Social history

The subscription Liverpool Library within the Lyceum, founded in 1757, is believed to have been the first circulating or lending library in Europe, and the first two of these items provide a valuable insight into its status at the time when the advent of the public library system was undermining its position.

Folio, 1 p. Dimensions 21 x 33 cm. 51 lines of text, in a variety of types and point sizes, both single and double column. Text clear and complete. On lightly-aged and creased paper, with one short marginal closed tear. The 'Programme for the Evening', including 'Photographs of Saturn, the Moon, and the Crater of Copernicus', copied by 'Mr.

The collection comprises: A. 6 Autograph Letters, one signed John R. Forrest , 3 ending Farewell and 2 possibly incomplete or simply unsigned, to John Abraham of Liverpool, England, addressed as cousin, druggist, 1847-1879, various formats, total 27 (twenty-seven) pages, some lines faint, good condition. Subjects: (1847) introductory; personal and family information; Montreal connection; Vermont industries; railway about to be connected; I am a real Yankee by this time; jobs he's done inc. agent for the Liberty Gazette; currently doing a variety of jobs inc.

4to, 31 pp. In original grey printed wraps, with the bookseller's ticket of Messrs. Bolster of Cork. Text clear and complete. A fair, tight copy, on aged paper. In worn red calf quarter-binding, red cloth. Neatly priced up in manuscript (the sale totalled £803 4s 6d), and ruled with red lines.

Green half-leather, worn, one menu per day per page for most days between 22 Sept.1882 and 6 Jan. 1884. A bookplate is the only clue to the family the volume belonged to, the coat of arms and motto ("Loyaulté n a honte") of the Dukes of Newcastle-under-Lyme, specifically at this time (1880s) Henry Pelham-Clinton, 7th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne (1864-1928) whose family seat was Clumber House, nr. Worksop, Notts (restored after a fire in 1879; http://lh.matthewbeckett.com/houses/lh_nottinghamshire_clumberhouse.html), presumably the home of this volume.

60+ items of correspondence, including a few carbons of Strong's letters and some postcards. Correspondents (mainly in Poultry industry)sometimes multiple); H.R. Hunter (Specialist breeder); Y. Watanabé; Jack Wrennell; Camp Unami for Boys, R. & E. Charteris Ltd, Gerald Gill; Poultry World; bird insurance; railway use; W.M. Golden; Major H. Whaley; National Poultry Council; The Accredited Poultry Breeders Federation; Charles Allsop (manufacturers of rings); G.H. Kidner; The Framer & Stock Breeder; Dr. A.

Folio, 110 pp, comprising [i] + 68 + [ii] + 39 pp. Handsome volume in slipcase, tight and internally in very good condition, on lightly-aged thick Whatman paper. Well bound in black leather morocco, all edges gilt. Binding blind-tooled and with 'Early Days' and 'W. V. S.' in gilt on spine and motto on front board: 'Nourish the sentiments thy principles approve and put thy trust and confidence in God.' Binding worn and rebacked, in worn black cloth slipcase.

17 items, as follows: three photographs, 10 x 9, 16 x 11, 22 x 16cm (i. 14 members of staff captioned News and Newsreel, 40s?; ii. circa 30 people who attended the BBC Staff Dance in 1942; iii. Photo. with stain, Studio view from above, cameras , gantry, sets, and schoolboys posturing in front of camera 2 (Jennings? or William?); c. Plan of BBC Television Studios.Lime Grove.

12mo, 3 pp. 44 lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged paper, and with the reverse of the second leaf tipped in onto a leaf removed from an autograph album, with manuscript caption reading 'Sir George Cox to Miss Cobbe | given me June 1902.' The letter itself docketed at foot of third page in a contemporary hand. Cox's hand is crabbed and difficult. He thanks her for sending 'Mr Wright's sermon', but can make little use of it: 'The historical portions I must leave on one side.

All photographic prints and negatives roughly 8.5 x 14.5 cm. Prints all black and white. The collection aged, but in good condition overall. The pictures of inmates all landscape, and the two of the officer portrait. The boys are arranged in three or four rows, with as many as forty present in one image. The images are all taken outdoors and in front of prison buildings, the windows in the Feltham images being barred, and the windows in the Borstal images plain glass.

