Richard Ford (1796-1858) was an English writer, collector and amateur artist. In 1830 he visited Spain and over the next three years in the country he made over 500 drawings, one of the most complete pictorial records of Spanish cities and their monuments before the advent of photography. From 1836 Ford contributed a number of lengthy reviews to the Quarterly Review, several of them on Spanish subjects. This led the publisher John Murray to invite Ford to write the Hand-book for Travellers in Spain (including an account of the pictures in the Prado that runs to over 17,000 words). When the book finally appeared in 1845, it was an immediate success and was followed a year later by Ford’s Gatherings from Spain. The collection of papers and books was assembled by a recognised Ford scholar who has published on this subject.
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The auction listing stated the account books were of the firm Arnold Tuff & Grimwade. However, after delivery of the books, inspection and research, the collection of accounts books are in fact from the solicitor’s firm when they were in a variety of different partnerships models. The earliest date we have tracked the firm to is 1849, when they were Essell, Hayward & Essell. After many changes of name, the firm had become Arnold, Tuff & Grimwade by 1928. The account books provide an interesting overview of professional activities of a local, and long-standing firm, as well as an insight into the economic, social, and ecclesiastical networks of the 19th and 20th century in the Medway area.
Robin P Jenkins, Senior Archivist, writes: Despite the restrictions enforced during the coronavirus pandemic, Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Record Office (LLRO) was able – through the generous support of the Friends of the National Libraries - to purchase a sma
The volume’s title page describes it as ‘A booke of Receipts of all the Quitt rents, Heriotts, Aliena[c]ions, Reliefs, Amercements and other P[er]quisites belonging to the Mannour of Sundridge in the County of Kent’. The manor of Sundridge or Sundrish comprised the whole of the parish of Sundridge, most of the parish of Chiddingstone and part of the parish of Hever, and covered nearly 8,000 acres in all. The volume has sections for Sundridge Upland and Sundridge Weald which were separate manors by 15th century.
The earliest accounts, for 10 October 1677, record the collection of rents and estreats from tenants in the Weald. The last page in the volume, also relating to Weald, has the date 20 November 1714, but the book’s arrangement is not strictly chronological and the latest entry dates from 16 March 1717/18.
This late 15th century Latin Bible published in Strasbourg by the prolific printer Johann Reinhard Grüninger. This copy contains signs of English ownership from the 16th century onwards, and perhaps was present in England from its publication, providing vital evidence for the import trade of books into England during this period. The volume was subsequently owned by George Kenyon of Peel Hall Lancashire and then by descent through the Kenyon family until its sale, as part of a selection of early English books from the Gredington Library, at Christie’s in July 2021.
The Mark Hinchliffe Ted Hughes Collection has been described as “one of the finest [Hughes collections] in private hands, and a rival to those deposited in a number of University libraries on both sides of the Atlantic”, (Simon Cooke, The Private Library, 5:4, Winter 2012). The collection comprises 172 items including: signed first editions of dozens of Hughes’s trade, limited-edition and fine-press publications, and original letters written by Hughes and his first wife, the poet Sylvia Plath.
This rare chapbook publication (four are held in libraries worldwide), a “deathbed” confession of a highwayman and robber appealed to the Museum as it gave voice to a criminal whose activities occurred in Horsham. However, Thomas Munn’s reflective and self-aware account provided a much richer tale which had a number of links to the town and Museum’s collections, including brick making, Morris dancing, town solicitors, poaching, and rabbit breeding, all important aspects of the town and districts cultural life in the 18th century.
The current owner of the residual library (sales had occurred in 1990s and early 2,000) sold off parts of the library in 2019 at Christie’s and dealer Nigel Burwood. This included three items not listed on his ABE entry, but through correspondence, the dealer told the Curator about. That is a Frederick Du Cane Godman & Osbert Salvin Library catalogue, a Catalogue of the Library at South Lodge and an album of 43 botanical illustrations.
Hand-typed autographed letter from composer Gustav Holst to photographer Herbert Lambert, 1923.
This volume came to light during research for the Rosslyn exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland in 2002. It has 57 leaves and features drawings, engravings and letters collected by and sent to Britton. He had commissioned plates of the chapel for The Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain in 1812, and had also given a lecture on it to the Royal Institute of British Architects in January 1846.