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A bound manuscript compendium of statutes, orders and decrees relating to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Covering the period 1585 to 1661, the contents reflect the physical and curricular expansion of the College during its first 75 years of existence.

The first half (folios 1-43) contains the Latin text of the College’s first statutes as provided by its founder Sir Walter Mildmay. The second part of the manuscript (folios 44-81) comprises orders and decrees primarily in English concerning such matters as the borrowing and buying of books from the college library, stipends, rent rates for chambers and rules of the use of the college tennis court. In 1630, one of the decrees ordered that no student ‘shall size bread and beer anywhere but in the Butteries, nor have Dyett provided for them constantly out of the College’ (p. 63). The onset of a plague epidemic eight years later also features prominently. Scholars and fellows of the College were permitted to ‘have free leave to betake themselves thither, where they shall be able best to provide for their own safety, and that notwithstanding the same, they shall receive in the time of their absence the allowance from the College…’ (p. 68) In 1651, misbehaving students were threatened with fines and imprisonment when it was discovered that some of them ‘not regarding their own birth, degree, and quality have made divers contracts of marriage with women of mean estate, and of no good fame in the town to their great disparagement, the discontent of their Parents and friends, and the dishonour of the government of that our University’. Students were strictly forbidden to ‘resort to such houses and places as are mentioned in the said Statute to eat or drink or play or take tobacco, to the misspending their time and to the corrupting of others by their ill example, and to the scandalizing the government of our said University.’ (pp. 71-72)

The volume is most likely from the library of William Shaw (1688-1739) of St John’s College, Cambridge, Rector of Akenham and antiquary. Among the Clarendon Papers held at the Bodleian Library are two further manuscripts from the collection of William Shaw, namely an eighteenth-century commonplace book (MS. Clar. dep. c. 413) and an eighteenth-century volume of ‘Extracts of Records &c. relating to St John’s College in the University of Cambridge’ (MS. Clar. dep. c. 414). The Emmanuel College volume has an eighteenth-century numbering on the inside front cover (No. 47). The two manuscript volumes in the Bodleian Library bear identical numbering, respectively nos. 100 and 46, placing the latter just next to our volume, also relating to a Cambridge college.

The inside cover of the volume contains the bookplate of Charlotte Villiers, Countess of Clarendon (1721-1790), formerly Lady Charlotte Capell, heiress to the wealthiest branch of the Hyde family and wife of Thomas Villiers, Baron Hyde and later 1st Earl of Clarendon (both titles acquired through his marriage). The family seat, The Grove, the name of which appears on the bookplate, was located near Watford, in Hertfordshire. It was acquired in 1753 by Thomas Villiers and turned into one of the most fashionable country homes in England.

Manuscript letter book bound in vellum, containing copies of letters sent by Thomas White. The letters are mostly concerned with land transactions, the collection of rent and other matters relating to the management of White’s extensive portfolio of properties. His concerns in Ireland feature prominently, particularly his attempts to find new tenants for his Limerick estates and an agent to collect their rents. One Irish tenant, George Evans, proved exceptionally troublesome. When their long-standing dispute over unpaid rent was finally resolved, White rushed to praise Henry Dallway ‘for the services you have don [sic] me in my affair with Coll Evans, we have gained a glorious victory over a difficult Enemy’ (17 Jul 1707, p. 106).

White was very particular about his money, complaining in one instance of a remittance being a shilling short (4 Dec 1708, p. 139) and pointing out to his Irish agent Christopher Tuthill that ‘You are not very exact in your accounts as I can perceave [sic] by the mistakes you had made to your own disadvantage’ (25 Jan 1708/9, p. 145). Yet, he was no miser. In a letter to his aunt, White notes that ‘It is far from my Temper to pinch Servants in their allowance, I should rather take a pleasure to see them thrive.’ (11 Sep 1711, p. 240). When building a new barn, he instructed the contractor William Wright to ‘doe every thing well, and lett all your work be very Substantiall and the materialls good, & if you wrong me in any thing lett it be only in the price’ (23 December 1710, pp. 216-217). Likewise, although an astute businessman who had no hesitation to resort to the long hand of the law when required, White was also quite reasonable in his dealings. In 1709, he accused a Mr Peartree for abusing and mismanaging his woods and threatened the man with a law suit, expounding that ‘in case it comes to a Tryall I shall then expect whatever is awarded me besides the Costs, & there I hope it will be considered not what Benifitt he has don [sic] to himself but what prejudice he has don to me & those that come after me. The punishing him I reckon a price of justice due to mankind, That other persons may be discouraged from the like practises & that future Generations may not Suffer for want of Tymber’. However, when Peartree capitulated without recourse to a trial, White immediately and willingly accommodated his request to defer the payment of damages from midsummer to Michaelmas (2 June 1709, p. 165).

