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A wives' certificate book of the Benevolent Company of Dublin, from the period 1771 to 1801.

Manuscript draft of parts II and III of Robert Owen's Report to the county of Lanark, of a plan for relieving public distress (Glasgow, Edinburgh, 1821), entitled 'Outlines of the plan' and 'Details of the plan', (the title to part II does not appear in the manuscript), pages 10-60 of the printed work. Part II is in Owen's hand; part III is in another hand with some corrections in Owen's hand. There are some slight differences between the manuscript and printed texts - for example 'occur' in the printed text (1821 ed., p.15, line 25) for 'take place' in the manuscript (f.11, line 9). The manuscript ends '...a plan derived from thirty years study and practical experience to give speedy, effectual and permanent relief to the poor and working classes', (f.103), wheras part III of the printed text ends '...a "Plan (derived from thirty years' study and practical experience) for relieving public distress, and removing discontent, by giving...employment to the Poor and Working Classes; - under arrangements which will essentially improve their character, and ameliorate their condition...and create markets co-extensive with production".'(p.60).

Manuscript volume containing the rules of the Agreeable United Fair (Friendly Society), a women's society intended to provide relief in the event of sickness or old age. The Society was held near Fetter Lane, Holborn, London. The rules are signed by fifteen members, six of whom give a mark in place of a signature, c 1785.

Manuscript notebook, compiled in [1804], containing copies of letters, resolutions, reports, certificates of health etc relating to the foundation and early years of the Manchester Board of Health from 1784 to 1804, notably a list of persons ill of the fever at Ashton-under-Lyne, 7 Jan 1796; statistics of christenings and burials for Ashton-under-Lyne, 1790-1791; resolutions of the Quarter Sessions in Manchester, 1784; material relating to fever among the deserters in the castle of Chester,1793-1795.

Manuscript 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.

Collection of deeds, indentures, extracts from court records, and probate proceedings all relating to London, 1343-1789. Includes churchwardens' accounts for St Clement Danes, 1748, 1751-1752, 1755-1757, and 1760-1762, and other papers relating to the administration of the parish, [1750-1800]; a drawing of 'Houses at Broken Wharf', [1600-1699]; part of a treatise on 'Prerogatives' and 'Concerning the Citie of London', discussing spiritual difficulties when living in London, [1750]; letters from R Bandy to William Archer of Welford, Berkshire, 1726-1727; a printed list of governors of, and contributors to, St George's Hospital, Oct 1733-Dec 1752; papers, mostly printed, relating to elections to the Common Council of the City of London for the Coleman Street ward in Dec 1764 and Dec 1772.

