FISHERIES

The archive contains around 280 letters, two packets and negatives, various postcards, brochures and a driving licence. It contains around 260 letters from Robert Cole to his parents in Littlehampton, Sussex, England during the time he took up a Government position with the Federation of Malaya Fisheries Department in 1952 (Penang and Malacca, where he worked, remained Crown Territories within the Federation); and about 20 letters from his wife Cicely to Rosalind Cole.

4pp., 4to. Bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged paper. An extraordinarily callous letter, which would furnish a text for a paper on religious hypocrisy and the evils of capitalism. The context is explained in Samuel Lewis's 'Topgraphical Dictionary of England', published twenty-two years after this letter, in which the entry on 'Milton-next-Sittingborne (Holy Trinity)' contains the following: 'The commercial business consists chiefly in shipping for the London market the agricultural produce of the neighbourhood, and in bringing goods in return.

4to, 2 pp. Bifolium. Addressed ('H. Davidson Esqr | | No 3 North Charlotte St | Edinb') and docketed ('Offer | The Clyde Salmon Fishing Company. | For Menzies Fishings in Holy Lock'), with two postmarks, on the reverse of the second leaf. Twenty three lines of text (including four-line initialled postscript), clear and complete. Good, on aged paper, with hole in second leaf from breaking of wafer. Discussing proposed terms, ending 'Or in place of a sent will give the net proceeds of every tenth fish after marketing -'.

4to bifolium. Very good on aged paper. The letter covers the whole of the recto of the second leaf, the reverse of which carries the address and docketing: '6th. April 1805 | John Trotter - with List of payments to Sir Wm. Forbes & Co. on acct. of the whale fishing Cy.' Trotter quotes at length from a 'paragraph' in a letter he has received from William Forbes & Co, explaining why a credit 'does not appear in the annexed statement, as the receipt has not been delivered up to us'.

4to, 2 pp. Bifolium. Good, on aged paper. Addressed, with postmark, on reverse of second leaf. Since Wren's letter of the previous May, 'nothing material has occurred to occasion my troubling you'.