Hovering in the background of White’s business endeavours is the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). The letter book reveals the many ways in which the ongoing conflict affected the financial markets and frustrated land transactions. In the wake of rumours of imminent peace in May 1709, White notified Messrs Meade & Copley of his decision to ‘defer sending you the foul Draft of your Lease in confidence of a speedy peace, for Since the Preliminaries are all agreed, & that it is very probable it will be proclaimed & ratified in a short time, I think it better for us both to defer the Leases till then’. (26 May 1709, p. 163). A mere six weeks later, he was forced to write again to regret that ‘The hopes of a peace being contrary to every bodys expectation blown over, ’tis now so uncertain when that happy day will come that I think it improper to defer the Leases till that time’ (7 Jul 1709, p. 167). At least he did not go as far as the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, who ‘were So confident of an undoubted peace that the following Inscription was put upon one of the foundation Stones of the House now building at St Jameses… viz This Stone was laid by John & Sarah Duke & Dutchess [sic] of Malbourough [sic] in the Year of peace’ (14 Jul 1709, p. 168).

Thomas White’s observations are not limited to business transactions. Court gossip and current affairs also feature prominently. White provides a vivid account of the damage done by the great storm of 1703, which claimed the life of Rear-Admiral Basil Beaumont (30 Nov 1703, pp. 24-25), and describes in some detail the harshness of the winter of 1708-09 during which the Thames River ‘has been thrice frozen over’ (1 Mar 1708/9, p. 152). The last-mentioned letter also contains a graphic account of Mr Lythe, ‘the Master of St Dunstans Coffee house’ and his attempts ‘to destroy himself by three severall deaths in the Space of a Quarter of an hour’; and a fight between two men, of whom one was killed, ‘upon no other Quarrel than a dispute which had the most beauty of the 2 maids of honour’. He refers to the vicious attack against Dissenters in a sermon preached by the high church Anglican clergyman Henry Sacheverell at St Paul’s Cathedral in November 1709 and his subsequent impeachment by the House of Commons (21 Feb 1709/10, p. 185; 4 April 1710, p. 188). No fewer than three letters (28 Dec 1710, 13 Jan 1710/11 and 18 Jan 1710/11) mention the death of the wealthy plantation owner Francis Tyssen the younger and the contents of his will, which left his entire estate of £300,000 to his eldest son and only nominal sums to his other six children. In addition to ignoring his offspring, Tyssen gave short shrift to the poor. ‘Most People’, White noted in the second of these letters to his friend and distant relative Sigismund Trafford, ‘are of your opinion that a Gift for the Education of poor Children or Some such Charity would have been a commendable Legacy for a man of his vast Estate’ (p. 219). There are also several letters on the series of state lotteries in 1710-1711 established to raise government revenue for the War of the Spanish Succession and the pandemonium they caused when people scrambled to purchase the tickets issued for sale. White was among the eager participants, but after several disappointing rounds was obliged to concede that ‘I doe not find that I am like to grow rich by Lotterys’ (10 Nov 1711, p. 244).

Many of Thomas White’s letters are addressed to friends and relatives, among them his maternal aunt, Mrs Margaret Crowther, and his friend Sigismund Trafford, whose second wife was distantly related to White. The letters to Trafford, an older and much wealthier man, are simpering and flattering in tone, and refer to Trafford as ‘my noble patron’. Court gossip features prominently in these missives. ‘I have no room to say any thing of the Birthnight Ball’, White reported to his friend on 22 February 1710, ‘only that the Lady Louisa Lennox Daughter to the Duke of Richmond bore away the Ball for Beauty & appeared So charming that her Lover the Earl of Berkly [sic] could live no longer without her, for they were married the next Day.’ (p. 226).

