| Description | The contents of this file were formerly in a portfolio with the reference cZ [All the documents in this file were folded in half widthways for filing in a portfolio]. Its precise title is a little uncertain. The Index to Correspondence and Documents contains numerous references to the file under various names, for instance-
Familiarm Select' (p. 8)
Famil' Epist' Select (p. 12)
Epistolæ Familiarium & Selectæ (p. 14)
Epistol' Famil' Select' (p. 16)
Familiarum Epistolæ Selectæ (p. 20)
However, the file is notable as being mentioned explicitly by Samuel Smiles in the Preface to his biographical work, Lives of Boulton and Watt, published in 1865. Smiles had been invited by M. P. W. Boulton to visit Tew Park, and was permitted to examine there "the extensive collection of documents brought from Soho." In his preface, after having given a description of various parts of this collection, he notes that
Another collection, endorsed "Familiarum Epistolæ et Selectæ, 1755 to 1808," contains letters received from various distinguished personages in the course of Mr. Boulton's long and interesting career.
(The title may be translated as "Family and Selected Letters." There is a similar file in the Boulton & Watt Collection entitled "Private and Titled Gentlemen.")
The file was presumably intact when the Matthew Boulton Papers arrived at the Birmingham Assay Office in 1921, but its title is not mentioned in the Inventories compiled at that time, probably because it was in one of the boxes whose contents were not listed in detail. Whatever wrapper or portfolio enclosed the contents has disappeared.
The file appears to have been put together, in its final form, by Zaccheus Walker Jr., probably some time about 1810, and his is the writing that appears on most of the dockets. However, it seems likely that the documents had been kept together prior to his attentions, for most of them have no previous dockets, which one would expect them to have if they had been extracted by Walker from the General Correspondence. (The letter from Lord Norton, 16 Sep. 1768, and Samuel Garbett, 30 Dec. 1769, for example, are exceptions.) It will be noted that all the documents were folded in half (widthways) to fit them for filing in a portfolio. The contents were, it appears, only partly indexed in the Index to Correspondence and Documents, and the only names there linked to this file are: Miss E. Alston, Dr. Darwin, Dr. Herschel, Dr. Franklin, and Fraulein Wangenheim. |