AUTOGRAPHS.  A FINE COLLECTION OF 19TH CENTURY AND EARLIER L...

Hammer

£9,500

AUTOGRAPHS.  A FINE COLLECTION OF 19TH CENTURY AND EARLIER LETTERS to include autograph letters signed, unless otherwise stated, by Robert Southey (to Thomas Allis, Superintendent of the Retreat, York], Keswick, 25 October 1834, "A line from the Retreat conveying something like hope, would at any time be the greatest comfort that this poor family could receive.", James Montgomery, ANS in the third person, Richard Cobden (to Thomas Wilcock), Sir John Bowring, Jacob Bright (to his cousin Joshua Blakey), Lord Melbourne, [10] Downing Street to John Thwaites (the brewer of Blackburn), Sir James Stansfield, Elihu Burritt, LS partly printed, Richard Monckton Milnes (to Jacob Bright), Hugh Stowell, Sir Charles Wood 1st Viscount Halifax (to Joshua Blakey), Adam Sedgwick,Trinity College Cambridge, 5 February 1832 ("... the Alligator... I have neither heard of it nor seen any account of it: but I will make some enquires about it as I have no doubt it would be a very valuable specimen for our geological museum...", "... our Philosophical Society has a beautiful collection of birds but no equal collection of skeletons"), Sir Wilfred Lawson, Thomas O'Hagan (to Jacob Bright), Charles Sumner (to Jacob Bright, a letter of introduction of George Washburn Smalley), John Phillips (the geologist, to Thomas Allis), William Yarrell to Thomas Allis, about the Zoological Society of London), Charles Waterton to Thomas Allis, Walton Hall, 7 July 1861 ("We shall be glad to see you and to treat you to a dish of mashed Gorilla at one o'clock..."), Thomas Bell (to Thomas Allis), John Gould (to Thomas Allis), Sir William Vernon Harcourt, Frederick Douglass, AL [1846/7], (fourteen lines from a letter or speech, "the darkest feature connected with the American slave system, is the countenance and support which it receives from the Religious organisations of that land, slavery finds its strongest support in the Church and the pulpits... the ministers of religion have been foremost in defence of slavery...Corrupt and degrading as are the politics of America they send no champion into the field in defence of slavery that will bear comparison with the ministers of religion - These come in sacerdotal robes and with bibles in hand, They enforce slavery in the name of almighty God"), Sir George Stickland, Alfred Newth, John Mercer (the scientist), William Edward Forster (to Joshua Blakey), John Bright (to "Dear cousin Joshua Blakey"), Henry Vincent Marquess of Clanricarde, David Edward Hughes [1878] (on the microphone: "My speaking boxes are formed of three pieces of fine charcoal..."), William Black (to Jacob Bright), Earl of Clarendon (to Jacob Bright), Lord Sydney Godolphin Osborne (on the purchase of, and his experiments with telephones, Henry Cheetham Bishop of Sierra Leone, Thomas Bywater Smithies, Julia Bainbridge Wightman, Albert the Prince Consort, DS, (Great Exhibition 1851 certificate of the award of a medal to John Ward for services rendered to the exhibition), George III, DS, Court of St James, 22 June 1792, order to the joint paymasters to pay £11,236 17s 5d to certain general and staff officers in North America and the West Indies for their pay for the year to 24 December 1791, Duke of Wellington, General Sir Henry de Bathe, Sir Charles Dilke,  Thomas Milner Gibson, Earl of Cardigan (1823), Bernard Barton (in the third person to the publishers of The Speculum), Sir Joseph Banks, Robert Owen,  Braxfield [House] New Lanark, 28 July 1811 ("It has long been my opinion that there is not any individual so deserving of public patronage for their services to the community as yourself... your sincere friend Rt Owen"), Henry Lytton Bulwer, NS partly printed, Sir Francis Burdett to the Earl of Blessington, 29 January 1829 ("...Make my best regards to Lady Blessington & the other ladies and Monsieur D'Orsay with a thousand thanks for every thing..."), William Maginn, Barry Sullivan to Mr Turpin  16 June 1865 ("I have much pleasure in enclosing you a few Australian postage stamps all I have...."), 1st Earl of Ellenborogh, Maharajah Sir Duleep Singh (on Carlton Club notepaper), Lord George Bentinck (on India), Joanna Baillie [1824] ("I had no intimacy with any of the Poets you mention, Sir W Scott and Cambell excepted..."), George III, DS, 25 March 1809, commission appointing Edward Noble Bell adjutant of Melton Mowbray regiment of militia, Charles John Kean, Benjamin Robert Haydon to William Jerdan ("I am - beyond measure to pay my taxes to morrow, can you, will you help me with £10 till my pictures open in January?... pay pardon me"), Francis William Newman 1st Marquess of Normanby (the Whig politician and author), William Jerdan (letter of introduction of the traveller and author John Carne of Penzance), James Silk Buckingham, 1st Earl of Godolphin, DS, 27 June 1691, a pension of £4000 awarded to Charles Schomberg, 2nd Duke of Schomberg, George IV, DS as Regent) Carlton House ,13 March 1817, on the appointment of six clerks and increases in salaries including that of the 'Necessary Woman' of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, Sir Thomas Clifford, DS, 4 February 1669, a part payment of £3000 to the Earl of Sandwich Master of the Great Wardrobe, 1st Duke of Newcastle, DS, Treasury Chambers, 15 January 1762 to the Commissioners of Custom in Scotland appointing Robert Maclure a tidesman at Irvine, 7th Earl of Elgin (of the Marbles), Broom Hall, 7 May 1812, a letter of complaint in the third person to  Mr Gow about an "extremely bad" pianoforte which the latter had