J. M. W. Turner and his World: John Platt (1842-1902), a ... · Thornbury’s text, collected and...

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J. M. W. Turner and his World: John Platt (1842-1902), a Late VictorianExtra-illustrator, and his CollectionFelicity Myrone

1. Introduction

In August 2007 the British Library Press Office was able to announce the ‘discovery’ of a ‘missing Constable sketch’.1 This had come to light by chance during cataloguing a fewmonths earlier in an extra-illustrated copy of George Walter Thornbury’s The Life of J. M. W. Turner: Founded on letters and papers furnished by his friends and fellow academicians(London: Hurst and Blackett, 1862). The Constable is just one of over 1,600 additions toThornbury’s text, collected and inserted by a businessman and justice of the peace fromWarrington, John Platt (1842-1902). This essay will briefly examine the collection, itscollector and his library.

Extra-illustration was a popular activity from the mid-eighteenth to the early twentiethcentury. It involves the embellishing of an existing text with complementary illustrationsand documents.2 Thornbury’s biography of Turner is an excellent choice for extra-illustration, as a large number of Turner’s predecessors and contemporaries are mentionedin the text, as well as places Turner visited and painted. Thornbury’s text also relies onquoting long passages from letters by Turner as well as the writings, letters andreminiscences of his friends and acquaintances or their descendants, and Platt collectedmanuscript material to match.

Most accounts of extra-illustration or ‘grangerization’, as it was often known in the past,have concentrated on the extra-illustrator’s use of portraits and topographical images.However, Platt’s extra-illustrated copy of Thornbury reflects the nineteenth-centurypractice of inserting autograph materials as well as pictorial illustrations; in 1899, when thiscollection was bound, autographs were displayed alongside portraits in the National PortraitGallery,3 and autograph collecting was relatively cheap and therefore popular among themiddle classes.4 ‘Autograph fever’ had taken hold of the country, and the dispersal of hugecollections such as that of the well-known topographer and autograph collector WilliamUpcott (1779-1845) provided rich pickings. Platt’s extra-illustrated volumes are,accordingly, rich in manuscript materials as well as drawings and prints.

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1 A pencil sketch of Hyam Church, Suffolk, thought to date from around 1800.www.bl.uk/news/2007/pressrelease20070823.html.

2 Robert R. Wark, ‘The Gentle Pastime of Extra-Illustrating Books’, The Huntington Library Quarterly, lvi: 2(Spring 1993), pp. 151-65, provides a useful description of the process.

3 Add. MSS. 54224-54226: ‘National Portrait Gallery Autographs: letters and other documents, formerly exhibitedin the Gallery with the associated portraits; early 16th cent.-1909. Mostly autograph. Some French, Italian andSpanish. Arranged in alphabetical order. A number of the items are addressed to Antonio Panizzi, K.C.B. 1869,Principal Librarian of the British Museum. Presented by the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, 9 Dec.1967.’ Also Marcia Pointon, Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England(Newhaven & London, 1993), p. 67.

4 A.N.L. Munby, The Cult of the Autograph Letter in England (London, 1962), p. 83.

J. M. W. Turner and his World: John Platt (1842-1902), a Late Victorian Extra-illustrator, and his Collection

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No expense has been spared in the presentation of Platt’s collection. He has expandedThornbury’s two-volume text to thirteen volumes, each bound by Zaehnsdorf in redmorocco leather with gilt tooling (fig. 1). The spines are tooled with ‘Life of J. M. W. TurnerRA, Turner and his Times/ vol no [ ] / Extra Illustrated / London 1862’, the covers withPlatt’s armorial bearings and a decorative border, and the Zaehnsdorf ‘Z’ stamp of abookbinder at his desk is found inside. The volumes have red silk end leaves, also tooled withJohn Platt’s armorial bearings, and each volume is given its own slip case with black leatheredges.

Thornbury’s text has been disbound, with each page inlaid to a folio gilt-edged sheet andrebound with prints, drawings and manuscript material collected to illustrate the people andplaces mentioned, similarly inlaid and guarded with tissue or cardboard cut to protectsealing wax where appropriate. The original book’s text is outlined in red ink and theinsertions in black or red and black (figs 2, 3 & 4).5 Platt gives some of the latter briefexplanatory titles in black ink, such as the name, dates and occupation of the personrepresented and where appropriate their relationship to Turner, and occasionally they arealso annotated in pencil with notes such as ‘Watermark of paper is 1822’, ‘Proof ’, or ‘VeryRare Etching’. Insertions are placed as near as possible to the mention of the person or theplace represented in Thornbury’s text, the relevant page annotated by underlining theappropriate word in pencil. Platt provides page numbers in pencil on the insertion itself ifit is bound a few pages away from the reference, as Thornbury mentions a number ofillustratable topics on the same page. He has also written a note in pencil at the close ofvolume thirteen ‘With very few exceptions the inlaying of both plates, autographs and texthas been entirely done by me. John Platt.’

5 The catalogue of Platt’s library (detailed below) includes lot 230 ‘Thornbury (W) Life of J. M. W. Turner, illusts,2 vols., 8vo, inlaid to folio size and ruled with red, unbound 1862.’

Fig. 1. A selection of the volumes.



Fig. 2. The title page to Thornbury’s text, Tab.438.a.1, vol. 1, f. 47.



Fig. 3. A receipt dated Oct. 15 1824 for £500 to Sir Walter Scott, Tab.438.a.1, vol. 2, f. 118.

Fig. 4. Tab.438.a.1, vol. 2, f. 118 verso.


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Volume one opens with a manuscript table of ‘Illustrations in the Thirteen Volumes’,written in red and black ink by Platt, who classifies the insertions as Portraits, Views,Autographs, Engravings of Pictures or Original drawings. He calculates the number of eachtype of insertion in each volume, reaching a total of 1,607 and noting that ‘Of theaforementioned Engravings, 285 are Proofs (207 being India Proofs, and 88 of these FineIndia Proofs before letters. There are also 79 Mezzotints, 35 Etchings, and 72 Aquatints, 51of the latter being Coloured by hand.’ The next page repeats the total number of each typeof insertion: 487 Portraits, 424 Views, 407 Autographs, 227 Engravings of Pictures and 62Original Drawings, and notes ‘the figures in RED in the Index refer to the VOLUME. Thefigures in BLACK refer to the Number on the right-hand bottom corner of each LEAF.’(fig. 5).6 Alphabetical indices follow for all the portraits (by person represented) (fig. 6),views (by place represented), autographs (by the author), engravings of pictures (by theartist of the original painting) and original drawings (by artist). The names of artists andengravers of portraits and views, recipients of letters, and engravers of prints are not,however, given indices by Platt.

A more detailed index follows for the insertions in volume one only, in a format to berepeated for each volume. After offering the number of insertions of each type for thevolume, in this case 48 Portraits, 19 Views, 19 Autographs, 14 Engravings of Pictures and 3Original Drawings, a total of 103, Platt provides an index to each type with Name, Artist,Description, and Page for portraits, views and engravings, and Name, Date, Description andPage for autographs. Descriptions are simple statements of format – ‘line engraving’,‘holograph letter’, or ‘autograph letter, signed’ etc. Title pages have also been speciallyprinted for this edition, reading ‘The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A. / by Walter Thornbury/ With Illustrations relating to TURNER AND HIS TIMES / VOL. I. / LONDON :/1862. / Extra Illustrated by John Platt, Llandudno. / 1899.’

Each volume bears an armorial bookplate for the compiler, John Platt of Clifton Lodge,Llandudno7 (fig. 7). This is a woodcut, printed in sepia, showing a lamb outside a gated fieldof other sheep, holding flowers in its mouth. The same lamb with flowers on top of a helmetis used as the top of a crest to the left, the crest bearing a triangular design with two flowers,three fleurs de lis and a sheep standing in profile to left, with nothing in its mouth. Themotto is ‘Neminem metue innocens’ or ‘being innocent fear no one’ on one scroll and ‘exgrege Johannis Platt’ on another, meaning ‘out of the flock of John Platt.’ The whole deviceis surrounded by ‘mitte domum errantem si qua conspexeris agnum’ or ‘if you see thewandering lamb send it homeward,’ i.e. ‘if you find this book, return it’, and ‘Clifton Lodge,Llandudno’ written on a separate scroll below. It is initialled J. D. B. for the artist JohnDickson Batten (1860-1932), a leading contemporary printmaker, and dated ‘Xmas 1892’.8

6 The pages have also been foliated at top right, but Platt’s scheme is used here and on the catalogue record.7 W. H. Rylands, Grantees of Arms named in docquets and patents between the years 1687 and 1898, preserved in various

manuscripts, collected and alphabetically arranged by the late Joseph Foster and contained in the Additional MS no37,149 in the British Museum, Harleian Society 67, 68 (London, 1916, 1917), lists ‘Platt, John, of Clifton Lodge,Llandudno, N Wales, 1890, vol LXV fol. 207’.

8 Gleeson White, ‘Modern Book-Plates and their Designers’, Winter Edition of The Studio, 1898-99, p. 32. TheBritish Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, holds an example of this 1892 bookplate in the Frankscollection, described in the accompanying catalogue as ‘no. 23696 Platt, Ex Grege Johannis, Xmas 1892 J. D. B.(Batten) pictorial armorial’: Catalogue of British and American Book Plates bequeathed to the Trustees of the BritishMuseum by Sir A. W. Franks, vol ii (London, 1904), p. 448, along with two other examples of bookplates designedfor Platt by John Dixon Batten, as part of the artist’s bequest to the Museum. These are dated by the artist 10 May1894 (1920,1009.19) and 5 May 1895 (1920,1009.18). Both feature ‘Neminem metue innocens’ but are of a simplerdesign with a shield with a lamb on it and a scroll, and have the wording ‘E Libris Johannis Platt’. See also JamesFairbairn, Crests of the Leading Families in Great Britain and Ireland and their Kindred in other lands, fourth edition(London, 1905), p. 448.




Fig. 5. Platt’s handwritten ‘Index to the Extra-Illustrations in the Thirteen Volumes’, Tab.438.a.1, vol. 1, f. 6.



Fig. 6. The first page of the basic handwritten index to the insertions across all thirteen volumes, Tab 438.a.1,vol. 1, f. 7.



Fig. 7. John Platt’s bookplate.


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Platt died in 1902 and these volumes, together with the rest of his collection, passed tohis widow, Ellen Jane. She died on 17 May 19199 and bequeathed the extra-illustratedThornbury to the British Museum, her will dated 27 March 1918 including the clause ‘tothe trustees of the British Museum the complete work consisting of thirteen volumes of thelife of the late J. M. W. Turner R. A. grangerised by my late husband John Platt of CliftonLodge Llandudno.’ The Department of Printed Books accepted the bequest, mistaking it asa gift from John Platt rather than his wife, after volume one had been sent as a specimen inJuly 1919. It is briefly noted in the Department of Printed Books Keepers’ Correspondence,Minutes, Reports and Letters: ‘Presentations & Bequests Oct 4th 1919 [a gift of Siamesepostage stamps is outlined] … Mr Pollard10 also submits a very handsomely arranged extraillustrated copy of the life of J. M. W. Turner, bequeathed by the late Mr John Platt ofClifton Lodge Llandudno, forwarded by his (solicitors Ernest E Bone Bone & Son,Llandudno) for the acceptance of the Trustees. As extended by the illustrations the copy isarranged in 13 volumes, & is worth some hundreds of pounds. Mr Pollard recommends thatboth these gifts be gratefully accepted.’ The Department of Printed Books Register ofDonations also notes the bequest on 11 October 1919, with a cross reference to a ‘specialreport’ by the Keeper [Pollard] ‘item 271 11th October 1919 / Illustrated copy of the life ofJ. M. W. Turner in 13 volumes. (See special report by ‘the Keeper’). Bequeathed by the lateJohn Platt of Clifton Lodge, Llandudno.’11

Pollard’s typewritten ‘special report’ is tipped into volume one of the collection, and reads

Thornbury (Walter)Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A. 2 vol. edition, 1862 The whole inlaid to folio size and extra illustrated with 487 portraits, 424 views, 407autographs, 227 engravings of pictures, 62 original drawings: of the aforementionedengravings, 285 are proofs (207 being Indian proofs, 88 of which are before letters). There are also 79 mezzotints, 35 etchings, and 72 aquatints, 51 of the latter beingcoloured by hand.12

Extended into 13 volumes, each of which has a copious index of the additions inmanuscript. Handsomely bound in red morocco, super extra, top edges gilt, byZaehnsdorf. Each volume enclosed in a dust-proof case.

Volume two was briefly put on display in the King’s Library as a highlight of theDepartment of Printed Books’ recent acquisitions. The art journal The Athenaeum reported:

There are now on exhibition in the King’s Library, British Museum, the followingrecent acquisitions of the Department of Printed Books […]: St Bernard, Sermonsin Dutch, Pieter van Os, Zwolle, 1484-85. With a fine woodcut representing theVirgin and Child and St Bernard. – Isidorus Etymologiae, Georg Wolff andThielmann Kerrver for Jean Petit, Paris, 1499. – Walter Thornbury, Life of J. M. W.Turner, London, 1862. Extra-illustrated by John Platt, Llandudno, 1899, andbequeathed by him to the Museum. In thirteen volumes; the volume exhibited showsthe signature of Turner and a number of his fellow-students at the Royal Academy. –

9 Death announcement, The Times (21 May 1919) ‘on 17 May Ellen Jane Platt, widow of John Platt of Clifton Lodge,Llandudno.’

10 Alfred W. Pollard, Keeper of Printed Books.11 British Library Archive, DH 53/38. Title: Department of Printed Books: Register of Donations, 12 Oct. 1918-10

July 1920. Description: Page 173 record of bequest with cross reference to ‘special report’ (DH 2/83).12 This is taken from Platt’s description of the illustrations.



