Houghton family leases and library catalogue

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

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

Journal of a young lady, together with a commonplace book of poems

 

manuscript notebook

A volume with a bound-in journal with original marbled wrappers intact, with additional signatures on which have been mounted prints, newspaper clippings, and transcriptions of poems, compiled by a young woman. The journal records the details of her trip with a friend Miss Kendall, starting from Norwich and traveling to and around Yorkshire in 1794.

  • Title: Journal of a young lady, together with a commonplace book of poems : manuscript and printed text.
  • Production: England, circa 1794.

Catalog Record

LWL MSS Vol. 284

Acquired August 2022

J.H. Barrow’s journal

manuscript journal

A manuscript journal recording John Henry Barrow’s nine-month Continental journey through France, Switzerland, and Italy in the immediate post-Waterloo period.

 

  • Author: Barrow, John Henry.
  • Title: J.H. Barrow’s journal : manuscript.
  • Production: France, Switzerland, and Italy, 1816 May-1817 February.

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 279

Acquired March 2022

Emily Griffin commonplace book

drawing of a group of 4 men sitting on a couch

Manuscript commonplace book and album of Emily Griffin, perhaps a gift to be filled in by her friends before she left for India and kept for new friends when she arrived there. Included are a number of poems from well wishers before her voyage out to India in 1826, together with quotes and extracts from Byron, Cowper, H.H. White and other contemporary poets. Also before she left, Mary Ann Bloxam (1807-1880), an accomplished porcelain painter, contributed two pages to the album with fine watercolors of flowers and a poem. Among the material collected when in India are the contributions by the orientalist and antiquary James Prinsep (1799-1840), including watercolors and sketches.

  • Author: Griffin, Emily, 1803-1884.
  • Title: Emily Griffin commonplace book : manuscript.
  • ProductionLondon and India, 1827-1835

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 281

Acquired February 2023

Richard Polwhele notebooks

collection of manuscript notebooks

A collection of 17 notebooks bound in two groups and written by Richard Polwhele between the ages of 12 and 17 while attending Truro School.

 

  • Author: Polwhele, Richard, 1760-1838.
  • Title: Richard Polwhele notebooks : manuscript.
  • Production: Truro, Cornwall, England, 1772-1777.

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 276

Acquired August 2022

Queries, Lascars and Chinese : manuscript

hand-written text on yellowed paper

Taken as part of a parliamentary investigation into the living conditions of ‘Lascars and Chinese’ was begun in 1814 An account of the responses to fifteen Asian and Chinese seamen of the East India Company living in appalling conditions at Shadwell in the East End of London. , which produced a Report from a Committee on Lascars and Other Asiatic Seamen in 1816. As part of their investigation, a number of questions required answering; fifteen ‘queries’ were put forward by the committee, with one of their clerks dispatched to Shadwell to receive answers. Thirteen of the questions are answered here.

  • Title: Queries, Lascars and Chinese : manuscript.
  • Production: London, 1814

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 275

Acquired August 2022

Legal compendium compiled by a magistrate summarizing statutes

manuscript notebook

Pocket-sized manuscript legal compendium compiled by a Georgian magistrate around 1752, likely in Northamptonshire, as evinced by the sample legal forms included at the beginning. The main content of the volume is arranged under subject headings with references and extracts relating to relevant statutes: “Ale houses & ale house-keepers … Apprentices … Arrests … Assaults … Bakers … Brewers … Bricks & tiles … Bridges … Bail … Burglary … Butchers … Buttons … Callico & cambricks … Cloth & clothiers … Constables … Corn … Cottages & clergy … Counterfeiting … Deer & deerstalkers … Distillers … Dyers … Evidence & examination … Excise … Felony … Fish & fishing … Forcible entry … Game … Gaming … Gaols … Gun powder … Hawkers & pedlars …”

  • Title: Legal compendium compiled by a magistrate summarizing statutes by subject on matters relating to law and order : manuscript.
  • Production: Northamptonshire?, England, circa 1752?

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 277

Acquired June 2022

The mysterious mother, a tragedy

handwritten title page

A manuscript copy, in an unidentified hand, of Horace Walpole’s tragedy. The text appears to follow the original 1768 edition, including the postscript and without the introduction.

  • Author: Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797, author.
  • Title: The mysterious mother, a tragedy : manuscript / by The Honble. Horace Walpole.
  • Production: England, late 18th century?

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 274

Acquired March 2022