JOHN

Moffatt is an interesting minor figure. In a 1924 piece titled 'Brief History of the Failsworth Pole', Rev. James Smith writes: 'The Jacobins' Club Library was kept in a room next to that in which Ben Brierley was born, and old John Moffatt, tailor, of "Crockey Hall," opposite the Pole, had charge of the Library'. Smith quotes lines which he considers 'remarkable for their patriotism', noting: 'He must have been a mild sort of Jacobin.' A total of sixteen pages, on eight leaves.

On an irregular piece of paper, 18cm. high and 23cm. wide at the extremities. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper. Torn from a larger leaf, with one side carrying manuscript additions completing printed text ('In Repayment of Loan on the Eighteenth, 2s. Aid, Anno 1739.'). In manuscript: 'The most Noble Sarah Dutchess Dowager of Marlborough, the Right Honble Francis Earl of Godolphin, the Right Honble William Lord Sundon Executors of the late most Noble John Duke of Marlborough'. The signatures are on the reverse, with more manuscript text.

1p., 8vo. On aged paper worn at head. Customary printed Exchequer receipt, completed in manuscript, headed (manuscript text in square brackets): 'Annuities, 3700l. per Week. | Record' [19 Janu. 1715]'. Calculations in right-hand margin and clerical sign on reverse. Recording the payment by Sir Richard Onslow of £100 to 'Awnsham Churchill Attorney for mr ffra: Bennett & for selfe'.

Michael Howard's obituary of Ticehurst in The Times, 30 October 1975, describes him as 'a persuasive pioneer among those who sought to reestablish the harpsichord as a serious musical instrument'. ONE: Carbon typescript, 7pp., 4to. Headed 'Harpsichord to Australia | by John Ticehurst.' With a few minor manuscript marks. In autograph next to the title: 'April 1951/Feb 1952'. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, with slight rust staining from paperclip.

On two pieces of paper, one roughly 9.5 x 17.5 cm and the other 2.5 x 13.5 cm, laid down on a piece of grey card. Note on card in a nineteenth-century hand: 'Colonel John Macdonald's writing -'. In fair condition, on aged paper, on good strong card. The notes were apparently intended to accompany a plan, the words 'An Elevation of' being scored through at the beginning of the heading, as is a five-line passage, beginning 'No 1'. Beneath this deleted passage is a nine-line expanded version of it, beginning: 'No 1 proving insufficient as to strength and light, Mr.

According to his long obituary in The Times, 13 June 1929 ('Central Asian Politics'), Yates's 'studies of the affairs of the Indian borderland, Central Asia, and the Middle East were probably excelled by few retired officers of the Indian Army in wealth of detail and personal knowledge of events and personalities spread over the last half-century'. See also his long entry in Who Was Who. The three items are in fair condition, on aged and worn paper with rusting from paperclip. They carry the stamp and docketing of the Society. The card - signed 'A. C. Yate (Lt..

The Patent Office - now the Intellectual Property Office - was established by the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852, which simplified the procedure for obtaining patents of invention and reduced costs. In 1883 another Act of Parliament brought into being the office of Comptroller General of Patents, with, according to the National Archives, 'a staff of patent examiners to carry out a limited form of examination; mainly to ensure that the specification described the invention properly, but without any investigation into novelty'.

ONE: Hair's six letters to 'My Dear Sir John [Phillipart]', editor of the Naval and Military Gazette. (One of the letters has 'Sir John Phillipart' named as the addressee.) In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. The five complete letters total 15pp., 12mo. Only the first part of the incomplete letter is present, and it is 4pp., 4to, on a bifolium.

A useful background guide is Geoffrey Russell Searle's 'Country before Party: Coalition and the Idea of "National Government' in Modern Britain, 1885-1987' (London, 1995). As the manuscripts in this collection indicate, Cuming Walters cherished the idea of a national party from the 1890s, and he was able to re-use material from that period on the formation of the National Party in 1920 (not to be confused with the party of the same name, a pamphlet relating to which is present, dating from 1917).

12mo, 134 pp each on one side of a ring-punched loose leaf, with the leaves attached by green thread within an original worn buckram binder with discoloured endpapers. The leaves themselves in good condition on lightly-aged paper; with those of the draft story ruled in red, and sometimes utilizing scrap paper (for example the blank reverses of prospectuses for Wright's books and scrap pages from Blake Society material).

