[D'Arcy Power; R. P. Pott, son of the surgeon Percivall Pott of Bart’s Hospital, London.] Offprint of article on him by Edith Humphris, with 8 items including 3 Autograph Letters from her to Sir D’Arcy Power and Signed Autograph genealogy by Power.

Humphris wrote a number of books, including biographies of Fred Archer, Mathew Dawson, Adam Lindsay Gordon. See Power’s entry in the Oxford DNB. From Power’s library. The material is in good condition, lightly aged, in good tight green cloth binding made for Power, with ‘BOB POTT’ in gilt on spine. The printed article is 36pp, 4to, paginated 69-104, with two plates: black and white photographs of George Romney’s portraits of Pott and his wife Emily. A couple of minor manuscript emendations by the author at the start, and a few pencil annotations by Power. Preceded by leaf with printed title ‘Bob Pott. / (Re-printed from Vol. LI, Part II, of Bengal: Past & Present.) / Edith Humphris.’ A well-researched article which begins by describing how Robert Pott ‘attended Dr. Johnson; and Warren Hastings, Lord Thurlow, the Duke of Newcastle and other very important people’, but that, as his father explained it, he took ‘such a liking to be a sailor that I thought I ought not to resist him’. In 1769 in Canton he made the acquaintance of the diarist William Hickey, who became a lifelong friend. By 1780 he had become intimate with Emily Warren (‘or Bertie or Coventry’), ‘perhaps the most beautiful girl of her time’, described by Fanny Burney as ‘a celebrated courtesan’, and a model for Sir Joshua Reynolds. Thereafter the ‘unthinking boy’, as his father described him, led an increasingly difficult life. In 1783 he began a letter to Sir Elijah Impey: ‘My situation has long been a hard one, But now tis become a cruel one.’ He married his cousin Sally Cruttenden in 1788, and died in Lucknow seven years later. Back in England, his father, Humphris writes, ‘lived just long enough to hear of his son’s downfall’. Over two pages at the front of the volume (front pastedown and recto of front free endpaper) Power writes, in his minuscule hand, a genealogy of the Potts family, signed ‘per me / D’Arcy Power / Good Friday March 26th 1937 / 3.45 p.m.’ It is headed ‘The Potts came of an old Cheshire family, the first known member was’. Bound in at the back of the volume are four letters. ONE: TNS (1p, 4to) to Power from the Clerk to the Governors of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, 12 February 1937: ‘I received this morning a letter from a Miss E. M. Humphris together with a copy of her booklet entitled “Bob Pott”, and as I think you may be interested I am sending them on to you.’ TWO: ALS referred to in One. 10 February 1937; 13 Gloucester Road, SW7 [London]. 4pp, 4to. Signed ‘(Miss) E. M. Humphris’. Begins: ‘I don’t know if you have seen this. I have not quite finished my longer M S no Percivall Pott & his sons though I did some time ago ask Hutchinson (or Hurst & Blackett) if they would like to publish it & they refused as they did not think there would be enough of a sale in it’. The letter continues with reference to ‘Mr Cotterill’s notes’, ‘the Reynolds portrait of Emily as Thais (engraved by Bartolozzi)’, ‘2 M S letters of Percivall Pott’s (in the Br. Museum)’ and other matters. THREE: ALS from Humphris to Power. 15 February 1937; Gloucester Rd. 4pp, 4to. Signed ‘Edith Humphris’. ‘I am very glad you are interested in Bob Pott & Hickey. Mr Cotterill who annotated the article on Pott is the Superintendent of Historical Records at the India Office & he wrote a most interesting article on Hickey’s Sketch also in Bengal Post & Present I think for June 1935’. She continues on the theme of portraits, and ends ‘I suppose you would not write me an introduction for my book on P. Pott &c. if I ever get it published?’ FOUR: ALS to Power from George S. Fry. 9 March 1937; on embossed letterhead of 15 Walsingham Road, Hove. 2pp, 8vo. Having read Power’s ‘notes on Percival Pott in the Septr. Issue of the Genealogist, he states that he has ‘several notes & references to those of the Pott family who were connected with [?] Frye of Montserrat’. A fifth item is loosely inserted. FIVE: ALS from Humphris to Power. 19 February 1937; Gloucester Road. 8pp, 12mo. On two biofoliums. On topics including: a letter to her from ‘Mr. S. Pott’, ‘Lieutenant Houblon’, ‘the Rev. A P Pott & Mr Stanley Pott’, ‘The engraving of Joseph Holden Pott in the Kennington Library’, ‘Mrs Robert Pott’s cousin also Sarah Cruttenden, daughter of Edward Holden Cruttenden’, ‘Sarah (Bob’s wife)’, ‘Mr Atterwill’ and ‘The Boultons – William Hickey’s mother’s people’. She writes: ‘The more one reads about Percivall Pott the more one likes him & he must have had a bad time with Joseph Cruttenden & his Son’. Loosely inserted are three letters to Charles Noon, FRCS, from the Wallingford bookseller Eric Bligh, one of which offering the present item. All from 1941: one typed and two in autograph. Unlike the rest of the material, these three items are in fair condition only, somewhat creased and worn. Most of the items offered by Bligh relate to Bart's Hospital. One is a receipt. In the typed letter, 21 June 1941, he writes: 'I sent off this morning another lot, and this, I am afraid, will be the last. They cost me a deal of hunting, but I think they are worth it. I like Bob Pott, and Charges of a Surgeon. But I like them all, and think they will amuse you. It will of course be quite impossible to get such things again, as the older men are dying off, and few of them have bothered about keeping and collecting ephemera like these.'