A scrapbook seemingly begun by William McMurdo Duncan in the 1790s, based on the earliest manuscript entry entitled “Books Belonging to William McMurdo Duncan 10th Feby. 1799” with later additions perhaps made by other members of his family, as the names of William’s wife Marianne and his daughter Helen are inscribed on the front endpaper. The scrapbook includes newspaper clippings and broadsides relating to the city of Liverpool; shipping and naval news; the Napoleonic Wars; reports of the royal families of England and France; local news stories tending to reports of dramatic accidents and crimes, including reports of the abuse of servants and presumanbly enslaved girls. Also included are two manuscript poems (1816) and a manuscript list of books. Also included is a printed form, completed in manuscript, from New College Manchester, dated “May 1st, 1797”, for a Norwegian student, “Mr. Kield Moestre” (1776-1805), which gives his grades for two months (“March & April”) of lectures in the subjects of languages, mathematics, and natural philosophy. A page from the Observer (no. 1249) from 29 October 1815 includes a large woodcut “Island of Saint Helena” with “A descriptive sketch of the Island of Saint Helena”. Clippings from a column “Cabinet”. Laid in the front are over two dozen clippings from the column “Cabinet” that provide spiritual advice about conduct of life and marriage and other religious topics dated from the 1830s.
- Creator: Duncan, William MacMurdo, 1772-1853.
- Title: William MacMurdo Duncan Scrapbook : printed text and manuscript.
- Production: Liverpool?, England, circa 1795-1816.
LWL Mss vol. 270
Acquired October 2021
A collection of contemporary newspaper cuttings with advertisements for and reviews of eighteenth-century theater performances, concerts, and other entertainment as well as notices for recently published books and plays, most pasted onto five folio leaves, with two loose clippings. Venues in London include: Theatre in Little Lincolns-Inn, Sadler’s Wells, Drury-Lane, Covent Garden, Theatre Royal Richmond Green, Spring Gardens Vauxhall, and Almack’s; and in Dublin the Theatre Royal. There are a number of productions of Shakespeare in the 1770s (Cymbeline, As You Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Tempest) and at Covent Garden in 1755 (Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar, among others). Popular entertainment includes farces and pantomimes. Included among the cuttings is an account of the actress Frances Abington performing in Dublin. Other sources of entertainment include a lecture on perpetual motion; an exhibited scale model of the Alps; an exhibition of tumbling, dancing, and singing at Sadler’s Wells, along with ‘Rope-Dancing, by Signora Mariana, and Mr. Ferzi’ (undated); and an equestrian showcase at Astley’s Amphitheatre in Lambeth, featuring ‘a Lady from St. Sebastian in Spain, and twelve others of the most capital performers in Europe’ (1770). Also included is a clipping from the Chronicle; The Evening-Post for 10 March 1767 covering a number of topics including taxation, the poor, notices for rental properties and recently published books, advertisement for “Pine bud tea”, letters to the editor as well as an advertisement for a housekeeper.
