Papers of Jeremy Bentham, 1750-1885, consist of drafts and notes for published and unpublished works, and cover many subjects including: Bentham's codification proposal, a plan to replace existing law with a codified system, an idea which manifested itself in Constitutional Code (London, 1830), a blueprint for representative democracy and an entirely open and fully accountable government, 1815-1832; penal code, which involved penal law giving effect to the rights and duties of civil law, [1773]-1831; punishment, to certain actions which, on account of their tendency to diminish the greatest happiness, would be classified as offences, [1773-1826]; Bentham's Panopticon, a way of maintaining and employing convicts in a new invented building, 1785-1813; Chrestomathia, the secondary school designed by Bentham, 1815-1826; evidence in law, [1780]-1823; religion, and the Church, 1800-1830; logic, ethics, deontology (the science of morality), morals, utilitarianism and the greatest happiness principle, 1794-1834; political economy, [1790]-1819; Supply without burthen or Escheat vice taxation, a proposal for saving taxes, 1793-1795; legislation, including law amendment and law reform, [1770-1843]; procedure, and procedure codes, [1780]-1830; law and issues in other countries, including Greece, Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium and Tripoli, 1810-1830; A Comment on the Commentaries, being a criticism of William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, also Bentham's and Blackstone's views on civil code, [1774]-1830; sexual nonconformity, [1774]-1816; Scotch reform, 1804-1809; Court of Lords delegates, 1807-1821; parliamentary papers, and parliamentary reform, [1790]-1831; poor law, and poor plan, 1796-[1845]; correspondence, 1761-1866, including a corrected draft letter to James Madison, President of the United States of America, in which Bentham made an offer to draw up a complete code of laws for the USA, 1811.

Records, [1820s]-1984, of the Chadwick Trust. Administrative papers comprise legal papers setting up the Trust, 1890-1896; minute books, 1895-1983; annual reports, 1962-1978; lists of securities, 1914-1917; corrected booklet The Chadwick Trust, 1926-1937; script of a proposed film treatment of Sir Edwin Chadwick, 1958; signing-in book for meetings, 1972-1980. Financial papers comprise account books, 1958-1979; tax claims, 1972-1976; financial files, 1972-1980; correspondence on tax reclaimed, 1980. Papers on lectures given under the auspices of the Trust comprise announcements of lectures, 1913-1935; printed copies of lectures held under the Trust's auspices, 1930-1967, the subjects including public health and buildings, sewerage, nutrition, disease, air quality, training and public health, medical provision, and public health work overseas; other printed lectures and writings, 1896-1932, the subjects including aspects of sanitation, disease, and Sir Edwin Chadwick. Correspondence comprises general correspondence, 1913-1924, 1971-1982; correspondence of the Clerk of the Trust, 1969-1979; correspondence of G M Binnie, 1944-1980; Charity Commission correspondence, 1962-1978; correspondence relating to medals and a memorial prize, 1966-1978; Trustees, 1969-1977; receptions, meetings and lectures, 1970-1978; blue plaque, 1972-1976; costing of activities, 1974; annual reports, 1974-1979; transfer of the Trust to University College London, 1974-1984. Miscellaneous items pertaining to Edwin Chadwick, [1820s]-1889, include his diary [1820s] and patents of his inventions, 1871-1872. Other acquired papers comprise printed ephemera including circulars against inoculation [1914-1918] and undated printed extracts from a hymn on sanitation. Photographs include undated prints of Edwin Chadwick and other eminent scientists; undated slides for a lecture, including various 19th-century public figures, 19th- and 20th-century mortality rates, and various London hospitals; and photographs, 1980, of a plaque to Chadwick at his birthplace in Longsight, Greater Manchester.

Copy of power of attorney granted on behalf of Jose Fernandez y Lopez, resident in Havana, Cuba, to Messrs Morris and Elkan of London, concerning a brand of cigars and tobacco, 1902.