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A collection of Siamese postage stamps formed by the late R.W. Harold Row,Assistant Lecturer and Demonstrator in Zoology at King’s College, and presented tothe Museum by his mother in accordance with his wish.13

Despite the size and quality of the collection, and the brief moment it enjoyed in thelimelight upon its acquisition, it has received very little attention in the past as a specimenof extra-illustration or even from Turner scholars. This is presumably because it has beendifficult to locate. The British Library holds four copies of the 1862 edition of Thornbury’sLife of J. M. W. Turner and this particular, uniquely expanded copy until recently shared acatalogue entry with another, standard edition. Its unusual character was only apparent oninvestigating why two shelf marks were offered, and noting that the second copy wasdescribed as thirteen volumes instead of the usual two. It was given a concise holdings note:

Humanities Tab.438.a.1. [Another copy.] The Life of J. M. W. Turner etc. [To whichhave been added numerous portraits, views, original drawings by various artists,engravings of pictures, autograph letters, etc. with half-titles printed specially for thiscopy. A collection formed by Mr. John Platt.] 13 vol. London, 1862. 8º. Each leaf ismounted on larger paper.14

But this is a form of record not searchable by keyword. This may be why the collection isnot included in Robin Alston’s Books with Manuscript: A Short Title Catalogue of Books withManuscript Notes in the British Library, including Books with Manuscript Additions,Proofsheets, Illustrations, Corrections (London: British Library, 1993) or in the authoritativeOxford Companion to J. M. W. Turner by Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). The purpose of the present essay is to provide asmuch detail as is currently available about John Platt and his collecting, and to highlightsome of the items of special interest in the collection.

2. John Platt and his collection

The facts of John Platt’s apparently largely uneventful life are few, and can be stated swiftly.Platt was born 20 December 1842 in Middleton, Lancashire, the son of James Platt, a fustianmanufacturer. Father and son developed a successful velvet cutting business in Warrington.John Platt married Ellen Jane and later adopted a daughter. When he died in 1902 heappears to have been a wealthy and successful businessman.

The rapid growth of the family business can be traced in census records and othersources. James Platt, John’s father, is recorded in the 1851 census simply as a ‘Fustian Cutterand Farmer’ aged 32, born in Rochdale, Lancashire, who ‘Employs 18 hands at cutting and

13 The Athenaeum (2 Jan. 1920), p. 17. The British Museum’s central archive were unable to find any mention of thisdisplay, but noted that the Standing Committee agreed on 20 June 1920 a suggestion by Pollard that the majorityof the King’s Library’s permanent exhibition of Printed Books should be replaced by a temporary exhibition ‘inconnection with the forthcoming conference of Professors of English Literature, to which Colonial and AmericanProfessors had been invited as guests of the government’. Pollard suggests in this report, dated 4 June 1920, that‘it would not be advisable for the exhibition to remain on view for more than a few weeks’ for conservation reasons,so it seems likely that the display of new acquisitions which included the Life of Turner was of a similar length,rather than lasting from Jan-June 1920. Email correspondence with Stephanie Clarke, Archivist & RecordsManager, The British Museum, 13-20 March 2007.

14 Recently a set of copy-specific cataloguing guidelines has been drawn up to remedy this situation, and in futureinformation which makes one copy of a book unique will be made available and searchable in clearly defined fields.



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owns 4 acres.’ Lancashire and in particular Oldham were important areas for velvetmanufacture from the sixteenth century.15 Fustian was a kind of cotton velvet, and cuttingmeans the production of velvet’s pile. In 1851 James Platt was living with his wife Mary,aged 29, his son John, then aged 8 and described as a ‘scholar at home’ born in Middleton,and a daughter Mary Ann, 3 months. The family lived in the village of Gravelhole, which‘was for a long time almost the metropolis of fustian and velvet cutting, until the needs ofdevelopment and expansion made the leaders of the industry migrate to the more ruraldistrict of Cheshire and Staffordshire’.16

In 1861, still living in ‘Gravel Hole’, James Platt is described as ‘Master Fustian Cutter(employs 70 hands). Farmer of 12 acres, employs 1 labourer’ and by 1871 he is a ‘MasterFustian Cutter employing 80 hands.’ John Platt, now 28, is himself now described as a‘Master Fustian Cutter’ and has moved to his own address, in a more middle class area ofWarrington adjacent to Gravelhole, ‘1 Wilson Patten Street’, with ‘Ellen Jane Platt, wife, 30,born Liverpool’.17 John Platt’s will, which names his wife as the sole beneficiary, is dated 21May 1874 and witnessed by a ‘Thomas Gibbons of Lythgoes Lane Warrington FustianCutter’ and ‘Thomas Edward Baines of Legh Street Warrington clerk’.

The growing number of premises the expanding business needed can be traced incontemporary directories: Worrall’s Directory of Warrington, 1871, lists only the LythgoesLane address,18 while Fulton’s Commercial Directory and Shipper’s Guide, 1880, lists six:‘PLATT JAMES & Son, Lythgoes lane, also at Cockhedge Lane, Turner St, Crossly St,Ellesmere St and Liverpool Road’.19 By 1883, Slater’s Directory of Warrington shows bothfather and son having moved, and lists ten work addresses.20 John Platt is now living at TheMount, Walton, Cheshire, and subscribes from this address to limited edition books such asC. N. Elvin, A Dictionary of Heraldry with upwards of 2,500 illustrations, 1889 as ‘Platt, John,J.P., The Mount, Walton, near Warrington.’ The business may have branched out into otherareas too, as the Cotton Spinners and Manufacturers’ Directory of 1887 lists ‘James Platt &Son, Stiffeners, Peel Road, Liverpool Green’ as silk manufacturers.21

By the 1881 census his business has grown considerably: ‘1 Wilson Patten Street, JohnPlatt, Head, age 38, Master Fustian Cutter, Partner in firm employing 852 hands’, and bythe 1891 census John Platt, described as a ‘J.P. and velveteen manufacturer’ and Ellen Janeare registered at ‘Clifton Lodge, 56 Abbey Road, Llandudno’ with domestic staff: a residentcook, waitress and housemaid, and two visitors, one described as ‘Ellen M. Smith, visitor,6, born Cheshire, Chester’. She is recorded as an adopted daughter in the 1901 census.Clifton Lodge was a ‘Valuable Residential Property Consisting of a spacious Residence,standing in Ornamental Grounds, commanding magnificent views, and suited in everyrespect for the occupation of a family of position.’22 It is now a Catholic retreat centre.23 He

15 J. Herbert Cooke, The Velvet and Corduroy Industry, A Brief Account of the Various Processes Connected with theManufacture of Cotton Pile Goods (London, 1922), pp. 6 and 12, p. 44.

16 Ibid, p. 44. 17 Image of Wilson Patten Street from Warrington Library, Museums and Archive:

www.1museumstreet.co.uk/wdia/house_health/01a.htm#pat 18 ‘Platt John, fustian cutter (J. Platt & son), 1 Wilson Patten St / Platt James, fustian cutter (Jas Platt & Son),

Thornham, Royton, near Oldham / Platt, James & Son, fustian cutters Lythgoe’s lane / Platt John, fustiancutter (Jas. Platt & Son), Arpley villa, Wilson Patten St’ (p. 23).

19 Fulton’s Commercial Directory and Shipper’s Guide (1880), p. 1060.20 ‘Platt, James, fustian cutter (James Platt & Son), Newlands, Patricroft / Platt, James & Son, fustian cutters and

stiffeners, Lythgoe’s Lane; Turner St; Crossley St; Cockhedge Lane; Ellesmere St; Elizabeth St; Cartwright Stand Liverpool Road Stiffening Works, Patricroft; Manchester Office, Velvet St, York St. / Platt, John fustian cutter(James Platt and Son), The Mount, Walton, Cheshire.’

21 Cotton Spinners and Manufacturers’ Directory (Oldham: John Worrall, 1887), p. 123.22 North Wales Chronicle (Saturday 29 November 1884). 23 See www.llandudno-catholic-church.org.uk/history3.html, accessed 8/1/2007.



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kept working from Wales; Slater’s Directory of Warrington of 1895 includes the company andlists ‘Platt, John, Clifton Lodge, Llandudno’ as one of the Borough Magistrates.24 The Plattsappear to have retained their Warrington residence, as it was referred to in Ellen Jane’s willof 1918.

Thomas Ellison wrote in the 1880s of the remarkable recent growth in the cotton industryof co-operative or limited liability companies, especially in the neighbourhood of Oldham,25

and John Platt’s business seems to have followed this trend. The family firm was now mergedwith that of J. and J. Wilkinson, as reported in the Liverpool Mercury of Tuesday 9 November1897: ‘New Companies’ are described, including ‘Platt, Wilkinson and Co., Limited (54,640)– registered October 30 with capital £50,000 in £10 shares, to acquire the businesses carried on at Warrington by James Platt and Son and by J. and J. Wilkinson, to enter into a certain agreement, and to carry on the business of velvet and velveteen manufacturers,fustian cutters, stiffeners, weavers, spinners &c. The subscribers are – J. Platt, Clifton Lodge,Llandudno, velvet manufacturer, 1 share; W. C. Baines, 24 Cairo Street, Warrington, velvetmanufacturer, 1;26 J. Wilkinson, 40, Wakefield Street, Warrington, velvet manufacturer, 1; J. Wilkinson, jun., 58 Hale Street, Warrington, velvet manufacturer, 1; Miss S. A. Wilkinson, 60, Longford Street, Warrington, 1; J. Wilkinson, sen., 60, LongfordStreet, Warrington, gentleman, 1; T. B. Carter, Eversley, Frodsham, Cheshire, cornmerchant, 1. The number of directors is not to be less than three nor more than seven: thefirst are J. Platt, J. Wilkinson sen., W. C. Baines, J. Wilkinson and T. B. Carter: qualification100 shares. Registered by Cole and Jackson, 35, Essex Street, Strand.’27

John Platt now had considerable power over the velvet cutting market. He was able toconsolidate this further in 1900 by following the trend in various areas in British industry offorming combinations aiming at monopoly. Attempts in 1898 and 1899 to create a VelvetCombine, uniting the Oldham weavers, dyers, cutters and merchants, proved unsuccessfulas such divergent interests could not be reconciled. But John Platt was able to become atrustee of a more modest effort which succeeded – the United Velvet Cutters Association,formed in March 1900.28 The prospectus stated the union’s aims: ‘The consolidation ofthese businesses must reduce unnecessary competition, besides economising workingarrangements, which will enable one staff to obtain orders, instead of employing separateones for each firm, and will effect considerable saving in the collection and re-delivery ofgoods.’ The four firms involved were the principal ones in the trade, doing three-fourths ofthe business and employing the majority of the workforce.29

Platt became a Justice of the Peace for Warrington before retiring to north Wales, anddied on 7 March 1902 at his home, Clifton Lodge, Llandudno.30

24 Slater’s Directory of Warrington, Wildens, St Helen’s, Earlestown, &c, Manchester (1895-96), p. 3.25 The Cotton Trade of Great Britain (London, 1968), first edn 1886. 26 William Cannell Baines, b. 1856. Presumably the ‘William Cannell Baines of Lythgoes Lane, Warrington,

Managing Director of Company’ who acted as an executor of Ellen Jane Platt’s will.27 Liverpool Mercury issue 15557. The National Archives have Records of the Board of Trade and of Successor

and Related Bodies, including Records of the Companies Registration Office’s Files of Dissolved Companies.No. 54640 Platt, Wilkinson & Company Ltd is listed as dissolved in 1897 (BT 31/7655/54640).

28 Henry W. Macrosty, Trusts and the State, A Sketch of Competition (London, 1901), p. 176. 29 Henry W. Macrosty, The Trust Movement in British Industry: A Study of Business Organisation (London, 1907),

pp. 176-7.30 Death announcements for John Platt, in The Guardian and The Times, 10 March 1902. ‘7th March 1902

at Clifton Lodge, Llandudno, John Platt, JP aged 59’.



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Reports of his death in local newspapers in Wales and Warrington provide some furtherbiographical information:

Death of Mr John PlattIt is with much regret which we feel will be shared by many townspeople, that werecord the death of Mr John Platt, at his residence, Clifton Lodge, Llandudno, at 8:30yesterday morning. Mr Platt had been suffering from heart disease, and a recentattack of influenza hastened his death. He came to Warrington in 1868 and opened a factory in Lythgoes-Lane for velvetcutting. His father carried on a similar business elsewhere and the Warringtonestablishment was opened under the name of James Platt and son. Business rapidlyincreased and other branches were opened in several parts of the town. Five years ago,the business was amalgamated with that of Councillor Joseph Wilkinson, and the twoconcerns were carried on under the names of Messrs Platt, Wilkinson and company.More recently still, the businesses had been joined with those of the Velvet CuttersAssociation. Owing to ill-health, Mr Platt found it desirable to withdraw himself frombusiness cares. Prior to his removal to Llandudno he resided at the Mount, Walton. In politics, Mr Platt was a Liberal. In 1876, he was returned as a representative of theNorth East Ward on the Warrington Town Council, and was elected an Alderman in1890.31 About this time he took up his residence in Llandudno, and he finally severedhis connection with the Council in 1894. The funeral will take place at Southport on Tuesday.’32

Platt’s funeral is reported in the Warrington and Mid Cheshire Examiner:

The Late Mr John Platt

The Funeral

The funeral of the late Mr Platt took place at Southport Cemetery on Tuesday. Thecoffin and some of the chief mourners left Llandudno at eight o’clock, and reachedSouthport Cemetery at midday, being met at the station by a number of friends fromWarrington and other places. The Rev. Robert Stephenson, vicar of St James’s Birkdale,officiated, and the internment took place in the grave where the deceased’s father, MrJames Platt, of Newlands, Patricroft, and also his mother, lie buried. The mournersincluded Mr Robert Shepherd and Mr John Shepherd, Congleton (uncles); MrsWiddows, Lyttham (sister); Miss Nellie Platt (daughter);33 Miss MacGlashan;34 Nurse

31 According to the Victoria County History for Warrington, ‘In 1832 the town became a parliamentary boroughunder the Reform Act, returning one member; and in 1847 it was incorporated, and has since been governedby the council … the manorial rights, including the market tolls, were purchased by the corporation. Themunicipal boundary at first included only about half the area of the township …The boundary was extendedin 1890, and again in 1896; it now includes all the ancient township of Warrington (except Orford) andLatchford as far south as the Manchester Ship Canal. In 1890 the enlarged town was divided into nine wards,[Town-hall, Bewsey, Fairfield, Howley, Orford, Whitecross, St. Austin’s, St. John’s, Latchford] each with analderman and three councillors. The gas and water supplies are in the hands of the council, which has alsoinstituted an electric light and power supply, and an electric tramway service. Baths, gymnasium, and otheruseful and necessary institutions have been established.’ William Farrer and J. Brownbill, ‘Townships:Warrington’, A History of the County of Lancaster, vol. iii (1907), pp. 316-24.

