Manuscripts

# 15821

FAWTHROP, James

Ephemera relating to the rescue of the survivors from the wreck of the Admella near Portland, Victoria, in 1859

One of the worst maritime disasters in Australia’s history, which saw the loss of 89 lives, the wreck of the Admella in 1859 on Carpenter’s Reef off the coast of far southeast South Australia was a headline event at the time, and it quickly entered into Australian folklore. Survivors clung to the wreck in mountainous seas …

# 15615

POPE INNOCENT IV (Sinibaldo Fieschi), 1195-1254

Papal bull of Innocent IV, dated 26 September 1252

Innocent IV, born Sinibaldo Fieschi in 1195, was Pope of the Catholic Church from 1243 until his death in 1254. This bull is addressed to the monastery of Moutiers-Saint-Jean de Réôme (in the village of Moutiers-Saint-Jean, Bourgogne). The document deals with the debts of the monastery and is dated 26 September 1252. Originally the bull would have been sealed …

# 13946

NELSON, Horatio, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, 1758-1805

Lord Horatio Nelson : autograph letter, signed. To Sir William Hamilton. Naples, 12 December 1798

This important letter, penned on board Lord Nelson’s flagship HMS Vanguard in the Bay of Naples, was written by Nelson with his left hand, a little over a year after losing his right arm at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in August 1797. The letter is from the famous manuscript collection of Alfred Morrison (1821-1897). It was acquired …

# 15736

GENDRON, Ernest

[MANUSCRIPT] Campagne de la Corvette à Voiles l’Alcméne. Commandée par Mr. Coudein, Capitaine de Frégate, à destination des Mers du Sud et Océanie.

An important, unpublished first-hand account of the voyage of the French naval corvette Alcméne in the South Seas, 1848-1852, including extended descriptions of the loss of crew members to cannibalism in New Caledonia in 1850, and of the vessel’s infamous shipwreck at Kaipara on the west coast of New Zealand in 1851, whilst en route from Hobart Town to Tahiti. …

# 15436

GIBSON, Andrew Lucian (Scotland, 1796 - "Tirranna", near Goulburn, 1840)

Sketches made during the Napoleonic Wars and later (c.1815-1821), by military surgeon Dr. Andrew Gibson, founder of Tirranna station near Goulburn, New South Wales

Nine leaves removed from a small early nineteenth century sketchbook, trimmed to various dimensions up to 160 x 100 mm, eight with watercolour and pencil vignettes and manuscript captions in ink, one with manuscript bearing the artist’s name, ‘Andrew Lucian Gibson’, laid down on a later nineteenth century backing sheet, 380 x 320 mm; in very good condition, with some mild …

# 15730

PALMER, Henry Spencer (1838 - 1893)

An archive of original materials retained by Major General Henry Spencer Palmer which relate to his command of the British Expedition to observe the transit of Venus, Christchurch, New Zealand, 1874. 

Henry Spencer Palmer was born in Bangalore, India in 1838. He was schooled in England and admitted to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in January 1856. In December he was gazetted to a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers and entered the School of Military Engineering at Chatham in January 1857. Upon recommendation from the Royal Astronomer, Palmer was …

# 15809

Löhr, Marie Kaye Wouldes (1890-1975)

Typed draft letter signed by Australian actor Marie Löhr, promoting a special benefit performance at her Globe Theatre, London, in November 1918

Quarto sheet (250 x 200 mm), typed letter on the red embossed letterhead of the Globe Theatre, Shaftsbury Avenue, W.1. Lessees: Anthony Prinsep and Marie Löhr. Under the Management of Marie Löhr; dated 26 October 1918 and addressed to a Mr. Northcott, inviting him to attend a special matinee performance of Edmond Rostand’s L’Aiglon, with Marie Löhr herself playing the …

# 15271

GREENWOOD, John; SPEAK, Henry

A small archive of letters relating to the Baptist community at Constitution Hill, Van Diemen’s Land, 1860-62.

The unpublished letters in this recently discovered archive were written at Constitution Hill, north of Hobart Town, by John Greenwood (1778-1866), a devout Baptist and uncle of the noted early Tasmanian Baptist, Henry Speak. They are addressed to Greenwood’s former Baptist friends in New York State, where Greenwood had lived for a period earlier in his life after emigrating …

# 14903

Anonymous artist; [WIECHERT, Ernst 1887-1950]

[ANTI-NAZISM; CALLIGRAPHIC MANUSCRIPT] Eine Mauer um uns baue.

[Germany, circa 1937]. Calligraphic manuscript. Small folio (320 x 230 mm), original quarter cloth over papered boards with onlaid manuscript title to front 'Ernst Wiechert. Eine Mauer um uns Baue'; stitch bound; pp 44, calligraphic manuscript in red and black inks; scattered mild foxing, confined to the margins of the leaves; else fine. Ernst Wiechert …

# 14113

ROBERT, Louis de

[MANUSCRIPT] Etude philologique sur les inscriptions cunéiformes de l’Arménie

[Trabzon, Turkey : 1874]. Manuscript in ink, folio, in original ribbon-tied gatherings, ff [1 title leaf], 131, most leaves written recto and verso, with transcriptions of Urartian cuneiform inscriptions accompanied by comparative examples in Assyrian cuneiform, Hebrew and Arabic throughout; the verso of the final leaf is inscribed and dated by the author Trébizonde [i.e. …

