[Family of Rev. Dr Thomas Chalmers, Scottish churchman.] Family copy of 'Letters & Journals of Anne Chalmers. Edited by Her Daughter', annotated by her granddaughter Anne Chalmers Bennet Clark and containing a number of related items.

201pp., 8vo. Quarter-bound with oat cloth spine with printed paper label, and grey paper boards. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, in worn binding. Autograph signature on front free endpaper of 'Anne C. Bennet Clark', with the following in another hand beneath it: 'gave the book to | Anne Marjorie Crosthwait (nee Penney) granddaughter of the above and gt gt granddaughter of the author of these journals Anne Chalmers Hanna (39 Eaton Terrace - London 1976) | [...] Anne Parker to whom these letters are addressed gave Anne Chalmers a gold locket which she left to ACBC who gave to Anne Crosthwait her grand-daughter She gave it to Kate Bennet-Clark-Jones dau of Henry BC & gt grand-daughter of ACBC'. The volume contains marginal annotations in pencil and ink, and a few items loosely inserted, including the following four items: ONE: Amusing Autograph Memorandum by Anne Chalmers Bennet Clark (6pp., landscape 8vo) on her family and childhood, beginning: 'I have often wondered how it is that I have taken so keen an interest in the doings of my family in the old days. And have come to the conclusion that it is the inevitable memory and imagination felt by the aged for the stories of youth & childhood. And then I did possess a remarkable grandmother, remarkable for her good looks and also for her witty tongue, so that her stories were alive to us children. And we would see the people who acted in them, and understand theirs.' Includes an anecdote of one of her grandmother's cousins, whose bride's black velvet evening dress was stolen by a Yorkshire innkeeper and his wife, the latter being hanged for murder in that garment; and another regarding one of the 'fits of jealousy' of her great-uncle Charles. TWO: Autograph notes (1p., 8vo) by Anne Chalmers Bennet Clark for a talk on her grandmother. THREE: Autograph Letter Signed to 'Marjorie' from Roger Hog of Newliston, Kirkliston, West Lothian, 6 April 1984. 6pp., landscape 12mo. Discussing Dr Chalmers and his times, and including the following: 'Perhaps the most interesting point I can tell you which, so far as I know, has never been published is this. It came back suddenly to my fathers memory and he mentioned it to the assembled Sessions of both kirks here after the Re Union. | Do you know - he asked - when and where the first Re Union meeting was held? The answer is here in my library (where I am writing tonight). And when? Less than six months after the Disruption became a legal fact. Patronage, the "casus belli" had been abolished in the old Kirk and therefore it was the duty of all Christians to reunite. After long deliberation the leaders decided that it must be left to a future generation when calmer councils prevailed. | And so far as my father was concerned I think you will agree that he had some reason to be proud that, sitting for the Presbytury of Skye and for some fifteen years convener of the Aged & Infirm Ministers Committee, he was a member of the General Assembly who brought about the Reunion in the end.' FOUR: Typed Letter Signed to 'Mrs Penney' from Professor Ian Henderson (1910-1969) of Glasgow University, from 62 Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow. 27 March 1954. 2pp., 12mo. Also loosely inserted are two newspaper cuttings, and manuscript notes on a few slips of paper. He writes that he 'first became interested in your famous ancestor when I became one of his successors in the parish of Kilmany and lived in his old manse. I am particularly interested in his contributions to social and economic theory and practice. His ideas in these fields do connect with his own temperament and with his family relationships. But it is with his father, mother, brothers and sisters that I find myself concerned rather than with his daughters. So that I don't think that our published work would overlap.'