32 Warrington and Mid Cheshire Examiner (Saturday 8 March 1902).33 Adoptive daughter Ellen Jane Smith, born c. 1885.34 Named as a governess in the 1901 census.



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Cuddy, Southport; Miss Shepherd (cousin); Mr P. Eastwood (cousin); Mr Shepherd(cousin); Mr J. B. Meanock, Royton; Mr Charles and Miss White, Warrington; whilerepresenting the firm of Platt, Wilkinson & Co Limited were Mr W. C. Bains,35 Mr G.H. Mason, Mr John Wilkinson, Mr Joseph Wilkinson, and Mr A. J. Partington, all ofWarrington.

The coffin, which was a massive one, with brass mountings, bore the simpleinscription ‘John Platt, born December 20th, 1842, died March 7th, 1902’. On it wereplaced a number of beautiful floral tributes which had been sent by the followingrelatives and friends – Nellie, Emily and Edith, Marjorie, Mrs Henry S. Hall,Southport; Mr and Mrs Adolpe C. Meyers; Mr and Mrs Joseph Broome, Llandudno;T. and M. Smith; Mr and Mrs Whittaker, Birkdale; E. J. Whitby; Dr and MrsThomas Dalton, Llandudno;36 Mr and Mrs S. Chamberlain, Plas Brith; Mr and MrsEdward W. Johnson, Llandudno; Mrs Healey, Felsberg, Llandudno; the MissesChampneys, and the maids at Clifton Lodge.

The funeral arrangements were in the hands of Messrs Thorpe & Sons, Llandudno.37

This edition also includes a ‘Magisterial Reference’:

At the conclusion of the usual business at the Warrington Police Court on Monday,the Chairman (Mr T. Birchall) said that the Court ought not to adjourn without anexpression of their deep regret upon receiving the intelligence last week of the deathof one of their colleagues, Mr John Platt. It was true that on account of his residenceat Llandudno he had not given much active service in the court for some time, but hewas a man who was very much esteemed in Warrington and would, had his healthpermitted his residence in the town, have done good public service. He was sure theyall regretted his death very much and would desire to express their kindly sympathywith his family.38

The Llandudno Advertiser, Friday 14 March 1902, reported:

Death of Mr John Platt

The death of Mr John Platt, of Clifton Lodge, Llandudno, came as a surprise to hismany friends. For some time Mr Platt has not enjoyed very robust health, owing to aweak heart, but it was not anticipated that he was so near his earthly end until a shorttime before death actually took place early on Friday morning last. A week previouslyhe had been out and caught a slight chill which caused serious developments. Thedeceased gentleman, who was 59 years of age, was a partner in Platt Brothers, ofWarrington, one of the largest manufacturing firms of velveteen and other similargoods in Great Britain. For that town he was also a Justice of the Peace and a liberalsupporter of many philanthropic movements. He took a great interest in the RSPCAand held the post of secretary in the North Wales branch for a number of years.39

The funeral took place on Tuesday at Southport.40

35 William Cannell Baines is named as a trustee of Ellen Jane Platt’s will.36 Thomas Dalton is named as a trustee of Ellen Jane Platt’s will.37 The Warrington and Mid Cheshire Examiner (Saturday 15 March 1902).38 Ibid.39 The North Wales Chronicle (8 December 1900) reports that the RSPCA’s annual general meeting was held at the

secretary’s house, Clifton Lodge, Llandudno, and that Mrs Platt held a drawing room sale for the charity.40 Llandudno Advertiser.



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This obituary confuses John Platt with a namesake – an easy mistake as Platt was the mostcommon name in Oldham in 1881.41 John Platt MP (1817-1872) of Oldham, Lancashire alsoworked in the textile industry and owned property in north Wales (the Gorddinog estate,Aber, Caernafonshire, which remained in the family until 1956). His family firm, PlattBrothers, was the largest employer in Oldham and the largest maker of cotton machinery inLancashire, but appears to bear no relation to James Platt & Son, Platt, Wilkinson &Company or the United Velvet Cutters Association. He was Mayor of Oldham in 1854-5,1855-6 and 1861-2, and had a son John Harold Platt 1855-1912 who became a JP and deputylieutenant for Kent and JP for Anglesey.42

John Platt’s death was also announced in The Guardian and The Times on 10 March 1902:‘7th March 1902 at Clifton Lodge, Llandudno, John Platt, JP aged 59.’

John Platt’s collections

Platt had died a wealthy man, leaving £47,282 5s 5d,43 and at Ellen Jane’s death the Plattestate was valued at £64,057 4s 2d.44 The couple’s extensive collections of engravings,paintings, porcelain and books were then sold off at a series of auctions in 1919-1920.

Their paintings were sold as lots 121 to 142 of Modern Pictures and Water ColourDrawings, the property of the Rt Hon Earl Brassy, [and] Mrs E. J. Platt Deceased, late ofClifton Lodge, Llandudno, also Modern Pictures & Drawings from other sources, Christie,Manson & Woods, 28 November 1919 (the other sources were F. Brett, Lady Galway, F.Walton, H. Beaumont and Mrs Reckitt).45 This sale is recorded in A. C. R. Carter, TheYear’s Art 1921, which provides details of properties which have realized more than £1,000:‘Through the usual courtesy of Messrs Christie, Manson, and Woods, the following totalsof the amounts realized by named properties over £1,000 from November 4 1919 to July 231920 are given [...] November 28 Modern Pictures and Drawings Mrs E J Platt, deceased,£1,923’.46 A high price was realized for lot 123 Gathering Buttercups, by Myles Birket Foster(1825-1899), described as exhibited at Liverpool in 1893, which sold for £1,050 to‘Sampson’. This watercolour and bodycolour, measuring 79 x 68cm, was recently sold atChristies in British Works on Paper, 7 June 2001, for £97,250.47

41 www.nationaltrustnames.org.uk accessed 16/02/09.42 See D. A. Farnie, ‘Platt family (per. c. 1815-1930)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (hereafter

ODNB) (Oxford, 2004); online edn, May 2008 [www.oxforddnb.com], accessed 7 May 2009] and articlescited there.

43 The National Archives holds the wills: ‘Platt, John of Clifton Lodge, Llandudno died 7 March 1902. ProbateLondon 9 May to Ellen Jane Platt widow. Effects £47477 5s 5d. Resworn April 1903 £47282 5s 5d.’

44 The National Archives: ‘Platt, Ellen Jane of Clifton Lodge, Llandudno, Caernarvonshire widow died 17 May1919. Probate Bangor 16 August to Thomas Dalton MD and William Cannell Baines managing director ofcompany. Effects £64057 4s 2d. Further grant 19 February 1920.’

45 Thanks to Marijke Booth, Archives Assistant, Christie, Manson & Woods Ltd for identifying the ‘othersources’. Lugt 79614. Advertised in The Times (Tuesday, 18 Nov. 1919), p. 24; Issue 42260; col A as Tuesday,Nov. 18, 1919; pg. 24; Issue 42260; col A.

46 A. C. R. Carter, The Year’s Art 1921, A Concise Epitome of all matters relating to the arts of Painting, Sculpture,engraving and architecture and to the schools of design which have occurred during the year 1920, together withinformation respecting the events of the year 1921 (London, 1921), pp. 291-2.

47 See www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=2067996&sid=656a3048-90f9-4099-ac50-234342bdd59a




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A mixed sale including Platt’s engravings and drawings was advertised in The TimesMonday 5 January 1920 as:

ENGRAVINGS including the Collection formed by the late John Platt, Esq., ofWarrington, removed from Clifton House, Llandudno. PUTTICK & SIMPSONWill SELL by AUCTION, at their house, 47, Leicester Square, W.C.2, on Friday,January 16th, at 10 minutes past one precisely. ENGRAVINGS as above, comprisingfancy subjects of the XVIIIth century British and French Schools by and after AdamBuck, W. Hamilton, Lawrence, H. Bunbury, F. Wheatley, A. Cardon, F. Bartolozzi,N. de Launay, J. R. Smith, &c, Stable and Rural Scenes by J. R. Smith, J. Barney, C.Joel, J. Young after G. Morland and F. Wheatley, many printed in colours, portraitsafter Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Thos. Lawrence, Sir H. Raeburn, &c, by C. Turner, S.Cousins, and many others, mostly in fine condition, naval, military and historicalsubjects, scarce hunting, coaching and shooting scenes, caricatures, rare Americanand other views, fashion plates, scrap books, illustrations to Boydell’s Shakespeare,etchings by the Early Masters, watercolour drawings etc.48

His collection accounts for lots 1-116 out of 363. They realized £367 8s and includedtopography and portrait engravings, aquatints and a large collection of mezzotints, withsections of the catalogue devoted to Reynolds and Lawrence.

Platt’s collection of decorative art featured in the Catalogue of Decorative Furniture andPorcelain from various sources and porcelain the property of Mrs E. J. Platt, deceased; late ofClifton Lodge, Llandudno (sold by Order of the Executors), Christie, Manson & Woods, 19 February 1920. Lots 1-23 were Platt items, which made £277.

The designated sale of John Platt’s library was held at Puttick and Simpson on 1 and 2January 1920. The Catalogue of the Late John Platt Esq., J.P., Removed from Clifton Lodge,Llandudno, gives an idea of the scope of Platt’s interests and his dedication to extra-illustration:49

Comprising Collections of the Works of Turner, Ruskin, Kate Greenaway, HughThomson, Richard Jeffries, Dr. T. F. Dibdin, etc, in first and rare editions – Works inLancashire and Cheshire topography – The Sporting Novels of R. S. Surtees, FirstIllustrated Editions – Engravings from the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds and SirThomas Lawrence, selected proofs – Turner’s Liber Studiorum etc.; Lilford’s Birds,7 vols., bound by Fazakerley – Sowerby’s English Botany, third edition, bound byZaehnsdorf – Extra-illustrated and Choicely Bound Works, including Dibdin’sBibliomania, extended to 4 vols., and Reminiscences of a Literary Life, extended to 9vols. – Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, extended to 13 vols.,quarto – Memoirs of William Collins R.A., extended to 9 vols., folio – Leigh Hunt’sThe Town and A Saunter Through the West End, extended to 14 vols. – Laughton’sNelson and his Companions in arms, extended to 6 vols., and including 14 autographletters of Nelson and three of Lady Hamilton etc., etc.

The marked-up copy of the catalogue in the British Library records the bidders pre-sale andthose who won, and indicates that the sale of the library realized £3,741 13s 6d. Several bids areplaced before the sale by a ‘J. Smith’ and a ‘Ward’, and the majority of the lots won by ‘Cubitt’.

48 Also advertised in The Times on 22 December 1919 and 5 January 1920. See Catalogue of Engravings andDrawings including the collection formed by the late John Platt, Esq., Removed from Clifton Lodge, Llandudno,Puttick and Simpson, 16 January 1920.

49 The Times initially advertised ‘THE VALUABLE LIBRARY OF BOOKS formed by the late John Platt, Esq.,of Llandudno, on October 22nd and 23rd’ but this must have been postponed, as no sale took place.



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The library sale received coverage in the national press. The Times reported:

First Book Auction for 1920. £300 for ‘The Nelson Memorial’.

The first book auction sale of the new year was the library of the late Mr John Platt,J.P., of Clifton Lodge, Llandudno, dispersed on Wednesday and yesterday by Messrs.Puttick and Simpson. High prices were realized for ‘Grangerized’, or extra-illustrated, books, of which the late owner had many interesting examples.

The finest specimen of this kind of book-making was the copy of J. K. Laughton’s‘The Nelson Memorial,’ 1896, one of 100 copies on large paper, extended to sixvolumes quarto by the addition of 277 portraits, 194 views, eight original drawings,three autographs of Lady Hamilton, and 14 of Nelson. The whole was bound in darkblue morocco. This fine set was bought for £300 by Mr Cubitt, who also purchasedfor £64 Mahan’s ‘Life of Nelson’, 1897, extended to four volumes by the addition ofover 500 portraits, autographs, views, and maps.

A copy of Williams’s ‘Life and Correspondence’ of Sir T. Lawrence, P.R.A., 1831,extended from two to 13 volumes by the addition of 14 original drawings, 148autographs, 338 engravings after Lawrence’s pictures, 513 portraits, and 298 views,realized £240 (Cubitt). Leigh Hunt’s ‘The Town,’ 1848, extended from two to tenvolumes and illustrated with 740 portraits and 274 views, sold for £88 (Cubitt). Asimilarly treated copy of the same author’s ‘Saunter through the West-end,’ 1861,with over 350 portraits and views, went for £51 (Gregory). Other prices realizedwere: – Dr. Doran’s ‘Their Majesties’ Servants’, 1864, in six volumes, with numerousportraits, scenes, view, playbills, and autographs, – £81 (Gregory); T. F. Dibdin’s‘Reminiscences of a Literary Life’, 1836, extended to nine volumes by the addition of556 portraits, 262 views, and 63 autographs – £74 (Cubitt); and a set of Turner’s‘Liber Studiorum’ – £205 (Cubitt).50

Book Prices Current for 1920 also records Platt’s library sale, and notes ‘more books of a veryspecial and costly character appear to have come into the market during the last twelvemonths than is usually the case, and the prices realised for works of this exclusive characterare certainly higher than they have hitherto been.’51 The catalogue has detailed descriptionsfor the 594 lots, and shows Platt’s interest in British art, illustration and topography. Thereis a concentration on artists’ biographies, published collections of engravings, and portfoliosand parcels of prints, drawings and autographs as well as a further forty-three examples ofextra-illustration.

