ships

An interesting piece of Royal Navy and Napoleonic War ephemera, casting light on the implementation of Admiralty Prize Law. See the reference to the writer of this letter in the 1926 ‘Memorials of the family of Hurry of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, and of America, Australia, and South Africa’: ‘Edmund Cobb [Hurry], born at Great Yarmouth, in 1762, admitted a freeman by birthright, 23rd of August, 1782. He settled as a merchant and banker, at Gosport, where he married a Miss Liddell.

For information about this brave and gallant man, who offered himself to be hanged in place of his fellow officers during the Nore Mutiny, see his entry in the Oxford DNB. The presence of these four items together may indicate a Victorian autograph dealer as the source, or perhaps a family member wishing to distribute keepsakes. Some with tantalizing fragments of surviving text. All four in good condition, some with fold lines. ONE: 14.5 x 6.5 cm. On one side: ‘[...] Ever your truly obliged and / Affectionate Friend / Edward O’Bryen’.

Ruthven was born in Ireland, the son of Galway landowner Clifford Trotter. He was a master mariner, a Younger Brother of Trinity House, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and wrote several nautical manuals. At the time of his retirement as commodore of the Orient Line of ships in 1911, Ruthven had completed forty-five years at sea and thirty years in command of Orient steamers (Orient Steam Navigation Company, Limited – hereafter OSNC).

3pp., 8vo. Bifolium with three pages of text, with title on reverse of second leaf (printed crosswise for folding into packet). In good condition, lightly aged and worn. The first page is headed 'Collier Dock - Isle of Dogs', followed by a list in two columns of the twenty-four directors, and solicitor's details. The 'Meeting of the Proprietors' was held at the London Tavern, Bishopsgate Street, 5 April 1827, and there was only one topic.

Unpaginated, folio, red calf, worn edges and spine, virtually every page either written on or with typescript pasted on, with other relevant enclosures. Minutes recorded from the first meeting in 1883 to 1946. Presumably this was the Company responsible for publishing the "Shipping World and Herald of Commerce" (Gresham Press, 1883ff - the Company operated out of "The Gresham Press Building according to a piece of printed ephemera enclosed - including relevant circulars and financial statements).

[28]pp., 4to. Stapled into grey printed wraps. Illustrated with photographs; centrepage spread of matching tables giving 'Weekly Potato Shipments' from Tasmania to Sydney, in 1937 and 1956. On glossy art paper. Both prospectus and inserts in fair condition, on lightly aged and worn paper. Stamp of the Van Diemen's Land Company on front cover, with ownership inscription 'C. C. Carter'.

1p., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, with light signs of age. He is enclosing a cheque for two guineas towards 'The Frederic Fund', and writes that he had 'the pleasure of often meeting Mr Harold Frederic at the Savage Club some years ago'. He was 'deeply grieved to hear of his sad & untimely end'. He hopes enough money will be collected to be an 'appreciable help to his widow & children'. The letter relates to a celebrated Victorian scandal. In 1884 Frederic had come to England with his wife and five children as the London correspondent of the New York TImes.

Both pamphlet and reservation in fair condition, with light signs of age and wear. Pamphlet: Titled: 'Sir Walter Runciman's Dinner, Connaught Rooms, Great Queen Street, Kingsway, W.C. | Friday, April 11th, at 7.30. | Alphabetical List of Guests with Allocation of Seats and Plan of Grand Hall.' 26 + [1]pp., 12mo. With fold-out 'Plan of Grand Hall | Showing Numbered Tables'. With lightly-rusted staples. Fifty-two tables of the great and the good, with the fifty sitters at 'Table "A"' including Lord Denman, Augustine Birrrell, H. H.

2 volumes. Both internally in good condition, with light signs of age, and both in worn grey cloth bindings with marbled boards.ONE: 17 May 1861 to 22 July 1861, then a couple of entries for 1867, and then from 1 January 1868 to 22 May 1870. 115pp., 4to. At rear, three pages, with the following headings: 'Cashe [sic] received From 16 October 1865', 'Nineaux' and 'Account with Lutz the 22 of Febure [sic]'.TWO: 14 August 1876 to 23 September 1880. 136pp., small 4to.

ONE: Prospectus headed: 'Rose's Patent Lifeboats, Ltd. | Share Capital £125,000 in 125,000 Shares of £1 each. | Boats for all for passenger steamers :: The Difficulty Solved | Prospectus.' Printed on one side of a piece of 62.5 x 46.5 cm paper. In fair condition, aged and creased, with some wear to extremities. With four diagrams: 'For Passenger Steamers. - Steel seamless lifeboat. Completely covered in, and a life raft combined. Design No. 8.' and 'Submarine showing position of lifeboat fixed' and 'Submarine lifeboat.

