Letter from Jean-Baptiste Colbert of Versailles, [France] to M Daguesseau, 1 Jan 1683. Promoting the manufacturers of Saptes and Clermont in France, and their exports to the Levant.
With autograph signature.
Sans titreLetter from Jean-Baptiste Colbert of Versailles, [France] to M Daguesseau, 1 Jan 1683. Promoting the manufacturers of Saptes and Clermont in France, and their exports to the Levant.
With autograph signature.
Sans titreLetter from Peter Dolland of London to an unknown recipient, 20 Aug 1803. Discussing an order given for instruments, including compasses, ivory scales, and 'the case of drawing instruments which you desire in every particular to be very good and yet you seem to expect the price to be very low'. Mentioning alternative types and prices of some instruments.
Autograph, signed 'P. & J. Dollond'.
Sans titreLetter from Charles Haley of London to Mr Whitaker [possibly John William Whittaker, scholar and Anglican clergyman, then a fellow of the College], St John's College, Cambridge, 8 Dec 1818. Discussing a watch ordered by Whitaker, asking whether he would prefer it in silver or in gold; gold would cost 12 or 13 guineas more. Haley intends to put on the crest, 'but rather delicate that it may not injure the case by taking it out, yet it shall look well'.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from Alexander Galloway of West Street, [London] to Mr Applegarth, Stamford Street [recipient's name and address added in a different hand], 9 Jul 1824. He has received the letter about a press to mark Bath paper. Stating that he will engrave the seal to any design. The japanned press would cost £8 10s, the bright one £9, independent of the die.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from John Thornton Leslie-Melville of Old Broad Street, [London] to J D Powles, 10 Dec 1824. Stating that he does not wish to injure the market, but at the same time wishes Powles to sell 100 more of his (Melville's) Colombian mine shares at the first favorable opportunity, as his broker says that 50 shares had been sold that morning at £19 10s.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from John Taylor of London to Richard Taylor, Esq [probably the writer's son or brother], 5 Jul 1837. 'The bearers Messrs. [Gabriel] Daubrée and Sentis have studied at the Ecole des Mines at Paris and are strongly recommended by Messrs. [François] Arago and Combes. I have furnished them with introductions to some of our agents, but if you will give them further advice and assistance in Cornwall I shall be obliged to you.'
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from John Walker to James Simpson, Esq, engineer at the Chelsea Water Works, 10 Mar 1841. Apologising for being unable to get away until 1 o'clock; he has a bridge meeting to attend at 12 o'clock.
Autograph, with signature. [The year 1841 and the recipient's name and address have been added in another hand.]
Sans titreLetter from S C Lakeman of 25 Place Vendôme, Paris to Monsieur Legrand, Sous Secretaire d'État aux Travaux Publics à Paris, 12 Jan 1847. Wishing to submit observations on the floating breakwater to La Ciotat, [Bouches-du-Rhône] and requests an audience for this purpose.
Autograph, with signature. An additional note gives the time and date of the audience as 11 am, Saturday 16 Jan [1847].
Sans titreLetter from E Shaw of the Derwentwater Hotel, Portincasle, Keswick, [Cumberland] to 'Tom', 25 Sep 1888. Shaw's party had dined at the hotel and were obliged to stay there for a week as they could find no suitable lodgings. They had taken up the Hampsons on the way.
Autograph, with signature. On headed paper, bearing an engraved view of the hotel.
Sans titreLetter from Thoomas Algernon Dorien-Smith of Tresco Abbey, Isles of Scilly, Cornwall to James Hooper, 28 Dec [1883-1884]. Intending to send flowers by the next mail. Discussing the demerits of the parcel post for the flower trade's deliveries. The islands are suitable for growing flowers, espcially narcissi, but strong winds prevent fruit-growing.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from William Henry Grenfell of 30 Bruton Street, London [the printed letter-head 'Carlton Club' has been struck through] to [Edward] Marston, 26 Jun 1912. Relating to Marston's query about the origin of the Port of London Authority regulations for fishing.
Autograph, with signature.
