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Letter 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.

"A history of Newgate with an account of some notorious criminals", [1910]: manuscript volume, which includes press-cuttings on prisons policy and pamphlets by the Penal Reform League.

Letter from Charles Bennett, dated 23 May 1834, to Daniel Barrington, enclosing a memorandum on the case of John Callaghan, convicted at the summer assizes [in Limerick?] in 1829 for the murder of John Quinlan, with a plea for the remission of Callaghan's sentence to transportation.

Manuscript justification written by Admiral John Forbes of his attitude in refusing to sign the warrant for the execution of Admiral Byng on a charge of neglect of duty in the face of the French fleet off Minorca in 1756. Signed 'J.F.' 16 February 1757.

Letter from John Fisher of Weymouth to Patrick Colquhoun, LLD, 18 Sep 1816. Regarding plans for the provision of a female penitentiary and lock hospital [i.e. hospital for treating sexually-transmitted infections] in Bath; accompanying a copy of the institution's prospectus.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter 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.

Letter from John Eliot of London to Edward Carroll via the Post Office, Worcester, 16 Jan 1819. Referring to the Meeting for Sufferings held the previous day at which the petition to the House of Commons on the subject of capital punishment was signed by the 38 members present 'and liberty was given for any that were then absent to add their names by calling at the Clerk's Office. The subscription is - Signed by us, member of a Meeting for conducting the affairs of the said Society [the Religious Society of Friends], in the intervals of the Yearly Meeting - London, the 15th of 1mo. 1819 ...'

Autograph, with signature and date stamp.

Comprising research files containing press cuttings, correspondence and notes regarding incest, illegitimacy, sexual literature, censorship, homosexuality, banned books, prison reform, the Royal Family, separation, witchcraft, sexual behaviour and venereal disease, possibly for use in his works Sex and Revolution (1934), The Banned Books of England (1937), Above All Liberties (1942) and other publications (1922-1942); typescripts for submission to the 'Encyclopedia of Sexual Behaviour' (n.d.); issues of nudist and health periodicals and offprints of articles by Alec Craig and others (1936-1953).

Conduct record of John Warrow, a labourer born in Africa, convict no. 2039, from a court martial in Trinidad in 1834 to his transportation to Sydney in 1838, together with a physical description of the man. This colonial conduct record describes alleged offences against the disciplinary regime of penal settlements.

Papers of historian Ephraim John (E.J.) Burford, including the following: Typescript and galley proofs, original index and corrections of In the Clink by Burford (June 1974); Printer's copy and original typescript of Hollands Leaguer with suggested illustrations (March 1973); Original typescript of book, Orrible Synne by Burford, with suggested illustrations and correspondence with publishers Caldar and Boyers (March 1973); File of research correspondence and removed typescript draft pages for Bankside Stews: Bawds and Lodgings (January 1973- August 1975).