[LORD SYDNEY] Thomas Townshend’s Minute Book as a Commissioner for Westminster Road Building and Civic Improvement in the 1760s.

Small octavo notebook, 180 x 115 mm, original marbled wrappers (detached front wrapper held in place with transparent tape); inner front wrapper with the name ‘Mr. Townshend’ in a secretarial hand; [76] pp., manuscript in ink, comprising neatly and densely written minutes on the recto and verso of every leaf, in two different secretarial hands (the second hand is responsible for roughly the second half of the volume); clean and sound throughout.

A unique manuscript document from the early career of Lord Sydney, after whom the city of Sydney takes its name.  

Thomas Townshend (1733-1800) was created Baron Sydney of Chislehurst and entered the House of Lords on 6 March 1783. In 1785, during his first term as Home Secretary, Sydney, Nova Scotia was named in his honour. In the years that followed, Townshend was responsible for planning the penal colony at Botany Bay, and he appointed Arthur Phillip as the first Governor. On his arrival in January 1788, Phillip named Sydney Cove, which in due course became Sydney Town, in honour of Lord Sydney.

In the early 1760s, Townshend was serving as one of the Commissioners for the City of Westminster, and was residing in Cleveland Court. This is the address given for him within the minutes of the notebook offered here, which was kept by his secretarial staff and covers the period 10 June 1762 until 27 May 1763. The contents of the notebook provide a unique insight into the workings of those responsible for the construction and maintenance of the streets of mid-18th century London.

The manuscript begins with a list of Commissioners of the City of London; numbering 64 in total, these include Thomas Townshend and many leading members of the peerage as well as city merchants. There follows a detailed record of officers, meetings, finances, and specific works, and interesting notes on workers’ wages, for example: ‘Geo. Young agreed at 1/8 a week and Jn. McCarter 1/7 and a pint of beer each day, and if Young behaved well is to have a further Gratuity….’. There are costings and calculations for work to Parliament Street and York Street which include the minutiae of dimensions and the quantities of Edinburgh stone and gravel needed to pave them. (The total cost for paving both Parliament and York Streets is recorded as £1,626 13s). Frequent reference is made to the works surveyor Mr George Wyatt and the Scottish supplier Mr Campbell of Edinburgh. Additional details including contracts for lamps and other ironwork for the streets fill the pages.