CONVICT

[‘The most barefaced case of pretended centenarianism’: Frederick Lahrbush, confidence-trickster and pretended centenarian.] Signed Autograph Inscription claiming that he was ‘born March 9th. 1766.’

Author: 
‘Capt. Lahrbush’ [Frederick Lahrbush] (d. 1877), English fraudster, Australian convict, New York confidence-trickster and pretended centenarian
Lahrbush
Publication details: 
In another hand: ‘Written Oct 7. 1870.’ [New York.]
£135.00
Lahrbush

During Lahrbush’s lifetime William John Thoms, in his ‘Human Longevity’ (1873), described his claim to have been born in 1766 as ‘the most barefaced case of pretended centenarianism which has ever come under my notice’. ‘Capt. Lahrbush’, who claimed to have been born in 1766, ended his days in New York. He also claimed to have guarded Napoleon in St Helena, and to have obbained a lock of Bonaparte’s hair there. In fact he was court-martialled for fraud in 1818, and sent as a convict to Australia.

[David Davies ('Dai'r Cantwr'), the Rebecca Riots and Transportation to Australia: Victorian Welsh street ballad.] Printed poem, titled: 'Can Hiraethlon David Davies (Dai'r Cantwr,) Pan yn Garcharor yng Nghaerfyrddin, am y Terfysg yn amser Becca'.

Author: 
David Davies (c.1812-1874), Welsh poet known as Dai'r Cantwr (David the Singer), transported to Van Diemen's Land after the Rebecca Riots [nineteenth-century Welsh street ballad]
Publication details: 
No place or date. [Welsh, late Victorian.]
£280.00

The full title reads: 'Can Hiraethlon | David Davies (Dai'r Cantwr,) | Pan yn Garcharor yng Nghaerfyrddin, am y Terfysg yn amser Becca. | Cenir ar y dôn “Roslin Castle.'” The title may be translated as 'A nostalgic song, written when a prisoner in Carmarthen, for the riot in Becca's time. | Sung to the tune of 'Roslin Castle'. 4pp, 12mo (15.5 x 9 cm). Paginated [1]-4. Disbound. A frail survival: aged and worn, with damp-stain along one edge. Beneath the title is a small vignette of a sailing ship, and at the end of the final page is another of a crown. Poem in four sixteen-line stanzas.

[ Edmund Brown Viney Christian, writer on the law. ] Long unpublished account, in manuscript and typescript, of a miscarriage of justice: the case of William Henry Barber, convicted of forgery and transported to Australia in 1844.

Author: 
Edmund Brown Viney Christian (1864-1938), solicitor, and writer on the law and on cricket [ William Henry Barber, English solicitor transported to Australia in 1844 ]
Publication details: 
Without place [ Deal, Kent? ] or date [ post 1921. ]
£450.00

62pp., 4to (comprising 45pp. in manuscript, and 17pp. in typescript). In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Numerous emendations and corrections throughout. Draft notes towards the piece cover 21pp., on loose leaves, with the completed text (both in manuscript and typescript) on leaves held together with a brass stud. Written in the pleasing style highlighted in Christian's obituary in The Times, 28 October 1938: 'not only admirable history, but also, owing to the many humorous flashes which illuminate them, excellent light reading'.

[ The Siberian 'Katorga' in Imperial Russia. ] English translation (by Peter Kropotkin?) from the French, of Émile Andreoli's account of his captivity following the January Uprising, titled ''Siberian Convicts' Life'. Containing unpublished material.

Author: 
Émile Andreoli (1835-1900), Franco-Italian writer and inventor, sent to Siberia following his participant in the Polish 'January Uprising', 1863-1864 [ Peter Kropotkin, Russia; Russian Katorga ]
Publication details: 
Without details or date. [London, 1880s? Certainly after 1869.]
£4,000.00

99pp., 8vo. Each page typed on a separate piece of paper ruled with red marginal borders. The manuscript housed in a contemporary thumb-indexed ledger, with each leaf tipped-in onto the recto of a leaf of the ledger. The manuscript in good condition, lightly-aged and worn; the ledger heavily worn and shaken, and lacking covers. Andreoli's name is not given anwhere in this item. Title-page with typed title 'Siberian Convicts' Life'. Above the title, in manuscript is '? Convict-Life', and typed beneath the title is a six-line epigram from Goethe.

[Sir George Grey, Whig Home Secretary.] Autograph Letter in the third person to Rev. Reginald Smith, regarding 'the selection of a gentleman to fill the office of Chaplain at the Portland Convict Depôt'.

Author: 
Sir George Grey (1799-1882), Liberal Home Secretary, 1846-52, 1855-58, 1861-66 [Reginald Southwell Smith (1809-1896), Canon of Salisbury; Portland Convict Depot; transportation; penal servitude]
Publication details: 
Whitehall. 22 July 1847.
£80.00

2pp., 12mo. In fair condition, on aged paper, with traces of mount adhering at head of reverse of leaf. Regarding Smith's 'note with reference to the selection of a gentleman to fill the office of Chaplain at the Portland Convict Depôt', he writes that he must 'defer the consideration of this question, as it must necessarily be yet some considerable period before the works at the Island are sufficiently advanced for the reception of Convicts'.

The Deportation of the Norfolk Islanders to the Derwent in 1808. I. The Settlement of Norfolk Island. II. The Deportation to the Derwent.

Author: 
Jack Backhouse Walker [Norfolk Island deportation, 1808; Derwent; Tasmania; Van Diemen's Land]
Publication details: 
Tasmania: William Grahame, Jun., Government Printer, Hobart. 1895.
£75.00

12mo: 26 pp. In original printed wraps. Stapled pamphlet. Unopened. The only copies on COPAC at the British Library and Oxford. For more information about Walker (1841-1899) see his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

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