Letter dealing with private family matters are more serious in tone. White had not yet married at the time the letter book was compiled, and expressed concern that ‘good wives are so scarce that I am afraid I shall live to be an old Batchelour, if the World is so mercifull as not to think me one already.’ He also describes himself as ‘a Batchelour with more than the cares of a married man’ (4 Apr 1710, p. 188). Some of these cares were the consequence of the hardship experienced by his sister whose husband, Bedingfield Heigham, was not only of a violent temper but also careless in his financial affairs. White’s letters reveal that Heigham and his family were evicted from their house at Dalstone and that he subsequently experienced a spell in a debtors’ prison (see 18 Aug 1710, pp. 202-203). White went to considerable lengths to ensure the comfort and safety of his sister and nieces but felt no such compunction towards her unruly husband. ‘Since I wrote you last’, White relates in a letter to his aunt, ‘my Sister & I have had a wonderfull deal of perplexity with the perverse man. He has been as troublesome as he could possibly contrive to be. …our Affairs are now put into Such a posture, that I hope we Shall enjoy more quiet for the future, than We have don of late’ (26 Feb 1711/12, p. 256). All in all, the letter book provides remarkably rich and varied insights into life in the first decade of the eighteenth century.

Thomas White’s correspondents, in alphabetical order, are as follows:

Caleb Avenant, Worcester
Richard Avenant, Worcester (father of Caleb)

Joseph Bandon, ‘at Newcastle near Lymrick’
Jacob Beaufoy, ‘either at Archangle [sic] or Moskow in Russia’
James Boys, Coggesshall, Essex
John Brand
Thomas Bright ‘at Netherhall near Bury in Suffolk’
John Butler

John Carter, Aldermanbury, [London]
Hannah Collins, Shelsley, Worcestershire
John Cooke, ‘Lashleys near Steeple Bumpstead in Essex’
John Copley, Newcastle, Limerick
John Corder, Stoke, near Nayland, Suffolk
[Margaret] Crowther, Thomas White’s maternal aunt

Henry Dalwey [also Dallway], Dublin
Joseph Deavonsheir
John Dickings [?]

William Eaton, Kingsland [London]
George Evans, Limerick
William Glascock, ‘at Hasso Bury near Bishops Stafford in Essex’
James Gould, Marestreet, Hackney

Mr Hargrave
W. Harris, Dalstone, Hackney
Joseph Hull, Stoke, near Nayland, Suffolk
Thomas Hunt, ‘in New Court in Swithins Lane London’

Edward Jackson, Salop

Thomas King, Hackney

Williamson Lloyd, Colchester

Andrew Meade, ‘at Newcastle near Lymrick’
William Molmouth, Lincoln’s Inn

Chester Nance, Trengoff, near Fowey, Cornwall
Robert Nettles, Limerick
John Newton, attorney-at-law in Colchester
Richard Norris, ‘Merchant in Leverpoole’

Charles Odell, Limerick

John Peisson, Stoke, near Nayland, Suffolk
Richard Price, ‘at Ryslipe, near Harrow with in Middlesex’

Valentine Quin, [Adare,] Limerick

[Mary] Ram, Stoke, near Nayland, Suffolk
William Ram, Stoke, near Nayland, Suffolk

Mr Savil, ‘merchant in Colchester’
Joseph Sewell
Benjamin Smythe

Sigismund Trafford ‘at Dunton Hall in Tidd St Mary’s’
Edward Trotman
Christopher Tuthill, Limerick
Hannah Tuthill, Limerick

Alexander Walford
Samuel Weaver
Philip Wheake, ‘at Mrs Frosts near the Colledge Gate in Winchester’
Henry Widenham, [Court, Kildimo,] Limerick
William Wright, Nayland, Suffolk

Jer. [Jeremiah?] Yates

The letter book contains White’s own pagination throughout, but there is an error in numbering, with p. 183 appearing twice.

Manuscript entitled ‘The Irish Establishment’ comprising 44 gilt-edged leaves totalling 88 pages, 12 of which are blank, in Cambridge panel calf binding contemporaneous with the contents. The document bears the official title ‘Anne R. An Establishment or List containing all Payments to be made for Civil Affairs from the Twenty fifth day of March 1704 in the Third Year of our Reign for the Kingdom of Ireland.’ It is one of several copies of a formal register of annual payments to be made to maintain the civil and military offices in Ireland at the expense of the sovereign.