Scrapbook of material, printed and manuscript, by and relating to Robert Owen, collected and in part copied by William Pare, and annotated by him throughout, 1819-1855. The manuscript items include:
Copy by Pare of a receipt, 4 Aug 1819, for £500 from Robert Owen to Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, annotated by Pare in 1872.
Copy of a letter from Pare to Owen, 1829.
Copy of letter from Owen to Sir Robert John Wilmot-Horton, 3rd Bt, 1831, with a covering letter from H. Belstead to Pare of 1839.
Notes made from the Leeds Mercury, [1833-1834], written in ink over pencilled jottings (in Pare's hand?) on single leaf of an account book.
Account by Pare of a visit by Owen on 21 Mar 1834 to female convicts at Newgate prison about to be transported, written on a manuscript copy of Owen's address to them.
Holograph draft of Owen's address 'to the government and population of the United States of North America', 6 June 1837.
Two architectural plans of Harmony Hall, East Tytherley, Hampshire, 1839.
Letter from Dr. John Borthwick Gilchrist to Owen, 21 Mar 1839.
Holograph draft by Owen of the address of the Congress of the Association of All Classes of All Nations, and of the National Community Friendly Society to the General Convention of the Industrious Classes 'now sitting at Birmingham', 16 May 1839.
Holograph draft by Owen beginning 'The influence which may be obtained by society over the young mind', 1839.
Holograph draft by Owen of his address 'to intending emigrants and those who are dissatisfied with the present condition of society', 1839.
Single sheet headed 'Social Congress' and endorsed 'Journal', being an account of proceedings of the Congress of the Association of All Classes, 1839.
Incomplete holograph draft of address made by Owen on 'home colonization', at the Birmingham Congress [of the Association of All Classes], 25 May 1839.
Draft of Pare's address to Owen on his 68th birthday, 1839, with Owen's holograph reply.
Extract from The Chronicle, 18 Nov 1841.
Draft inscriptions, partly in Owen's hand, for the towers at Harmony Hall, 1841.
Memorial to Owen from the unemployed tradesmen of Glasgow, 15 Dec 1842.
Copy by Pare of a description of Owen in the Aberdeen Banner, 31 Dec 1842.
'Twelve question to be answered, according to promise, by Mr Owen in Mr Robertson's Hall this present evening', 30 Dec 1842.
Incomplete holograph draft by Owen on 'Causes remote and proximate of the present evils of society', [1843].
Letter of John Finch to Owen, 9 Mar 1843.
'Address [to Queen Victoria] of the members of branch 63 of the Rational Society and the inhabitants of Tower Hamlets in a public meeting assembled at their institution, Whitechapel, 10 Apr 1843, with covering letter by the Secretary, Thomas Marshall, to Owen, 15 Apr 1843.
Copy of the petition to Queen Victoria by the inhabitants of Halifax, 1843.
Bill made out to Owen for his stay at the Royal Hotel, Dundee, from 3-9 Jan, with his own annotations.
'Address to her most gracious Majesty, from a meeting called by public advertisement, in Sydney's Building, Bradford, 16 Feb 1843, signed by Owen who acted as chairman.
Address to Queen Victoria by the Congress of the Rational Society, 25 May 1843, signed by Owen as President of the Society.
Address of the participants of the first Concordium, held at Allcott House, Ham Common, Surrey, 28 Apr 1843, with 17 signatures.
Copy of two letters to The Times from Samuel Wilderspin, concerning infant schools, 6 Aug 1846.
Copies of letters by Owen to George William Frederick Howard, Viscount Morpeth (later 7th Earl of Carlisle), on progress in the United States, and to Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey, on 'education and employment of the industrious classes', 1846.
Holograph draft of an address by Owen on 'The requisites for the permanent happiness of mankind', [1848].
Copy of a letter from Owen to [William] Cox, written from Paris and describing the revolution, June 1848.
Letter from William Offord to Owen, concerning members of Offord's family living with William Evans, 8 May 1855.
Incomplete holograph draft by Owen beginning 'The distress of the country has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished', [1848].
Draft [by Owen] entitled 'The convictions of Robert Owen, founder of the Rational System of Society, on the past, present and future state of the population of the world'.
Anecdote about the reaction of Thomas Say, Professor of Natural History, on reading Owen's works while in North America, [1851].
Silhouette sketch of Owen signed by Augustin Amant Constant Fidele Edouart, 1838.
Miscellaneous printed items include: sketches of Owen, prints of New Lanark, memorial card and order of Owen's funeral procession, printed programme of the 100th anniversary of his birth, 16 May 1871, and newspaper cuttings.

Collection of transcripts, all written in the same hand in [1750], of papers relating chiefly to the administration of poor relief and vagrancy in Edinburgh from 1594-1750, including an Act to impose stent of £500 p.a. for 3 years for cleansing the town, 1687; a 'Report from the committee of the lords appointed to consider the proper method for providing the poor', 1731; an Act of Sederunt imposing stent for 2% on members of the College of Justice for the maintenance of the poor, 1732; a contract between the Council of Edinburgh and the Kirk Sessions for the upkeep of 'a large hospitall or work house... for the more regular maintenance and employment of the whole poor of the...city', 1740; a confirmation of the erection of 'the burgh of the Canongate', 1594; an Act in favour of 'the burgh of Edinburgh anent the annuity' 1661; a report of the 'annexation of the lands and annualls mortifyed to the ministers and hospital of Edinburgh', undated; and a report of the Lords of Council and Session on method for support and maintenance of the begging poor in the charity work house, 1749. There are also additions of 1752 and 1754, the latter being the estimate of the expense of the City Guard for 1745-1746.