Papers of Sir Ambrose Fleming, including extensive sets of laboratory notebooks which include accounts of experiments on carbon filaments carried out by Fleming when he was adviser to the Edison and Swan Electric Light Company, of tests on electrical and photometric standards carried out in the Pender Laboratory at University College London, and of experiments on valves and other aspects of wireless telegraphy; notes of lectures attended by Fleming and notes for lectures given by Fleming; patent specifications and papers on litigation over them; newspaper cuttings and other compilations by Fleming; papers on awards and distinctions; biographical notes; and correspondence. 500 of the 521 volumes are printed works associated with the collection.

Catalogue of William Blackburn's law library, c1847.

The collection consists of manuscript papers, translations, working papers and notes of Alexander Falconer Murison.

Collection containing documents concerning John Lee Warner and His Majesty's Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, 1764-1783; documents concerning Alexander Emerton and his invention 'artificial stone', 1737-c1781; various legal documents, 1708-1757; and miscellaneous undated documents.

Manuscript law reports in various hands. Inscription on folio 1 reads 'Liber Timothei Tourneur de Grayes Inne Lectoris ibidem in quadragesima Anno Domini 1631 et Anno 7 Regis Caroli'.

Notes from a course of lectures in law, given in Oxford by Sir William Blackstone.

Manuscript notes for lectures on the law of evidence and on domestic law.

Typescript of an unpublished book entitled 'Elizabethan Technology or the development of the letters patent protection for inventions'. Also correspondence about the book.

The collection consists of lecture notes taken when Powell was a student at Oxford, and notes for his own course of lectures at University College London.

Papers and correspondence relating to Davidge's inventions and to patents of them.

Manuscript text of lectures on jurisprudence delivered by Graves during his professorship at University College London.

The text of twelve lectures on Equity, delivered by Graves during his professorship at University College London.

Notebooks of lecture notes on history.

Notes for lectures on English law at University College London.

Manuscript notes on William Golden Lumley's lectures in English Law, delivered at University College London.

Fragments of mainly medieval and early modern manuscripts, primarily leaves from liturgical texts including missals, breviaries, psalters, bibles and biblical commentaries, but also including fragments of popular medieval textbooks including the Codex Justinianus and Graecismus . Also includes fragments of medieval music including noted missals, antiphonaries, graduals and noted breviaries. The music section includes fragments from two incunabula.

Manuscript volume, 15th century: Uber Wichbilde, Lehenrecht Vnnd Lantrecht (a lexicon of information on Wichbilde, Lehenrecht and Lantrecht).

Manuscript volume, 18th century, containing Grágás (Laws of the Icelandic Commonwealth).

Manuscript volume with contents dating from the 14th and 15th centuries, comprising a collection of 20 miscellaneous treatises, including 'Dyalethyca', with a commentary and exercise on the Summulae logicorum of Petrus Hispanus and other lectures and exercises in logic of Petrus Zech, alias De Pulka, of the University of Vienna, written by Johannes Sintram at Ulm and dated 1405; other treatises on liturgical and astrological subjects, including works by Johannes De Sacro Bosco; calendars; questions on canon law; verses. The pastedowns are from a 14th-century service book.

Contract (copy) between the International Ocean Telegraph Company and the India Rubber Gutta Percha & Telegraph Works Company for work on submarine cables between Havana, Cuba, and Key West [Florida], 1873.

Papers of the Parkes family, 1634-1865. The main part of the collection consists of letters to Joseph Parkes. In addition, there are a few letters to his elder brother Josiah, to their father John, and to other members of the family. There are also a few miscellaneous papers. The Parkes family deeds are also part of the collection, consisting of family deeds, subsidiary title deeds, grants of mineral rights, deeds held as Trustees, and miscellaneous. The deeds are dated 1634-1800 and the correspondence is dated 1801-1865.

