REFORM

[Richard Oastler, Tory radical.] Autograph Letter Signed to an unnamed editor, regarding the proof of his 'sayings of last Monday'.

Author: 
Richard Oastler (1789-1861), Tory radical, abolitionist and campaigner for Poor Law reform
Publication details: 
'Mr. Tathams'. 27 March 1839.
£120.00

1p., 12mo. In good condition, on lightly aged and worn paper. He has just 'received notice that the Mansfield meeting will be held on Thursday at 12 o'clock - & the Sutton meeting on Saturday at One O'clock.' He continues: 'If you intend to insert any of my sayings of last Monday, I should feel obliged by a sight of the proof, if consistent with your official regulations'.

['A Llanbrynmair Farmer'.] Printed pamphlet: 'Letters on Improvements, addressed to Landlords and Road Commissioners, with a Petition to Parliament for a Cheap Ocean Postage; and a Memorial to the Prime Minister for Franchise Reforms.'

Author: 
'A Llanbrynmair Farmer' [Rev. Samuel Roberts (1800-1885), Welsh author on economic matters, and advocate of postal reform] [Royal Mail; the Post Office; postal reform; transatlantic postage]
Publication details: 
'Albion Office: Published and Sold by the Rev. S. Roberts, Llanbrynmair; and Henry Parry, Printer, Horse-market, Newtown.' 1852.
£180.00

59pp., 12mo. Stitched. Front wrap present, with the title printed within an ornate border on yellow paper, and the price given as sixpence. In fair condition, on aged paper, with dog-eared corner and slight loss at foot of the worn front wrap. Two ownership inscriptions: 'David Davies his Book' on the inside wrap, and 'David Davies his Book | 1852 | Tynyfawnay Llanfair | Montgomeryshire'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Sydney Smith') from Rev. Sydney Smith to the future Lord Chancellor Henry Brougham, regarding his ambitions and 'objects in the Church'. With annotations by Brougham.

Author: 
Rev. Sydney Smith (1771-1845), author and wit ['the Smith of Smiths'], member of the Holland House Circle [Henry Brougham (1778-1868), Scottish lawyer, Whig politician and Lord Chancellor]
Publication details: 
Without place or date. Docketted by Brougham '1830 or 31', but in fact circa 1827.
£450.00

2pp., 4to. Bifolium. A thin strip has been torn from the head of the first leaf, resulting in loss to two lines of text, otherwise in good condition, on lightly-aged paper. A significant letter, in which Smith discusses his ambitions with a close and influential friend, and former colleague on the 'Edinburgh Review'.

[Victorian satire in form of mock Act of Parliament.] Cap. CCXXXVIII. An Act for the Reform and Regulation of Female Apparel and to Amend and Refrenate the Customs relating to Crinoline and other Artificial Superfluities and the Profusion thereof.

Publication details: 
'This proposed Act is Published by WILLIAM CONEY, 61, Wardour St., Oxford St., London and Sold by all Booksellers. [Session 1859]
£220.00

4pp., folio. Bifolium. On worn and aged paper. Nicely printed, with royal crest at head of first page, above the words 'ANNO VICESIMO SECUNDO & VICESIMO TERTIO | VICTORIAE REGINAE.' The full title reads: 'An Act for the Reform and Regulation of Female Apparel and to Amend and Refrenate the Customs relating to Crinoline and other Artificial Superfluities and the Profusion thereof, with the Powers, Provisions, Clauses, Regulations and Directions, Fines, Forfeitures and Penalties to be observed, applied, practised and put in execution for securing the proper observance of the same.

[Broadside] Public Notice [anticipating distress in Ireland, announcing 'facilities and advantages in obtaining loans under the Land Improvement Acts.'