The most important of these, as highlighted in contemporary reports, was the extra-illustrated Nelson Memorial. This was given a detailed description as lot 481 in thecatalogue:

Laughton (J.K.) The Nelson Memorial. Nelson and his Companions in Arms,photogravures and woodcuts, First edition, one of 100 L.P. copies, extended to 6vols., and illustrated by 8 original drawings, 146 autographs, 277 portraits, and 194

50 The Times, Saturday 3 Jan. 1920, p. 13.51 Book Prices Current, vol. xxxiv (London, 1920), p. vii; ‘Sale Jan 1-2 Library of the late Mr John Platt,

of Llandudno. Amount realized £3,741. 13s. 6d.’, p. ix.



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views, including 91 proofs (40 of them being India proofs, 12 mezzotint ports, 63aquatints, and 48 prints coloured by hand, ten of the reproductions of the engravingsissued with the book have been replaced by first impressions of the originalengravings, dark blue mor. extra, arms on sides and crest on backs, leather joints,watered silk linings, t.e.g. by Zaehnsdorf, 1896, 4to. There are three autographs ofLady Hamilton, and 14 of Nelson, and in one case both have written on the samesheet, to William Beckford, vol. III p. 14, a splendid letter. There are also 75 differentportraits of Nelson and 38 of Lady Hamilton.

It was sold in 1920 for £300 to Cubitt, and recently changed hands at Christie’s New York,in Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts Including Americana, 16 December 2004, lot 594, for$150,000.52 The collection was presented in a similar manner to the extra-illustratedThornbury, with carefully prepared manuscript indices in red and blue inks and the extra-illustrations neatly inlaid to size. The Christie’s catalogue fully describes each insertion, andsummarizes ‘A most exceptional example of extra-illustration that brilliantly encapsulatesNelson’s meteoric career and the momentous clashes of the Napoleonic era in a dazzlingcollection of engravings, aquatints, original sketches and, most notably, a highly importantseries of original letters and documents of Nelson, the Hamiltons, fellow naval officers,associates, foes and contemporaries. An astounding collection, assembled before 1901, thatwould certainly be impossible to duplicate today.’

Platt’s extra-illustrated copy of the Memoirs of the Life of William Collins by his Son, lot581, was sold to Cubitt for £98 in 1920, and resold at Fine Books and Manuscripts IncludingImportant Americana, Sotheby’s New York, 13 June 1991 for $4,500. It is described in theSotheby’s catalogue as lot 22:

Collins, Wilkie. The life of William Collins, Esq. R. A. By His Son. London:Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1848. 2 volumes extended to 9, the original8vo two-volume set disbound and the leaves inlaid in larger sheets (93⁄4 x 13 in.; 247 x330 mm), extra-illustrated by John Platt with over 850 items, additional printed half-titles and titles (dated 1894) and calligraphic indices supplied by Platt. Full greenmorocco, gilt-ruled and with Platt’s coat-of-arms on the front and rear covers, topedges gilt, gilt dentelles, red moiré silk endleaves gilt-stamped with Platt’s armorialseal, by Zaehnsdorf, 1896; spines trifle faded, some wear, mostly to extremities.53

The catalogue lists some of those represented by autographs and drawings, includingColeridge, Wilkie Collins, David Wilkie,54 Henry Fuseli, Thomas Lawrence and BenjaminWest. The provenance is cited as John Platt and ‘Frederick S. Peck, with his armorial bookplate in each volume.’ Frederick S. Peck (1868-1945?) was a politician and amateur book andmanuscript collector from Rhode Island.

52 See www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=4467979&sid=6cc1d899-84d6-4bd9-94b9-933cf36f7122

53 The catalogue continues ‘Outstanding among the many autograph letters is the fine Coleridge ALS[autograph letter signed] (dated 8 October 1818, to an unidentified recipient) of approximately 275 words,which begins “Mrs Gillman commands me (for Ladies’ requests are equivalent to commands) to take my penand thank you in her name and her Lord’s for the Goose. But I being in a rebellious mood replied first, thatthe Goose was of age, and might thank you for himself, secondly that it was an affront to a high-flying poetico-philiosophic Spiritualist, like myself, to suppose him capable of appetites and recollections so terraneous andanserine”’.

54 The Platt library sale also includes lot 454 ‘Album, containing 78 orig. drawings by Sir D. Wilkie and W. Collins, mor.’



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Other extra-illustrated books are also given detailed descriptions in the Puttick andSimpson catalogue, presumably copying similar Platt’s manuscript indices, so more maycome to light in the future.55 His lot 211 ‘Hammill (Miss, of Cheltenham) Diary of TravelsWales and Ireland, MS, illustrated with 47 ports, and plates, and 20 original drawings,panelled calf, 1828-9’, is now traceable to the National Library of Ireland, listed as a 1997accession.56 The Puttick and Simpson catalogue does not mention Platt’s bookplate, but ittoo can be used to identify his works as they change hands now: one of Platt’s copies ofThomas Dibdin’s Bibliophobia, lot 342: ‘Bibliophobia, by Mercurius Rusticus, L.P., bds,side paper label, with author’s A.L.S. and present. inscription 1832’, sold to Cubitt for £3 5s was sold at Swann Auctions on 19 April 2001 as lot 49 for $700, described as havingthe bookplate of John Platt of Clifton Lodge, Llandudno, inscribed ‘John Rawlinson, Esq.From Mercurius Rusticus’ with a handwritten key to pseudonymous characters in the bookand an autograph letter reading ‘My dear Sir Finding that I have no copy of theBibliophobia upon small paper, I shall be forced to compel you to put up with a large papercopy of that capricious but original performance. It was written – ‘calamo currentissimo.’Yours from TFD’ laid in.

However, it is worth being cautious about attributions: Bonham’s San Francisco sale ofFine Books and Manuscripts, 15 February 2009, included lot 1065 a copy of Charles Dickens’sOliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. London: Richard Bentley, 1838 with the‘Bookplate of John Platt on front pastedowns.’ I contacted Bonham’s and asked for an imageof the bookplate in question, and Adam Stackhouse and Catherine Williamson kindly sentme an image of an armorial plate by Charles William Sherborn lettered ‘Virtute et Labore’,the motto of the textile machine manufacturing family of Platts, so a descendant of JohnPlatt (1817-1872).57

The library sale also includes art, such as lot 254: ‘Herdman (Wm) A Collection of 46Watercolour Drawings of named places in the vicinity of Liverpool, on sunk mounts,contained in half mor. box, with lock and key 1862-9’ which sold for £38 to Spencer;58 or lot514, a set of ‘nineteen drawings by W. H. Bartlett in Egypt and Palestine mounted in a halfmorocco oblong album, from the collection of James Virtue, the publisher’, sold for £42 toCubitt. J. M. W. Turner was represented by several lots,59 with 548 the set of Liber Studiorumhighlighted as sold for £205 to Cubitt by The Times, ‘detailed with the state of each plategiven in roman figures after its title, according to Rawlinson’, and with five plates from theartist’s collection, with his mark. The whole collection of 75 prints and 13 original bluepaper wrappers with Turner’s initials were ‘uniformly mounted and contained in two

55 For example lot 472 ‘Lawrence (Sir T.) Life and Correspondence, by D. E. Williams, 3 ports, 2 vols, FIRSTEDITION, 8vo, inlaid to quarto and extended to 13 vols, with specially printed titles, and illustrated by 14original drawings, 148 autographs, 338 engravings after Lawrence’s pictures, 523 portraits, and 298 viewsetc., including 60 mezzotints and 264 proofs, mor. super extra, arms on sides, and crest on backs, leatherjoints, watered silk linings, each plate guarded throughout, t.e.g., in cloth cases, by Zaehnsdorf, 1831’, soldfor £240 to Cubitt in 1920.

56 MS. 34290: ‘Diary of travels in Wales and Ireland / by Miss Hammill of Cheltenham ; illustrated, 1828-1829, by Hammill Miss, of Cheltenham. 1828 Aug. 14-26: North Wales, Dublin and Wicklow; 1829 May5-June 8: Cheltenham and vicinity; 1829 Aug. 18-22: North Wales. With armorial bookplate of John Platt’.

57 Listed as for 1904 in Charles Davies Sherborn, A Sketch of the Life and Work of Charles William Sherborn,Painter-Etcher, with a catalogue of his bookplates (London, 1912), p. 91.

58 See Kay Parrott, Pictorial Liverpool: The Art of W. G. and William Herdman (Liverpool, 2005). WilliamHerdman (1829-1878) published Views in Modern Liverpool in 1864 with 37 chromolithograph plates. Theextra-illustrated Thornbury contains a drawing of Paul’s Cathedral by his father W. G. Herdman (vol. 8, f.18), and a letter to W. G. Herdman from Thomas Miles Richardson dated 20 Nov. 1845 (vol. 5, f. 96).

59 104, 205, 214, 230, 231, 448, 451, 454, 465, 474 to 476 and 538, 545-6, and 548 to 565.



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morocco cases with watered-silk lining, locks and keys.’ Other artists are represented byextra-illustrated books, collections of engravings and key secondary sources, particularlyThomas Lawrence, Joshua Reynolds, John Constable and John Ruskin. Platt also appears tohave been amassing large numbers of prints and autographs, perhaps towards current orfuture extra-illustration projects, for example: lot 260 ‘Artists. A large collection ofAutographs of eminent British artists, including portraits, engraved examples of their work,etc. etc., arranged. (6 parcels)’.

The case of the British Library’s Thornbury illustrates the difficulties involved in tracingextra-illustrated materials back to their original sources, with collections being repeatedlybroken up and resold, and some prominent collectors forgotten by history altogether. Forexample Platt’s Thornbury includes materials formerly owned by John Thomas Smith(1766-1833), Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. Although he held animportant position in the art world and actively promoted print and autograph collecting byreferring to the practice in his writing and marketing his own publications as suitable forextra-illustration60 this aspect of his career appears to have been overlooked.61

An etching in the Platt collection at Vol. 6, f. 24 by Francis Hayman of Sir John Falstaffseated on a drum (fig. 10) is listed by John Platt as both a unique etching and as an autographof Benjamin West dating from 1770. It is inscribed by West ‘etched by Francis Hayman 1755and presented by him to Benjn West in 1770. there not being more of them ever printed’.Platt does not record the provenance of the etching, but it is possible to trace it fromBenjamin West through his wife to J. T. Smith, who mentions it in Nollekens and his Times(London, 1828).62 The extra-illustrated Thornbury also includes a letter from artist ThomasMalton (1748-1804) to William Anderson (1757-1837), marine artist, annotated by Smith‘Given to me by Mr Anderson the marine painter J. T. Smith’ at vol. 2, f. 97, and a pencilsketch by John Jackson (1778-1831) of George Clint (1770-1854) dated 15 August 1822 witha note ‘Dear Smith – Pray accept this sketch for your catalogue. Mr Jackson was kindenough to do it for me. Yours very truly G. Clint Dec 8 1824’ (vol. 8, f. 100). If this Smithwas J. T. Smith, the ‘catalogue’ would have been a set of extra-illustrated Royal Academycatalogues, described from lot 217 of ‘A very curious and interesting COLLECTION ofPRINTS, ETCHINGS, DRAWINGS, and AUTOGRAPHS, to ILLUSTRATE theROYAL ACADEMY, and other EXHIBITION CATALOGUES of LONDON, from theyear 1760 to 1843. Originally formed by the late JOHN THOMAS SMITH, but considerablyincreased by Mr. STANDLY,’ sold at Christie’s from Monday 14 April 1845 for seven days.63

The items above may have reached Platt through Standly or William Upcott or both, asSmith collected for Upcott64 and his obituary in The Gentleman’s Magazine alludes to

60 ‘My honoured friend, James Northcote, Esq. RA., with his usual kindness, gave me two original letters ofMr. and Mrs. Opie’ (Nollekens and his Times (London, 1828), p. 371); ‘Mr. Flaxman, knowing me to be acollector of autographs, among many others, gave me the following letter, which he received from Blake’ (p.471).

61 Lucy Peltz, ‘Smith, John Thomas (1766–1833)’, ODNB, accessed 14 April 2009; Antony Griffiths, ‘TheDepartment of Prints and Drawings during the First Century of the British Museum’, Burlington Magazine,cxxxvi; 1097 (Aug. 1994), pp. 531-44; Felicity Owen, ‘John Thomas (‘Antiquity’) Smith: a Renaissance Manfor the Georgian Age’, Apollo, cxl (Oct. 1994), pp. 34–6.

62 See Felicity Myrone, ‘A Print by Francis Hayman Rediscovered’. Print Quarterly, xxiv: 4 (2007), pp. 426-8;Smith, Nollekens and his Times, vol. i, pp. 95-6.

63 The Christie’s catalogue does not explain which items between lot 217 and lot 1400 originated in J. T. Smith’scollection.

64 Munby, The Cult of the Autograph Letter in England, p. 24.




Fig. 10. Francis Hayman (1708-1776), Falstaff seated on a drum, etching, image 125 x 135 mm (cut below platemark),Tab 438.a.1, vol. 2, f. 24.


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autographs passing from Smith to Upcott before a 1833 sale of Smith’s ‘works and effects’took place:65 ‘He had also at one time a very extensive and curious illustrated series of RoyalAcademy Catalogues. The greater part of his collection of autographs and letters waspurchased a few years since by Mr Upcott; and it is believed others were sold by MrChristie.’66

It is possible to speculatively match items from in the extra-illustrated Thornbury with lots inthe catalogue of Platt’s library sale in an attempt to trace the origins of objects in the collection,as shown below where Platt had bodies of correspondence from Nathaniel Phillips, HenryMogford or Charles Lock Eastlake. Another example is ‘Lot 274 Harding (G.P.) Correspondenceof, comprising about 800 autograph letters from the Nobility, Artists, etc, in 5 portfolios’: theThornbury also includes letters to the miniaturist George Perfect Harding (1779/80-1853),from John Walker, 44 Leicester Square 17 April 1819 (vol. 2, f. 159); Sir Charles Long (vol. 7, f. 102); John Smith III, Downing Terrace, Cambridge, 8 May 1822 (vol. 4, f. 77); Lady Essex, 1 March 1823 (vol. 8, f. 132), and Samuel Woodburn, Friday 1 November (vol. 11, f. 115).