Volume of 35 letters from Jeremy Bentham to Leicester Stanhope, 1823-1831, on topics including the transmission of Bentham's 'Constitutional Code' to Greece; Greek deputies sent to London to raise money for the Greek cause; the reform of government in British India; an account of Bentham's foundation of the Law Reform Association and Bentham's involvement with the Westminster Review. The letters include references to Francis Burdett, Daniel O'Connell, John Bowring; Colonel John Young, Ram Mohun Roy and Joseph Hume.

A contract to publish music from the opera Macbeth, 1847.

Manuscript volume containing a memorial concerning proposed alterations to the laws relating to bankruptcy and the ranking of creditors in Scotland, [1716], protesting against the adoption of English laws in Scotland.

Certificate of burial in wool, 1738, for Mary Wilbey of the parish of St Benedict, Cambridge.

Letter from John Loudon McAdam to the antiquary and topographer, John Britton, 27 Oct 1826. Thanking Britton for his paper and commenting on prospective modifications to the Poor Law.

Proposed Act to impose restrictions on what women could wear.

Correspondence of William Carey, John Campbell, Jospeh Hume, Thomas Babington Macaulay and John Philips, 1805-1847, comprising a letter from Joseph Hume to John Campbell, Apr 1843, regarding the petition from Montrose against the Factory Bill; a letter from Thomas Babington Macaulay to an unknown recipient, 6 Apr 1847, regarding the probable loss of his seat in Parliament; a letter from John Philips of Aberdeen to his brother, 19 Apr 1815; a letter from William Carey of Calcutta, to his father, 31 Dec 1805, describing conditions in India; and a letter from John Campbell to his "Christian Brethren" in Copenhagen, 7 Jan 1807.

Facsimile of a letter from George Gordon Noel Byron of Venice to M [Giovanni Antonio] Galignani, editor of Galignani's Messenger, 18 rue Vivienne, Paris, 27 Apr 1819. Disclaims the authorship of The Vampire, which had been attributed to him in Galigniani's Messenger '... I desire the responsibility of nobody's dullness but my own ...'.

Facsimile copy of an autograph letter, with signature.

Letter from James Stephen, Master in Chancery's Office, London to James Cropper Esq of Liverpool, 7 Nov 1825. 'I have just recd. a letter from our friend [?Zachary] Macaulay informing me of an intended publication of the Liverpool anti-slavery society of which he supposes a copy has been also sent to me. I have not received it, but from what he says of its contents, am afraid of losing a post in saying to you that I earnestly request its publication may be at least suspended, till we can submit to the consideration of your Society the remarks we have to make on it ...' [no such tract was published by the Liverpool Society of the Abolition of Slavery around this time, perhaps due to Stephen's letter]. Discussing current aspects of the problem of emancipation and concludes that direct legislation by parliament is 'the only means by which anything good for the slaves can or will ever be effected. My hopes I lament to say of any early adoption of such means are very faint indeed, but it is nevertheless our duty to call for them ...'.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from John Burn of Orton, [Westmorland] to Thomas Cadell [the elder] Esq, 'bookseller, Strand, London', 26 Mar 1792. 'I have by the coach this day sent you Barry's Justice [i.e. E Barry Present practice of a justice of the peace (1790)] & in the margin have marked the vs & pages in our Justice [i.e. R Burn The justice of the peace and parish officer (1755 and many susbequent editions)] from which he has copied. I may safely say there is not one hundred pages, put the whole together of his 4 volumes, which is not copied from my father...'.

Autograph, with signature. Franked: 'Appleby'[-in-Westmorland].

Letter from Richard Cobden to Mrs Drummond, 16 Shamrock Place, Edinburgh, 12 May 1845. Thanking her for a present to his young daughter. Referring to [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, who 'is now I fear a little under the shade, in consequence of his Maynooth vote, with some of his constitutents', and to the bazaar given by the National Anti-Corn Law League at Covent Garden.

Autograph, with signature. With the original envelope (with a decorative border in the form of wheat ears), bearing the seal of the National Anti-Corn Law League.