supplied to Broom Hall "for the ladies Bruce", 3rd Duke of Portland, LS, Whitehall 10, August 1798, to Major General Keppel on the exportation of base coin, Henry Hunt (the orator), 10 January 1888 to the Editor of ‘The Age’ on the falsity of a report of Hunt's interrupting a performance of Madame Vestris at Covent Garden, Lord Frederick Cavendish, Louis Bonaparte, LS, Paris, 14 Ventose, an 10 [1801/2], Sir Robert Walpole, DS, Treasury Chambers,   2 January 1734, warrant for £2000 to be paid to John Hedges Treasurer and Receiver General to Frederick Prince of Wales, 1st Viscount Lyons, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, Sir Richard Owen (to William Buckland), Caroline Norton to Mr Amory, "I send some venison Lord Camoys has just sent here I hope it is in proper condition....I took my grandson to Carlton Terrace, to see the wreck and remember it hereafter He said -O but I should be saved by thinking of my wife & family"! It is all inexpressibly sad to me remembering them in childhood....", Dr Hook Dean of  Chichester,  William Husskison, Viscountess Strangford, Lord Heytesbury, William Buckland (11 December 1843), John Payne Collier (the Shakespeare forger), Charles Babbage (18 March 1856), John Hutton Balfour, William Spence (13 March 1838 to James Scott Bowerbank), Augustus Morgan and several others,  SIGNED PIECES including passes by the following: Thomas Hughes, Samuel Fenton Cary, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, William Howitt, Thomas Alva Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Paul Mark Roget, Queen Victoria, Duke of Cambridge, Felicia Hemans, William Godwin, Maria Edgeworth, Harriet Martineau, Victor Hugo, John Horne Tooke, George Cruickshank, William Harrison Ainsworth, Joseph Grimaldi, William Wordsworth, Martin van Buren, Barry O'Meara, Sir Robert Smirke, Sir Philip Broke, Frederick Denison Maurice and the 6th Duke of Devonshire, SIGNED ENVELOPES and free fronts by the following: George Peabody, Earl Spencer, 10th Earl of Westmoreland, Prime ministers (Brougham, Grey, Peel, Palmerston, Disraeli and Russell), Earl of Bessbrook, Earl of Munster, Sir John Hobhouse (John Cam Hobhouse), Duke of Marlborough, Duke of Sussex (to Lady Augusta Millbank), Charles Dickens (to G Cruickshank), Francois Guizot, William Wilberforce, Daniel O'Connell, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, George Grote, Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, Edward Jesse and several others, laid down or secured by corner tapes on stout buff paper leaves (29 x 40cm), marbled endpapers, contemporary calf, cover lettered in gilt AUTOGRAPHS, worn, spine wanting and and a PORTFOLIO OF LETTERS AND PIECES mounted on card mostly by eminent men of science and explorers, several to the anthropologist Henry Ling Roth (1855-1925) to include AUTOGRAPH LETTERS SIGNED unless otherwise stated: Arthur Hill Hassall on microscopy: "I always find that the poorer a man is the dearer he pays...",  Thomas Southwood Smith, Leith Richie, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Charles Piazzi Smyth, Admiral William Henry Smyth, William Thomas Blandford, George Palmer (of Reading), John Bennet Lawes, Augustus Charles Gregory (Brisbane, Australia, 26 July 1880), Henry Chamberlain Russell (Sydney Observatory, Australia, 12 January 1883), John Henry Gilbert, Warren de la Rue, Francis Orpen Morris, William Benjamin Carpenter (flat earth theorist), Joseph Dalton Hooker, John Stevens Henslow, James Orchard Halliwell - [Phillipps] (the Shakespeare scholar, valuing a first folio), Herbert Spencer, John Tyndall, Edward Newman FLS, John Thomas Quekett, Lord Robert Spencer (of Woolbeding), George Rose (Treasurer of the Navy secretarial letter signed), Edward Forbes, George Biddell Airy, William Huggins (the astronomer) and William Jardine, Erasmus Darwin (a cheque for £708-15-0, Derby, 1801 payable to the account of his publisher Joseph Johnson and signed by Johnson probably in payment for the printing of the third edition of ‘Zoonomia’), Treasury Warrant 1689 for £470 to Robert Chaplyn merchant, signed by Lord Godolphin, the Earl of Monmouth, Mr Hampden and Sir Henry Capell, Louis XIV commission signed (by a deputy) 21 February 1652, vellum, defective and Quaker marriage certificate, Ackworth Meeting House 16 VI Mo 1880 of Edwin Blakey and Sarah Ann Brown both of Halifax signed by the couple and 54 witnesses including members of the Crosland Lean and Dixon families SIGNED PIECES AND PASSES including Luke Howard, 2, both dated and inscribed Ackworh 1848, a photograph panorama of Christiania (Oslo) Norway by P A Thoren of three mounted whole plate albumen prints, linen hinged and 44 political caricatures, mostly by Joseph Sugden of Halifax ('Humphrey Thwackem') (2)

Provenance: The Blakey family of Yorkshire; thence by descent to the present vendors.

A remarkable Victorian collection of autographs assembled by several members of the same family and, but for the loss of a Coleridge letter (sold in the 1960s) offered intact.

The Blakeys were prominent in business in Halifax and Bradford in the second half of the 19th century. Surveying the letters it is apparent they were particularly interested in science and exploration, humanitarian relief and radical politics, the latter underlined by the forty or so Sugden caricatures which are mostly concerned with politics in the north of England. As members of the Society of Friends they would have been acquainted directly or indirectly with many of the writers represented. The great radical statesman and orator John Bright (1811-1889) was a kinsman