(1) Letter from William Hesketh Lever, Lord Leverhulme, of The Hill, Hampstead Heath, North End, London to A B Cooper, 34b Earlsfield Road, Wandsworth Common, London, 23 Apr 1918. In reply to a letter of 19 Apr. 'In my opinion the greatest discovery of the twentieth century has been that making war on peaceful neighbours does not pay ... We are greatly indebted to Mr. Norman Angell for being the first to call attention to this great fact ...'.
(2) Letter from William Hesketh Lever, Lord Leverhulme, of Port Sunlight, Cheshire to C D Melville, Meole Hall, Shrewsbury, 10 Jul 1919. Declining a request to study fish curing and canning in Stornaway [Isle of Lewis], as the developments are proceeding slowly, and the proposed works far from completion.
Both letters signed by Lord Leverhulme.
Sans titreLetter from Thomas Cooper of 10 Devonshire Place, Stoke Newington Green, Middlesex to Edward Smith, 30 Jan 1855. 'I can do no more than sympathise with you - for I am sometimes at my wits end to know how the week's bread is to [be] purchased.'
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from John Proby of Hill Street to [George Montagu Dunk, Earl of Halifax, then First Lord of the Admiralty], 19 Nov 1762. Seeking an appointment to the board of the Admiralty.
Autograph, with signature. Endorsed in another hand: 'Ans. 20 [Nov] 1762'.
Sans titreLetter from Hunter and Co, Bank Office of Ayr, [Ayrshire, Scotland] to Ebenezer Gilchrist, Esq of British Linen Company Bank, Edinburgh, 13 May 1822. Relating to business topics.
With signature.
Notes in the hand of Professor H S Foxwell are filed with the letter.
Sans titreBound volume containing approximately 100 letters and other miscellaneous writings, c 1763-1925, comprising copies of poems; newspaper cuttings; cuttings from booksellers' catalogues and biographical dictionaries; handwritten notes; and engraved and photographic portraits. The following items have been inserted at the front of the volume: 4 newspaper cuttings; catalogue number 46 of P J and A E Dobell, booksellers (Jul 1925); and the address portions of 2 envelopes, 1837-1838.
The majority of the correspondents are poets, authors, academics or clergymen, mainly from the 19th century. Letter-writers include the following: Charles Hamilton Aidé; Archibald Alison (later Sir Archibald); Edwin Atherstone; James Atlay, Bishop of Hereford; Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham; Peter Bayne (Ellis Brandt); Arthur Christopher Benson; Rev Edward Bickersteth (?Dean of Lichfield); Robert Bickersteth, Bishop of Ripon; Professor John Stuart Blackie; Professor John James Blunt; Thomas George Bonney; Oscar Browning; Edward Capern; Edward Daniel Clarke; George Edward Lynch Cotton, Bishop of Calcutta; Charles Henry Olive Daniel; John Disney; John Douglas, Bishop of Carlisle; Reverend Henry Drury; Robert John Eden, Lord Auckland, Bishop of Bath and Wells; Rev John Wogan Festing, Bishop of St Albans; Rev James Fleming; Francis Fulford, Bishop of Montreal; William Nugent Glascock; Rev Sabine Baring-Gould; Eugene Jacob Lee-Hamilton; William Hayley; Charles Harold Herford; John Hoole; William Howitt; William Jerdan; Augustus Jessopp; Edmund Keene, Bishop of Chester; Charles Mackay; Halford John Mackinder (later Sir Halford); John Richard Magrath; Herbert Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough; Thomas Gerald Massey; Hugh Boyd McNeile, Dean of Ripon; John Miller Dow Meiklejohn; Rev Charles Merivale, Dean of Ely; Rev Frederick Brotherton Meyer; Richard Monckton Milnes (later Lord Houghton); Rev John Murray Mitchell; William Mitford; James Montgomery; Robert Montgomery; Thomas Moore; Rev John Morison; John Henry Muirhead; Professor Friedrich Max Müller; the Hon Roden Berkeley Wriothesley Noel; Charles Evelyn Pierrepont, Viscount Newark; Professor James Pillans; Sir Lyon Playfair (later Lord Playfair); Professor Richard Potter; John Critchley Prince; John Edmund Reade; William Stewart Rose; John Towill Rutt; Anna Seward (the 'Swan of Lichfield'); Mary Montgomerie Singleton (Violet Fane, afterwards Lady Currie); William Skinner, Bishop of Aberdeen; George Barnett Smith (Guy Roslyn); Robert Payne Smith, Dean of Canterbury; Robert Southey; Charles Swain; Sir Henry Taylor; John Timbs; Sir George Pretyman Tomline, Bishop of Winchester; Rev Henry Baker Tristram; John Matthias Turner, Bishop of Calcutta; Patrick Fraser Tytler; Aubrey Thomas de Vere; Paul Gavrilovitch Vinogradoff (later Sir Paul); Edwin Waugh; Gerald Valerian Wellesley, Dean of Windsor; Stanley John Weyman; Joseph Blanco White; Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen; Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta; Rev Christopher Wordsworth (later Bishop of Lincoln); and William Aldis Wright. Many of the letters are autograph and bear signatures.