[10] + 288pp., 4to. In original quarter-binding, with blue paper boards and cream buckram spine with gilt lettering. A handsome book, profusely illustrated, with 49 plates (some with guards) and the two signed 'Extra Plates', and numerous illustrations in text. Announcement on reverse of first page: 'THIS edition, with an original etching and an original lithograph by Frank Brangwyn, is limited to 65 copies, of which this is No. 41'. The etching, facing p.1, is titled 'A Back Street, Tours', and the lithograph, facing page 180, is titled 'Newcastle'. Both are signed by Brangwyn in pencil.

All items in good condition, on lightly-aged paper. The letters total 49pp, 16mo and 8vo.. All are complete except the last, which lacks the last part. They are liberally adorned with sketches. Mostly addressed to 'My dear Aunty' and signed in a variety of ways, from 'J. Bowyer B. Nichols' to 'BBN'. The first letter, dated 4 December 1871, sets the tone, showing Bowyer Nichols to be a precocious and spirited twelve-year-old. It begins: 'Will you send me, if you can find it, that poem about Sally Porter and Charlie Church?

viii + 58. Collotype frontispiece reproducing part of manuscript. Nicely printed on good paper. Internally tight, on lightly-aged paper, in discoloured and lightly-worn cream buckram binding, gilt. Tissue guard to frontispiece detached. The conclusion to the four-page preface, which is dated from New York, January 1896, explains that the 'formal publication in England' of the volume 'might possibly be deemed an offence against good taste, although its Author has been deceased for half a century, and hardly a single person referred to by Canon Barham can now be alive.

(The book is anonymous, but Rimbault is generally accepted to have been the author.) x + 189 + 32pp., 12mo. A 32-page publisher's catalogue is bound in at the end. In publisher's blind-tooled black ribbed cloth, with gilt spine. Advertisements printed on endpapers. Tight copy on lightly-aged paper, in worn binding with damage to hinges. Ownership inscription on half-title.

Two good tight copies, on lightly aged paper, in worn original bindings with gilt decorations on front covers, with engravings on browning paper because of high acidity content. Both volumes with bookplate of Alan Angele and manuscript library shelf label. ONE: 'The Comic Latin Grammar'. 163 + [3]pp., 8vo. Eight engravings and numerous illustrations in text (the first engraving is positioned as frontispiece rather than at p.23 as specified).

vii + 141 + [1]pp., 8vo. Final leaf with Chiswick Press device of dolphin and anchor and lion. In sturdy nineteenth-century black leather half-binding, with marbled boards and 'Russell's Catalogue 1856' in gilt on spine. Ownership stamp of 'Alfred H Maurais' on fly-leaf. A characteristically-elegant Chiswick Press item, with 408 items listed, the titles in black letter. Three-page anonymous preface, dated 'May, 1856.' Tight copy, but aged and lightly damp-stained, in worn binding.

16pp., 16mo. Stapled pamphlet. Aged and worn, with rusted staple. Inside the front cover are quotations from Hodge and his predecessor as Minister of Pensions G. N. Barnes. Initial note: 'The following pages contain a general and necessarily brief description of the system followed by the Pensions Ministry.

Small octavo. Pages: xx + 257. Original black cloth decorated in orange. Orange dustwrapper. Eight illustrations in colour, sixty-five in half-tone, and map. Good copy, though foxed throughout, in good binding lightly worn at head and tale of spine and with a little spotting. Dustwrapper discoloured and with wear and loss at corners and head and tail of spine.

3pp., landscape 12mo. In good condition, lightly-aged, with two punch holes for placement in album to margins of each of the three leaves. He congratulates him on his catalogue, states that he is attaching a wants list (not present) and that he is leaving it to the recipient 'to make out the account as I am not good at adding - & also dont know the postage. | The Librarian at the House of Lords showed great interest in your catalogue & is writing to you for one'. He suggests sending a copy to John Hayward, and gives his address.

28pp., 8vo. Stitched into grey printed wraps. Aged and worn, with the firm ownership signature 'John Carter' in ink in the top-left corner of the front cover. A few passages are highlighted in pencil. Now scarce.