Author: 
Edward Hornsby, Secretary; [Land Improvement; Ireland; 1879]
Publication details: 
Office of Public Works, Dublin, 22 November 1879.
£145.00

Broadside, two pages, folio ,fold mark, two small closed tears, mainly good. It comprises (recto) details of 'facilities and advantages in obtaining loans under the Land Improvement Acts.' And (verso) a schedule of the unions in the Counties (Donegal to Sligo) with the handwriten addition of Mallow and Kanturk. Note: The Irish National Land League was founded at the Imperial Hotel in Castlebar, the County town of Mayo, on 21 October 1879.

Autograph Letter Signed from Sir Henry A. Miers, Vice-Chancellor of Manchester University, to the educationist Thomas Lloyd Humberstone, regarding his book on 'University Reform in London'.

Author: 
Sir Henry A. Miers [Sir Henry Alexander Miers] (1858-1942), Professor of Crystallography at the Victoria University of Manchester, 1915-1926 [Thomas Lloyd Humberstone (1876-1957), educationist]
Publication details: 
31 May 1926; on his Manchester University letterhead.
£38.00

12mo, 2 pp. Nineteen lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on lightly-aged paper. Thanking him for his 'excellent book on University Reform in London': 'I read it carefully when it came out and was much impressed by your clear statement of the problem and the thoughtful discussion of possible solutions'. He will now prize his own copy, as it is 'a really important contribution to a subject which has naturally interested me for the past 18 years'.

[Printed transcript of the Chartist Petition of 1839.] Supplement to the Votes and Proceedings. Veneris, 14o die Junii, 1839. Petition (national) of the thereundersigned, for universal suffrage, &c.

Author: 
[Chartist Petition of 1839; Universal Suffrage]
Chartist Petition of 1839
Publication details: 
[From the Journals of the House of Commons, 1839?]
£165.00
Chartist Petition of 1839

Folio, 2 pp, paginated 241 and 242. Text clear and complete. On worn and aged paper, with closed tears, and repair to the margins. Circular red stamp of the Mansion House (the official resident of the Lord Mayor of London) at head of first page. The item had been folded into a package, docketed in pencil 'A', and in pen 'H.M | No. 1', and has manuscript marking to the margins.

[Printed handbill by the National Association of Certified Reformatory and Industrial Schools of Great Britain, reproducing a 'Letter from Mr. T. B. Ll. Baker, of Hardwicke Court, Gloucester, to Mr. Wm. Garnett, President of the Association.'

Author: 
[National Association of Certified Reformatory and Industrial Schools of Great Britain, William Garnett, President; Thomas Barwick Lloyd Baker; Social Science Congress; Hardwicke Reform School]
National Association of Certified Reformatory and Industrial Schools
Publication details: 
[Printer and publisher not stated.] Transcript of Baker's letter dated 29 April 1884; reply by the President, Manager, and Superintendent of the Association's reply dated 30 April 1884.
£95.00
National Association of Certified Reformatory and Industrial Schools

Folio, 2 pp. Printed on one side of a sheet, folded to make a bifolium, with Baker's letter on the recto of the first leaf, and the Association's statement on it, in the form of a letter to its committee (signed by the president William Garnett; manager Thomas Higgin, and superintendent Richard Gorst), on the verso of the second. Text clear and complete. On aged and worn paper. Baker's letter begins: 'My dear Garnett, | I have just been shewn the circular issued by the Reformatory and Refuge Union to the Managers of Certified Schools, of which you wrote to me, but I cannot understand it.

Autograph Letter Signed Herschell, Lord Chancellor, to unnamed woman, concerning the Children's Aid Society of which, as he says, he was President .

Author: 
Farrer Herschell, first Baron Herschell (DNB)(1837–1899), lord chancellor.
Publication details: 
[Printed heading] 46 Grosvenor Gardens, SW [London] 31 January 1896.
£150.00

Three pages, 12mo, some staining, but text clear and complete. In asking your consideration of the claims of the Childrens' Aid Society a Branch of the Reformatory & Refuge Union of which I am the President, I am not seeking your help for a mere experiment but for work which has been in progress now for nearly forty years with marked success.

