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Genealogy – Rare

Manuscript Autobiography, Diary and vintage photo album of the Chapman - Barwise

Barwise, Lucy Weston / [Lucy Chapman, George Chapman, Henry Chapman]

Manuscript Autobiography, Diary and vintage photo album of the Chapman – Barwise Family. A cultured London woman’s autobiography and diary including a first hand account of ‘Fiesche’s attempt to assassinate Louis Phillippe’ which she observed while at school in Paris as a child. The manuscript has a mournful postscript by the man she left behind, her husband: ‘Alas! that I George Chapman should have to finish the record of so dear a Life…’ by Lucy Weston Barwise (1822-1876) wrote in a lockable, lined octavo notebook, crushed morocco, marbled endpapers and edges. Her autobiography was begun in January 1872 at one end of the book (16 pages); her diary appears at the other end of the book from October 22 1871-April 1874 with her husband’s postscript dating from June 1880. There is a second volume of family accounts in a lockable octavo sized ledger and a folio sized volume of family photographs, most unlabelled. Barwise’s autobiography recounts her education in Paris in the Rue Taitbout where she witnessed ‘Fiesche’s attempt to assassinate Louis Phillippe’ while watching from her music master’s house opposite the Porte St Martin, noting ‘the Duc D’Orleans [who] looked very handsome’ but shortly afterwards ‘heard a loud report and then a shout… general commotion but the crowd was so thick and immoveable’ and then ‘the King and stiff rode slowly back along the line but looking very white.’ It was only later that she discovered the casualties of ‘Fieschi’s infernal machine… It was a row of gun barrels arranged along a window so as to be discharged all at once.’ Barwise also watched the subsequent funeral from her attic window, the ‘open hearse with its draperies of black and silver’. The highlight of Chapman’s diary is a detailed account of the deaths she witnessed during the ‘Thanksgiving Day for the recovery of the Prince of Wales’ on February 27th, 1872, as seen from her husband George Chapman’s ‘office windows in Cockspur St’ behind Trafalgar Square which overlooked the procession. There she witnessed the lack of barriers and observes with horror the police charging into the surging crowd ‘The big policemen threw themselves against the men; the horses even made to dance and back heel it was a fearful struggle’with a baby almost crushed to death in front of her. There is an interesting secondhand account of Paris under the Commune via one of her daughters and frequent visits to London art exhibitions as on July 8 1871 where she saw an ‘exhibition of old masters at the Royal Academy… Crome, Ruysdael, heads by Moroni, of Titian’s Schoolmaster, Burgomaster by Rembrandt… the two heads.. by Giorgine belonging to Lord Ashburton, such colour and such expression. There are trips to Ascot and the Boat Race, a curry with friends in Wandsworth and a recitation by ‘Mr Bradman [of] the Merchant of Venice for the benefit of the Workman’s Club. It was very clever… Shylock was good but my recollection of actors, Charles Kemble, C.Kean &c made this more familiar and perhaps a little more like ranting’.

[London], c. 1871 – 1872. Octavo. Diary I: 44 pages / Diary II: 24 pages / Photoalbum: 48 pages with 120 original cabinet photographs (including a photograph of a british Forest School). Hardcover / Original full leather. All three Volumes slightly rubbed but all in very good condition. The cabinet photographs all in excellent condition and from dozens of different victorian photographers in Bath (Friese Greene), Bonn (Emil Koch), Astley (Photograpic Landscape Artist in Astley, Essex), and many others. The one diary is really a cash ledger of George Chapman where he kept track for the Chapman family with listings of expenses for Hampstead House, Henry Chapman, Edward Chapman, Oswald D. Chapman, Mrs. Barrett Chapman, Edith Louisa Chapman.

EUR 950,-- 

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The Life and Times of Sir Peter Carew - with two manuscript letters by historian George Oliver, Exeter

[Carew, Sir Peter / George Oliver (Historian) / John Carew Esq.] MacLean, John.

The Life and Times of Sir Peter Carew, Kt. (From the Original Manuscript) – With a Historical Introduction and Elucidatory Notes, by John MacLean. [Personal copy of John Carew Esq., with two unpublished manuscript letters by historian George Oliver, Exeter (Devon), tipped-in to the rear of the Volume, one longer manuscript entry to the rear in which George Oliver mentions that he has consulted the Inventory of Ottery Mohan House and that he has “made a few pencil notes in the margin” of the book (Oliver must have been sent the book and then returned it or it was his own copy and he gifted it to John Carew)/ George Oliver helped John Carew, Esq., a descendant of Sir Peter Carew, to identify some information form the original manuscript of John Hoker, to which Oliver must have had access. The letters deal with details of John Hoker’s [Hooker’s] Manuscript on Sir Peter Carew and details in John MacLean’s Biography of Carew. George Oliver’s correspondence with John Carew, a descendant of Sir Peter, is very interesting indeed and Oliver seems to study the original manuscript by Hoker for John Carew and reports his insight in the original manuscript of Hoker’s Manuscript on History, mentioning for example Carew’s death-notice: “This year died the worthy and Honorable Knight Sir Peter Carew at Ross in Leinster, and buried in the City of Waterford in Munster in Ireland, in all such honourable order…” (see detailed images on our website)].