The document commences with the civil list, outlining masters’ fees and other expenditure of the courts of the Exchequer, Queen’s Bench, Chancery and Common Pleas and those of the officers and ministers attending the state, customs officers, commissioners of appeals and non-conforming ministers. Also listed are payments towards perpetuities and pensions, the upkeep of lighthouses and payments made out of the concordatum fund for ‘extraordinaries’, such as ‘keeping poor Prisoners & Sick & Maimed Soldiers in Hospitals’. There is also a 13-page list of the names of French soldiers to whom pensions were to be paid following the disbanding of the French regiments that served in Ireland.

The civil list is followed by the military list, which includes allocations of money towards military contingencies and incidents and the maintenance and upkeep of regiments of horse, dragoons and foot and superior and inferior officers in charge of the Ordnance. The third and final list records payments to be made to half-pay officers and governors of garrisons, military pensions and the annual charge for maintaining and upholding all the barracks in the four provinces of Ireland. The document also provides a summary of increases and decreases in certain annual payments.

The manuscript is either incorrectly bound, or faithfully copied from an incorrectly bound version. Text on p. 56 ends mid-sentence and continues on p. 73. Pages 57-72 should follow p. 73, except for pp. 71-72, which should follow p. 80.

A number of previous owners have left their mark on the document. These include Simon Cavan, who signed p. 88 with the note ‘Simon Cavan his Book Anno Domini 1785’. The signature ‘H. Cotton’ appears on the endpaper at the beginning of the book and on the title page. This was Henry Cotton (1789-1879), Archdeacon of the Diocese of Cashel from 1824 until 1872, who previous to that appointment served in Cashel as librarian at the Bolton Library and domestic chaplain to his father-in-law Richard Laurence, who was appointed Archbishop of Cashel in 1822. There are no shelf or other marks to identify this particular volume as having ever formed part of the Bolton Library and must therefore have been part of Cotton’s private book collection.

The endpaper and flyleaf at the beginning of the book bear the stamp ‘C. A. Vignoles’ left by the very Reverend Charles Augustus Vignoles (1789-1877), Dean of Ossory and Dean of the Chapel Royal, Dublin, a fourth-generation Huguenot from Portarlington. Finally, the inside cover is signed ‘Herbert C. C. Uniacke Clogheen Co Tipperary December 1903’. This was Lieutenant General Sir Herbert Crofton Campbell (1866-1934), an officer of the Royal Artillery.

3 April 1712-15 March 1719/20
Manuscript letter book bound in vellum, containing copies of letters sent by Thomas White. The book is a sequel to P25/1 but its contents bear a much stronger emphasis on family affairs and topical news than business affairs, which dominated the first volume.

Thomas White continues to follow the progress of the Spanish War of succession and observes that ‘wee live in an age of so much uncertainty, that it is a difficult matter to know what to believe’ (15 May 1712, p. 3). He also makes observations on the political fallout of the controversy surrounding the subsequent peace negotiations, which led to the impeachment of Robert Harley (Earl of Oxford), Henry St John (1st Viscount Bolingbroke) and others in 1715 and the Jacobite rising of 1715-16 and the heightened atmosphere it created across the country. He makes mention of the hanging for treason of William Paul, a clergyman and John Hall, Justice of the Peace for Northumberland and the ‘virulent speeches’ they left behind, ‘contrived on purpose to spread the poison wider, & foment fresh troubles' (17 July 1716, p. 109). He notes the Austro-Turkish war of 1716-1718; and the signing of the triple alliance between Britain, France and the Dutch republic.

Thomas’s letters to his friend and distant relative Sigismund Trafford contain society news and gossip. State lottery continues to feature prominently, and Thomas himself benefits from a modest windfall of £13. He discusses at length the first performance of Joseph Addison’s play Cato and reactions it has caused; and provides Trafford with a list of ‘New Books which are most read’, which include The Barrier-Treaty Vindicated [by Stephen Poyntz], Hiero; or, the Condition of a Tyrant [translated from Xenophon] and A Discourse of Free-thinking [by Anthony Collins] (30 December 1712, p. 14). In subsequent letters he describes the outrage the two last-mentioned books have caused among the clergy and the sermons from the pulpit they have occasioned. Thomas also describes the celebrations caused by the expiration of the three-year preaching ban imposed on the controversial high church clergyman Dr Henry Sacheverell (24 March 1712/3, pp. 23-24). In a later letter Thomas notes that ‘Dr Sacheverell is as great an Idol as ever, on the 31st of January there was such a Crowd to hear him, that they raised Ladders against the Church Windows’ (3 February 1714/5, p. 59). He describes the exceptionally wet summer of 1713 and its consequences, and follows with interest the progress of the general election in July and August 1713. There is a long gap in letters between Jan 1713/4 and September 1714 because Thomas is in France with [Benjamin] Lethieullier, youngest son of Sir Christopher and Lady Jeanne Lethieullier [née de Quesne].

