| Description | Soho House library ‘Loan Book’ is a manuscript list of books borrowed from the library by friends and family from 1814 to 1845, set out in columns, ‘BOOKS’/ To Whom/ When Lent/ When Returned’. Unpublished. Birmingham, 1814 – 1845.
It is a large octavo volume of 12 closely-written pages plus blanks, with approximately 300 titles listed in a variety of hands. The binding is contemporary diced calf, neatly rebacked and in fine condition.
Both James Watt and James Watt jr. are among the borrowers in the ‘Loan Book’, as are some of the descendants of the Lunar Society members.
On 3 March 1814, James Watt borrowed Stewart’s Steam Mill [Plan and Description of Mr. John Stewart’s Fire Engine Mill, 1766]; when the list was updated in 1819, the book was in the hands of James Watt jr., and was finally returned in 1831. James Watt also borrowed Clarke’s Travels, while James Watt jr. borrowed Philosophical Transactions for 1781-1785, some Charity Reports, and Boyle’s Works.
Mary Ann Wilkinson was a frequent borrower both before and after her marriage to Matthew Robinson Boulton, when they moved to Great Tew; a number of loans, including Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, are recorded as at Tew. Her borrowings – a wide variety of serious books – included Melmoth’s Pliny, Robertson’s History of America, The Families of Plants, Withering’s Botany, two books on perspective, Oevres de Racine, Voyages of Anacharsis, Pope’s Works, and Wilton House Guide. In 1818, Maison Rustique, probably Gervase Markham’s translation, indispensable for planning gardens, was sent to Tew and ‘Never’ returned.
Sons and daughters of Lunar Society members who feature in the Loan Book include Maria Edgeworth, who borrowed her own stories Ennui and The Absentee (two of her Tales of Fashionable Life) in 1821. The library also included her novel Patronage and her Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, which readers borrowed twice in the year of publication and then again in 1821. There were three children of Samuel Galton – John Howard Galton, Samuel Tertius Galton and Miss Galton, who borrowed books. John Howard Galton borrowed Tales of my Landlord; his wife borrowed the Chinese novel Hau Kiou Choaan, Samuel Tertius Galton borrowed Colquhoun’s Wealth of the British Empire, and Miss Galton borrowed Memoires de M. de Staal.
Watt’s draughtsman John Southern borrowed one book in 1814, Sinclair’s History of the Revenue. William Creighton, Boulton & Watt agent and friend of Gregory Watt, borrowed maps. The Rev. T.L.Freer of Handsworth was a regular user of the library and borrowed Lugar’s Designs [architecture], Christian on the Game of Laws, Gardiner on Horses, the occasional issue of the Edinburgh Review, and Confessions of an Opium Eater. His wife borrowed Maria Edgeworth’s Ennui and The Absentee, and the anonymous novel Rhoda, now known to be the work of Frances Jackson, much admired by Maria Edgeworth. In 1824, Mr Taylor, ‘modeller, Soho’ borrowed three plates from Hamilton’s Vases.
Apart from the Memoirs of R.L.Edgeworth, the library included the life of another Lunar Society member, Anna Seward’s Memoirs of Erasmus Darwin. One of the last books to be added to the library was Fitzroy and Darwin’s Voyages of the Beagle. This was borrowed in 1840 by [Thomas] Jones Wilkinson, Mary Ann Boulton’s brother.
The range of books is rather broader than suggested by the remains of the library sold at Christie’s on 12 December 1986. There were serious books such as: Blackstone’s Commentaries, Barrow’s Travels in Africa, Sir Joshua Reynolds in three volumes, Memoirs of Amos Green, Rickman’s Gothic Architecture [Thomas Rickman was the architect employed by Matthew Robinson Boulton at Great Tew], Malthus on Population, and Wellington’s Despatches. There was light reading too, including almost all of the later Waverley novels acquired (and generally borrowed) in the year of publication. Walter Scott, with 14 titles borrowed 24 times, seems to have been the most popular author in the library, as he would have been in the commercial lending libraries of the day. There seem to be only two titles by Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (borrowed five times) and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (borrowed three times).
The list was updated in 1819 when books borrowed but ‘unrestored’ were brought forward. The books in the library, study and dressing room were ‘compared with the Catalogue’ in 1836, when it was found that almost nothing had gone astray. In 1840, the latest volumes of the Quarterly Review, Edinburgh Review, Repertory, and Botanical Magazine were ‘sent as Patterns of Binding to [James] Belcher’, the Birmingham bookbinder, and a couple of other books were sent to [Robert] Fairbairn [in London].
At the end, four pages headed ‘Philosophical Instruments’, set out in columns similar to the library loan list, indicate a plan to lend apparatus as well as books, but there are only two entries, for a portable barometer and a spirit level (‘obtained from the Foundry’), both borrowed by William Creighton in 1814.
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| AdminHistory | Largely copied from the entry in Bernard Quaritch Ltd. sale catalogue, July 2009. |