Marie Carmichael Stopes (1880-1958), British paleobotanist and eugenicist, influential advocate of birth control. Clean neat inscription on recto of front free endpaper reads 'Marie C. Stopes | Norbury Park | 1935'. The volume is in good condition, in a grubby dustwrapper worn at the head and tail of the spine. Pages 324-5 and 339 have been marked up in soft pencil.

On one side of a 10.5 x 16.5 cm slip of grey paper. In fair condition, creased and lightly-aged. Reads (with manuscript text in square brackets): '[Hutchison Robertus e Coll. Exon.] | Die [5to] Mensis [Decris.] Anni [1866] | prout Statuta requirunt Examinatus in Literis Humanioribus in tribus libris et in SS. Evangeliis satisfecit nobis Moderatoribus. | Ita testatur { [J Conington | N. Pinder | H F. Tozer | David B. Monro] } Moderatores in literarum Graecarum et Latinarum Schola.' Thorley's1874-5 Lit. Hum. mark-book appears to be the earliest extant.

Lord Hennessy has characterised the subject of these items, the Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1854, as 'the greatest single governing gift of the nineteenth to the twentieth century: a politically disinterested and permanent Civil Service with core values of integrity, propriety, objectivity and appointment on merit, able to transfer its loyalty and expertise from one elected government to the next'.

4pp., 16mo. Bifolium. A scarce piece of First World War ephemera, on creased and aged paper. The certificate has been made out in order to enroll 'Dorothy Marion Cameron Bower' into 'Detachment [8] in the County of [Westmorland]', but has not been signed by her. The first page carries the conditions of use, the second a declaration by the signatory, and the third the permit itself, with facsimile signatures of Arthur Stanley, Chairman, and Louis Pearson, Hon. Secretary, and the actual signatures of Henry Gandy, County Director, and John Mason M.D, Commandant.

A scarce piece of Liverpool printing ephemera. Dimensions approximately 63 x 51 cm. Both sides printed in light blue. Text and illustrations complete. In need of expert cleaning and repair: grubby and stained, with chipping to extremities and some closed tears. At the head of the one side is the masthead of 'The Employment Exchange | Edited by Charles H. Megson' ('The only recognized medium for speedy Employment. Absolutely without rival.') with illustrations of figures at work.

On 16 x 6.5 cm strip of paper, cut from financial document. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Addressed to 'Mr. Townshend' on one side, with signature of witness 'Jno. Lesingham', with the signatures of 'H Fox', 'R Arundell' and 'G Lyttelton' on the other, with date 27 May 1746, next to the word Orford, and below part of a sentence relating to 'Duty on Candles'.

The collection in good condition, lightly aged and worn. ONE: ANS ('J. A. Simon'). 17 January 1908. 1p., 12mo. From 4 Brick Court, Temple. Giving notice that he is that day 'applying to the Lord Chancellor for silk'. Accompanied by an undated Autograph Memorandum by Frederick Allan Wilshire (1868-1944), Recorder of Bridgwater, stating that it is 'of particular interest. When a Barrister applies for silk he has to write a similar letter to this to all members of the circuit who are his senior. | Simon recommended me to the King for the Recordership of Bridgwater. | F. A. W.' TWO: ALS ('J. A.

Both items in fair condition, with light signs of age and wear. ONE: 2pp., 12mo. He complains of having done 'no political speaking for 2 or 3 years now', and of being 'a poor hand at it even when in practice'. Dummett is nevertheless invited to 'command' him on 29 January. TWO: 3pp., 12mo. Circumstances having arisen, he has to apologise for 'crying off'. He is certain that 'in the 3 weeks which remain' Dummett will have 'no difficulty in securing a substitute who will be much more effective'. From the papers of Sir R. E. Dummett.

1p., 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. The note reads: 'This is to certify that Mr. Turner has been under my care; and will be unable to return to business for the next ten days. | Walter J Coulson | Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.' For more on Coulson, see his obituary in the British Medical Journal, 14 September 1889.

1p., folio. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper, with some chipping and a few closed tears to edges. Addressed 'To | The Officer Commanding | the Oldham Regiment of Local Militia. | Oldham Lancashire' (i.e. John Crossley of Scaitcliffe near Rochdale, who built up a notable collection of military memorabilia, dispersed after his death). Attached to a leaf of paper with a note by the recipient concerning the permission he has been granted to retain a 'Musquet and Set of Accoutrements'.