Medway

[The Lord Mayor of London plans a ‘cockney expedition’: William Thompson, Lord Mayor of London, 1828-9.] Autograph Letter Signed to Theodore Hook, describing the itinerary of the three-day ‘excursion to the Medway’.

Author: 
William Thompson (1793-1854), Lord Mayor of London, 1828-9, ironmaster, financier and Member of Parliament [Theodore Hook (1788-1841), writer and hoaxer; John Wilson Croker; Sir Henry Blackwood]
Publication details: 
‘Mansion House [London] / 20 July 1829’.
£90.00

An excellent slice of Georgian London history. See his entry, and Hook’s, in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 12mo. Fifty-five lines of text. On bifolium. In fair condition, on discoloured and lightly-worn paper, with closed tear at foot of gutter. Also present is a typed transcript. The letter concerns a proposed three-day ‘excursion to the Medway’. Hook has engagements that will interefere, but Thompson undertakes to land him ‘safe at the Tower by seven o’clock on Saturday’.

Autograph Letter, signature and significant part of date missing

Author: 
John Duncombe
Publication details: 
-1667
£250.00

Commissioner (Office of the Master General of the Ordnance). Duncombe is instructing a Mr Sherborne of the Tower of London to go to Chatham, Gravesend and Woolwich to see "how many gunnes are mounted & of w[ha]t nature". He expects a report the following morning. The barbarian who cut the signature off also cut off the date, but this letter could well predate the Dutch raid up the Thames Estuary in June 1667 which particularly affected the fleet at Chatham, and indicate preparations.

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