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47 DAVIES, Emily. Autograph letter signed on admitting women to the University of London. 6 May 1862 A clear and business-like letter signed by educational activist Emily Davies to a member of the University of London Senate, reminding him of the motion being put forward by the Vice- Chancellor George Grote the following day which would allow women admission to degrees from the University of London to be taken on the same terms as men. This motion, part of an extended campaign in 1862 which followed an initial attempt to allow female admittance to the University in 1856, did not pass. The unidentified recipient of this letter, clearly one of the fellows with voting rights, has added a dismissive pencilled note to the front: “I have read the Testimonials and do not want them again”. Whether the recipient was one of the 21 fellows ultimately present for the vote is unknown, the pencilled initials not concurring with any of those known to be present. “Of those who are recorded as attending, three had apparently left the long and apparently unrecorded debate, of the twenty-one present at the time of the vote, one abstained” (Willson, p. 95). Davies took up the cause in early 1862, becoming the first Honorary Secretary of a committee linked to the campaign. The address on the letter is that of Davies’s first home in London, 17 Cunningham Place. Davies’s move to London was a significant one in the development and reach of her activism. She met and befriended Girton co-founder Barbara Bodichon in Algiers in 1858, and soon Bodichon began introducing Emily to feminist circles in London, such as the Langham Place group, connections which became crucial to her establishment as a key feminist agitator in the city. In 1868, nine women were admitted to the University of London to sit not as members admitted on the same terms as men, but as candidates for a distinct examination. This was the first time in Britain that women had gained access to university education.
Single bifolium (leaf size 183 × 117 mm), handwritten across three pages in black ink. Two slight horizontal creases from folding for postage, light offsetting from ink, near-fine and well-preserved. ¶ Francis Michael Glenn Willson, The University of London, 1858–1900: The Politics of Senate and Convocation , 2004. £1,500 [162025] 48 DELANY, Mary. A Catalogue of Plants copyed from nature in Paper Mosaick, finished in the Year 1778, and disposed in alphabetical Order, according to the Generic and Specific names of Linnaeus. [London: no publisher,] 1778 The scientific classification of Mary Delany’s remarkable art Sole edition of this exceedingly rare catalogue; this copy with a manuscript appendix adding more than 330 samples to the printed list, written in an attractive contemporary copperplate hand that may be Delany’s, matching closely the manuscript copy of her story “Marianna” which appeared at Sotheby’s in 2006 (described as “a fair copy in a single hand”). The catalogue, privately printed in very small numbers, lists the “paper mosaick” decoupage botanical designs produced by Mary Delany ( neé Granville, sometime Pendarves, 1700–1788) and includes Linnaean references and occasional additional botanical and geographical remarks. An online search locates copies at just three institutional libraries: British Library, Longleat, and Yale; with no appearances in auction records. Of these, only that at Yale has a similar manuscript appendix, which runs to 23 pages. Professor Linda Troost, founding editor of the scholarly series Eighteenth-Century Women , suggests that the manuscript appendix “must have been prepared when the Flora [ Delanica ] was at or near completion” and that Delany’s “excursion into print
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may have been inspired by the work of her ‘botanical master,’ John Lightfoot”. Lightfoot (1735–1788) was a parson-naturalist, curator of the Duchess of Portland’s private museum, whose pioneering Flora Scotica was published in 1777. Portland herself formed a shell collection that was “virtually unrivalled during her lifetime [and contained] important specimens from James Cook’s voyages (the first of which she helped to fund)” (Wildgoose, p. vi). Delany, born in Wiltshire, was educated at home and at an exclusive school run by a Huguenot refugee. “She became fluent in French, well read in history and the classics in translation as well as English literature, a good musician, and a superb needlewoman. She showed early talent for drawing, cutting, and design” (ibid.). Twice widowed by the age of 68, Delany moved from the Dublin home of her husband, the late Dean of Down, to become the favourite of the Duchess of Portland, at Bulstrode, Buckinghamshire. “It was there in 1774 that Delany began what she called her paper mosaics, the cut-paper illustrations of flowers and plants that were her most important artistic achievement. Using various shadings of coloured tissue, she cut freehand all the parts of the plant, which were then pasted on black paper to make a perfect specimen. Nearly a thousand pages [of her Flora Delanica ] were completed by 1784, when she had to give up the work because of failing eyesight; these are now in the department of prints and drawings at the British Museum” (ibid.). In addition to the British Museum’s holdings, there are further collections of her manuscripts and artwork at the Lilly, Yale, and John Rylands (as part of the Mary Hamilton collection). Delany’s enterprise existed at the confluence of science and aesthetics, a junction at which it perhaps seemed more appropriate for women to engage. This work, by supplying Linnaean classifications, consciously shifts the boundary
marker, and can be seen as a precursor to the classifications included in artistically arranged Victorian seaweed albums. This slim volume sits at the nexus of a group of women: Mrs Delany, her friend the Duchess of Portland, and previous owners Anne Ashwell and Mrs Abel Ram, revealing a parallel world of mutual enthusiasms and mutual support. It is inscribed on the page facing the title, “Ann Ashwell”, and in another hand “given by her to Mrs Ram, Novr. 1832” and inscribed, apparently by Miss Ashwell, at the foot of the title, “By Mrs Delany”. Lady Llanover, editor of Mrs Delany’s Autobiography & Correspondence , mentions Mrs Ram in her acknowledgements as “my aunt”. She was born Frances Anne Port (1783–1860) and married Abel John Ram of Clonnattin, Ireland. A “Mr Ashwell” is also mentioned in the Autobiography and Correspondence in connection with “a plan to go to St. Vincent &c. to go with Mr. Ashwell (Mrs. Astley’s cousin)”; Mrs Ann Astley was waiting-woman to Mrs Delany. This would appear to be a reference to Charles Ashwell (1756–1798), who had estates in Grenada and St Vincent and is listed on UCL’s Legacies of British Slavery database. Ann Ashwell (1754–1838) was one of Charles’s four sisters, beneficiaries of his will; they lived at Lichfield and a funeral monument in the cathedral there memorialises their “unvaried benevolence and charity”. Octavo, 47ff. With an additional [11]ff manuscript appendix entitled “An Appendix Containing Plants. Copy’d from nature since those in the Printed Catalogue”. Contemporary blue paper wrappers. A trifle rubbed, slightly marked to extremities. ¶ ESTC T30174. Linda Troost, Eighteenth-Century Women: Studies in their Lives, Work, and Culture, Vol. I, 2001; Yale Center for British Art, Promiscuous Assemblage, Friendship, & the Order of Things , 2009. £15,000 [159421]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
LOUDER THAN WORDS
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