Nine prints of group photographs of inmates at the first Borstal Prison [at Borstal, near Rochester, Kent] and six of inmates at the second Borstal Prison, at Feltham in Hounslow. With two of a portrait of a prison officer. With the six negatives.

Author: 
Maurice Lyndham Waller (1875-1932), Chairman of the Prison Commission 1921-1928; Prison Commissioner, 1910-1921; Feltham Young Offenders Institution; Captain W. V. Eccles, Governor of Borstal Prison]
Nine prints of group photographs of inmates at the first Borstal Prison
Publication details: 
[Pre-First World War.]
£250.00
Nine prints of group photographs of inmates at the first Borstal Prison

All photographic prints and negatives roughly 8.5 x 14.5 cm. Prints all black and white. The collection aged, but in good condition overall. The pictures of inmates all landscape, and the two of the officer portrait. The boys are arranged in three or four rows, with as many as forty present in one image. The images are all taken outdoors and in front of prison buildings, the windows in the Feltham images being barred, and the windows in the Borstal images plain glass.

Two Autograph Letters Signed ('Richard Waller' and 'Richard or Dick (Waller)') from the son of British Prison Commissioner Richard Lyndham Waller, to his father's biographer A. S. Baxendale, with copy of biography, and eight family photographs.

Author: 
Maurice Lyndham Waller (1875-1932), Chairman of the Prison Commission, 1921-1928; Prison Commissioner, 1910-1921; A. S. Baxendale
Maurice Lyndham Waller (1875-1932), Chairman of the Prison Commission,
Publication details: 
Waller's letters both from Chagford, Devon, 1991 and 1997. The photographs pre-First World War. The biography published in 1993.
£180.00
Maurice Lyndham Waller (1875-1932), Chairman of the Prison Commission,

Photographs: All black and white prints. The first (21 x 15 cm) a portrait of Waller (reproduced in Baxendale, p. 26, below). The second (23 x 17 cm) a family photograph of six Edwardian individuals, three younger ones (including a woman and with Waller at centre) standing, and three older men seated. The other six (all 14 x 8.5 cm and taken at the same time) showing Waller and family outdoors: one of him rowing, and one with a smiling woman (presumably his wife). Overall condition of the photographs is fair. They are lightly-aged, with a little creasing here and there.

Autograph Letter Signed ('C Fane') to G. Joy, discussing the reform of the Court of Chancery.

Author: 
Robert George Cecil Fane (1796-1864), English Judge, as Commissioner of the Court of Bankruptcy [Court of Chancery]
Publication details: 
19 August 1844; Court of Bankruptcy.
£300.00

12mo, 3 pp. Thirty-three lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on lightly-aged paper, with traces of mount on reverse of second leaf, which is docketed 'C. Fane to G. Joy | 19 Augt. 1844'. A significant and interesting letter, on a topic later tackled by Dickens in 'Bleak House', by a judge who was an active member of the Law Amendment Society, and whose decisions, according to his entry in the Oxford DNB, 'were frequently the subject of comment', although 'very few of his judgments were reversed on appeal'.

Handbill headed 'Funeral Reform Conference. July 23, 1884. The Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G., Presiding.', reporting Haden's views on 'the desirablilty of greater simplicity in the conduct of funerals'.

Author: 
Funeral Reform Conference, 1884 [London Necropolis Company; Seymour Haden]
Publication details: 
1884. Printer not stated.
£56.00

12mo, 2 pp. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with one dog-eared corner. Quoting Haden's views, which appear distinctly progressive. He finds the 'retention in a dwelling-house for as long as possible of a body, which ought to be committed to the earth as soon as possible', and the need for a 'strong coffin' great evils.

Handbill headed 'An Appeal to Working Men and Women', pressing for 'the English law to protect your girls from being led into vice'.

