DAVY

See her husband’s entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 16mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with traces of mount on blank reverse of second leaf. Addressed to ‘Dear Mr. Stirling’ and signed ‘Jane Davy’. She begins by asking him if he considers Jose Medina, the courier he had in Spain, ‘intelligent, active, & willing’. She adds: ‘I should now & then like my own way; will he allow me such an indulgence?’ She also wants to know if Medina is ‘fairly honest’, by which she means ‘that he will not allow others to cheat me.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Large fragments, both with interesting content, from the beginning of letters to unnamed seedsmen (both addressed to ‘Dear Sir’, but the two docketed by different individuals, suggesting different recipients). Neither has the signature present (presumably supplied to autograph hunters for placement in Sinclair’s ‘Hortus gramineus Woburnensis’, described in the ODNB as‘an expensive folio volume containing dried specimens of the grasses’). Both items in good condition, lightly aged, and with creases from having been folded up.

See Rolleston's entry in the Oxford DNB. He was successively president of the London Medical Society, the Royal Society of Medicine, the Royal College of Physicians and the Eugenics Society, and was also Physician-in-Ordinary to King George V. Waterston was Bute Professor of Anatomy at the University of St Andrews from 1914 to 1942. In 1913, while Professor of Anatomy at King's College, London, he was the first authority to debunk the Piltdown Man hoax. 1p, 16mo. Lightly ruckled, and with the ink of the letter having run a little through removal from mount; otherwise in good condition.

The subject of the letter is the surgeon Henry William Robert Davey (1798-1870), son of surgeon Henry Sallows Davey (1781-1855) of Beccles, who also studied under Sir Charles Bell at the Hunterian School of Medicine in Great Windmill Street, London. 1p, 8vo. In good condition, lightly aged, with thin strip of paper from mount adhering to edge on blank reverse. An attractive document, with 'MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL.' at the head, above an engraving of the frontage of the hospital.

Bynum and Porter, in their 'Brunonianism in Britain and Europe' (1988), describe Hill – keeper at one point of two asylums – as a 'substantial figure [...] a champion of Brunonian psychiatry'. For the recipient John Davy (1790-1868), anatomist and physiologist, brother of Sir Humphrey Davy, see his entry in the Oxford DNB. Two letters, both in good condition, attached to one another along one edge, with thin strip from mount adhering. Both letters are bifoliums, and both have had the second leaf, trimmed along the fore-edge, resulting in each case to slight loss to the address.

One page, 8vo, laid down on larger stiff paper, corner cut off with no obvious loss of text, good condition. Neatly written biography of Milner beneath the letter. "Mr Wood & myself request you very particualrly, upon the receipt of this note to come down to Cambridge immediately. Your [words inked out] assistance will very much facilitate a business we have now in hand. We hope you are in London, because the business does not admit of delay. Unless you are here to go to work with us on Friday, & on Saturday morning, it will be quiote too late. We have a meeting on Saturday in the afternoon.

Scientist (see DNB). One page, trimmed 4to, laid down on card, some staining, date smudged, but text clear and complete. "I hope the enclosed will be useful to you in finding the vessell you want for your circumnavigation." Perhaps it relates to Lowry's scientific interests.

English chemist (1788-1866) who succeeded Sir Humphrey Davy as Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution (1813). Two pages, octavo. Very good, though lightly creased and with remains of previous mount adhering to one edge. Begins 'I have no doubt that much fraud is committed by the substitution of spiritious liquors of different strengths, for what is called woodspirit and wood naphtha'.