Printed on one side of a piece of 62.5 x 46.5 cm paper. Headed: 'Rose's Patent Lifeboats, Ltd. | Share Capital £125,000 in 125,000 Shares of £1 each. | Boats for all for passenger steamers :: The Difficulty Solved | Prospectus.' In fair condition, aged and creased, with some wear to extremities. With four diagrams: 'For Passenger Steamers. - Steel seamless lifeboat. Completely covered in, and a life raft combined. Design No. 8.' and 'Submarine showing position of lifeboat fixed' and 'Submarine lifeboat.

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. Aged, and with slight worming affecting the text. A list of 62 ships, many priced (between £1650 and 'Cheap'). The first and last entries read: '5/76 Ship, about 2,000 tons, register, built of steel, 1886, 100 A1, will carry about 3,500 D.W. on 22 1/2 ft. Handsome model, full outfit and first class finish, 269 1/2 x 41 x 24.11.' and '13/15 Barquentine, steel, built 1886, 100 A1, 500 D.W. on 11 ft., very handsome model, first class finish and fit out, 140 x 27 x 11 1/2.

12mo (dimensions of leaf 18 x 8 cm): [iii] + 16 + 34 pp. No title leaf and publisher not stated. Printed on the versos only of 53 leaves. Unbound. In contemporary marbled-paper and cloth-spine wraps. Text clear and entire, on aged and lightly stained paper. Loss and staining to rear wrap. A few annotations in pen and pencil in contemporary hands (for example 'Horatio Nelson' is marked out as 'Lord Nelson'). Ownership inscription of Jane Hume. From the papers of her relative, Charles William Paterson, Admiral of the White.

HMS Arethusa, the fourth of nine Royal Navy ships to bear the name, was a 46-gun fifth rate launched in 1817. (Fifth-rate ships served as fast scouts or independent cruisers. Owing to their combination of manoeuvrability and firepower, they were often assigned to interdict enemy shipping.) She was was renamed HMS Bacchus in 1844 on conversion into a hulk, and was broken up in 1883. The present item is 21pp., 8vo. Stitched. In fair condition, on lightly aged and worn grey paper. With loose heavily worn remains of brown marbled wraps (front and back cover detached from one another).

On one side of a piece of laid paper, roughly 31 x 20 cm. 30 lines. Tipped in along one edge inside modern folder with grey paper boards. Good, on paper lightly creased at foot. Addessed 'To Dawson Turner Esqre' by 'Custom House | Yarmouth | 11 December 1826 | [signed]

Folio, 3 pp; 8vo, 1 p. Bifolium. With the title lengthwise on reverse of second leaf, which also carries a table of 'The Fleets of the Cunard Company and of its Allied Lines' (both of vessels 'in commission' and 'building'). In small type. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged paper. Detailed prospectus quoting letter from 'the Chairman of the Cunard Company, Sir Alfred Booth, Bart'. Accompanying printed application form (8vo, 1 p). Both prospectus and application with the stamp of the Edinburgh stockbroker A. W. Banks.

Folio, 4 pp. Both on the same bifolium. All texts clear. On aged and worn paper, with chipping and fraying to extremities. Presumably part of a series of ongoing receipts, as the the first begins in the middle of the preamble '<...> commandement de Monsieur le Marquis de Roye Lieutenant general, | De la somme de deux cent cinquante neuf livres onze sols huit deniers [...]'. The receipts are neatly written out, with two long authorisations in the margins, each bearing the same illegible signature.

Folio, 2 pp. Fair, on aged paper, with a few short closed tears to extremities, and carrying traces of previous mount on reverse. On behalf of the Lords of the Admiralty Croker grants the Admiral's request for leave of absence to two individuals following 'the Naval Occurrences at Yarmouth'. In same hand as letter on reverse: 'Captain Hawtayne Quebec Two Days | Mr Forster, Chaplain Roebuck One Month'.

The slides, apparently from a newspaper library, are both bound in 8 cm glass squares, with the black and white images themselves in good condition and unfaded. Each carries a manuscript caption in white ink on the black mount. The first slide - 'Harbour, New Quay' - shows a view down into the Harbour, with stone pier and fishing boats. The second - 'Lifeboat. New Quay, N. Cornwall' - shows a procession a distant view of a crowd of men and women in Edwardian dress on a beach before a large rock around a lifeboat being drawn away from the water by four horses.