Author: 
Ellice Hopkins (1836-1904) and Emily Janes (d.1928), Honorary Secretaries, Ladies’ Associations for the Care of Girls
Publication details: 
January, 1885. 41, Great Russell-street, British Museum, W.C.
£225.00

On both sides of a piece of paper, 19 x 11.5 cm. Seventy-seven lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged and lightly-worn paper. Contrasts the law on the continent with that in England, where 'an unruly girl at any age can go on the streets, and the person who harbours her is not guilty of a greater crime than if she were a women [sic] of thirty or forty [...] Will you not help us heart and soul in getting our English girls, - your daughters, remember, - as carefully protected as Belgian and French girls?

Financial Reform Tracts. Nos. 11 and 12. Speech of Sir Wm. Molesworth, Bart., M.P., in the House of Commons, on Tuesday, 25th July, 1848, On Colonial Expenditure and Government.

Author: 
Sir William Molesworth [The Financial Reform Association, Liverpool]
Publication details: 
[Financial Reform Association, Harrington Chambers, North John-street, Liverpool, March, 1849.] Printed at the Office of the "Standard of Freedom," 335, Strand, London.
£65.00

8vo: 32 pp. Pamphlet. Bound in modern marbled boards with paper label. Fair, on aged paper with top outer corner of last few leaves slightly dogeared and with reverse of last leaf a little grubby. An important speech, another edition of which exists, published by Ridgway in 1848. A reply by John Towne Danson was also published by Ridgway in 1848, going through two editions.

Divorce Problems of To-day.

Author: 
E. S. P. Haynes [Edmund Sidney Pollock Haynes (1877-1949); Oriana Huxley Haynes; T. H. Huxley]
Publication details: 
London: Published by The Divorce Law Reform Union, 20, Copthall Avenue, E.C. 1910.
£45.00

8vo, 75 pp. In original green card printed wraps. Disbound. Text clear and complete. On aged paper, and with wear to wraps and damage to spine from disbinding. Dedicated, with no trace of irony, to Haynes' wife Oriana Huxley Haynes, T. H. Huxley's eldest granddaughter.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Wilfrid Lawson') to 'Mr. Hudson', with reference to Sunday observance.

Author: 
Sir Wilfrid Lawson of Brayton (1829-1906), British Liberal politician and temperance campaigner
Publication details: 
14 March 1900; 135 Sloane Street, SW.
£35.00

12mo, 4 pp. Text clear and complete. In fair condition, worn and a little grubby. He thanks him for having 'written so fully'. He will 'wait for a day or two ere looking far', as he is 'rather exercised in my mind on one or two parts'. 'I remember - or try to remember - this injunction - 'do nothing rashly'. He is sending 'some lines' by 'Sir John Kenaway - a sound old evangelical Tory', 'in favor of Sunday closing in Monmouthshire'.

Autograph Signature ('John Dillon').

Author: 
John Dillon (1851-1927), Irish politian, Parnellite Member of Parliament for County Tipperary, Home Rule activist and land reform agitator
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£23.00

On piece of paper roughly 5.5 x 11.5 cm. Cut away from a letter for an autograph hunter. Laid down on a piece of paper removed from an album. Fair, on lightly-aged paper. Reads '<...> | Yours sincerely | John Dillon'.

Alteration of Constitution. Federal Referendums. The Case FOR and AGAINST. ['Aviation' and 'Marketing']

Author: 
[Australian Federal Referendums on Aviation and Marketing, 1937]
Publication details: 
By Authority: H. J. Green, Government Printer, Melbourne. [Canberra, 30th December, 1936.]
£56.00

4to: [iii] + 15 + [ii] pp. Ten-leaf stapled pamphlet. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Slight rusting to staples. In small hand in red ink at head of title: 'M.S. 834 - 21/1/37'. Giving the texts of two proposed constitution alterations, 'Aviation' and 'Marketing', with the cases for and against, the referendums on which are both to be taken on 6 March 1937. 1 cm stamp in red ink of the Webster Collection at foot of final page, numbered 4190.

Autograph Letter Signed to 'My dear Smith'.