Thomas’s personal life during the course of the letter book was wrought with sorrow. He records the death of his youngest niece [Mary Heigham?] on 13 April 1715 of ‘Rheumatism in her Stomack’ (19 April 1715, pp. 65-66); the death of his sister, Hester Heigham, which occurred on 24 October 1717 (2 November 1717, p. 127); and the death of his friend Lady Jane Lethieullier on 3 April 1718. Thomas’s aunt Margaret Crowther also died during the summer of 1718. Some of the letters deal with testamentary matters arising from her death, including the appointment of new trustees to the deed of settlement concerning the Free School of Weobley established by John Crowther in 1660 (23 January 1719/20, pp. 169-70; 18 February 1719/20, pp. 175-76) and 15 March 1719/20, p. 180).

Happier personal occasions include Thomas’s courtship of Olivia Western, to which he makes oblique references in 1717 and 1718 prior to the couple’s wedding in June 1718. He notes of his wife that ‘I have a great Prospect of being happy with her having chosen her more for the sake of her good qualities than any other Consideration whatsoever, & there are no Ladies in all this great Citty who have had a more serious education that those of that Family’ (3 June 1718, p. 141).

Following his marriage and the death of his aunt, Thomas’s letters are limited mainly to business matters, primarily the buying, letting and upkeep of property, ejectment of unwanted tenants, the collection of rents and tithes and the sale of trees. He also gives instructions for the building of a new farm house ‘of four Rooms on a Floor with Chambers above & Garrets over, & sellars [sic] underneath, & proper offices adjoining’ at Wormsley Grange, Herefordshire (27 February 1719/20, pp. 176-177), possibly the subsequent birth place of the classical scholar and theorist of the Picturesque, Richard Payne Knight.

Thomas White’s correspondents, in alphabetical order, are as follows:

Daniel Arthur

Paul Bertrand
James Brown
Mr — Browne ‘Attorney at Law at Bromyard in Herefordshire’

Mr — Carter ‘a Carpenter in Hereford’
Charles Childe ‘in Bath’
Samuel Collet ‘at the Postern in the Green Yard near Moregate’
Hannah Collins
John Copley
John Corder ‘at Stoke near Nayland in Suffolk’
Margaret Crowther

Benjamin Fallows ‘at Maldon in Essex’
John Fenwick ‘at Billingsgate’
John Floyd ‘at the Grainge at Wormsley near Weobly in Herefordshire by Weobly Bagg’
Thomas Franklin

Percyvall Hart ‘at Lollingstone in Kent by the Dartford Bagg’

David Jones
Rebecca Jones ‘at Dalstone’

John Littell
Williamson Lloyd ‘in Colchester’

Matthew Martin ‘at Wivenhoe in Essex’
Samuel Martin ‘at Whistaston to be let at Mr Carpenter’s a mercer in Weobly in Herefordshire’
Thomas Matthew ‘in Walbrooke’
Andrew Meade
Richard Morris ‘at Dalstone in Hackney’
Nicholas Morse ‘in Hoggesdon’

Richard Neave
John Newton
Nicholas North ‘in Mare Street in Hackney’

Francis Ram ‘at Stoke near Nayland in Suffolk’
Mary Ram
Mr — Robertson, ‘to be left at the post office in Lymrick’
Augustine Rock, merchant in Bristol

Richard Salwey ‘in Ludlow in Shropshire’
Joseph Sewell
Richard Skikelthorp

John Towns ‘at Stoke near Nayland in Suffolk’
Sigismund Trafford
Hannah Tuthill ‘at Kilmore near Lymrick’
John Tuthill ‘at Faha near Lymrick’

George Wade ‘at Christ College in Cambridge’ and ‘in Hartford’
John Walker ‘at Dalstone’
Abraham Ward ‘at Stoke near Nayland in Suffolk’
Edmond [Edmund?] Watts ‘in Watling Street’
Robert Weston ‘in Norfolk Street’
Mrs Wheake ‘at Marselles’

Jane Yates

The letter book contains White’s own pagination throughout, but there is an error in numbering, with p. 180 numbered as 110.