Letter from P K Seaman of HMS Wolverine, docked at St Helena, to his father, 1 Jun 1851. '... I have already told you that we have caught 3 slavers ...'.

Autograph, with signature. 4 sketches of vessels captured by the Wolverine are pasted to the second leaf of the letter.

Letter from Richard Cobden of Manchester to F Buloz, Esq, Paris, 19 Dec 1845. Answering Buloz's request for a collection of the National Anti-Corn Law League's publications for an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes. Cobden explains that 'no complete collection of [tracts, articles, pamphlets and advertisements] has been preserved - Nor has there been any history of the League written in England.' He promises to give full information and 'copies of all our publications which are preserved' to a visitor 'if recommended by you'. He recommends Bastiat's Cobden et la Ligue [printed by Senlis, Paris, 1845]. 'I may also add the Monsr Fonteyrand ... paid us a visit here a few weeks ago to whom I explained the machinery of our organisation ... I am not sure that he would feel at liberty to assist in furnishing an article for your publication - But he is more competent than any other person in France to do it correctly - At all events, I wish you would see him ... and say that I shall be obliged if he will allow you to have access to the publications which I gave him and afford you all facilities in his power for preparing a description of the League ...'.

Autograph, with signature.

A collection of letters, printed circulars, etc, mainly addressed to William Blackwood, of Messrs Stuart and Blackwood, Peebles, Scotland, 1859-1901. The topics covered reflect the firm's business activities: requests for legal advice or legal action; requests to act as agents or trustees; and legal advice or legal action on insurance, assurance and debts. A signficant proportion of the letters concern the Symington extension of the Caledonian Railway Company (1861).

Letter from Sir Michael Edward Hicks Beach of 11 Downing Street, Whitehall, London to Dr Swayne [?Walter Carless Swayne], 18 Mar 1898. 'I cannot say that I have any special knowledge of the matters that are proposed to be dealt with by the London University Bill. But the Bill has been introduced by the Duke of Devonshire, as the head of the Department which is concerned with it, on behalf of the Government I cannot do anything in opposition to my colleague. I will, however, take steps to bring your views under his consideration ...'. Autograph, with signature.

(1) Letter from William Ross of Charing Cross, [London] to David Thomson, Esq, of Edinburgh, 28 Apr 1840. (2) Letter from William Ross of Dibden, [Hampshire] to David Thomson, Esq, of Edinburgh, 27 May 1840.Both letters concern the claim of a brother and sister, Mr and Miss Wilkinshaw, to an estate occupied by a Mr Dow, whose own claim on the estate had not been satisfied. Autograph, with signature.

(1) Letter from William Manning of 14 New Street, Spring Gardens, [Westminster] to Thomas Tyrell, Esq, 29 Nov 1800. Concerning proposals for the regulation of a new coal market. Asking whether Tyrell sees any difficulty in it being managed by the Lord Mayor of London and whether the Corporation interferes with any market in the City. The building in Mark Lane is open to all on market days, but the Coal Exchange is open to subscribers only; the first buyers do not exceed about one hundred.

(2) Letter from William Manning of Totteridge, Hertfordshire to Thomas Tyrell, Esq, 4 Apr 1801. Discussing the fees to be incurred in passing the Coal Bill through the two Houses of Parliament [ordered Mar 1801; order for second reading discharged 12 May 1801], and the means of paying them. Asks Tyrell to show the letter to Mr Stracey, 19 Fludyer Street, and to confer with him about it.

Both letters are autograph, with signatures, and headed 'private'.

