| Description | Bundle of sixty-six letters to James Watt.
There is a threaded bundle label with ‘Miscellaneous Letters 1803,’ in black ink. To this, ‘ No 1 to 65 ’ has been added in red ink.
The letters were numbered in red ink. One (from Matthew Robinson Boulton) has not been numbered and was therefore not counted when the label was written; there are also six unnumbered letters and one play bill, as enclosures. The arrangement was neither chronological nor alphabetical.
The bundle has therefore been re-arranged into alphabetical order by correspondent and chronological order within an individual’s correspondence.
There is a conspectus of old and new numbers at the end of the list.
Old nos. 9,15 to 21, 35, 38, 47, and 59 all appear to be on the subject of Mr Lane’s land [see Curtis; Lane; Wedge; Parker, Palmer & Cuppage].
Letters 51-53 seem to deal with a dispute work between William Withering jr. and Dr. Jonathan Stokes, who had collaborated with Withering sr. on his Botanical Arrangement, over a publication of Dr William Withering’s. James Watt was involved as Withering sr.’s executor.
The correspondent’s name and the date has been written on the letter by James Watt. A few have a summary on the docket.
Any summary in square brackets has been provided by the cataloguer.
The original paper catalogue contains a numbering error for this series: the finding number MS 3219/4/45/32 appears twice. This has been corrected in CALM as MS 3219/4/45/32 and 3219/4/45/33. Therefore every entry after 3219/4/45/33 in CALM is one number higher than it appears on the paper catalogue. |