Some of the letters were purchased or solicited from their writers or owners by one Thomas Hutchinson, who may also have compiled the whole volume.
Sans titreLetter from Stephen Harry Skillington of 20 Victoria Park Road, Leicester to [Alexander Hamilton] Thompson, 21 Nov 1923. Covering letter enclosing a copy of Skillington's book [A History of Leicester (1923)]; also discussing Skillington's health, etc.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from Eberhard Bethge to [G K A Bell, Bishop of Chichester], 2 Feb 1955. Covering note enclosing a copy of T Heuss et al Bekenntnis und Verpflichtung (1955) and 'the small bible study of Dietrich just appeared'.
Autograph, with signature.
Letter from Harry Evers Palfrey of The Beeches, Penn, Staffordshire to [Gervase Disney Alexander] Lord Cobham, 23 Mar 1929. Mainly discussing topographical and genealogical books.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titre(1) Letter from David Mather Masson of the Garrick Club to Augustus De Morgan, 13 Jun 1867. Discussing Thomas Carlyle's mathematical work.
(2) Letter from Thomas Carlyle of Chelsea to [De Morgan], 19 Jun 1867. Discussing Carlyle's translation of A M Legendre's Eléments de géométrie and the 'the Galbraith legend' [that a Mr Galbraith was the translator of Legendre's work].
Both letters are autograph, with signatures.
Sans titreLetter from William Thompson of Bay View Cottage, near Swansea to his cousin William Thompson, Seymour Place, Bristol Road, Birmingham, 28 Sep 1841. Concerning 'what situation I could place Richard in' and news of 'our Friend Vansittart'. Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from John Wood to Richard Oastler via the Post Office, Leeds, Yorkshire [redirected from Foxley Hall, Huddersfield], Nov 1830. 'I send you this as proof of the general disposition to meet the question. The signatures annexed include almost every Bradford Spinner ...'.
Autograph, with signature. Written on the dorse of a poster advertising a meeting of Bradford worsted spinners on 22 Nov 1830, with the aim of improving working conditions; the poster is folded in half, with the direction and postmarks on one leaf and the content of the letter on the other.
Sans titreLetter from Thomas Clarkson of Woodbridge, [Suffolk] to Peter Clare of Manchester, 21 Apr 1826. Thanking him for details of a successful petition: 'Yours indeed is a great triumph, when you consider the opposition, if I may so call it, of the Boroughreeve ... It was much the case at Glasgow, where the hireling [James] Macqueen, the Editor of a Glasgow paper [?Glasgow Herald], and pensioned by two of the West Indian legislatures, and a host of W. India planters owners of West Indiamen and coopers, mechanics working for that employ resided ... There is ... something so good in our cause [the abolition of slavery], that it must always make its way among a moral people.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titre7 letters, mainly written to Marian Evans, [1860]-1874. Correspondents include Sir Edward C Burne-Jones, Sir Frederic Burton, John Chapman, George Henry Lewes, Edmund Owen, Herbert Spencer and Sir Charles V Stanford. Several of the letters express appreciation of the quality of George Eliot's writing.
All letters are autograph, with signatures.