Author: 
Alexander Innes Shand (1832-1907), Scottish journalist, novelist and military historian
Publication details: 
Oakdale - Eden Bridge - Kent - 2 July' [no year]; on cancelled letterhead of the Windham Club, St James's Square, S.W.
£35.00

12mo bifolium: 3 pp. Good, though lightly creased. Tipped in on the blank verso of the second leaf, to a green paper folder on which an eight-line biographical entry of Shand has been laid down. He has left the packet containing the letters which Mrs Smith 'values' so 'highly' at the Reform Club, not wishing, in case it has changed, to send them to Smith's 'address in the Blue Book'. As he cannot 'make a decent excuse' for the delay in returning them, he throws himself on Smith's mercy.

Autograph Letter Signed to his publisher and friend Alexander Macmillan.

Author: 
William Black (1841-1898), Scottish journalist and novelist [Alexander Macmillan (1818-1896), publisher; Colin Hunter (1841-1904), Scottish painter]
Publication details: 
1 February [no year]; on letterhead of Paston House, Paston Place, Brighton.
£28.00

12mo, 1 p. Six lines of text. Good, on lightly aged and creased paper. Inviting Macmillan to join him and 'some of the lads' in a dinner at the Reform Club, 'on the occasion of Colin Hunter's being made an Associate'.

The True Principal of Population; Trade, Profits, Wages, Employment, and the Land Laws.

Author: 
T. R.' [population; land reform; Sir Robert Arthur Arnold; Manchester radical politics; economics]
Publication details: 
Undated [between 1880 and 1885]. Manchester: Abel Heywood and Son, 56 & 58, Oldham Street.
£200.00

12mo, 15 pp. Stitched as issued. Text clear and complete on aged, worn and foxed paper. Can be dated from references in text, and from quotation on title from 'Arthur Arnold, M.P.' (Arnold's career in the House of Commons ending in 1885). Carries a few contemporary marks in light pencil, and a column in shorthand on the blank reverse of the last leaf. Excessively scarce: no copy in the British Library, on COPAC or on WorldCat.

Handbill, with diagram, expounding the aims of the Society, headed 'Meetings along the Line of Docks'.

Author: 
Society for the Taxation of Land Values, Liverpool [nineteenth-century land reform; Victorian radical socialism]
Publication details: 
Undated [circa 1900]. 'Printed by C. Tinling & Co., 53, Victoria Street, and Published by the Society for the Taxation of Land Values, 4, Preeson's Row, Liverpool.'
£85.00

12mo bifolium (leaf dimensions 22 x 14 cm): 4 pp. Text clear and complete, on lightly-aged and grubby paper with wear to extremities. The first pages includes a section beginning 'Land in Liverpool has been sold at £226 the square yard; £1,093,840 an Acre! | PAY YOUR RENTS! and YOUR RATES!! | You must Pay them or be Put Out!!! | But when you pay, think what you are paying for: [...] The Liverpool Stock Exchange had to pay Three Shillings and Sixpence for every square inch of the land facing Exchange Street and corner of Dale Street. There are over 6 1/4 million square inches in an acre!

Autograph Letter Signed "W. Hone" to an unnamed male correspondent.

Author: 
William Hone, Radical bookseller and publisher (DNB).
Publication details: 
5 Bolt Court, 18 June 1840.
£250.00

One page, minor staining not affecting text, laid down on grey coarse paper. "Here is the Cape Shipping List [perhaps including slavers?]. It's business-like details of murders by wholesale tell the cold blooded tales of horror more effectually than eloquent language. They [leave?] & lead the mind to imagine the terrible scenes enacted with poetical power which minute detail fails to [word excised "affect"] produce. I admire this brevity - it is inoffensively offensive. / I am grateful to you, my dear Sir, for your care of my daughter - your help to the helpless.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Louis Havet, professeur au Collège de France, 16 place Vendôme') to 'Monsieur le Directeur du Journal de Bruxelles, Belgique'.

