Historic documents: a 19thC leather-bound Album, the content...

Hammer

£1,900

Historic documents: a 19thC leather-bound Album, the contents compiled by Sarah Frances King, b. 1834/5, containing over one hundred and fifty letters, signatures, Cartes de Visite, photographs, envelopes and three 'Free Fronts' etc., dating from late 18th century to late 19th century, including correspondence from eminent social reformers, politicians and religious figures, including letters from Mrs Elizabeth Fry, Mr Edmund Burke, Mrs Jane Burke, M: Rockingham, Marlborough, Somerset, Miss Burdett Coutts, Joseph Wolff, etc.; Transcript of the letter from Elizabeth Fry:
Dagenham, 8/10.1827
My dear friend,
In reply to thy kind letter I may say I fully approve (of) women being received from distant ports into your refuge & I also think by no means less than 2..6 a week should be paid with them.
I think there is little doubt if made known you will soon be full. I fear I shall not visit Derby this autumn but should be glad to have thee aided by a good committee.
In The new prison that thou seen my little work upon the subject of forming these associations if not I should like to send thee one - .
I happen to have left thy letter at Plashet and am therefore fearful I may not have replyed to all thy questions.
I feel(?) for thee in thy various callings & ?????s but I trust that grace and strength will be granted to thee to fulfill them to thy own peace and the good father -
I remain with regards to thy husband, thy affectionate friend Eliz th Fry.
I have not quite recovered my strength since my interesting journey in Ireland - my family are pretty well.
Other letters refer to: purchase of Penn for £1100 (Mrs Burke), 'sad state of distress about their house at Penn' (Edmund Burke), Cuddesdon College (W H Ridley), requesting that Rev. Thomas King be granted a position of Prebendary (Marlborough), and how the sudden death of servant was a great loss due to the fact that he had been such a good brewer (signature indecipherable); the album also contains signatures from other notable 18th-19thC figures including William Wilberforce, William Ewart Gladstone, Walker King, Edward King, Edward Copplestone, Lady Anderson of Lea Gainsborough, and a free front signed 'Byron', Dover, addressed to Miss A Pardo, 57 Montagu Square 23rd April 1830, etc., some items stuck down, much loose, and others trimmed, annotations in feint pencil, album has mostly lost its spine
Provenance: Sarah Frances King was the daughter of Walker King, the younger, Arch Deacon of Rochester and sister of Edward King, Principal of Cuddesdon College, Oxon, and later Bishop of Lincoln), she married Rev. Stephen Henry Fox Nicholl in 1868; she and her wider family were well connected with the social-reformist establishment of the time. The vendor's late husband was Sarah King's great-grandson, this is the first time that this album or its contents have come to market.