The catalogue also sometimes provides brief provenance details: for example Platt seems tohave acquired material from Joseph Mayer (1803-1886), whose collection of more than 20,000drawings, prints, and autograph letters, as well as works of art and antiquities, was dispersed byauction in Liverpool on 15-16 December 1887.67 Lot 258 is described as ‘Baines’ History ofLancashire, 4 vols., inlaid to folio, and illustrated, by the late Joseph Mayer, by engravings ofviews, ports, maps, col. lithographs, autograph letters, and original drawings etc, loose in 8portfolios, some text missing, hence sold w.a.f. 1836’ (sold to Spencer for £17); and lot 276‘Cheshire. Docs on vellum and paper, relating to Cheshire, 14th to 18th century, from the Mayercollection’ (sold for £1 to Howell). The extra-illustrated Thornbury includes letters to JosephMayer from George Clint, Cockermouth Castle 2 October 1838 (vol. 8, f. 101); Penry Williams19 October 1841, 12 Piazza Mignanelli (vol. 5, f. 98) annotated by Platt ‘Written from the housewhere Turner lived while in Rome’; Copley Fielding, 28 April 1844 (vol. 11, f. 78); CountD’Orsay 25 March 1847 (vol. 11, f. 54); and Thomas Lupton, Russell Square, undated (vol. 8, f.161).

Elsewhere provenance or partial provenance is provided by Platt himself, as is the case withthe Constable drawing described below, or a letter from Cyrus Redding (1785–1870), journalist,to Messers Bentley & Co, mounted opposite Thornbury’s use of a passage from hisautobiography (p. 201; vol. 5, f. 49) which Platt has annotated in pencil ‘This letter is from thecollection of William Upcott’.

Conclusion

Of over 1,600 items added by Platt to his edition of Thornbury’s life of Turner, only a smallportion can be considered of significant historical or art historical interest. However, thesurvival, in the form that Platt intended, of the thirteen volumes that he put together with

65 ‘Works of Art and Effects of the late Celebrated Artist and Author, J. T. Smith Esq, Keeper of the Prints andDrawings at the British Museum. MESSRS ELGOOD AND WARD beg the attention of amateurs, &c, toa small COLLECTION of about 40 PICTURES, models and casts, in terra cotta and plaster, of eminentcharacters etc, 100 volumes of books, collections of autographs, the usual description of furniture in a smallhouse, fixtures, print presses, engraving table, glass cases, gilt elbow chair of His late Majesty when sitting toCosway, and various other items, forming the entire remaining and genuine property of the deceased, towhom many of the articles were presents from eminent individuals. For public sale on Tuesday the 23rdinstant, on the premises at 22, University Street, opposite the London University. May be viewed one daypreviously, when catalogues may be had. 93 Wimpole Street.’ See The Times, Saturday 20 Apr. 1833, p. 8.

66 Gentleman’s Magazine, June 1833, p. 644.67 C. W. Sutton, ‘Mayer, Joseph (1803-1886)’, rev. Lionel Burman, ODNB, accessed 7 May 2009.



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such lavish care and attention gives us an exceptional insight into the collecting habits of alate-Victorian industrialist and has protected a mass of materials that would otherwise havebeen broken up, lost or forgotten. It is hoped that the fuller documentation of this collectionwhich can now be provided for Library users will help ensure that the collection as a wholecan be explored and utilized more effectively, and that the historical and bibliographicalrelevance of the practice of extra-illustration may be more greatly appreciated.

3. The extra-illustrated Thornbury: some items of special interest

We might expect the extra-illustrated edition of Thornbury’s life of Turner to be especiallyrich in materials directly pertinent to that biographer’s subject, but while there are views ofthe places associated with Turner there are no drawings by or engravings after him. Platt’sintention was to illustrate the whole range of people and topics which occur, howevertangentially, in Thornbury’s text, including artists, publishers, printmakers, royalty,novelists, politicians, poets and authors. The collection does include letters from and aboutTurner, some of which have been quoted by art historians but often partially and asuntraced. John Gage quotes four out of the five from Turner in the collection in his CollectedCorrespondence of J. M. W. Turner (1980) and does note the source of the letters, although hecontinues to record one which had previously been quoted by Alexander Finberg (1939) asuntraced (see below).68

All the people portrayed in portraits or represented by autographs are now listed andsearchable on the collection’s record on the British Library’s Integrated Catalogue, with therelevant volume number(s), and all original drawings and topographical views are givenindividual catalogue records (a total of 510) linked back to this record. A few highlights fromthe collection, of particular historical or art-historical interest, are presented here, togetherwith all the manuscript material directly relating to Turner.

Letters are transcribed in their original spellings, without the use of [sic]. Additionsabove the line are enclosed in slashes.

Vol. 2, f. 112. Leaf from the Royal Academy Schools’ attendance book (figs 11 & 12)

An undated leaf from the Royal Academy Schools’ register, showing Turner’s signaturealongside his fellow students. Turner started training to be an artist at the Schools in 1789at the age of fourteen, and Thornbury’s text on the facing page describes his admittance.69

68 John Gage, Collected Correspondence of J. M. W. Turner (Oxford, 1980), hereafter Gage.69 The Royal Academy Archives now hold most of the Royal Academy Schools acceptance books (dating 1790-

1797). They came to the RA by a circuitous route and were once in the library of Charles Fairfax Murray,and other scraps from the books appear in a set of catalogues they own grangerized by E. B. Jubb (1812-1877).RA archivist Mark Pomeroy believes most of this material came from Ozias Humphry, via William Upcott,or Dawson Turner. Portions of these collections were sent to the BM/BL but significant amounts also filledthe collecting market for art manuscripts throughout the 1850s and 1860s (email 28 August 2007).




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. 2,

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Vol. 1, f. 49. Turner to Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar (1797-1864), art collector(figs 13 & 14)70

70 An extract of this letter is published by Alexander Finberg, The Life of J. M.W. Turner, RA (Oxford, 1939),p. 357, with no record of location. Also partially transcribed and recorded as untraced by Gage, p. 197. Bothdate the letter to 1835. Hugh Andrew Munro (1797-1864) art collector and amateur artist, who financedTurner’s journey to Venice in 1833, and with whom Turner travelled through France to Italy in 1836. Thisletter probably dates from around 1835-6. The Platt collection contains three letters by Munro (vol. 1, f. 54;vol. 5, ff. 144-5; vol. 13, f. 158).


Fig. 13 and 14. Letter from J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) to Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro, ofNovar (1797–1864), c. 1836, Tab.438.a.1, vol.1, ff. 49-50.

Fig. 14.



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Monday 4 o’clockMy Dear Sir,

Lord Egremont71 having sent word that he wishes me to dine in Grosvenor Place tomorrow,Tuesday may I request the favour of your call [illegible word] for Thursday Evg if I do nothear from you to the contrary I will consider it so fixed and will be at home at the time yousaid of 8 o’clock.

I have the honourWith most faithfully,JMW Turner

HA Monro Esq

Vol. 8, f. 151. Turner to William Bernard Cooke (1778-1855), engraver and publisher, with hisnote and signature72

There is something in the manner of your note received yesterday Evng so extraordinaryand differing so materialy from the conversation of Wednesday last that I must request youto reconsider the following [end of fragment]

(Autograph of J. M. W. Turner RA – signed on the other side W. B. Cooke)

[Verso]

I am Dear SirYoursJ. M. W. Turner

Vol. 13, f. 12. Turner to Mr Webb [?] 73

J. M. W. Turner presents his respects to Mr Webb and he will have the honor of waitingupon him on Friday next in Langham Place

Queen Anne St West

Vol. 9, f. 14. Turner to Benjamin West (1778-1820), painter74

71 George O’Brien Wyndham, third earl of Egremont (1751-1837), art patron, agriculturist, and philanthropist.Turner was a regular visitor at his home, Petworth House, Sussex, from 1827 to 1837, and Thornbury recordsthat Turner ‘spent some of his happiest days there.’ The collection includes manuscript material by Egremontat vol. 10, f. 148.

72 Gage, p. 120. Gage tentatively dates the letter to late 1826. Cooke is represented by autographs at vol. 6, f. 88;vol. 7, f. 26; vol. 8, f. 151; vol. 12, f. 112; and vol. 13, f. 180.

73 Not included in Gage.74 Gage, p. 64. Gage notes that West had become PRA in 1792 but seems to have overlooked the break in his

office in 1816. He was in the habit of striking medals in self-commemoration (see J. T. Smith Nollekens andhis Times, vol. ii, pp. 384, 396-7). West spoke highly of Turner’s Bridgewater Seapiece in 1801 (Finberg, Lifeof Turner, p. 71), but by 1807 was an outspoken critic (ibid. pp. 125, 133, 135). He is represented byautographs at vol. 1, f. 163; vol. 2, f. 40; and vol. 6, f. 24.




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Queen Ann St WestJuly 11 1816

Dear SirNot being so fortunate as to meet with you at home to return you my thanks in person forthe Medal (sent to me on Monday) in commemoration of your twenty-fifth year as Presidentof the Royal Academy - I now take the opportunity of assuring you that your kind attentionto me as an Artist and likewise the present honorable notice of me as a Member of the RoyalAcademy will be ever most sincerely acknowledged and felt by –

Dear Sir, your most truly obligedJ. M. W. Turner

B. West EsqPresident of the Royal Academy &c &c &c &c.

[verso] Mr Turner Letter to Mr West

Vol. 9, f. 134. Turner to Emma Wells, daughter of William Frederick Wells (bap. 1764, d.1836), watercolour painter, etcher and drawing master75

Dear Emma, I am sorry to say that at present I am hard at work in the Gallery but shall be happy to havea peep at you in the Parlour whenever you pleaseYours trulyJ. M. W. Turner

[Verso]

Miss WellsJ.M.W. Turner EsqrQueen Anne Street West

75 Gage, p. 93. Also published by Jack Lindsay, J. M. W. Turner. His Life and Work. A Critical Biography(London, 1966), p. 234, n. 6. Possibly from 1820. See also research notes by W. T. Whitley, author of theinfluential Art in England, 1821-1837 (Cambridge, 1930). These are held in the British Museum Departmentof Prints and Drawings. There Whitley transcribes the letters quoted in his publications with their sourcesand describes the collection as a whole as ‘TURNER Extended life by Thornbury, the 1862 edition, compiledby John Platt of Clifton Lodge, Llandudno. At BM given during the War, I think. Thirteen volumesmagnificently bound in red morocco – volumes as large or larger than the old Art Journal and “end papers”of rich corded silk. Each volume in a black leather case, into which it slips. Numerous illustrations and MSletters.’ 1546 ‘Platt’s Turner at BM. Pencil note from Turner on rough piece of paper stained here and therewith colour – very friendly – to Miss Wells – apparently young – daughter of Wm Frederick Wells,watercolour painter.’



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Vol. 5, f. 148. Sir Charles Lock Eastlake (1793-1865), painter and art administrator toNathaniel George Philips (1795-1831), painter76

Rome 12 Piazza Mignanelli77

Feby 10 1829

My dear Phillips

I was very glad to hear so good an account of you from Ewing78 – that you had finished &satisfactorily finished your Banditti picture & that a set is to be exhibited & engraved – Iremember the numerous designs made in the Haymarket (perhaps Miss C. sat for youoccasionally) & they seemed to promise a good group.The commission you have with Ewing & the kindness which prompted it is felt by him duly& he is sparing no pains to make a piece of clay very like me (being ready to begin it inmarble forthwith) it is thought to be one of his best so far & if oversimplicity [?] does notoperate to the prejudice of his work you will have another good specimen of the little man’spowers – in return for what can only be considered a liberal & kind remembrance [?] of oldfriends, on whom it will not be lost.You have doubtless heard of Severn’s marriage in this he has really been very fortunate, ifgood fortunate can ever attach itself to the word marriage – to some it is a contradiction –to you & myself perhaps, tho’ for very different reasons – to be because I have left it too long,to you ‘non si sa perché’ but Severn was married without much consideration like all that

76 The section of this letter regarding Turner is often quoted without a source in modern biographies byscholars using W. T. Whitley’s Art in England, 1821-1837 as a guide, in which he deliberately does not cite thelocations of the works he consulted: Whitley, 1930, p. 159; Finberg, p. 311; Lindsay, Turner, p. 166; IanWarrell, J. M. W. Turner, (London, 2007), p.138. Also noted by John Gage, who does note the source andprovide a shelf mark for the collection, in ‘Turner’s Academic Friendships: C. L. Eastlake’, BurlingtonMagazine, ccx: 789 (Dec. 1968), Special Issue Commemorating the Bicentenary of The Royal Academy(1768-1968), pp. 677-85 (p. 679, n. 20). Gage may have followed the clues in Whitley’s research notes (seeabove). The paintings mentioned are Regulus 1828, reworked 1837 (Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J. M. W. Turner, 1979, P294: Tate 519), View of Orvieto, painted in Rome 1828, reworked 1830 (Wilton 1979P292: Tate 511), and Vision of Medea, 1828 (Wilton 1979, P293: Tate 513). Eastlake uses similar phrases whendescribing Turner’s work in a letter to Lawrence dated 9 December 1828: George Somes Layard, Sir ThomasLawrence’s Letterbag (London, 1906), p. 211. Thornbury quotes Eastlake describing Turner painting andexhibiting these paintings (vol. i, pp. 221, 319-20. The extra-illustrated Thornbury contains four other lettersfrom Eastlake which Whitley does not cite, and others formerly owned by Platt have been dispersed: the saleof John Platt’s library (detailed above) included lot 275 ‘Eastlake (Sir C.) Correspondence of, comprisingautograph letters from Tom Moore, Sir Robert Peel, Spencer Perceval, Sir T. Lawrence, etc. etc, withportraits, in a large scrap-book.’

77 Thornbury quotes Eastlake as saying that Turner stayed with him in this house and painted the worksdescribed in this letter there ‘When Turner was in Rome, in 1828-29, he resided in the same house with me(12 Piazza Mignanelli, where Mr Percy [Penry] Williams now lives). He painted there the “view of Orvieto”,the “Regulus” and the “Medea’” (Thornbuy 1862, p. 221).

