| Description | This file does not appear in the Inventory compiled by Cheshire at the time of his departure from Soho on 15 Feb. 1812, perhaps because it had been passed to William D. Brown to be kept at hand for reference. Under M. R. Boulton’s later arrangement the file was put into Box D. III, and it was probably in the same place when it arrived at the Assay Office in 1921.
The contents of this file were formerly in one bundle, labelled “Letters and Copies, 1808.” Within the bundle the documents were by and large split into two separate sequences, one of letters and one of copies, and the contents of each sequence were divided into several packets, documents being grouped alphabetically by the first letter of the correspondent’s name. To be consistent, because in other years letters and copies had been filed and listed together, this practice has been adopted with the correspondence for 1808. All documents, letters or copies, have been merged, and are all grouped alphabetically within one sequence, as they are for other years. Within the various alphabetical groups the documents are arranged and numbered in chronological order.
It is possible that some of the original packets are missing, as there are letters only for B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, and R, and copies only for A, B, C, D, F, G, H, K, L, P, R, S, and T.
Where wrappers for either letters or copies survive, they have been placed at the front of each packet. While there is a wrapper for ‘Copies, N’, there are no corresponding documents.
The copies are all press-copies. |