Bound hardback letter book containing copies of some 1,200 letters sent by shipping merchant Samuel Monsell of Tervoe, county Limerick in the course of managing his extensive trading activities in Ireland, England, France, Holland and Spain. The letters deal in the main with the buying and shipping of goods, the insuring of cargoes and the complex financial transactions on which trading depended. The letters provide information on the names of ships and their captains going in and out of Limerick harbour, the cargo they contained and the fluctuating prices of goods over the years. The most common items in which Monsell traded included wheat, beans, hops, beef, pork, butter, tallow, hides, tanned leather, staves, coal, turf, salt, soap, candles, wine, vinegar and tobacco. The letters illustrate the difficulties of trading in perishable goods and the utter dependence of the business on good weather. In a letter to William Cleavland, written on 29 December 1723, Monsell notes that Captain Thomas Tarlton ‘was seen at the rivers mouth with 2 or 3 more sailes that has been outward bound and ready to saile these six weeks or 2 months past and the wind has Continued S. E. ever since till this morning.’ As a consequence of the vagaries of winds, trade fluctuated wildly between shortage and excess. Many of Monsell’s letters are written in response to queries from merchants seeking information on the current price of goods or attempting off-load goods that had flooded the market. On 8 September 1723, Monsell advised Robert Low of Liverpool that ‘this is no markett for leaf tobaco unless extraordinary good… sugars of noe kind will do here they are supplyed from Corke with refined sugars cheaper than you can afford…’

One way to protect goods was to ensure that the casks used for transportation were of the highest quality. To safeguard himself against potential loss, Monsell took extra measures as he explained in a letter to Arthur Hamilton of Liverpool, 24 September 1723: ‘I oblidge Every Cooper I deal with to burn their names att length on the Cask and any Cask that proves bad by leaking pickle they must pay for the barrell, att least itt will keep them in awe and make them take Care & Make their barrels good’. Insuring not only the cargo but also the vessel was paramount. Merchants often pooled together to hire a vessel, each insuring their own part of it. One insurer Monsell used was Joseph Percival of Bristol. On 26 May 1724, Monsell instructed him to ‘make the Insurance soe that in Case of Loss I should Recover soe much as I mentioned for the goods Cost me £815 Irish and the ⅛ of the Ship £64 English’.

In 1724, Monsell had to deal with the failure of his Cadiz-based business, Monsell & Stacpole, and its near-catastrophic financial consequences. Tired of the high-risk nature of trading and constant delays in payments, he decided to retire ‘to my country house within 3 miles of the town’ and only ‘Export the produce of my owne grounds and resolve Intirely to Quit trading onely what I doe to Cadiz’ (Monsell o John Moniers, 9 April 1725). From this date onwards, Monsell’s letters deal mainly with land transactions as he set about increasing his estates in counties Limerick and Clare. In December 1723, he ‘purchased the Manor of Doonass which Cost me £3000 it is worth me about £400 per annum a Lease for 99 Years’ (Monsell to Messrs Monsell & Stacpole of Cadiz, 17 January 1724). Almost exactly two years later, he took ‘from our new Bishop my owne part and Twigs part of Mungrett as also I have purchased the fee of KilGobbin near Adare 262 acres of as Good Land as any I know… I have likewise Got Castle Ceale near Carrigoran for £1000… my Bargain In Castle Keale Is worth a Thousand pound more than It Cost me, with a little Improvement’ (Monsell to his son Samborn Monsell, 26 December 1725). In the end, he came to learn that land speculation was almost as wrought with complications as trading.