78 William Ewing, sculptor working in Rome in the 1820s (described by Joseph Severn in a letter to CharlesBrown May 2 1821, Grant Scott (ed.), Joseph Severn: Letters and Memoirs, Aldershot, 2005).



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happens to him & he is now even happier than before – it was difficult for him to be muchhappier but he has really reason to be so, for he might have gone a great deal further & faredwell.79

With respect to the Via Gregoriana I know nothing altho’ I occasionally visit some peoplewho live in the home you lived in – I did meet Confidati80 but how long ago I can hardly say& he said they were ‘tutti bene’You will have heard of Mr Turner’s visit to Rome he worked literally night & day here, beganeight or ten pictures & finished & exhibited three all in about 2 months or little more \morethan a/ thousand \persons/ formerly [illegible word struck through] went to see his workswhen exhibited & you may imagine how astonished, enraged or delighted the differentschools of artists were at seeing things with methods so new, inventions so daring, &excellences so unequivocal - The angry critics have I believe talked most & it is possible youmay hear of general severity of judgment, but this is many did justice & many more will tofain to admire what they confessed they dared not imitate. You will probably see in theexhibition two of the pictures - Regulus \(a sea-port)/ & a view of Orvieto - the third wascalled the Vision of Medea the figures principal, very bold & poetical & most agreeable ingeneral colour. An old acquaintance of yours has been sometime in Rome & does not seem inclined to bear[?] it, I allude to Mr Solomon Gibson81 – the most extraordinary thing he has done since Ireturned from England was walking from Subiaco to Rome in a day – his brother82 is goingquietly & steadily as usual he has lately done a Narcissus [?] very beautiful – Wyatt83 is doinghis nymph bathing in marble. Severn is going blind [?] or has sent his fountain (country girlsat a fountain) for the Exhibition84 & Williams has sent a subject of Italian costume85 – I havenothing. The print which is to be dedicated to you is not yet finished, I told the lady, whoseems the presiding person, that she was to apply of Freebairn86 when it was done & givehim the print or prints to read [?] – she has a note of your orders – There is no carnival onaccount of the Pope’s death. Believe me, my dear Phillips,Yours very sincerely,C. Eastlake

[Addressed to Nathaniel George Phillips Esq, 32 Rodney Street, Liverpool]

79 Joseph Severn (1793–1879), painter. Joseph Severn and Elizabeth Montgomerie were married on 5 October 1828 in Florence. (David Kaloustian, ‘Severn, Joseph (1793–1879)’, ODNB[www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25132, accessed 14 Aug 2009].

80 Unidentified.81 Solomon Gibson (1796/7–1866), sculptor.82 John Gibson (1790–1866), sculptor. RA 1829 he exhibits 1119 Cupid, a statue in marble, and in 1831 1195

A nymph untying her sandal (nothing in 1830).83 Richard James Wyatt (1795–1850), sculptor. RA 1831 1191 A nymph going into the bath, a statue in marble.84 Joseph Severn (1793–1879), painter. RA 1829 18 The lovers…, 235 A Venetian warrior taking leave of his wife,

404 An Italian scene, 1830 440 The Fountain.85 Penry Williams (1802–1885), painter. RA 1829 30 The return…, 1830 38 A Roman beggar woman and her child,

285 Italian peasants praying to the Madonna.86 Alfred Robert Freebairn (1794/5–1846), engraver and etcher?



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Vol. 7, f. 70. Richard Westmacott (1799-1872), sculptor, to Nathaniel George Philips, painter(1795-1831)87

[Describing the Royal Academy Exhibition, 1831; opposite Thornbury’s mention ofCaligula’s Palace and Bridge, Bay of Baiae and The Vision of Medea, p. 319]

My dear Philips,

When I look back I can hardly conceive it possible that so much time has passed and that I haveallowed it to slip by without fulfilling two of what I consider not merely pleasures but duties –namely writing a letter to you and a letter to my still older friend Severn on the state of the Belle Arti – but the truth is I have been so fogged, bothered & harassed that I have beenunable to sit down quietly & properly to anything like friendly gossiping – my Mancanga [?]has been lying heavily on my conscience; you shall have the first fruits of my return to order & next week I must try to do my duty to Sir Giuseppe Imperini[?] The Exhibition, ‘tho kept open some time after the usual time has not been so productive by 4 or 500 £ as in former years – this information I procure behind the scenes. I must say for myown part that I think it was underrated for altho’ we wanted Lawrence & Jackson88

(& their top rally was great) there were a vast number of pictures of ordinary mint, & I wasparticularly gratified, as were others who do not swear all by face painting, to see such a varietyof subject Pictures – Hilton, Etty & Briggs had extensive compositions containing passages offorce, feeling & colour that showed that we have it in us when there is any opportunity ofproducing historical art.89 Wilkie chose to exhibit but 2 Pictures – both Portraits!90 Good ofcourse, but I think Pickersgill91 carried away the Palm in that department – Landseer was verystrong – so to show that it is extremely difficult to say in what his Pictures were deficient –expression, drawing, composition colour & great care appeared in all he exhibited92 – Turner was

87 Partially quoted by Whitley, Art in England 1821-1837, p. 212, with the same section regarding Turnerrepeated in other sources such as Butlin & Joll, The Paintings of Turner, revised edition (New Haven, 1984),p. 189. The paintings described are RA 1831 73 Life-Boat and Manby Apparatus going off to a Stranded VesselMaking Signal (Blue lights) of Distress (Wilton 1979 P336: V&A); 162 Caligula’s Palace and Bridge (Wilton1979 P337: Tate 512), 178 Vision of Medea (Wilton 1979 P293: Tate 513), 263 Lucy, Countess of Carlisle, andDorothy Percy's Visit to their Father Lord Percy... (Wilton 1979 P338: Tate 515), 288 Admiral Van Tromp'sBarge… (Wilton 1979 P339: Soane Museum), 298 Watteau Study by Fresnoy's Rules (Wilton 1979 P340: Tate514), 406 In this arduous service (of Reconnaissance) on the French coast, 1805… (Wilton 1979 P341: privatecollection). In addition to those quoted above, the extra-illustrated Thornbury includes letters to NathanielGeorge Phillips from William Allan, Edinburgh 29 June 1824 (vol. 8, f. 87) and John Jackson, Grove EndRoad, St Johns Wood, May 23 1831 (vol. 8, f. 81). Lot 265 of the sale of Platt’s library was ‘Nathaniel G.Philip Correspondence of, comprising about 90 autograph letters, from Sir Wm Allen, Sir C. L. Eastlake,Richard Westmacott, and others, in portfolio’.

88 Sir Thomas Lawrence, (1769–1830), painter and draughtsman, chiefly of portraits; John Jackson(1778–1831), portrait painter and copyist.

89 William Hilton (1786–1839), painter. RA 1831, 64 Sir Calepine rescuing Serena, 168 The Angel releasing Peterfrom prison. William Etty (1787–1849), painter. RA 1831, 144 Nymph angling, 163 Window in Venice during afiesta, 170 Sabrina from Milton’s Comus. Henry Perronet Briggs (1791–1844), antiquary and subject painter.RA 1831, 55 The Progress of Civilisation, 151 Portrait of a lady and child, 344 Sir Edward Hall Alderson, 487Portraits of a lady and infant.

90 Sir David Wilkie (1785–1841), painter of genre, historical subjects, and portraits. RA 1831, 62 LadyLyndhurst, 91 Viscount Melville.

91 Henry William Pickersgill (1782–1875), portrait painter. RA 1831, 70 Lady Clanwilliam, 133 Lord Lyndhurst,171 Edward Lytton Bulwer, 172 Lieut-General the Rt. Hon Sir George Murray GCB, 291 Sir John GearsCotterell, 393 Charles Kemble.

92 Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, (1802–1873), animal painter. RA 1831, 86 Interior of a Highlander’s House, 146Poachers deer stalking, 147 Little Red Riding Hood, 293 The poacher’s bothy, 301 Poacher and red deer.



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also not only strong al solito in talent but in numbers 7 or 8 Pictures were by him – One only wasvery mad – a Medea raving in the midst of her bedevilments & incantations. You can conceivehow Turner would out-Herod Herod on such matters! He had one very clever smaller work of avessel in distress in the distance, blue lights &c. I think Soane bought it. He had also the ruins ofCaligula’s palace at Baiae, gorgeous & grand but unintelligible to the multitude93 – Callcott (whobye the bye has been very ill, but is now recovering) had 8 – varied and all beautiful some werethought a little chalky (I did not peruse it), but two or three sunny Pictures were delicious.94

Eastlake was very clever – one of his works a Contadino, wife & child, half lengths, size of lifewas as broad & grand as Titian, he wanted force, the critics said, & it struck me so too & hisshadows were a little too red or bloody – it gave [illegible] & the flesh but it hardly looked healthy95

– the President (how I jump) shows in his portraits at which we were all very glad96 & of SirWilliam Beechey the less that is said the better – the King & Queen were sad97 – Constable hada large landscape full of talent but very odd – most coarsely painted, it looked as if it were workedin worsted & had then been powdered98 – Phillips had his full number of portraits & they weremuch liked99 – Westall was hardly decent – he had Faust dancing waltzing with a naked girl (alittle bit of transparent drapery over parts) size of life – & Margaret (from Faust) size of lifepraying100 – Leslie had an inimitable little scene from Tristram Shandy – The Widow and MyUncle Toby in the Sentry Box – she making him examine her eye – you remember the passageof course101 – I have fully well run through the big wigs – Allan had one ‘Ld. Byron reposingchez a Turkish Fisherman’ – good of course but con rispetto parlando not equal to himself102 –Partridge is striding onwards103 – a Mr Liverseege had 2 small & very clever subject pictures104 –the D. of Devonshire bought one of them I shd have mentioned Newton amongst the Academymen as very effiec [cut away] great, bran [damage to paper] strength & colour.105 The sculptureroom was full, & made a fair show [damaged area] in number by my father, Gibson, Wyatt, Gott,Rennie, Hind..[cut away] and myself – two or three groups, [illegible] in fact a very tolerable

93 See above.94 Sir Augustus Wall Callcott (1779–1844), painter. RA 1831, 11 Dutch Coast, 61 Evening, an Italian Landscape,

97 Morning, 122 Italian Landscape, 135 Canal of Bruges, 136 A mill dam, 307 View of Trent in the Tyrol, 417A sunny morning.

95 Sir Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865), painter and art administrator. RA 1831, 78 An Italian family…, 125A peasant woman fainting from the bite of a serpent; 300 Haidee, a Greek girl.

96 Sir Martin Archer Shee (1769–1850), portrait painter and writer. RA 1831 105 Miss Eliza Cooper, 112 JohnWoolmore, 148 Pascoe Grenfell, 161 Sir Robert William Vaughan.

97 Sir William Beechey (1753–1839), portrait painter. RA 1831, 65 His Majesty, 66 Her Majesty, 127 William F.Norton, 177 the late Lord Mayor, 264 portrait of a Lady.

98 John Constable (1776–1837), landscape painter and draughtsman. RA 1831 123 Yarmouth Pier, 169 SalisburyCathedral from the meadows.

99 Thomas Phillips (1770–1845), portrait painter. RA 1831, 6 Wilson Patten MP, 24 The Earl of Winchelsea, 87Lord Stowell, 106 Lady Jane Walround, 165 The Rev. Dr Sleath, 189 William Phipson, 289 Sir AlexanderJohnstone, 410 J. Nixon.

100 Richard Westall (1765–1836), painter and illustrator. RA 1831, 1 Margaret at church, tormented by the evil one, 33Faust preparing to dance with the young witch…, 124 The death of Mary Magdalene, 156 A Boy breaking frozen turnipsfor the cattle, 164 The late Alexander Burdon, 234 Holy Family, 314 Moonlight, 356 Landscape – twilight.

101 Charles Robert Leslie (1794–1859), literary genre painter and author. RA 1831 113 The dinner at Mr Page’shouse, 238 A scene from Tristram Shandy.

102 Sir William Allan (1782–1850), painter. RA 1831 32 Lord Byron Reposing in the House of a Fisherman.103 John Partridge (1789–1872), portrait painter. RA 1831. 23 The Countess of Guilford, 45 Master Frederick Tighe,

195 Uva Svelte, 218 A portrait.104 Henry Liverseege (1803–1832), painter. RA 1831 28 Sir Piercie Shafton…, 72 Scene from Hamlet.105 Gilbert Stuart Newton (1794–1835), artist. RA 1831 7 Subject from the Merchant of Venice, 152 Lear attended

by Cordelia and the Physician.



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display106. I don’t know what was thought amongst the Big Wigs of us Romans – but we tried todo our best – Gibson was not quite himself but Wyatt’s nymph was beautiful – Gott in dogs &Children was good too – Cambell not awry [?]107. Rennie told pretty fairly too – Macdonald, conrispetto, failed108 – my dear fellow how I wish you had been one of us, either as an Exhibitor oras a Looker on for I know what an interest you take in Art. Uwins109 is here but says he will notexhibit till he can paint – for they know nothing about it where he has been & nothing arrivedfrom Severn. I believe I shd have written to you before but I hardly liked to remind you of ourgoings on when I knew that for the present you could not join us – but tell me that you like suchgossipings & I will not fail to be your newsman – I know you won’t let my criticisms get aboutso I shall not fear to say to you what I think – Lodge110 left town on Saturday – I have seen butlittle of him for he is a man of pleasure I have much to do to get either name or money & can’tbe a mere flitterabout we met at the opera sometimes & were very happy – I don’t know whetheryou know Mr Bruther [?] the Captain111 – he got married one morning to a nice person & hasgone to Sidney (5 days ago) as Aide de camp to the [word illegible] it all happened so suddenly &unexpectedly that I can hardly think it true – I am in a state [illegible word] too poor, and withanxiety enough without it, to dare to think of adding a lady to my little establishment – I wish Imay not have tired you with this long letter – pray let me hear from you, or if you find writing atrouble, of you. I remember with sincere pleasure all the happy days we have spent together &continually rail against fate which obsesses [?] one in working through the world to delay doingthe little graces of life amongst them through [?] communicating with our friends of times goneby – Lodge told me you were at Childwall – I therefore direct to you there & oblige you bypresenting my best comp[limen]ts to all your kind family. Yours truly R.W.W.

