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Letter 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.

Forged letter pertaining to be from William Makepeace Thackery to an unknown recipient, [1850]. 'When I said that I could do no more for you for the present I meant it literally: I never once said it as a simple excuse... When I find that your views on hard work are different I may perhaps have something to say to you. Believe me a lazy life is a curse to any man.

Written and signed in an unknown hand, as if by Thackeray.

Manuscript volume containing a table giving particulars of the pay and stoppages for all ranks in the different ratings of the Royal Navy, [1800]. Includes a list of leap years from 1752 to 1762.

Letter from Richard Oastler of Fixby Hall, Huddersfield, [West Riding of Yorkshire] to John Foster, Esq of 1 Vincent Square, Westminster, 23 Jun 1833. Chiefly relating to the Ten Hours Bill. Lord Althorp had advocated 2 sets of 8 hours as the maximum for children under 14 to work. 'The news came just in time for your Hudd meeting - one hour before we began - & thus before 15,000 to 20,000 people I had the opportunity of blowing the whole scheme to rags' [referring to a speech Oastler made at a meeting on 18 Jun 1833. Urging the London section not to yield a single point: 'If they yield they disgrace themselves and give us another year's excitement and in my opinion hurry on a bloody revolution'.

Autograph, with signature. With Oastler's black seal, bearing the motto: 'The Altar, the Throne and the Cottage'.

Letter from Thomas Clarkson of Playford Hall [near Ipswich, Suffolk] to Henry Hope, 'at the Bank', Wells, Somerset, 9 Jan 1826. Printed circular letter, asking for support for the petition to Parliament to urge them to carry out a plan for the improvement of the condition of the slave population. An addition in MS asks Hope to promote petitions in Wells, Shepton Mallet, Bruton and neighbouring towns. A note in another hand has been added to the dorse of the second leaf. A newspaper cutting Extracts from the new Jamaica Slave Code accompanies the letter.

Letter from Thomas Clarkson of Bury [St Edmunds, Suffolk] to Rev M Maurice, [1807-1816]. Urging him to restore the committee at Southampton to promote a petition to Parliament in favour of a plan for the improvement of the condition of the slave population.

Letter from Sir Edward Henry Busk of Sussex Place, Regent's Park, London to R A Rye, 9 May 1922. Expressing his regret on resigning from the Library Committee of the University of London.

Autograph, with signature.

Two items c 1892, by John Burnett of the Board of Trade concerning the reduction of wages and strikes in the mining, shipbuilding, metal and textile trades.

Letter 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.