Category Archives: Manuscripts

Charles Wren Financial Papers

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collection of manuscript receipts and invoices

A collection of approximately 215 invoices and receipts made out to attorney Charles Wren or his wife Mary, dated 1793-1796, issued primarily by tradesmen and businesses in London and Newcastle, that document the personal and household expenses of a prosperous provincial lawyer and his family. Business was transacted with London tradesmen including tea merchants Richard & John Twining, law book publisher Joseph Butterworth, and jeweler Robert Makepeace of Serle Street. Also includes a letter from Mr. Morley thanking Wren for an introduction Revd. Mr. Ellison and promising the delivery of goods in a “tea chest”. Wren was a member of the Newcastle “News Rooms” as evidenced by his subscription receipt dated 1795. From a local bookseller he purchased, among other titles, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and James Cook’s Voyages. The records include a lengthy estimate and invoice for repairs to Wren’s carriage by the coach builder and ship owner Caleb Angus (1743-1831), and an invoice from a saddler Edmund Robson. Other invoices document Wren’s stays at inns and a wide range of expenses for the maintenance of his property including wallpaper and carpentry, kitchen supplies and equipment, cleaning of marble fireplace, expenses for medicines, coals, the purchase of wine, brandies and other provisions, and amounts paid for tailoring and haberdashery, for fabric for his wife, shoes and boots, and the school fees for his stepson. The invoices and receipts are nearly all autograph manuscripts; there are no illustrated billheads in the collection. There are no receipts dated 1792.

  • Title: Charles Wren financial papers, 1774, 1785 -1796.
  • Creator: Wren, Charles,, 1750-1799

LWL MSS 8

Catalog Record

Acquired October 2024

On the origin, antiquity, mature and obligations…Society of the Squa’s

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manuscript volume

A manuscript purporting to be the ancient history of a secret society dedicated to the founded by four friends “on a Winter Ev’ning, at Gravesend” devoted to the worship of the ‘Squa’ (the word used here to mean not a woman or wife but her sexual organs). Written in pen and pencil on vellum, largely in an italic hand, with some pages suggest several contributors, in a brushed leather volume, bound in the middle of the volume preceded by and followed approximately 20 leaves of laid paper. Attributed to Francis Webb based on internal evidence” Frank quickly took the pen.” Other identities from internal references to the members, George, Will, Tom and Frank, correspond to contemporary pencil notes on last page — George Cooper, Dr. William Perry, Thomas Masterson, and Francis Webb — three of whom either lived in Gravesend or had some connection.

  • Title: On the origin, antiquity, mature and obligations of the ancient and honorable Society of the Squa’s : manuscript.
  • Creator: Webb, Francis, 1735-1815, attributed name
  • Production: Gravesend, 1770s?

Catalog Record

LWL Mss vol. 292

Acquired May 2024

Collection Of Eighteenth Century Visiting Cards

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description below

An album containing 168 visiting cards (fifteen of which were laid in and several of which are duplicates), nine invitations or admission tickets, six trade cards, and two funeral invitations compiled by an unidentified collector, or perhaps collected by Jane Tibbets who signed the front flyleaf. The cards reflect a social circle composed of Members of Parliament and their wives and families, members of the peerage (Countesses of Sefton, Clanbrassill, Harrington, Buckingham; Duchesses of Leinster, of Ancaster; Earl of Bessborough) as well as scientists, and men and women of letters. Also included are tickets to balls (two hosted by the Lord Mayor of London and his wife), a benefit concert for Mr. Lee, and several invitations to card parties. There are also seven trade cards including ones for a French jeweler (Au soleil de diamants) and a milliner in Bath (Minchin’s).

  • Title: Collection of eighteenth century visiting cards, invitations, and trade cards [1776-1899] bulk 1776-1791.

Catalog Record

LWL Mss vol. 290

Acquired May 2024

Parr Hall, [blank] 18[blank]

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manuscript page

Printed bill from William Grundy for instruction at his Parr Hall boarding academy for young ladies near St. Helens in what was then Lancashire, with itemized list subjects, lessons, goods and services offered.
Completed in manuscript and addressed to “Mrs. Gordon,” the bill is dated “Dec. 18th, 1821” and covers “6 months’ board and education of Miss Gordon …” It was receipted and signed by “Wm. Grundy” on 8 January 1822, with a footnote that the school “will re-open on Jany. 22nd.”