Author: 
Louis Havet (1849-1925), French philologist whose classical library was acquired by the University of California
Publication details: 
14 May 1889; Paris.
£65.00

12mo, 1 p, 14 lines. Good, on light-brown paper, with the address, stamps, and postmarks on the reverse. In French. He sends his thanks to the 'Journal de Bruxelles' for reproducing his 'article sur la réforme de l'orthographe'. He is sending a petition (not present) which 'en ce moment ce couvre de signatures à Paris', and will be personally grateful if his correspondent can see to it that it is reproduced 'avec les indications qui l'accompagnent'. Loose in blue paper folder with catalogue entry for the previous sale of the letter laid down on front.

Autograph Note Signed ('Isa . Craig . Knox') to her publisher Alexander Macmillan (1818-1896).

Author: 
Isa Craig Knox (1831-1903), Victorian women's rights activist, social reformer, poet, novelist and journalsit [Alexander Macmillan, publisher]
Publication details: 
9 November [no year]; 14 Clyde Terrace, Brockley Road, New Cross [London].
£36.00

12mo: 1 p. Good. Since he 'liked the last little thing' she sent for his magazine, she ventures to think that he may approve of the piece she encloses (not present).

Financial Reform Tracts. No. 1.

Author: 
Liverpool Financial Reform Association [Free Trade; Richard Cobden; economic history]
Publication details: 
[Financial Reform Association, Hargreave's Buildings, Liverpool, September, 1848.] Sold by Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., London; and by the Printers, Smith, Rogerson, and Co., 44, Lord-street, Liverpool.
£56.00

12mo. 20 pages. Stitched and unbound. Creased, aged and somewhat dusty. Historic first publication of 'the most persistent and single-minded free trade lobby England has known' (W. N. Calkins, Economic History Review, 1960).

Autograph Letter Signed ('Thos. Wright') to a female 'Christian friend'.

Author: 
Thomas Wright [Macdermid], Manchester prison philanthropist
Publication details: 
Sidney Street, C on M, Manchester; 25 June 1863.
£38.00

Three pages, 12mo. A tad aged, with some discoloration and a little glue from previous mounting to the blank verso of the second leaf of the bifolium. He was 'from home' when the note arrived, only returning on Tuesday. 'It will give me great pleasure to be with you on the day when the Foundation Stone will be your School. Sends 'every blessing' to the recipient and her 'Xcellent husband'. A life of Wright was published in 1873, with a preface by the Earl of Shaftesbury.

Autograph Letter Signed to Roake & Varty, booksellers, printers, stationers (BBTI), York House, Strand, London.

Author: 
[Roake & Varty] A.B. Lechmere, Gent.
Publication details: 
The Rhyd, Worcester, 24 May 1832.
£75.00

ADD "York House" to BBTI. And "Publisher. And Worcester bookseller. Four pages, minor defects, text complete and clear. He requests his account for "Stationery & Consitutional Tracts" and asks how much "it would cost to purchase the whole of the Tracts published by you from the commencement of the Debates of the momentous Reform Question to the present hour, to place in one's Library for the inspection of posterity." He rails agaoinst the "wicked and unprincipled Ministry and the King who is "regardless of the complicate interests of this once great Empire-".

Autograph Letter Signed to the Secretary, Royal Society of Arts.

Author: 
Richard Edward Dennett [CONGO FREE STATE]
Publication details: 
20 May 1916; on letterhead '3 PARLIAMENT HILL MANSIONS, | HIGHGATE ROAD, N.W.'
£56.00

Editor (1857-1921) of the manuscript newspaper 'Congo Mirror', who 'drew attention to irregularities in Congo Free State, 1886; [...] and accused Congo officials of murders and atrocities; with help he carried on the agitation until the Congo Reform Association was formed; in a series of letters to the African Mail entitled the Lower Congo he pointed out the injustice of the French rule and the concessionnaire system in Congo Francais' (Who's Who). Three pages, 12mo. On grey paper. Very good. Docketed in pen and green pencil.

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