Letter from John Ivatt Briscoe of Twickenham, [Middlesex] to an unknown recipient, 29 Apr 1828. Referring to the bill for better regulation of savings banks: making 3 points concerning security, liability of trustees, and the advantages of exact legal regulation. Autograph, with signature.

Letter 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 ...'.

Letter from Richard Frankland, Overseer of the Poor, of Hawes, [North Riding of Yorkshire] to the Overseer of the Poor in Darlington. Stating the cost of maintaining Isabella Scafe for 20 weeks at 3s per week and Elizabeth Harrison for 23 weeks as 1s 6d per week; asking for an extra shilling per weeks for Isabella, who 'still continues very poorly and is confined too [sic] her bed ... she has a very bad cough and is not likely for getting better ... please send the money as soon as possible'.

Autograph, with signature. A note written in another hand beside the figure of £4 14s 6d reads 'Amt sent p[er] T. Craddock' (18 October 1810).

Letter from James Mann of Linton Park, [Kent] to an unknown recipient, 23 Nov 1840. Discussing soup and coal subscriptions for the poor of Cranbrook, Kent, who were suffering from the failure of the hops; promising to continue the subscription given by his recently deceased [second] wife [died 3 Aug 1840].

Autograph, with signature. On mourning paper.

Manuscripts relating to poor relief in Morwich, bound at the end of John Fransham's printed An exact account of the charge for supporting the poor of the City of Norwich (1720). The fourteen used leaves, composed in 1783-1784, contain:

1. Table apparently showing the amount spent annually on poor relief from 1757-1784 in Norwich, the price of corn, and 'Observations for particular years.
   2. An 'Account of 1 year's expense of the New (or Duke's Palace) Workhouse, 1782', with a concluding memorandum on the cost for each pauper dated Jan 1783.
   3. Accounts for the workhouse in Norwich, giving a table of salaries, details of the diet and earnings of the inmates, 'of the spinning schools', and the 'earnings clear to the corporation'.

A manuscript volume containing a transcript by George Chalmers of a discourse, [1558], by John Yonge recommending the establishment of a bank of money for the relief of the poor. The proposal is for this bank to be formed by the payment of a death duty by all members of society, consisting of the best garment of the deceased. The manuscript also contains a proposal for the reformation of the coinage and a dedicatory epistle to Queen Elizabeth I.

A note book, 1800, of George Whitaker, a merchant living in Milnthorpe, Westmorland, enclosing a printed version of the Rules and Orders of the Milnthorpe Friendly Society.

A manuscript statement of poor rates collected for one year from Lady Day (25 Mar) 1833 to Lady Day 1834 [in Suffolk]. Signed by Whymper and dated 29th April 1834.

Letter from Sarah Smith of 17 The Grove, Clapham Common to Mr Pattison, 16 Apr [1886]. Thanking him for his offer of help. 'We like our new house very much, especially the quiet of its surroundings, as we have gardens and fields before us, and the Common within three minutes' walk ... These are very stirring times. I cannot see how Home Rule can be refused to Ireland by any real Liberal; the people have spoken so plainly. I never was a Gladstonite, but you know I am thoroughly a Radical, even a Republican; and I am often sorry that Cromwell's scheme of United States of Europe had not been founded by him ... We have drafted a bill for the Protection of Children ... The last time I was at the Shelter we had ten children in it ... I have no doubt the Society [for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children] is doing good; and I hope it will do more. We now have a night officer, who patrols the streets; but what is one man in London!'

Autograph, with signature.

Volume of printed material relating to the Friendly Society of Journeymen Bookbinders of London and Westminster, including two manuscript items, namely Articles of the Society 'finally agreed to at Mitchell's Rooms, Portsmouth Street, March 24th 1820'; and a letter from James Carss, the Society's Secretary, to John Shaw, concerning the audit of the Society's accounts, [1832].
The Society was instituted to promote 'a good understanding harmony & unanimity amongst the Journeymen Bookbinders of London & its vicinity, & to prevent any encroachments in their rights & privileges'. The articles here listed to which members subscribed concern the organization of the society, the duties of officers, the conduct of members.