Letter from Mordaunt Martin of 'Burnham' to Dr [John Coakley] Lettsom, Sambrook House, London, 8 Mar 1801. Stating that he has despatched to Lettsom a parcel of mangelwurzel seeds. Explaining that he was prevented from answering Lettsom's letter of 3 Jan by an attack of gallstones, since relieved by pills of soap and rhubarb. Discussing the 'Brown Bread Act' [probably 41 Geo.3.c.16] to which, he says, Lettsom was in some degree accessory; quoting Lettsom and Horne Tooke on the Act; Martin prefers brown bread for his breakfast, using his own wheat 'sifted in the coarsest hair sieve', but deprecates the 'indiscriminate use of it'. Attacking at length the Potato Premium Bill, which had just been rejected, according to 'the paper of this night'; claiming that such a bill would force by premiums an unnatural produce on land which the occupiers could use for more profitable crops. Adding that his and Lettsom's 'hearts will beat in unison' on reading pages 109-110 of the 2nd edition of [Robert] Fellowes's Christian Philosophy [1799].

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from Thomas A Cook of Newcastle upon Tyne to H B Jordan, Esq of the Alkali Works, Bristol, 8 Dec 1845. Acknowledging Jordan's letter of 4 Dec 1845. Discussing at length the relative efficiency of stone stills [for manufacturing alkalis] used by Cook [at Walker, Newcastle], by Jordan and by Lee and Co; advising Jordan to visit Lee and Co and copy their stills exactly. Mentioning a Mr Bell's patent, the surprising cheapness of coal, and a meeting of masters [i.e. factory owners] which he was unable to attend. Noting that the returns show an increase of stock.

Autograph, with signature. A note [in Jordan's hand] on page 3 states: 'Ansd. 5 Jany'.

Letter from James Robertshaw of Colne, [Lancashire] to George Chapman, engineer of Whitby, [North Riding] Yorkshire, 29 Jan 1846. Reply on behalf of Mr Thornber of Vivary Bridge, [Colne], to a letter of 27 Jan 1846; referring Chapman to his letter of 8 Jan (copied on the third page of this letter) in reply to Chapman's of 5 Jan. Chapman had asked for £20 for use of 'the patent expansion gear', but Thornber had stopped using it, had given Chapman notice of doing so, and was prepared to appear to any process Chapman proposed to issue against him.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter 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.

Letter from George Balfour of the House of Commons (embossed heading) to C G Williams, Leigh House, Lower Heath, Hampstead, London, 16 Nov 1934. Replying to a query about Public Acts [of Parliament] passed since the National Government came in [in 1931]: 'There are some 170 Acts ... But in over fifty Acts where some distinct question of political principle enters I can find some half-dozen Conservative Acts, three times as many Socialist Acts, while the remainder are a mixture of the two with Socialism predominant ... As I have frequently said ... it is time for Conservatives to consider in what direction we are going.'

Signed by Balfour. Marked: 'Personal and Confidential' in MS.

Letter from Henry Blain to Joseph T Pooley of 5 Church Court, [c1842]. Discussing the corn laws (with reference to Blain's pamphlet on the subject) and proposed duties [taxes]. Autograph, with signature ('H.B.'). Dated 'Sunday night'.

Letter from Richard Griffiths Welford of 6 Chancery Lane, [London] to [William Pleydell-Bouverie,] Earl of Radnor, 20 Mar 1843. Explaining that he has 'ventured to direct' his publisher to forward a copy of his 'tract upon the agricultural view of the corn law question' to Lord Radnor; giving his reasons for doing so.

Autograph, with signature.

(1) Letter from Sir James Robert George Graham of the Admiralty to John Spottiswood, 14 May 1834. Concerning the postpoining of the second reading of the Leith Harbour Bill in the House of Commons.

(2) Letter from Sir James Robert George Graham of Whitehall to James Loch, 30 Nov 1842. Urging him to serve on the Poor Law Commission for Scotland.

(3) Letter from Sir James Robert George Graham of the Admiralty to James Loch, 19 Jun 1853. Discussing works on harbours in Alderney, Guernsey, Dover and Portland, and the training of pilots for the Channel Islands.

Letter from Henry Warburton to Francis Place, 27 Apr 1821. Discussing the bill on usury laws and asks Place to find 'small tradesmen' who support the bill to give evidence before the House of Lords Committee which the government has undertaken to consider their reform.