[postscript]

Incornati112 [?] is here, come to spec in teaching Italian – he gives a good account of ourRoman friends, particularly of Wyatt & Gibson – Ewing seems to be quite forgotten by all– I never hear of him – Trentanove also called upon me last week – he is come I suppose tolook out for employment but I doubt that scheme answering113 – Can I do anything for youhere don’t hesitate to employ me if I can – I trust you will tell me that you are gettingstronger & better. I have not talked to you about your sickness & long confinement; whyshould I talk write on painful subjects, but I have heard often of your through some of yourkind friends – amongst them Lodge, Henderson, Harvey, Bell114 & others – let me havesome good news to tell them from yourself

[Addressed to Nathaniel G. Philips, Childwall, W. Liverpool, postmarked July 29 1831]

106 Sir Richard Westmacott (1775–1856), sculptor. RA 1831 1197 Statue in marble of the Late Mrs Rawson. JohnGibson, (Solomon did not exhibit) – see above. Richard James Wyatt, see above. Joseph Gott (1785–1860),sculptor. RA 1831, 1163 Marble group of a boy and dog, 1223 Marble group of Venus dissuading Adonis from thechase, 1224 The madness of Athamas. George Rennie (1802–1860), sculptor and politician. RA 1831 1196Group in marble of Cupid and Hymen, 1102 Bust of John Rennie, 1206 Bust of Chevalier Thorwaldsen, 1210 Bustof Sir Edward Banks. ‘Hind…’ has not been identified. Richard Westmacott (1799–1872), sculptor. RA 18311164 Venus carrying away Ascanius.

107 Thomas Campbell (1791–1858), sculptor. RA 1831 1180 Sketch for a statue of Earl Grey, 1217 Bust in bronzeof the Duke of Wellington, 1227 Statue portrait of a lady as a muse.

108 Lawrence Macdonald (1799–1878), sculptor. RA 1831 1205 marble bust of Mrs Brougham, 1216 Marble bustof Mrs Balfour, 1232 Marble statue of a child.

109 Thomas Uwins (1782–1857), painter, illustrator, and art administrator. Does not exhibit in RA 1831.110 Not identified.111 ditto112 ditto113 Possibly Raimondo Trentanove, Italian sculptor (1792-1832).114 Possibly Andrew Henderson (1783–1835), portrait painter, Sir George Harvey (1806–1876), figure and

landscape painter, and Robert Charles Bell (1806–1872), engraver and draughtsman.



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Vol. 9, f. 131. Francis Hawkesworth Fawkes (1796-1871), son of Walter RamsdenHawkesworth Fawkes (1769-1825), friend of Turner and art collector, to Henry Mogford (1787-1874) picture dealer, author and antiquary

Farnley – Septr 301854

Sir, I did not return Home from the Continent till two days ago, where I found your letterdated Aug. 28 awaiting my arrival, and I hasten to assure you, as early as is in my powers,that you will always be most welcome to see all the works of Art by Turner that I possess,whenever it may be most convenient to yourself

I am SirYr most obdntF. H. Fawkes

Henry Mogford EsqrF.S.A.115

Vol. 12, f. 155. Thomas Creswick (1811-1869), landscape painter, to William Bernard Cooke(1778-1855), engraver and publisher116

[Sent from Birmingham, 21 August 1832; partially transcribed]

[…] I am exceedingly obliged for your kindness respecting the River Scenery &c &c theplates are beautiful & will be very useful to me as an artist.[…]

115 The extra-illustrated Thornbury collection includes other letters to Mogford, such as from Richard Redgrave, 18Hereford Gate, 4 June 1852 (vol. 4, f. 64); Alfred Edward Chalon, 10 Wimpole St, 10 March 1853, vol. 13, f. 82;Frederick Nash, 44 Montpelier Road, Brighton, 17 June 1855 (vol. 4, f. 74); Frank Dillon, 4 Montague Place,Russell Square, 20 April 1857 (vol. 8, f. 167); Gustaf Waagen, 7 Fitzroy Square, undated (vol. 11, f. 125); CharlesRobert Leslie, 2 Abercorn Place, St Johns Wood, 15 March 1856 (vol. 11, f. 147); Henry William Pickersgill, FernLodge Barnes 30 June 1856 (vol. 12, f. 157); Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar, 6 Hamilton Place, 3 July1852 (vol. 13, f. 158); John Henry Le Keux, 23 July 1860 (vol. 1, f. 64). Mogford helped organize the fine artssection at the Crystal Palace and was in touch with leading artists of the time. John Platt collected a large amountof his correspondence, as the sale of his library includes lot 263, ‘Artists. A collection of about 1,300 Autographletters of Artists, to Henry Mogford, arranged in 4 portfolios’ (sold to Wells for £1 12s 6d). Some of Mogford’sletters are now in the City of Westminster Archives Centre (Accession 988/16, 42, 47).

116 There is a large body of correspondence between publishers, engravers and artists in the collection regardingprintmaking. Some of the letters can be interesting in giving details of the costs involved, for example the publisherF. J. Du Roveray, writes to a copper plate printer E .W. Richards in May 1798, (vol. 2, f. 92): ‘Sir/As I have someplats to print, for a new edition of Glover’s Leonidas, which I am about to publish, I shall be glad to know yourterms for doing them with the best ink, and with the utmost care possible? The plats are highly finished, 4 inchesby 3 upright, and I might put two or three into your hands, from each I would want about 900 Prints. As most ofthe Plats are already in my possession, I could wish to receive your answer as soon as possible, and likewise to knowhow many impressions you could work off in a day (paying that attention to them which I wish) that I may judgehow long the whole would take to print./Waiting your answer, I remain,/Your most Obt Svt/FJDuRoverary/Friday evening No.14 Gt. St Helens, Bishopsgate Street/ [another hand] 3 shillings and sixpence p500 best ink and printing Proofs/3 shillings the others/Will be delivered in about 10 days/Your very humble EWRichards/ [Verso –] Mr Richards/ Copper Plat Printer/Mear’s Street/Soho’. [Postmark 10 o’clock, 26 May, 98 fnoon/Lombard Street unpaid].



38

Vol. 12, f. 19. John Ruskin (1819-1900), art critic, to his assistant Crawley117

[Marked instructions for hanging Ruskin’s exhibition of his collection of Turnerwatercolours at the Fine Art Society in 1878]

On letterhead paper, stamped: Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire

12th February 1878

Dear CrawleyI can’t get the catalogue quite done – but here are the numbers of the most importantterminal drawings, fixed.+ 54. Dinant +118

+ 55 Rolandseck + >small119

56. Rouen, my precious [?] small gold frames120

+57 sketches here121

58122

+ 59 Faido. Rock Sketch – in table [?] at Oxford123

60124

61 Sketches here small gold frames all125

See over

[verso]

+ 62 Coblentz +126

+ 63 Constance +127

+ 64 Zug +128

+ 65 Goldau +129

+ 66 Faido & Gothard Convent & stones +130

117 See John Ruskin, Notes by Mr. Ruskin on his collection of Drawings by the late J. M. W. Turner, R.A. (London,1878), in The Works of John Ruskin, edited by E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (London, 1903-12), vol.xiii, pp. 392-537. Ian Warrell has very kindly identified the Turners Ruskin mentions here, as below. Hesuggests that the discrepancies in the numbering compared with the published catalogue suggest that somefine tuning went on in the gallery before it opened to the public (email 18/8/2009). The Ruskin School ofDrawing and Fine Art, Oxford, holds another letter to Crawley written the same day giving instructions forthe transportation of the drawings from Oxford to London (RS 29).

118 E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, (eds.) The Works of John Ruskin, vol. xiii, p. 450, no. 53, Dinant on theMeuse (Wilton 1979, no. 1026: Newcastle).

119 Ibid, p. 450, no. 54 or 5, On the Rhine or Twilight [unclear which this is].120 Ibid, p. 451, no. 56 Rouen, from St Catherine’s Hill (Wilton 1979, no. 966: private collection).121 Ibid, p. 451, no. 57(?), Tell’s Chapel, Lake Lucerne (Wilton 1979, no. 1480: Yale Collection of British Art).122 Ibid, p. 453, no. 59(?), Bellinzona (Wilton 1979, no. 1489: Manchester).123 Ibid, p. 452, no. 58 Dazio Grande (Wilton 1979, no. 1492: Rhode Island School of Design).124 untraced.125 ditto.126 Ibid. p. 454, no. 62, Coblentz (Wilton 1979, no. 1530: Cincinnati).127 Ibid, p. 454, no. 63, Constance (Wilton 1979, no. 1531: York).128 Ibid, p. 455, no. 64, Lake of Zug (Wilton 1979, no. 1535: Metropolitan, New York).129 Ibid, p. 455, no. 65, Goldau (Wilton 1979, no. 153: private collection).130 Ibid, p. 456, no. 66, Pass of St Gothard (Wilton 1979, no. 1538: Whitworth, Manchester).



39

+ 67 Arona +131

+ 68 Dark Italy with cows in water132

69 Big big Geneva here to be at end of room133

+ 70 Fleuelen to be hung under Turners portrait at the other end +134

Yrs always affect.J R

Vol. 6, f. 38. William Woollett (1735-1785) printmaker, Receipt for ‘The Death of General Wolfe’

May 3rd 1776 Rec:d of Mr Boydell twenty four Guineas on Account for 24 prints of Gen.Wolfe. Wm Woollett.135

Vol. 3, f. 42. John Robert Cozens, Caesar’s Tower near Martinach, August 31 1776, pencil, inkand watercolour on paper which has been folded vertically, 230 x 349 mm (fig.15)

Richard Payne Knight took Cozens on a tour of Switzerland in 1776, and most of theresulting views are now in the British Museum. This drawing of the Castle of La Batiaz,near Martigny in Switzerland was last recorded as in the possession of William Ward ofRichmond, Surrey, in 1898, bought at a sale at Sotheby’s as one of a group of nine drawingsfrom the collections of Richard Payne Knight and the Hon. Rowland Allanson-Winn. JohnPlatt has written ‘This identical drawing by John Robert Cozens was copied by J. M. W.Turner (probably at Dr. Munro’s)’ in pencil beneath the image. The Turner watercolour herefers to is held by the V&A.

Vol. 13, f. 92. Undated leaf from the notebook of James Barry (1741-1806) painter, describinghis work on the decoration of the Great Room in the Adelphi136

Orpheus ---------- Ancient Universal hist Vol V

See Cudworth & the Universal History for the Egg – & the Orphick doctrines –wild fruit shaking from ye trees, acorns &c some figures to bind between ye old man and the

131 Ibid, p. 456, no. 67, Arona, Lago Maggiore (Wilton 1979, no. 730: private collection).132 Ibid, p. 457, no. 68, Italy of the olden time (Wilton 1979, no. 401: Wolverhampton).133 Ibid, p. 458, no. 69, Geneva (Wilton 1979, no. 370 YCBA).134 Ibid, p. 459, no. 70, Fleuelen (Wilton 1979, no. 1541: YCBA).135 For descriptions of this very lucrative publishing venture, see Charles Mitchell, ‘Benjamin West’s “Death of

General Wolfe” and the Popular History Piece’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vii (1944),pp. 20-33, Alan McNairn, Behold the Hero: General Wolfe and the Arts in the Eighteenth Century (Montreal,1997), pp.147-53 and Louis Alexander Fagan, A Catalogue Raisonne of the Engraved Works of William Woollett(London, 1885), pp. x-xv.

136 The series was started in 1777 and first exhibited in 1783, but Barry continued to retouch the canvases onnumerous occasions until his death in 1806. See David Allan (ed.), ‘The Progress of Human Knowledge andCulture’ by James Barry (London, 2005).




Fig.

15.

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41

foot of Orpheus – ye Lyon too little – ye light of ye lions mane extended nearer ye womanbreast who carries ye fawn & upon her face so as to make her look over ye other shoulder X ye

\skin twined over more to extend ye light/ Tibullus B.1 Eleg. 3 ye note from Thompson –place Ceres & Bacchus in ye extreme distance of ye sky as coming down \alphabet &c/ ye Eggbefore him & before ye altar. a fight between men & lyons in ye distance where ye man is aretorn &c.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ThamesHardware, Manchester &c in ye Shell – Trade laws, ye right breast of Mercury bad. – yeright arm of ye Thames bad – ye head of ye second nymph bad, ye right knee of ye nymphon her back to be raised – Arm of ye first nymph bad. – ye back of ye third nymph bad, swellsout too much – ye upper abdomen of ye Thames not large enough. – \ye nymphs carryingropes [?] art [?]/ & arts & sciences &c introduced every where by navigation – by ye marinerscompass – vices & luxury also – Europe wants occiput & hair –

[Verso]

Elysium

Popish penal laws falling into hell, & commemoration sermons on powder plots, Irishrebellions &c, - The great light or glory behind ye palms & from thence dying away &spreading insensibly gradations over ye picture to be warm – naples yellow & white like yeevening sun, but not so firey, ye cooler lights for ye extremities, dying away into purple &bluish & blackish near ye hell. Bacon, Copernicus & that whole groupe to be in mezzoscuro– a ridge of clouds gradually rising ascending somewhere behind Plato & figures walking up& down, they may be somwhat largish, perhaps about ye size of distance of Sapho or less ormore as will appear when I see the whole effect – behind all ye clouds going like ye seats ofan amphitheatre for as every where to give an idea of infinitude & plenitude – ye chains ofseparation twixt ye two plates [?]. – the hand of the larger angel over ye orrery too little. yenipples of Miss Grace too low – Alfred’s harp – ye left shoulder of ye younger son ofDiagoras to be lower – all Dante’s drapery of ye same colour – Miss Grace’s other wing[diagram] so – ye wings of Urania thicker at ye roots –

----------------------------ye rock to run up edgewise near Euphranor & Callimacus so as to make a decided seperation– Enchiridion – Cicero’s offices & Tusculum – Plutarch – Sappho more light under herright breast spread – Wm Pen not so upright – Domenichino pointing to Hussey

------------------------------------------------------Drapery of Lycurgus to be lighter more ye colour of that of Brutus to make a mass ‘tis nowspotty.