London, Bell & Daldy, 1857. Octavo. Frontispiece portrait of Sir Peter Carew (Steel Engraving by J.J.Chant, being Plate I.), CXVIII, 317 pages plus 6 pages “List of Subscribers”. With several Plates: Plate II: Musical Notes: “By a Bank as I lay” / Plate III: Monument to Sir Peter Carew in St.Peter’s Cathedral, Exeter (Steel Engraving) / Plate IV: Folded Map of Kylkenny (Kilkenny) / Plate V: Pedigree of the Family of Carew (Large Fold – out Plate). Hardcover / Original publisher’s cloth with gilt lettering on spine and armorial emblemata on front board. With the armorial supralibro of the Carew Family to the binding’s front board: Arms of Carew: Or, three lions passant in pale sable / Manuscript-entry of previous owner John Carew on endpaper. Boards fragile and spine loosened. In protective Collector’s Mylar to give the slightly broken binding stability. A very rare publication with the beautiful, signed manuscript-letters by George Oliver, signed in the years 1857 and 1858. The letters are also of interest regarding the history of John Hoker [John Hooker / John Vowell] because George Oliver mentions Hoker’s entry “into the New Office of Chamberlain of Exeter at Michaelmas 1555 – having the fee of £4 by the yere & his Lyveries – MS. Hist. p.351”.

EUR 950,-- 

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[Cumberbatch, Large Family Archive of the Benwell Rees - Family, including William Benwell Rees

[Cumberbatch, Benedict] Cumberbatch, Henry Arnold / Rees, Helen / Basil Benwell Rees / William Benwell Rees / Etheldreda Blanche Barker / [Sir Winston Churchill / Sir Anthony Arthur Duncan Montague Browne [Private Secretary to Sir Winston Churchill]].

Large Family Archive of the Benwell Rees – Family, including William Benwell Rees (brother to actor Benedict Cumberbatch’s grandmother Helen Rees, by marriage to British Diplomat Henry Arnold Cumberbatch, who was Consul in Romania, Turkey and Lebanon ). The archive includes at least one manuscript letter by Henry Arnold Cumberbatch and around one thousand documents chronicling the lives of the ex-patriate Benwell Rees family from 1890-1970 in Alexandria and Monaco, including William Benwell Rees, whose marriage to Etheldreda Blanche Barker cemented the family’s role in the highest circles of Alexandria life. The archive also charts their son Basil Rees’ decade in Monaco under Princess Grace and Prince Rainer III where he served as President of the British Association in the 1950’s-‘60s and solicited a letter written by Sir Anthony Arthur Duncan Montague Browne, on Winston Churchill’s behalf on Chartwell headed paper in which the former Prime Minister declined to attend an event in Monaco [signed by Montague Browne]. The archive is held in five heavy volumes, bursting with a plethora of amazing and wonderful historical letters, ephemera, emotional messages and telegrams, old images, theatre-programmes, and especially also includes programmes of plays in which ancestors of Benedict played (J.M.Barrie, Shakespeare etc.). The original letters and documents paint an interesting picture of Benedict Cumberbatch’s grandmother’s side of the family history in the Levant, their service in the Middle East and their social lives. The five volumes are bound in bespoke red morocco over textured paper-covered-boards and they contain at least one reference to Helen Rees next to a newspaper-clipping and dozens of wonderful handwritten letters and cards. Each volume about four inches across spine with title in gilt to upper cover and around 100 leaves in each with documents mounted recto and verso throughout, with photographs, invitations, business materials and clippings that chart the family’s life in their service for the British Colonial Office. The five Volumes include for example: Volume 1: The Benwell Rees’: begins with Egyptian Gazette, 1890 and a programme for a performance c1900 at the Port Theatre, Marina, Alexandria of Rumpelstilkskin; visiting cards and contemporary reports of the marriage of W B Rees and Etheldreda Blanche Barker in Alexandria, February 1901; Windsor Hotels prospectus and flyer (a WBR enterprise); 1913 Casino de Monte Carlo ticket for Ethel Rees; Kings School Canterbury ephemera and St Johns’ College, Cambridge for Basil Rees from 1920’s, graduated June 1924. Volume 2: The Benwell Rees’ Vol II, 1920’s-1990’s: includes J M Barrie, Quality Street programme for English Girls’ School, Alexandria, 1941; invitations from Princess Grace of Monaco etc Volume 3: Basil Rees Vol III, cover nearly detached, 1953- Basil Rees living at 2 Rue Origene, Alexandria, and covering period of move to Palais Majestic, Monaco after which he served as President of the British Association and his sudden death in 1967. Invitations to dinner and place settings with the Prince and Princess of Monaco. Birthday greetings; international stamp collecting societies. Photographic ‘Permis de Sejour’ for William Benwell Rees in Monaco, October 1918. Volume 4: Basil Rees Vol. IV Begins with telegram from Rees to the Queen; mostly very extensive formal correspondence concerned with Rees’ Presidency of he British Association in Monaco; invitations, notes, printed volume of Statutes of association from 1950, royal correspondence with Monaco and Britain. Volume 5: Basil Rees 4-5 1902 Vol II; William Basil Benwell Rees; Royal Navy ID card, British Forces, September 1943 – other material relating to Rees’ work as Duty Defence Officer at the Royal Navy Defence Base in Alexandria, HMS Nice. Volume begins in 1902 and includes Alexandria Dog Show, W B B Rees at Jesus College, Cambridge; Egypt NAAFI permits; lock of Basil Rees’ hair, aged 2 etc.