Photographs: All black and white prints. The first (21 x 15 cm) a portrait of Waller (reproduced in Baxendale, p. 26, below). The second (23 x 17 cm) a family photograph of six Edwardian individuals, three younger ones (including a woman and with Waller at centre) standing, and three older men seated. The other six (all 14 x 8.5 cm and taken at the same time) showing Waller and family outdoors: one of him rowing, and one with a smiling woman (presumably his wife). Overall condition of the photographs is fair. They are lightly-aged, with a little creasing here and there.

The twelve McDowall engravings each on separate cards of shiny art paper, each 90 x 130 cm, and all but the card with the image of the Scott Memorial (see below) in landscape. The Menzies engraving of Loch Ness, in similar style to the others on shiny art paper, but slightly larger, at 90 x 140 cm and landscape. Delicate items, in fair condition, with browning to edges, but images clear and complete. The engravings on the McDowall cards are as follows. By T. G. Flowers: Heriot's Hospital (founded 1628); and 'Assembly Hall, Heriots Hospital and Castle'. By G.

4to, 1 p. Twenty-six lines. Text clear and complete. On grey paper. Small spike hole. Aged and lightly-creased. Describes the 'forbodings' which have been realised following 'the heavy rains and floods of the previous Autumn'. 'From 2000 to 3000 Pockets have already come to Market, and these are making, in samples of Sussex £8 to £9, the Cut, and in Kents £8. 8/. to £10. 10/. to £12;- mouldy and blighted, much lower. | Nothing choice in East or Mid Kents has, as yet, made its appearance, [...]'.

Seven documents, all in folio, a total of fifteen pages. Texts clear and complete. Good, on aged paper, with one document with rusted staple. All are police circulars, but only the first is clearly specific to Brighton. ONE: 'Police Box System - Going-off Points'. 3 pp. Short introduction, followed by a list of points to be deleted, and their substitutes. TWO: 'No. 6 District Police Training Centre, Larceny Act, 1916'. 1 p. Table giving 'Time', 'Place', 'Manner' and 'Intent' for four offences from Sacrilege to Housebreaking with Intent.

12mo, 2 pp. Aged, and with a small hole worn into the centre, without, however, any loss of text. With one side of the leaf printed in double column in the style of an eighteenth-century newspaper, and headed 'Quaint Newspaper Cuttings A.D. 1738. | Ye Fulhame Presse London. S.W.' The other side is laid out to be folded twice, making four small pages (one having 'Not to be cut.' at the foot). One of the four carries an advertisement for Longstaff, with an engraving of his sign, 'Ye stille'. Another puffs 'Keith Longstaff's Autumn Medicine'.

Printed, in a variety of types and point sizes, on one side of a piece of landscape 8vo paper. Text clear and complete. On aged and creased paper, which has been laid down on a backing of pink card. In full reads 'FOXES. THE COMMITTEE appointed to investigate into the melancholy circumstances attending the malicious POISONING of the FOXES IN THE PARISHES OF Buckland Filleigh and Sheepwash, Will sit daily, during Lent, (weather permitting) at the TOWN HALL, TORRINGTON. | LORD AQUEDUCT, Chairman. | PETER BLUNDERHEAD GRUBB, Secretary. | N.B.

On watermarked paper roughly 13 x 20.5 cm. Dimensions of image 9 x 13 cm. With plate mark. Fair, on lightly-aged paper. Loosely attached to brown mount. Rare eighteenth-century cricket print from the June 1793 issue of the 'Sporting Magazine'. Cardus & Arlott state, in their 'Noblest Game' (1969), that 'This print, once barely considered, has lately become rare'.

12mo, 24 pp. Stapled. In original printed wraps. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged paper, in dusty and worn wraps. At head of front wrap: 'Miss Scott Moncrieff. Executive Cttee'. The report is preceded by a list of officers, and followed by a list of 'Donors and Subscribers (From May 24th, 1924, to May 24th, 1933)'. Photograph of entrance of building on front wrap, and of whole of building on back wrap.

On a piece of watermarked laid paper, roughly 26.5 x 20 cm. Dimensions of image 18 x 13.5 cm. The image and text are clear and complete. Fair, on foxed and aged paper, with fraying to margin at edges. Complete text reads 'Seecker dat is geen Roy, wat mach dat varcken drincken | Die Reuck is niet heel moy, gans velten is dat stincken.' Depicts a group of five peasants in the countryside, one sitting on a tree stump vomiting, while another puts her hand on his head, and two hold their noses. The attribution is in the entry on the copy in the Wellcome Library (no.