42

Vol. 2, f. 14. Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), consort of George III, to Frederick, Prince, dukeof York and Albany (1763-1827), army officer and bishop of Osnabrück, second son of GeorgeIII and QC

My dearest Frederick.

I received your Letter when I was in the Town of Richmount going out on an Airing. I havewrote to the P. of W. that I have had an opportunity of mentioning to the King that I was inpossession of those Papers, & must now leave it to His judgement when He thinks it fit toperuse them. Should I meet with a proper moment of mentioning your request to the KingI shall not fail to do it, but that will certainly not be to day as He has already seen a goodmany People & and is now out a walking which of course will make it too late.

I am my dearest Frederick

Your very affectionate

Mother & Friend

Charlotte

Kew The 6th Febry1789137

Vol. 6, f. 20. John Boydell (1720-1804), engraver and printseller, to Mather Brown (1761-1831), painter

SirI have sent you a draft for thirty Pounds Guineas as you desire & will pay the rem. soon. Youhave had from me1793 May 21st 21:0:01794 Apr 3 31:10:01795 May 19 31:10:0

84:0:0

Rem. due 21:0:0£105 – 0-0

I will call on you at the first opportunityI am SirYr Humble Servt

137 Very little royal correspondence exists from this period, and this letter is not recorded in Arthur Aspinall’sLater Correspondence of George III (Cambridge, 1962-70) vol. i, pp. 397-9, where the letters jump from 18Dec. 1788 to 23 Feb. 1789. George III was removed to Kew on 29 November 1788 and on 24 January arestraining chair was introduced. Throughout February 1789 his health steadily improved: on the 3rd he wasallowed to shave himself for the first time in three months, on the 17th he was able to see the Lord Chancellor.On the 23rd he saw the Prince of Wales and Duke of York, and the following day the Prime Minister. On 26thGeorge ordered that public bulletins on his health be discontinued. On 3 March he and the Queen took uplife together again, and his recovery was celebrated on 9 March. On the 14th he returned to Windsor. SeeChristopher Wright, George III (London, 2005), pp. 121-3. Fanny Burney writes of meeting the Kingwalking in Kew on 2 February 1789: Fanny Burney, Journals and Letters (London, 2001), p. 280.



43

John BoydellCheapsideMay 19th 1795

Verso: Mr Mather Browne, Cavendish Square138

Vol. 1, f. 160. James Barry (1741-1806), painter, to Robert Fullerton Udny (1722-1802), artcollector (draft)139

Dear SirI have delivered ye prints140 to Mr Smith according to your order \when he called for themyesterday/& have added another print wch I beg you will accept of as it is connected with& rectifies a mistake in ye series both of ye pictures & prints and the & of ye pictures of thatwork at the Adelphi. Mr Smith has paid one the three guineas & has said a great \deal/about \your/ admirable collection of prints & etchings, wch naturally enough wereuppermost in his thoughts & wch he prefers to his own. It would make me very happy tohave have an opportunity of paying my respects to you & Mrs Udney at Tulsington141 & totake a fresh draught of that satisfaction I never fail to receive from an inspection of thelegitimate pictures of ye good old schools; but it is impossible at least for ye present mycircumstances & much more my pursuits nail me to \ this / spot where I am \endeavouringto/ carrying on another work for ye publick even still more extensive than that at ye Adelphi,ye better to effect this & to steal it upon ye publick without their being once troubled withany mention of it until it come before them & every attention & means in my command have

138 The American artist Mather Brown (1761-1831) contributed an oil painting of ‘Richard II Resigning hisCrown to Bolingbroke’ to Boydell’s Shakespeare’s Gallery, now lost but engraved by Benjamin Smith in 1801.This receipt matches accounts kept by Brown, as noted by Dorinda Evans, Mather Brown: Early AmericanArtist in England (Middletown, 1982), p. 104. He was ‘not paid for his historical picture immediately, but,rather, he received instalments that were spread out over at least a four year period. The total sum was aboutthe average amount that Boydell paid for such pictures, but it was less than half the amount that the engraverlater received for producing his careful copy … Two of Brown’s receipts are in a nineteenth century albumon him in the library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The first reads “Received May 21st.1793 of Messr. Boydell, Twenty Guineas upon amount of One Hundred Guineas for a Picture painted by mefor them out of the Play of Richard the Second – Mather Brown.” On May 19, 1795, he signed anotherreceipt: “Received of Mr. Alderman Boydell, the Sum of Thirty Guineas, (by the hands of his Servant MrRobert Powell) being the 3d payment on Account, for the picture of Richard the 2d”. Probably there was afourth payment since the third is not declared final.’ The collection also includes a receipt made out toThomas Cadell on 28 March 1795 by John and Josiah Boydell for two guineas as the second subscription tothe seventh number of the Shakespeare with text, large & small plates, and three guineas as the firstsubscription to the eighth number (vol. 12, f. 72), and Shakespeare Lottery ticket no. 603 (vol. 6, f. 69).

139 Published in Whitley, Artists and their Friends in England, 1700-1799 (London, 1928), vol. ii, pp. 230-1,without the erased passages and with corrected spelling.

140 Lot 59 of the twelfth day’s sale of part one (Lugt 6451) of Udny’s Prints, Books of Prints, Portfolios andValuable Library, is described as ‘Eight – the pictures painted, or intended, by Barry, in the great room of theSociety of Arts, etched by himself ’. (Part one 26 May 1802-10 June 1802 and part two (books and books ofprints) 11 June 1802-13 June 1802, Lugt 6451 and 6464).

141 Teddington, Middlesex.



44

been devoted to it. I without not daring to venture upon ye expense of a servant, I or tolessen my expenses by adm letting any part, of it I live \alone/ in a small house of 40 £ ayear where there is a large \room/ wch had been a carpenter’s shop & would answer mypurpose most admirably were I suffered to enjoy it in quiet, but whether owing to the\various/ influences of a combination wch has long annoyed me, or whether owing to thecasual interferences of mere common thieves of wch there is no want, but I have about afortnight since had my house broke open whilst I was out, before 10 a clock at night &robbed of a sum nearly as [illegible] something more than 200 £ I have lately had a severerap on ye knuckels however thank God wch however tho it has something interrupted yet Ithank God & my freinds, it will not \much/ cripple or prevent my carrying on this workwch I have so much at heart. As it would take up too much time & indeed as I am not inspirits to give you any idea what ye work is, wch could not be done without launching outpretty largely into ye constituent parts of art, into ye conduct of ye Greek and ye old Italiansin their several modes and treatment of those parts & into those matters wch connect yewhole with ye age & country we live in: all this will be better reserved for your inspection,at least a good part of it you can see whenever you will favour me with a visit.

I am Sir with great esteem & respect yourMost ever humble sevt J.B.

Castle St Oxford MarketJan 8 1795

Mr Udney [in pencil]

Vol. 3, f. 56. William Hodges (1744–1797), painter, to Ozias Humphrey (1742-1810), painter

Burton House, Brixham, Torbay, Dec 1 1795142

My Dear Humphrey

Various have \been/ the circumstances and occurrences which have prevented me fromfulfilling my promise to you when I left London to write – the getting together in decentorder my little cottage, and arrangements in and conducting a business which has become aconsiderable object to me – and the whole weight of which has rested on my weak shoulders– time to come I hope for some little respite – and I promise myself the pleasure again tomeet my old friends – but I must first take care my present [illegible] don’t get the rickets –and when fairly on its legs – I may take my flight for a little time – The few excursions I havemade from home has [sic] given me uncommon pleasure – the variety – the richness and thebeauty of this country I think is not be parralleled in the Island of Great Britain – theverdure is here continued through the year – and that in its utmost variety at all season – Ishall live in hopes some occasion or other will bring you once again into Devonshire to noneI well and truly say could you be more welcome than under the roof of my house – at leastI can show you Torbay – although not so large as the Bay of Naples – it yet possesses a beauty

142 Hodges left London for Torbay and attempted to establish a bank there in 1795. Ozias Humphrey’s paperswere collected by his only son, William Upcott (1779-1845), antiquary, and are mainly in the Royal Academy.See The RA Archive online www.racollection.org.uk/, Jean Agnew, Report on the papers of Ozias Humphry,R.A. (1743-1810): in the custody of the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London,Historical Manuscripts Commission (Series), vol. i, (London, 1972), and V. Remington, ‘Humphry, Ozias(1742–1810)’, ODNB [www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14165, accessed 19 Aug 2009]



45

I have never before seen… and the river Dart is too high in character for me to say anything.I shall my dear Humphrey, be greatly obliged by your communication of anything relativeto the arts – and to hear of the individual artists whom I have ever held in the highest respectfor their talents and as gentlemen – and whatever success may attend you in your pursuitswill and must be a real pleasure to your friend

W Hodges

You will be happy to hear that Mrs Hodges has enjoyed tolerable good health since she hasbeen here – and who desires me to mention her best regards to you – WH

Ozias Humphrey Esq.

Vol. 10, f. 37. John Constable (1776-1837), Hyam Church – Suffolk, pencil on laid papermounted on cardboard, 257 x 378 mm (fig. 16)

A light pencil sketch of Higham Church, Suffolk, undated, but assumed to be an earlywork.143 Initialled ‘I.C.’ within the image in pencil lower left, in a hand unlikely to beConstable’s, and annotated by John Platt on recto in pencil with the title, ‘By John ConstableR.A.’ and ‘Signed ‘I.C.’ by John Constable’. The verso is annotated in an unknown hand inpencil ‘By J. Constable R.A., from the Collection of Eustace Constable, the painter’sgrandson’. The catalogue of this sale includes Lot 30. Hyam Church, Suffolk, which isdescribed as a framed drawing, unpriced. It was sold together with lot 29, Sketches for thelarge Salisbury (2) and lot 31, Studies of Figures - three in one frame, for 9 shillings to‘Ward’ who also bought several other drawings.144

The extra-illustrated Thornbury also includes a draft introduction, dated 28 May 1832,by John Constable to English Landscape, the series of twenty-two mezzotints engraved byDavid Lucas under Constable’s supervision, and issued in parts from June 1830 to July1832145 (figs 17, 18 and 19), and three mezzotints from the collection.

143 Peter Bowyer and Conal Shields came to the British Library and assessed the work following theannouncement of its discovery.

144 Catalogue of the Works of John Constable R.A., comprising upwards of Seventy Pictures, drawings and Sketches inoil, and a large number of Drawings in pencil and chalk, From the collection of Eustace Constable, Esq. Grandsonof the Painter sold by auction by Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods, 8 King Street, St James’s Square, Thursday,April 16, 1896. Email correspondence with Marijke Booth, Archives Assistant, Christie’s ArchivesDepartment, 17/04/2007.

145 Vol. 10, ff. 38-40. See Felicity Myrone, ‘Introductions to Constable’s English Landscape’, Print Quarterly,xxiv: 3 (September 2007), pp. 273-7.




Fig.

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Fig. 17, 18 and 19. John Constable (1776-1837), manuscript draft of the introduction to English Landscape.Tab.438.a.1, vol.10, ff. 38-40.



Fig. 18.



Fig. 19.


50

Vol. 3, f. 53. Joseph Farington (1747-1821), landscape painter and diarist, Rosslyn Castle, 22 Sept. 1801, pencil and white chalk on brown laid paper; 260 x 330 mm (fig. 20)

Farington records visiting Rosslyn Castle and taking this view in 1801:

Tuesday Septr. 22 …. At Eleven we made an excursion to Rosslin Castle 7 miles fromEdinburgh, a place much admired by the people of this Country, at least it is muchtalked of by them. – The situation of the Castle is fine and there is very picturesquematter abt. the place, but whatever the Scotch may say in admiration of it, no desertedspot can be more neglected than this as to accommodation or means of seeing it toadvantage. The walk we traced was a dirty & difficult path, and the underwood hasbeen allowed to grow so generally that it was with great pains we were able to get toany points from which we could see the Castle & water at the same time… In short ifI may so express myself Rosslin is a place that has been allowed to run to weed, andits principal beauties are in consequence so difficult to be seen that it is probable fewgo there who have a full idea of it – Offley accompanied me in exploring up to theknees in wet grass and holding by the bushes the sides of the dell to get a fair view ofthe Castle which we at last obtained and made each a drawing146.

Signed and dated by the artist in pencil; John Platt has written ‘Original Drawing by JosephFarington R.A. ROSLYN CASTLE’ in pencil on the backing board.

Vol. 11, f. 136. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), novelist

On letterhead paper, stamped: The Cornhill Magazine, Smith Elder & Co.

36 Onslow Sq. S.W.

March 11

My dear Professor

What flower grows on Putney Heath in June? Give me the scientific name for a pretty oneplease.

Also the medical name for soda water.

Yours ever

WMT

146 Kenneth Garlick and Angus Macintyre, The Diary of Joseph Farington, vol. v, August 1801-March 1803 (NewHaven, 1979), pp.1629-30.




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. 3, f

. 53.


52

Vol. 4, f. 54. Tom Taylor (1817-1880), playwright and comic writer

4 Hare CourtTemple

My dear madam

You may hear of an involuntary change of hats, which took place after your most pleasantparty. If you should, I am a party person concerned, finding myself with a half-foreignlooking broad-brimmed production of Mssrs Wilkinson no 80 Strand. Should the owner ofit apply to you for information in restitution at ‘the Slums’ be good enough to say that hisbeaver is in my perception [?] to [illegible word] be returned in exchange for mine, whichbears the name of ‘Downe’s Strand.’

I think of the two my hat is the best – I am the bolder to write to you as no imputation canattach to me.

Have I made an exchange with Freiligrath?147

I can assure you, as I believe you will be glad to hear it, that Tennyson148 enjoyed himself lastnight extremely and said emphatically it was the pleasantest London party he had everassisted at.

Very truly yoursTom Taylor

Thursday

147 Ferdinand Freiligrath (17 June 1810-18 March 1876), German writer.148 Alfred first Baron Tennyson (1809-1892), poet.


J. M. W. Turner and his World: John Platt (1842-1902), a ... · Thornbury’s text, collected and...

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Transcript of J. M. W. Turner and his World: John Platt (1842-1902), a ... · Thornbury’s text, collected and...