# 14023

WHITFIELD George (1808-1864)

George Whitfield, early Sydney gunsmith and taxidermist : autograph letter, signed, dated 1840

Entire letter addressed to Robert J. Pennent Esqr., Belfast, Ireland, cancelled with oval PAID SHIP LETTER SYDNEY OC 9 1840 in red, and straight-line SHIP LETTER in black; arrival marking BELFAST FE 17 1841; manuscript in ink written in a neat hand on 3 sides of one folded folio sheet of gilt-edged writing paper; address …

# 12790

NEWTON, Rev. John, 1725-1807; [JOHNSON, Rev. Richard, 1753-1827]

[BOTANY BAY] Twenty-one letters written to a near relative at school.

/ By the Rev. John Newton … extracted from his posthumous works. To which are annexed a few pieces of poetry, by the same author. London : Printed for J. Johnson et al., 1809. Octavo, straight-grained morocco (rebacked); inscription to front free endpaper ‘Priscilla Martha Victoria Vickers, given to her mother by her early friend Mrs …

# 14155

COOMBS, Herbert Cole "Nugget" (1906-1997)

Nugget Coombs, Australian economist and public servant : typed letter, signed, September 1968

Typed letter, single octavo sheet, on letterhead of the Australian National University, Canberra, headed 'Chancellor' and dated 16 September 1968, addressed to Sir Edward Ford, Director, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, University of Sydney; 'Dear Ted, Many thanks for your telegram of congratulations on the occasion of my Installation as Chancellor'; signed in …

# 608

CABAY, Joseph (d. 1865)

[NATIVE AMERICANA] Autograph calling card of Joseph Cabay (Ojibwe Nation), early 1860s

Buff card, 90 x 53 mm; manuscript in ink verso: Kewakezhig = A Home in the Skies / Joseph Cabay; recto: 5 Tremont St. Boston. Very fine. Joseph Cabay was an Ojibwe chief from Saginaw Bay, Michigan. He moved to Boston in the early 1860s and married Mary Henderson, a missionary and author of Thirty-three …

# 2049

[TASMANIA; MELBOURNE] Archive of ephemera relating to Robert William Nutt, lawyer and politician

Robert William Nutt (1813-1891) was one of Van Diemen's Land's pre-eminent early lawyers, practicing in partnership with Gamaliel Butler in Hobart Town in the 1840s. He was also a Member of the Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land for 1851-52. In the late 1850s he relocated to Melbourne to work with James Hunter Ross, one …

# 13905

Anon.

Manuscript map of Australia, circa 1840

Pen and ink and watercolour on paper, 220 x 270 mm, sheet 245 x 350 mm; unmounted; an early pencilled inscription in the right hand margin reads: “3 or 400 miles North of Sidney, Clarence River on which is the Station Bolivia”; verso with a near contemporary newspaper cutting laid down, referring to a recent …

# 13799

DUPETIT-THOUARS, Abel Aubert (1793-1864)

Admiral Dupetit-Thouars : autograph letter signed, dated June 1845

Manuscript in brown ink, single sheet, folding to form [4] sides, small octavo; written on 2 sides; headed Paris, le 5 Juin 1845, a note from Admiral Dupetit-Thouars to the publisher Baudry requesting copies of a course in philosophy; signed at the foot 'A. Du Petit Thouars'; address and postal markings to the last side; …

# 13775

BOUGAINVILLE, Louis-Antoine, Comte de (1729-1811)

Autograph manuscript note by Bougainville on the “savages” of North America

Circa 1801. Ink on watermarked wove paper, sheet 120 x 185 mm, folded and written on the first side only, in Bougainville's hand; clean and legible; the document is housed in an old portfolio of the Charavay auction house, Paris, marked in pencil Bougainville. Note ut. Sur les “Sauvages de l'Amerique septentrionale”. In 1801 the famous …

# 12390

[MASEFIELD, John, 1878-1967] ; Artist unknown.

[CALLIGRAPHIC MANUSCRIPT] From Gallipoli.

[United Kingdom, c.1930]. Large octavo, original full dark blue morocco binding with triple gilt rule and ornament, spines with raised bands and lettered in gilt; inner boards with gilt rule; calligraphic manuscript in red, black and gold ink on vellum, [11] pages, each page with decorative borders in red, black and gold; the text comprises …

# 13935

CROSSLEY, Ada Jemima (1871-1929)

[OPERA] Ada Crossley : autograph letter, signed. To a fan about a fan.

[Sydney : September, 1903]. Manuscript in ink, written on [2] sides of octavo size notepaper with the embossed letterhead of The Australia Hotel, Sydney; old horizontal fold; fine. “Dear Miss Fox, Many warm thanks for your kind letter. With pleasure I will sign your fan – if you will leave it at the office. With …

# 13853

Anon.

Manuscript poem about the non-availability of alcohol, possibly written in Changi POW Camp

[Between 1942 and 1945?]. Manuscript in ink on a rectangular piece of thickish brown paper, 108 x 155 mm; verso with later annotation in pen in spidery handwriting Changi; numerous old fold lines indicating the paper was originally folded into a tiny rough square, approximately 45 x 40 mm; some foxing and staining and a …