Sans titreLetter from William Wilberforce of Iver, Buckinghamshire to the [? Home Office], 2 Aug 1823. Asking for 'Mr. Peele' [i.e. the Home Secretary, Robert Peel, later Sir Robert Peel] to consider 'the application of several highly respectable people in favour of Geo. Fish [convicted at Hull] ... that instead of being transported for 7 years according to his sentence, he may be placed in the Penitentiary in the not unreasonable hope that the principles which were instilled into him in his childhood may there be reviv'd'. Requesting that any decision be communicated to him at Elmdon House near Coventry.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from George MacDonald of 39 Melville Street, Edinburgh to Mr [Robert] Balgarnie, 21 Jun 1885. Thanking him for an invitation, which he hopes to accept. 'I suppose the month of August would do for Scarborough - but so far we are not even sure that we shall not be in Bordighera before the end of that month. We are getting very good gatherings here.'
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titre6 letters written by Thomas Campbell, c 1815-1841. Correspondents include Lord Jeffrey [Francis Jeffrey], Cyrus Redding and Bess Campbell. Topics covered include social engagements and Campbell's health.
All items are autograph, with signatures.
Sans titreLetter from Thomas Hoskins Webb of Camden, Maine to Joseph Hume, 11 Aug 1849. Thanking him for his 'kind attention to my inquiries relative to the important subject of Postal Reform'; sending him a copy of a pamphlet issued by 'our Free [sic] Postage Association, wherein you will find an extract from one of your letters to me, and in an Appendix the statistics by you kindly funished'; offering to send extra copies should Hume or Mr Rowland Hill desire any. Webb mentions 'another subject or project designed for the public good. I mean a "People's Library". Altho' we abound in Charitable, Literary, and Scientific Institutions, we have nothing of this description. We have Athenaeums, Social Libraries, Circulating Do., Mercantile Do., Apprentices' Do., Historical Do., but not one People's Library... The great mass of the community, the People, emphatically so called, have no right of admission to any of these places...'.
Autograph, with signature. A note in another hand states that a reply was made on 28 Aug 1849; initialled: 'D'.
Sans titreLetter from Sir Samuel Romilly of Gray's Inn, London to John Baynes (also of Gray's Inn), Embsay Kirk, near Skipton, Yorkshire, 2 Sep 1785. Regrets but excuses Baynes's silence: '... if [the lakes in Cumberland] are half as beautiful as they are described to be I dont wonder yt you cannot turn yr attention to anything yt is enveloped in y smoke of London... I have heard a gr[ea]t deal since you have been gone abt our friend y Count [i.e. Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau] tho not from himself or his belle amie [Henriette-Amélie Van Haren, Madame de Nehra]. That great deal, however is only a great many books wch he had written ...'. Mentioning a work of Mirabeau's that had been banned in France. 'Have you seen [John] Adams, the American ambassador [later US President]? I dined y o[the]r day in compy with him and his wife and w[ha]t is much better his dau[ghte]r who is so pretty ... As for y Fa[the]r he is quite M. l'Ambassadeur and seems afraid to say any thing without mystery lest one sho[ul]d find out yt he is not of a higher order of beings that oneself'. Discussing the state of patent law in respect of new inventions and examines way of making it more beneficial to patentees. Concludes with remembrances 'to our good friend Dome'.
Autograph, with signature. Endorsed with the name: Thomas G Whytehead.
Sans titreLetter from Michel Chasles of Paris to Augustus De Morgan, 31 Aug 1852. On mathematical matters.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from Robert Bald of Edinburgh to Joseph Hume MP, 27 Apr 1826. Excusing his silence 'but ... I have been uncommonly pressed with mineral surveying and reporting thereon arising in a great degree from the conflicting elements which arise betwixt master and servant. Coals rise in price to an exorbitant rate, and the great manufacturing interests of Glasgow & chief consumers of coal there agreed to have the districts surveyed as to the means of supplying the City with abundance of coal at a moderate rate, and to lay rail ways into the coals fields which were the best'. He encloses "two copies of the treatise I wrote regarding the coal trade of Scotland and the slavish system of bearing coals by women. I have been attacked and run down for doing so: this I care nothing about ...'. Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from T Guinier of Societe l'Avenir Realiste, 23 rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honore, Paris to Frere Hubert, 15 Jul 1868. Covering letter to copies of the brochure Realisme Social, detailing subscription rates: 'en vous priant de bien vouloir utiliser les uns et les autres de la maniare qui vous paraetre le plus fructeux [sic] pour assurer la propagation de nos idees et la reussite de notre A'uvre de regeneration social'.