In addition to trading and land speculation, Monsell’s letters are rich in vignettes of other aspects of his life. He describes contentious council meetings, during one of which ‘Jack Roach began to use me with such freedom as I was nott able to beare… and was oblidged to make use of my Cane to Correct the old Raskell for his unmanerlyness…’ (Monsell to General Pierce in Dublin, 12 October 1725). In 1722, he purchased a wig but was obliged to return it to the manufacturer Francis Montgomery, it ‘not being fitt for my use tis neither full Enough of hair nor wide Enough on the head’ (18 October 1722). In November 1724, his life took a dramatic turn when he ‘had the Misfortune to have a dispute with a Gent in a narrow room & both our swords being drawn & my Servant man in & endeavouring to part us run himself in the Other Gents sword & recd it in his right breast of which he died Instantly[.] Thank God I have no hurt but one through my left hand which is in a fair way of doing well & the other Gent in his right breast which will likewise do well…’ (Monsell to Robert Adair, both 13 November 1724 ). The sword severed the tendons in Monsell’s hand and caused an injury from which he never fully recovered.

Monsell’s wife and children, particularly his three eldest sons, also feature prominently in his letters. He took care to provide his sons with a good education and find suitable positions for them. His eldest, William, who eventually succeeded to Tervoe, was sent to London to study law. The second son, Samborn, was set up in Dublin as a merchant, but proved a unreliable business partner to his father, repeatedly failing to deliver his messages or to act upon his instructions. Exasperated by his antics, Monsell warned him sternly to ‘for Godsake never omitt any business I give you on charge what you think may be no consequence may be of the most to me.’ (Samborn Monsell, 15 March 1727). When his third son, John, was about to set off on a voyage with shipment of beef, Monsell offered him this fatherly advice: ‘keep the men to their duty, pray take care how you behave yourself, for your life dont drink more than what you can well bear, nothing makes a man of business more ridiculous than being in drink & nothing recommends a man more than being a sober man…’ (24 December 1726).

The most frequent recipients of Monsell’s letters include his sons William and Samborn Monsell; the latter’s father-in-law Daniel Conyngham, merchant of Dublin; Monsell’s business partner Thomas Stacpole in Cadiz; merchants Arthur Hamilton of Liverpool, John Finlay of Dublin, John Monier of London, William Crosbie & Co. of Liverpool, Francis and William Lynch of Cork, Dublin, London and Nantes, Brian Blundell of Liverpool, Crisp Gascoyne of London, Edward Webber of Cork, James Browne of Dublin and William Cleveland of Liverpool; attorney Bryan McMahon; the private bank of Messrs Burton and Harrison of Dublin; Thomas Sinnott of Ratoath, Dublin; Messrs Harper & Morris of Cork; Sir Henry Hugh of Dublin; Messrs Webb and Addis of Limerick; Joseph Perceval of Bristol; and Lucy Southwell (née Bowen) of Dublin.

Fragment of a diary sporadically kept by the Reverend Samuel Monsell (1743-1818), curate of Mallow from 1766 to 1780; Precentor of Ardfert from 1791 to 1811; and Vicar of Clondulane from 1805 until his death in 1818. Monsell was the younger son of the Reverend Daniel Monsell from his second marriage to Deborah née Tuthill and grandson of the shipping merchant William Monsell of Tervoe, county Limerick (for whose letter book see P29/1/1). He had a younger sister, Anne, and an older half-brother, Captain William Monsell, from his father's first marriage to a cousin, Mary née Monsell. At the time of diary, Samuel's uncle William Monsell and his second wife Dymphna née Pery resided at Tervoe.

Monsell appears to have derived the idea of journaling from Pythagoras’s advice to review one’s day at bedtime and in the morning and to have favoured the format of a commonplace book devised by the English physician and philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). References to a large commonplace book Monsell was compiling are scattered throughout the diary, and the uneven pagination suggests that it originally formed part of such or some other much more substantial document. The first part, paginated 34-58, comprises a coherent narrative, to which have been added fragments of six other pages. The first four of these are numbered 620, 669, 675 and 681, respectively, while the last two fragments bear no pagination.

The journal covers Monsell’s time as a student of theology at Trinity College, Dublin, where he enrolled in 1757, and his curacy in Mallow from 1766 until 1777. The diary is brooding and introspective, providing an intimate view of a tormented man who repeatedly fails in his attempts to lead a virtuous life and who seeks God’s forgiveness and the strength and discipline to mend his ways, only to fall time and again at the first hurdle. The diary is simultaneously an account of Monsell’s daily activities as a student and curate and a confessional in which he lays bare his sins. Throughout the course of the diary he is in perpetual debt and struggling to avoid his creditors. As a student, he steals books and food from his fellow students and makes futile attempts to ingratiate himself with his uncle and aunt at Tervoe in the unrealistic hope of succeeding to the property. As a curate, he keeps a mistress and has intimate encounters with other females, including married women. He is convinced that his parishioners entertain a low opinion of him and is haunted by the fear of being found out and by eternal damnation for his sins. He berates himself for his own behaviour yet appears incapable of change.

