Aside from the importance of the publication in illuminating the clash between the hospitals and the City of London at the end of the 17th century, the book is also significant as the first printing (assuming no contemporary printing was ever executed, as seems probable) of the constitutions of these important charitable bodies. The regulations provide a valuable insight into the intricate running and organization of the hospitals. Small octavo (142 × 87 mm). Contemporary speckled calf, rebacked with purple morocco label, gilt 1557 date at foot of spine, earlier endpapers preserved, hinges strengthened. Engraved armorial bookplate of Charles Bruce of Ampthill, 3rd Earl of Ailesbury (1682– 1747), Tory member of the House of Commons and elevated to the peerage as part of Robert Harley’s “Dozen” new peers created to gain a majority in the Lords, to title verso. Short nick to fore edge of A3, light toning; a very good copy. ¶ ESTC R10870; Pepys Library p. 131; Wing O389. See D’Arcy Power, “Notes on the Bibliography of three Sixteenth-Century Books Connected with London Hospitals”, The Library , 4, no. 2, 1921, pp. 73–94. £2,500 [150905] 99 McCULLOCH, John Ramsay. A Treatise of the Succession to Property vacant after Death. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1848 First edition of McCulloch’s defence of primogeniture and entails, as reworked from one of the “Notes and Dissertations” contained in his edition of the Wealth of Nations , and briefly outlined in an article for the Edinburgh Review , which is now “for the first time, laid before the reader in a systematic form” (p. vi). Octavo. Original brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt, brown endpapers, edges uncut. Library shelfmark ticket to spine, Church Commissioner’s Library bookplate to front pastedown and stamp to front and rear free endpapers, bookbinder’s ticket to rear pastedown. Small tear to cloth at foot of spine, extremities bumped with very minor wear; a very good copy. ¶ Kress C.7477. £650 [97356]
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98 LONDON HOSPITALS. The Order of the hospitalls of K. Henry the viijth and K. Edward the vith, viz. St. Bartholomew’s. Christ’s. Bridewell. St Thomas’s . . . 1557 [London: no publisher, 1695?] Tudor hospital regulations First edition. Despite the date of 1557 on the title page, it was in fact published around the 1690s to prove the historical regulations of four hospitals and deter attempts to restructure them. Tradition says the edition was funded by Samuel Pepys. The book contains the new rules which governed four hospitals – then much broader charitable and welfare institutions, rather than just treating the sick – which had been placed under the control of the citizens of London in 1557, during the upheaval of the middle of the 16th century. The orders were produced and circulated around the time in manuscript form, although do not seem to have been printed. In 1681 the Court of Aldermen, the governing body of the City of London, had made a determined effort to regain their ancient jurisdiction over the Royal Hospitals, and in the ensuing dispute the Clerk of Christ’s Hospital was ordered to deliver an account of the constitution of the Hospital and the appointment of its governors. This edition was printed towards the end of the 17th century at the order of Christ’s Hospital from their manuscript copy. The book is printed in a deliberately archaic style and English Black Letter type, and has often been miscatalogued in the ensuing three centuries as a 1557 printing.
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WEALTH AND WELFARE
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