendezvous of the muses).'
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titre2 letters from John Gale Jones of 5 Wilsted Street, Somers Town, [London] to unknown recipients, 1828. (1) Covering letter to a copy of Jones's Oration on the late George Washington (1825). 'Should you deem it worthy of any little token of your esteem for the memory of that exalted character ... it will be gratefully acknowledged', 25 Apr 1828. (2) Acknowledging 'the liberal present of a sovereign', 28 Apr 1828.
Both letters are autograph, with signatures.
Sans titreLetter from Sara Coleridge of Keswick, Cumberland to [John] J Morgan Esq of 71 Berners Street, Oxford Street, London [a friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was staying with Morgan's family in London], 5 Sep 1812. '... to request the favor of you to use your influence with my husband to prevail on him to send me a few lines immediately, for I have been so long [since Apr 1812] waiting for a letter from him ... I will thank you to represent to him that I want a little money very much ... for my sister [Edith] Southey having lost 30 pounds by the failure of the Workington Bank, and having occasion for money at present more than is convenient for S [i.e. Robert Southey, Edith's husband] to draw for - I own I feel very uncomfortable at the thought of not being able to settle my accounts with him ... I have bought the books for the boys; I was obliged to send to London for them ... I have also been obliged to get all their school books bound, the Aeschylus among the rest which was coming to peices [sic]. Please also say that we have not been able to find at Grasmere that "Reynard the Fox" which C [her husband] designed for Southey, and that probably he has it with him in town ...'
Autograph, with signature. A note in the hand of her 9-year-old daughter, also Sara, appears at the end of the letter.
Sans titre12 letters and 1 postcard, all addressed to Silvanus Phillips Thompson, 1891-1909. Written by the following people: George Carey Foster; John Hopkinson; Sir Joseph Lister (later Lord Lister); Lyon Playfair, Lord Playfair; Sir William Ramsay; Sir Arthur Rücker; John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh; Sir William Thiselton-Dyer; and Sidney Webb (later Lord Passfield). Topics covered include the University of London and the role of King's College within the University.
All items are autograph, with signatures.
Sans titreLetter from A Moray Williams, 19 May 1932. Address: North Stoneham House, near Eastleigh, Hampshire. To [Thomas] Sturge Moore. Thanks him 'for reading my version of Sakuntala [Shakuntala] so carefully ... I know now that my version is not an adaptation of Kalidasa or a possible stage play of the Sakuntala story. But your kind and helpful criticism encourages me to try again and I think I shall do so'.
Autograph, with signature.
A pencilled draft of a letter from Sturge Moore to W B Yeats (offering commiserations on the death of his friend and patron, Lady Gregory) appears on the dorse of the second leaf.
Sans titreLetter from Samuel Roberts of Park Grange, [Sheffield, Yorkshire] to George Thompson, c/o Alexander Cruickshanks, Meadowside, Edinburgh, 26 Oct 1833. Covering note to a copy of Roberts's An address to the members of the two Wilberforce-Committees, London and York, concerning a suitable memorial to the late William Wilberforce, slavery abolitionist.
Autograph, with signature.
This note is written on a blank portion at the end of the third page of the printed pamphlet. The date stamp, frank, seal and address are on the fourth (back) page.
Sans titreLetter from V Le Roy of 8g, Boulevard Halesherbes VIII to an unknown recipient, 23 Jun 1945. Concerning documents relating to Georges Bizet's father's family.
Sans titreLetter from Hermione Knox of Ranfurly Library Service Ltd, 18 Carlton House Terrace, London to Dr J H P Pafford, 22 Feb 1968. Concerning Dr Pafford's help to the Ranfurly Library Service.
Sans titreLetter from John Edward Masefield to the 'Bookmen of the United States of America', [1941-1967]. Introducing Mr Edmond Segrave, editor of The Bookseller, representing the National Book League.
Sans titreLetter from Sit Thomas (Tam) Dalyell of the House of Commons to Bill Simpson, University of London Librarian, 16 Jan 1994. Presenting a copy of Dalyell's book Dick Crossman: a portrait (1989) to the University of London Library.
Sans titreLetter from David Edward Alexander Lindsay (Earl of Crawford and Earl of Balcarres) of 7 Audley Square, London to Lord Macmillan [Hugh Pattison Macmillan], [1936]. Discussing Jean-Jacques Brousson's Itinérarire de Paris à Buenos Ayres (1936).