Landscape 8vo, 85 pp. Sixty small photographs of boats and crews laid down with other matter (see below). Text clear. Apparently complete, but with two loose leaves at rear. In fair condition, on lightly-aged paper, with slight wear to photographs and wear to the two loose leaves. Efficiently records dates and times of voyages, together with other relevant details. First six pages consist of the 'LOG OF THE MIGGO II', an 'Outdoor Cabin Cruiser | Built by Dauntless Coy Feb-Apl Leigh-on-Sea 1930. Launched April. Engine - Elto Quad 1929 model'.

One page, on the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium (leaf dimensions 32 x 20 cm). 14 lines. Text clear and complete. On aged and somewhat grubby laid paper with Britannia and 'GATER | 1811' watermarks). Chipping and wear at head and extremities. Printed at head: 'By Sir RICHARD BICKERTON, Bart. Admiral of the White, Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's Ships and Vessels at Spithead, and in Portsmouth Harbour, and on the Guernsey Station.' Written in a secretarial hand and signed by Bickerton and, 'By Command of the Admiral', by Hulbert.

Made up of four sepia photographs, each roughly 7 cm square, laid down overlapping each other to make a strip of 7 x 27 cm. Somewhat faded (especially to the right of the image) and with one small stain, and a one cm closed tear to the left. The paper on which the panorama is laid down, which is captioned in a contemporary hand, is somewhat grubby and chipped.

12mo, 2 pp. On Drummond's embossed crested letterhead. Good: on lightly aged paper with corners a little dogeared and slight discoloration along one margin. Small glue stain from previous mounting at foot of reverse (not affecting text). Headed 'General Memo -'. Instructing Randolph 'to conduct all necessary evolutions relative to the exercise of guns, Sails, Boats - small arm | men landing, & Marines - on acting permission for the same from my Flag as he may find conducive to the instruction of the Ships of the Ships herein named of the squadron [five ships named at end of letter]'.

One page, 12mo. Good, on aged paper with a little paperclip spotting. Laid down on piece of card. 'It is with considerable misgiving that I thrust my autograph upon the distinguished company you cite in your letter. Since, however, it is unthinkable to refuse the request of a lady, I have the honour to subscribe myself, | Yours faithfully, | W. P. Drury.'

English engineer and naval architect (1842-1932). One page, 4to. Good, but lightly creased and slightly discoloured at foot. Bears the stamp of the Royal Society of Arts, of which Wood was the Secretary. Thanks Wood for his 'kind telegram of congratulation' (presumably on his knighthood).

British mariner (1876-1947), 'Sole Partner of Devitt and Moore' (Who's Who). All five items very good. The four letters all one page, quarto. The typescript: seven pages, quarto. Three letters docketed and bearing R.S.A. stamp. LETTER ONE: He has received the letter informing him that 'any day about 12.30 will suit Captain Steele for the presentation of the Thomas Gray Memorial Shield. I presume that you have duly received the sheild and that it has been engraved and is being sent to H.M.S. "Worcester" [...]'.

8vo. Pages: half-title, xix + 195. Ownership inscription of 'Chrisr. Cole 1837' at head of title. Modern rebacking with new endpapers, but retaining original blind-stamped boards. Paper heavily foxed. Binder's ticket of John Gardner, Borough Green and paper wallet containing long cutting on Chartism at rear. An impassioned appeal for the alleviation of the condition of the English seaman.

2 pages, 4to, on the rectos of both leaves of a bifoliate. Folded for self-mailing, and addressed on the verso of the second leaf to 'Mr: F Huth | 1 South Street | Finsbury Square'. This page, which has 'URGENT; - | On Warehousing System' printed on it, also carries two oval postmarks, one of which, in black ink, reads 'TwoPyPost. | Unpaid | Lombard St'. Docketed '1814 | M. L. P. Merac | London 9 March'.

Captain Charles Dickson Inglis, R.N. (born c.1835; fl. 1898), is best known for his offer in 1887 to buy South Georgia in the Falkland Islands for the purposes of sheep-farming. This collection of his correspondence is neatly bound in a crude octavo volume, and is preceded by a manuscript index by him. Items in good condition overall, with minor discoloration and spotting, mainly caused by the glue used in mounting the photographs. All the letters are 8vo and smaller, several of them being cropped at the head, but with the cropped strips loosely inserted.

Evocative picture with docks to the right viewed through tree branches, and a number of boats and ships clearly visible, with three three-masted ones in the foreground, one sideways on and the two beside it viewed from the bows. Dimensions: 2¼ inches by 3¾ inches. Mounted on a piece of pink board which is docketed on reverse in nineteenth century hand: 'Hudson River. N.Y. from Hoboken Docks.' The picture is a little creased in the bottom left-hand corner and there is minor discolouration due to ink stains and grime.