| Description | These comprise notes and original documents collected by the Birmingham antiquary William Hamper (1776-1831). It was Hamper's intention to publish a revised version of the history of the parish of Aston in William Dugdale's History of Warwickshire, but this aim he did not live to fulfill. After his death the papers passed from hand to hand, before coming into the possession of James Watt Jr., and were therefore preserved with the Watt family papers.
It is not known when Hamper decided to attempt a revision of the history of Aston. Certainly he was particularly active in making notes and sketches from the year 1807 onwards; in that year he inspected a large number of deeds preserved at Aston Hall, and in the years immediately following he made several copies of surveys of Aston manors, and sketches of local sights. He also held the office of churchwarden of Aston, at least in 1808, which probably enabled him to collect some of the material relating to the varius parishes of Aston.
For each of the several manors in Aston, Hamper transcribed on folio sheets the corresponding portion of Dugdale's history, and to these he gradually added numerous slips containing information to be inserted in the text, as well as original documents, both ancient and contemporary. Most of the materials were deposited in five portfolios, and kept in a chest (which was purchased at the James Watt Sale, March 2003, by Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery) To the contents of the portfolios were added also various copper plates, wood-blocks of autographs, and bundles of unsorted deeds and seals. In 1821 Hamper began to compile in a volume a fair copy of his history, but this was never completed, and in fact the book only contains part of the history of the manor of Aston.
After his death in 1831, Hamper's executors sold the contents of his library to the Birmingham booksellers Beilby, Knott, & Co., who in turn sold the Aston Collection to a man named George Yates for the sum of £75. (The other parts of his library went elsewhere.) Yates, who may have been Hamper's late business partner, apparently intended to complete the history of Aston himself, but soon decided that he would be unable to do so and passed the Collection on to Sir J. E. Eardley-Wilmot, who had the same intention, but was likewise incapable of completing the task, and in 1838 Yates's widow requested that (according to the original agreement) the Collection should be returned to her, which appears to have eventually happened the following year. The movements of the Collection thereafter are not apparently documented, but it appears that some time before his death in 1848 it came into the possession of James Watt Jr., who was by that date the occupier of Aston Hall, and had an interest in antiquarian subjects (perhaps in 1839: see trancripts of letters concerning the history of the collection, below).
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| Arrangement | The present arrangement of the Collection is identical with that recorded in the inventory made by Yates in 1831, when he parcelled it up for transmission to Eardley-Wilmot-indeed, most of the brown paper wrappers are still extant. Yates's inventory runs as follows:
The late Mr. Hamper's Collections for History of the Parish of Aston juxta
Birmingham.
Contents of Box.
Parcel No. 1. Folio ruled Book in which Mr. Hamper had commenced a fair transcript of his intended Work, dated 1821.
--- No. 2. Three engraved Copper Plates.
--- No. 3. Sixteen Wood Blocks of Fac simile Autographs.
--- No. 4. Port folio with Collections-Manor of Aston.
--- No. 5. Do.--------------Deritend & Bordesley.
--- No. 6. Do.--------------Duddeston, Nechells, Saltley, & Little Bromwich.
--- No. 7. Do.--------------Castle Bromwich & Water Orton.
--- No. 8. Do.--------------Erdington & Witton.
--- No. 9. Parcel of Drawings & Engravings.
--- No. 10. -----old Deeds.
Box of ancient Seals.
Three very ancient Rolls of Copies of Deeds.
Parcel of ancient Deeds.
Box of small ancient Deeds.
Although not indicated on this inventory, the parcels containing the last four items were also numbered. |