Item 49 - Peacock and Thompson Family Autograph Album

1 vol.; paper and 2 photographic prints

Gift of Mary Katherine Butler, daughter of Mary Viner Ellis, 1959.

Album containing over 250 letters, notes, documents, unaccompanied envelopes, printed items, and photographic prints carrying the handwriting and/or autographs of sovereigns, prelates, government ministers, peers, authors, and Trinity College masters and professors, with a few unusual items in addition. The material appears to have been largely culled from the correspondence of George Peacock, his wife Frances Peacock, her father William Selwyn, and her second husband William Hepworth Thompson, with a few unrelated items. Most date from the 19th century but there are a few items from the 18th century.

Among those represented are King George III, Charles Babbage, E.W. Benson, the 15th Earl of Derby, the 7th Duke of Devonshire, W. E. Gladstone, Lord Houghton, Charles Kingsley, H. W. Longfellow, Lord Macaulay, Sir Robert Peel, John Ruskin, Adam Sedgwick, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, and William Whewell; there are in addition a miniature handwritten Lord's Prayer in a circle no larger than 15mm across, a carte-de-visite photograph souvenir 'balloon letter' from the Paris siege of 1870 with an image of the newspaper 'La Cloche', and a photographic print of Lane's portrait of George Peacock.

The album is lacking a spine and is therefore disbound but gatherings are still together.

Name entry cards are filed in the card catalogue and a typescript finding aid encompassing the three collections: the Letters to George Peacock, the George Peacock Letters to his Family, and the letters in this album, is available in a file at the library.

Letters to George Peacock (PEAC)
George Peacock Letters to his Family (PEAC II)

Decorated 'Autographs' title page with two names in an unidentified hand: Mary Georgiana Peacock at top and Mary Viner Ellis, Augt. 1874 at bottom of page

Previously catalogued as 'George Peacock's autograph book'.