Autograph, with signature. A note states that the letter was answered on 19 Jul 1868.
Sans titreLetter from William Cooke Taylor of the National Anti-Corn Law League, 67 Fleet Street, London to [John Lewis] Ricardo, [MP for Stoke-upon-Trent], 15 Mar 1844. Announcing that 'the Somerset House School of Design has given a very favourable hearing to the proposal for establishing a branch in the Potteries ... If you persevere in your design of offering a prize for model or pattern, which I believe would be of great value to your constitutents & certainly highly creditable to yourself, I would deem it a favour ... to announce your intention in one of my articles'. Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from Michel Chasles of Paris to Augustus De Morgan, 4 Oct 1852. On mathematical matters.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from Richard Cobden of Manchester to Mr [?George] Moffatt, 23 Dec 1845. 'Not a word passed between [Earl] Grey and me upon any other subject than corn - I called on him solely for the purpose of urging the Whigs to stick to our principle, and to explain that the League could not swerve a hairs breadth from its path of Total and Immediate to suit any party. This is all that passed - [Viscount] Palmerstons name was of course never mentioned or referred to ... The Whigs are lower than ever by this exhibition of impracticableness at a moment when every other question ought to have been suspended at least till they had dealt some-how or other with that food crisis which alone called them into place and alone warranted them in assuming a power which otherwise they did not possess. At such a time to squabble over seats at the Council board! If I had been Lord John [Russell], history should have rather said of me that I had sent into the parish vestryroom for a dozen select men of the parish to form my cabinet, until I could in my place in Parlt. birng on the total repeal of the corn law, than that I had allowed any two or even twelve men to stop me in my course when once pledged to such an undertaking'.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from John Lunan of Spanish Town, [Jamaica] to Rear-Admiral Sir Home Popham, 15 Oct 1819. Sending a copy of his book, which 'he flatters himself ... may assist Sir Home in obtaining a knowledge of our Slave Code'.
Autograph, unsigned.
Sans titreLetter from Cornelius Walford of 86 Belsize Park Gardens, London to Professor [Herbert Somerton] Foxwell, Cambridge, 14 Sep 1882. The J P Esqre referred to in the preface is James Postlethwayte. He is supposed to have calculated the table of probability contained in the work.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from George Warde Norman of the Bank of England to [Edward Pleydell-]Bouverie, 3 Mar 1870. Thanking him for his good opinion 'as to my pamphlet on Comparative Taxation'; undertakes to send him 'a small volume of Papers, which I had printed for distribution last autumn ... [I] feel that my literary career is over'.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreLetter from W G Burns of Derby to Colonel [Thomas Perronet] Thompson, 23 Feb 1846. 'As I think it [a] pity you should be ignorant [of] the nature of the arguments [u]rged against free trade principles I send you a specimen of [w]hat a clerical opponent can [d]o ...'
Autograph, with signature. Written on the dorse of the title page and the end fly leaf of a pamphlet [by Henry Robert Crewe] The repeal of the Corn Laws (1846).
Sans titreLetter from John Ramsay McCulloch of the Stationery Office to [S J Loyd], Baron Overstone, 23 Mar 1863. Covering letter accompanying a proof copy of the 3rd edition of McCulloch's Treatise on the principles and practical influence of taxation and the funding system (1863); McCulloch has 'marked the passages which I think would answer best for reference'.
Written in another hand and signed by McCulloch.
Sans titreLetter from Henry Roberts of 31 Prince's Square, Kensington Gardens, London to C C Nelson, 16 Mar 1861. 'The lecture which you attended some months since at the So[uth] Kensington Museum [now the Victoria and Albert Museum] has just been published by the Ladies' Sanitary Association [under the title Healthy Dwellings]'.
Autograph, with signature.
Sans titreManuscript 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 titre