Sans titreLetter from Joseph Gouge Greenwood of Owens College, Manchester to Augustus De Morgan, 1 Aug 1860. Thanking him for recommending Robert Bellamy Clifton for the professorship of Natural Philosophy at Owens College. '... I look forward to the gain of a very agreable [sic], as well as a very efficient Colleague in him.'
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titre5 letters from George Julian Harney to John Salkeld, bookseller, 1888-1895. Requesting books. Including an envelope for the letter dated 11 Oct 1893.
Autographs, with signatures.
Sans titreLetter from William Hazlitt of 8 Alfred Place, [London] to Basil Montagu, Esq, 1 Sep 1838. 'I enclose the prospectus [missing] ... I did not ask you for the MSS. on Criminal Law, and on the Emancipation of the Jews ...'. Postscript: 'Mrs. Shelley's letter is dated from 4 Lower Belgrave St. They know her address always at Hookham's Library, 15 Bond St.' The third page contains a list of his father's (William Hazlitt the elder's) works.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from Samuel Heathcote to an unknown recipeint, 19 Oct 1697. 'Sr I have considered those objections you thought would be made against Establishing by Act of Parliamt. Such Companys of Merchants as I propos'd And have set them Downe here below in their full strength as neare as I could remember, with my Answeres to each'. Heathcote refers to a long previous letter giving his proposals in full.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreA collection of letters from Jean-Baptiste Biot and his grandson-in-law F Lefort, to Augustus De Morgan,1855-1863. Including related papers. Many of the letters refer to an article by Biot on Sir Isaac Newton in the Biographie Universelle.
Sans titreLetter from William Huskisson of Eastham, [Worcestershire] to [? Charles] Grant [? afterwards Baron Glenelg], 9 Dec 1825. Referring to 'our commerical Convention with the Hans Towns'.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from Thomas Joplin of 16 Wilmot Street, Brunswick Square, London to Joseph Hume, Esq, MP, 28 May 1824. Presenting him with a copy of Outlines of a System of Political Economy.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titre3 letters from Thomas Joplin of Levant House, St Helens Place, [London] to Joseph Hume, Esq, MP, Apr 1832.
(i) Presenting him with a copy of Analysis and History of the Currency Question, 6 Apr 1832.
(ii) Asking for an appointment to discuss certain propositions he intends to make to the 'committee which will be chosen on Bank affairs', Apr 1832.
(iii) Enclosing a copy of Joplin's petition, Apr 1832.
Autographs, with signatures.
Sans titreLetter from Thomas Babington Macaulay of Albany to Augustus De Morgan, 14 Oct 1853. Thanking him for some papers. 'I am afraid I shall not live to write the history of the American war. Indeed heaven knows when I shall have done with King William'.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from Joseph Deacon Fetch of Cambridge [District Poor Law] Union, Cambridge to [Edward Brent] Prest, [auditor for the Union], 6 Jul 1870. Asking for an opinion on the legality, if they appeared in the accounts of the [Board] of Guardians, of pecuniary awards made for the apprehension of men that had abandoned their families. 'At the present time there are not less than seven men in the Borough Gaol convicted as Rogues & Vagabonds for deserting their families'.
Written in another hand and signed by Fetch.
Sans titreLetter from E Clavering of Newcastle upon Tyne to Mrs Dorothy Fenwick, [Nether] Burows, Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland, 23 Feb 1752. Containing news about friends and relations.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from Peter Hardy of London Assurance to Augustus De Morgan, 25 Jul 1851. Apologising for the delay in replying to a question about 'Jamieson's papers'; sends a 'trifling paper' On the values of annuities read before the Institute of Actuaries on 25 Nov 1850.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreFragment of a letter from Virginia Woolf to an unknown recipient, [1924]. 'We [?Virginia and Leonard Woolf] are here [?in London] till October ... I'm so sorry about Lady Colvin' [?a reference to the death of Frances Colvin, the wife of Sir Sidney Colvin on 1 Aug 1924].
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from William Benjamin Carpenter of the University of London, Burlington House, London to Edward Walford, 29 Mar 1869. Concerning Walford's application for the Examinership in Classics.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titre6 letters from the Billingsleys to the [6th] Earl of Westmorland, mainly concerning coinage and the debts of Case Billingsley.
Sans titre