All items clear and complete: good, on aged paper, with punch holes for ring binder. ITEM ONE: Printed 'REPORT upon the House Accommodation available for Workers employed at Rosyth and for their Families, and upon the Provision for Sickness and Accident' (London: H.M.S.O., 1911). By Thomas F. Dewar (Medical Inspector) and John Wilson (Architectural Inspector). Folio, 10 pp. Scarce: no copy in the British Library, and the only copies on COPAC at Oxford and the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales.

4to, 14 pp. In original brown printed wraps. Clear and complete. Good, on aged paper, with one central vertical fold, and horizontal mark to blank rear wrap. The description of the 'First General Meeting' covers the first three pages, with the report of the 'Inaugural Banquet' on the next four. On the last seven pages are the 'Report of Council (Presented by Mr. E. K. House.)' No copy at the British Library or on COPAC. The mimeographed circular (4to, 1 p), dated 9 March 1925, is a covering letter with a facsimile of Fluder's signature.

4to, 2 pp. 23 lines. Text clear and complete. Very good on lightly-aged paper. Reporting the 'record character' of the 'financial result of the recent Anniversary Festival', and thanking Harmsworth for his 'great personal interest in the Festival which has led to the Funds of the Institution being so considerably increased' and 'splendid service', and requesting permission for his 'name to be thus permanently connected wtih the Charitable Work which your kind efforts have so very materially advanced'.

Postcard size, very good condition. Petulengro in cotume with signature above his head, verso giving information about him, advertising his column in the Sunday Chronicle.

18pp., 8vo, marbled boards, cloth spine, label on front, some pages damaged at spine (hinge strain), ow good. This copy if from the archives of Richard Bentley & Son, publishers, and this copy was personalized by rebinding to become Richard Bentley the Younger's own copy. A typed note has been tipped on to the front endpaper, saying, Letters from young Richard Bentley to his father George Bentley on the transition of the G.W. Railway from Broad Gauge to standard gauge in 1892. George Bentley to encourage his son's early literary effort printed 40 copies of this booklet.

8pp., large 4to, printed paper wraps, one third of back wrap (originally blank?) torn away and lost, surviving portion with address of Richard Bentley, former publisher, and postmark, some spotting and some damage to spine and edge with no further loss.

Reprinted from Blackwood's Magazine. 16pp., printed wraps, good condition.

One page, 8vo, extracted from Album, good condition, signatures of complete team of 17 players : Karl Nunes (Jamaica), captain, Vibart Wight (British Guiana), vice-captain, Edward Bartlett (Barbados), Cyril Browne (British Guiana), George Challenor (Barbados), Learie Constantine (Trinidad), Maurice Fernandes (British Guiana), George Francis (Barbados), Herman Griffith (Barbados), Teddy Hoad (Barbados), Freddie Martin (Jamaica), James Neblett (British Guiana), Ernest Rae (Jamaica), Clifford Roach (Trinidad), Wilton St Hill (Trinidad), Tommy Scott (Jamaica), Joseph Small (Trinidad).

12mo, 8 pp. Stapled. In original grey printed wraps. Text clear and complete. On aged paper and in spotted wraps.

Two pages, oblong folio, folded, good condition. The writer of this manuscript reveals that Lord Gambier was in the Chair and then summarises what various people contributed to the discussion, columnising names then summary. He lists: Lord Gambier, Rev. Tho. King, Captain Pakenham R.N., Chas. Henty (Quebec), The Bishop of London, The Bishop of Gloucester, The Chaplain to the Royal Artillery- Quebec, A Lieut. of the Bengal Artillery just returned on sick leave, Revd Basil Wood, Captain Montague R.N., Major General Neville, Thos. Babington Esq., M.P., Benj. Shaw Esq., M.P., Willm.

12mo, 2 pp. Printed on thin card. Fair: aged and worn. The front of the card gives contact details, including phone number, for the firm, which is stated to have been 'Est[ablishe]d. in the Reign of King George III, 1814'. Its goods are listed as 'Jewellery, Gold and Silver Boxes, Diamonds, Pearls, Emeralds, etc.