Apart from being a record of Monsell’s inner life, the diary contains a number of interesting details. These include a list of his clothes, a detailed description of his residence in Mallow, and frequent references to the compilation of a catalogue of books in his possession, some of which he inherited from his father. His private library appears to have been substantial, and some indication of its size can be found in his will (for which see P29/1/9).

Small leather-bound volume of maps of Lixnaw, county Kerry and adjacent lands surveyed for Dudley Ryves by Charles Frizell Senior and Richard Frizell in March 1763. The book begins with an index of townlands, followed by coloured maps of each surveyed townland on a scale of 40 perches to an inch. Comments accompanying each map provide the names and sizes of individual fields within each townland, the overall quality and value of the land and recommendations for its use or for suitable improvements to increase quality or productivity. The pages have been numbered but the numbering runs sequentially on right-hand pages only and many of the numbered pages are blank.

Letter from ‘April’ at an unidentified location to the Reverend Samuel Monsell, Bishop’s Palace, Waterford. The writer refers to a recent meeting with Monsell in his bed-chamber and her desire ‘to renew the gratification at the earliest period’.

Handwritten document entitled ‘A Character’, providing a character analysis of an unidentified person but probably the Reverend Samuel Monsell (1743-1818).

The Daly Papers provide a unique insight into the birth of the Irish republic and the country’s search for an identity in the first decades of its existence. At the core of the collection is material relating to John Daly, a prominent Fenian and a source of inspiration to the generation that followed, as attested by the quantity of correspondence from numerous prominent republicans of the time. Of particular note is Daly’s correspondence with Thomas Clarke (P2/2/1/11/1, 3, 5 and 6; P2/2/1/18/9-21, 23-27 and 29-30). Other items of note include Seán Mac Diarmada’s account of his part in the Howth gun-running operation (P2/2/1/31/8); Edward (Ned) Daly’s last letter to his mother on the eve of the Easter Rising (P2/2/1/17/2); and Kathleen Clarke’s letters to her sisters during her imprisonment in 1918-19 (P2/2/1/10/4-10). The latter also illustrate the role of women in the formation of the Irish republic, as do several other items of correspondence in the collection. Madge Daly’s draft memoirs (P2/2/2/2/1-5) provide a first-hand account of the events leading up to and immediately following the Easter Rising. Her account of a visit to Kilmainham Jail to see her brother Edward (Ned) Daly prior to his execution (P2/2/2/3/1) offers a unique insight into the hardship suffered by the families of the leaders of the Easter Rising, and added poignancy is provided by personal effects in Ned’s possession which were returned to the family after his death (P2/4/1/3). The large volume of photographs contained in Series 6 provides further insights into the main players of this most turbulent of times.

Material relating to the Dore branch of the Daly family opens a window into the young nation’s first steps as an independent state. Of particular interest are Edward Dore’s military medals (P2/4/3/1-4) and his determination to commemorate the Easter Rising in Limerick City which resulted in the erection of a memorial on Sarsfield Bridge in 1956 (P2/2/1/60/6/2, P2/3/1/3/1/1-4, P2/5/1/41 and P2/6/8/5-9); and his son Éamonn de hÓir’s impassioned campaign for the promotion of the Irish language (P2/3/2/3/3/1-14) and his extensive contribution to the study of Irish place names (P2/3/2/3/2/1-20). Also of note is de hÓir’s substantial research into the life of John Daly (P2/3/2/3/5/1-3 and P2/5/1/61-65) with a view to writing his biography, the publication of which was prevented by de hÓir’s untimely death.

The collection of letters and artefacts in the possession of the Daly family was originally considerably more substantial but the burning of their home in 1921 by the British Army destroyed much valuable material (see P2/2/1/19/3, P2/2/1/60/3/3, P2/2/1/62/5, P2/4/1/7 and P2/5/1/40). Records relating to the Daly family’s bakery in Limerick City are superficial, comprising mainly account books from Edward Dore’s time as manager. The fate of the papers relating to this business is unknown.