Alexandria / Monaco / etc., c. 1902 – 1967. Octavo. Half Morocco. Bindings stronger rubbed and slightly damaged.

EUR 28.000,-- 

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Rosemary ffolliott, The Pooles of Mayfield and other Irish Families [with Meade Family History]

ffolliott, Rosemary [Poole].

The Pooles of Mayfield and other Irish Families. With a Preface by Basil M. O’Connell.

Dublin, Hodges and Figgis & Co., 1958. 4°. Frontispiece-Portrait of Joanna Meade Townsend, 294 pages with XIII plates showing 53 portraits and illustrations. The Volume contains over eighty “Pedigrees” [Genealogical Tables with Family Trees connecting to two thousand persons from families like: Allen, Baldwin, Barry, Becher, Bowdler, Boyle, Browne, Brydges, Capenhurst, Chavasse, Clayton, Conner of Connerville, Corker, Courthope, Cummins, Daunt, Davies, Dunscombe, Field, FitzGerald, Fleming, ffolliott, Freke [Capt. John ffreke of Knocknameel with a complete Pedigree starting with Robert Freke of Shroton] / , Fowle, Hayman, Hewitt, Holmes, Hull, Hungerford, Jellett, Langton, Latham, Lucas, McCall, Meade, Moore, Morgan, Morris, Morrison, Nevill, Nisbett, Newton, Poole, Riggs, Rogers, St.John, Sarsfield, Somerville, Stannard, Symes, Synge, Townsend, Townshend, Travers, Turner, Vaughan, Waring, Wynn and others], List of Subscribers and a comprehensive Index with reference to over four hundred surnames are also included. Original Hardcover with the rare dustjacket. Original blue cloth with only very minor traces of external wear and overall in excellent condition (minor staining to the binding). Interior unbelievably clean and bright with no markings. No.488 of only 500 numbered copies. This extremely rare publication is a key-publication of Irish Genealogy and has set new standards of genealogical research. In the Obituary for Rosemary ffolliott, the Irish Times wrote in 2009: “In 1958, when she was 23 years of age, Rosemary ffolliott compiled “The Pooles of Mayfield”, a history of Settler Families in the Cork area. The publication of this Munster gentry, which some who appeared in it described as “the Dead Sea Scrolls”, initiated a career in the difficult field of Irish genealogy, made the more arduous by the destruction of records at the Four Courts. Her dedication to a discipline that had been considered vague, imprecise and colourful, had an acknowledged effect in raising the standards of genealogy in Ireland. Her research methods were meticulous and she is remembered as a genius in the use of the Registry of Deeds in Henrietta Street. In 1966 she became a Fellow of the Irish Genealogical Research Society, the first woman to be recognised in this way.” The publication is an important source for the History of Family-Connections for the two Irish Country-House-Libraries we currently have on offer: “The Richard Meade Collection (Ballymartle)” and “The Danile Conner – Collection (Connerville and Manch House)”. Both families are mentioned as subscribers to this publication [″H.L.Conner, Esq. – Manch House, Ballineen, Co.Cork” and “Mrs. G.W.Meade – Pitch Place Farm, Thursley, Surrey / Captain J.A.Meade – Chatley, Metchosin, British Columbia / Mrs. Meade – Templenoe House, Fermoy, Co. Cork”]. Especially the many portraits of members of the Meade-Family,as well as the family-connection to the Townshend / Townsend-Family in Castletownshend, near Skibbereen, make this an invaluable source for Irish Genealogy.

EUR 1.200,-- 

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