  • Title: Parr Hall, [blank] 18[blank]. Mr. [blank]. Dr. to W. Grundy. [blank] months’ board and education of Miss [blank] including instructions in Geography, &c. …
  • Contributor: Gundy, William, -1844
  • Created: Lancashire, approximately 1821

Catalog Record

File 659 821 P258

Acquired October 2024

Collection of prints, broadsides,…relating to the Cato Street Conspiracy

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several views of exterior of Cato Street

A collection of 41 printed items that chronical the 1820 plot to murder the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool and his cabinet, so named for location where the thirteen conspirators meet near Edgware Road in London. The police learned of the plot through an informer, George Edwards, leading to a police trap in which one policeman, Richard Smithers, was killed but the plotters apprehended. The collection includes portraits of the plotters, views of the Cato Street area, broadsides describing the events and others with images and descriptions of the execution of five of the conspirators. Five other conspirators were transported to Australia. A drawing signed “Peter Jackson, July 31, 1960” is a 20th-century view of the exterior of the London building where the conspirators were discovered.

  • Title: Collection of prints, broadsides, and ephemera relating to the Cato Street Conspiracy, 1820, 1960.

Catalog Record

LWL MSS 52

Acquired January 2024

 

Diary and commonplace book

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manuscript notebook

The diary seemingly kept by a senior servant, one entry referring to a return to London ‘on account my master’s illness’ in which he records his journey and stops along the route to London. He provides a detailed account of the Gordon Riots with almost daily entries from June 2 to June 10th. Several entries 1783 reference severe storms and the appearance of the 1783 Great Meteor on August 18: “A ball of fire was seen passing along the air about 1/2 past nine in the evening. It was seen about the same time at Ostend.” Two entries in August and December report the executions of criminals at Newgate Prison including that of the engraver William Wynne Ryland. On October 6th, the author notes that “peace was proclaimed at the usual places in the city, and at Westminster, with the usual solemnity.” On 7 March 1783 he notes that “Sukey & Fanny Green inoculated for the Small Pox.” The bulk of the later entries in the diary, except for the occasional mention of social events, trips, and the occasional extreme weather, focus on the births, baptisms, deaths, and marriages of his social circle and concludes with a series of poems on death, marriage, and conduct of life.

  • Title: Diary and commonplace book : manuscript.
  • Production: England, 1779 June 15-1816 April 2.

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 283

Acquired April 2023

Houghton family leases and library catalogue

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manuscript volume

A manuscript in an unidentified hand, containing nine detailed leases given by John Houghton of Bramerton during the 1750s and 1760s, five with maps of the properties concerned, written in the same hand and dated 1756 to 1763. All of the maps were “copied 1764,” but each referencing earlier surveys done between 1728 and 1742.
At the back of the volume and turned over, written on the first four leaves in a different unidentified hand is a library catalog with the heading “Folio, a catalogue of 95 titles (104 volumes) on pages ruled with four columns. The number of the volume is recorded in the first column, the author’s last name and title or just the title in the second column, and the place and date of publication in the third and fourth column, respectively. Titles include literature, religion, geography, history, dictionaries, travel, and legal works, mostly in English or English translation but also several in French. There are also references to a manuscript journal.

  • Author: Houghton family, of Bramerton Hall.
  • Title: Houghton family leases and library catalogue : manuscript.
  • Production: Bramerton, England, between 1750 and 1763?

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 287

Acquired September 2023

Reginald Heber book of poems and drawings

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manuscript journal

A volume of comical poems and a play, “Blue Beard”, with 22 transformation cards that illustrate the themes with humorous images of characters performing various activities. Several depict barbers and their customers or other people in the act of grooming and taking medicines, which accompany “Van Evert the or Beelzebubs Barber, V. Vanevert the Dutch Buccaneer”. The poem “The Silver Ladle” is illustrated with a card with two women in a kitchen with a tea kettle. “Bill Bolton, the weaver”, a Scottish tale, illustrated with a pen and ink drawing of a funeral procession

 

  • Author: Heber, Reginald, 1783-1826.
  • Title: Reginald Heber book of poems and drawings : manuscript.
  • Production: England, circa 1815.

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 280

Acquired August 2022