Add MS 72844

Horner/Lyell Papers. Album originally containing letters and papers of and relating to George Washington, and to a number of British, American and other statesmen, soldiers and others. Partly French, Italian, Hungarian. Partly copies. Partly printed. Partly fragments. The contents now include thirty-six letters addressed to Francis Horner M.P. (b. 1778, d. 1817), Chairman of the Bullion Committee, and one of the founders of The Edinburgh Review, and ten letters from Horner. Many of the other letters are addressed to Horner’s brother, Leonard Horner FRS (b. 1785, d. 1864), to the latter’s son-in-law, the geologist Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Bart., or to the Lyells’s friends and relatives. Some eighteen letters to the Lyell family are included, most of them addressed to Sir Charles.

The contents were not entered in chronological order, though several of the oldest, and arguably the most important, American items were put in first; these are no longer in the album. The collection seems first to have been begun by Leonard Horner, possibly helped by his daughter Susan, and continued by Lyell and/or his wife Mary, a keen autograph collector. Much of the American material was probably collected by the Lyells during their visits to the United States in the 1840s and early 1850s, possibly then as later through their friend, the historian George Ticknor. Some material formerly in the album, however, for instance an Abraham Lincoln letter and a letter from C. F. Adams, came to the Lyells direct from the Adams family. It is not clear whether some Lyell material dating from before L. Horner’s death in 1864 was given to the latter, or was put in later. G. Ticknor’s wife, Mary, née Horner, may also have added items to the album. Leonard Horner’s daughter Katherine could have owned the volume at one time (see section 27 below). The latest manuscript (ff. 213-214r) is dated 9 July 1894, just before the death (21 July) of Frances, Lady Bunbury, née Horner, another daughter of Leonard Horner. She probably owned and added to the album at some stage; however, annotations to the prints in fact continue up to 1898, and at least some of the prints were inserted some time in the early twentieth century, in 1906 or later; some manuscripts, moreover, could have been added to the volume after July 1894. Mary, Lady Lyell, wife of Sir Charles’s heir, the 1st Baron Lyell, is also known to have owned autographs, and in 1892 she donated some to the Auckland Library in New Zealand (f. 212r). The volume therefore was probably owned and added to by generations of the Horner and Lyell families.

The inscription on the front cover (see below) and the fact that the manuscript items cover exactly one hundred years may indicate that this manuscript was originally one of two or more volumes. An album of letters to Lyell from scientists is now in the American Philosophical Library, Philadelphia.

The album also contains, generally on the left-hand side of the openings, or left loose in the volume, prints, drawings and/or photographs of most of the letter-writers, and/or of buildings, memorial tombs or monuments associated with them. The manuscripts have often been annotated in pen and pencil in several hands, including L. Horner’s, and in at least one case (see f. 21) Francis Horner’s. Anonymous printed or manuscript captions and dates of birth and death in pen and ink have been added to the pages bearing prints and drawings. The dates of births and deaths seem to have been added in one hand, not that of Leonard Horner. A few leaves have been cut out of the album, and some of the manuscripts, mostly the American items, most notably a leaf from Washington’s original planned First Inaugural Address (April 1789), were auctioned separately in the Phillips sale of 13 June 1996; see below. A letter from Horner to Malthus [1810], lot 209, and letters of Carlyle, lots 229 and 239, were not, apparently, part of the album’s contents.

The present volume was found at Aldeburgh, co. Suffolk, among the property of a descendant of Sir Charles Lyell. Purchased at Phillips, 13 June 1996, lot 244. Original binding. Label on cover, with manuscript note: “A1/from p. 1 to p. 53” (f. i), an indication that this volume was originally one of several. Some items (noted below), together with pages 44-49 of the 53, are no longer present; only a print from page 43 survives, and a print for page 49v is also missing. Blue paper adhering to some mounts suggests that at least some of the letters were originally mounted in another volume. The album was used in reverse. Stationer’s label (upside down) (f. ii); note of price in pencil, also upside down, on f. 219v. For Francis and Leonard Horner see also Leonard Horner (ed.), Memoirs and correspondence of Francis Horner, (London, 1843); Katherine M. Horner (ed.), Memoir of Leonard Horner, privately printed, (London, 1890); and Kenneth Bourne and William Banks Taylor (eds), The Horner Papers, (1994). Mostly unpublished. A very small number of letters and papers have been printed in whole or in part in one or more of the above publications. For Lyell see also Add. MSS. 37183-37200, 46435; [1794?] - 1894, n.d., with later printed material.

Paper. ff. 226 + ii.

Contents:

1. ff. 1-2r, 2r now blank. George Washington: Print, with photograph of Washington’s grave at Mount Vernon. The manuscript leaf originally placed here, part of Washington’s undelivered First Inaugural Address, was lot 225 in the Phillips sale of 13 June; [April 1789?] .

2. ff. 2v-3r, 3r now blank. Gilbert de Motier, Marquis de La Fayette: Print and printed caption only. The material originally here probably formed lot 223, a letter to Washington, and probably part of lot 221, in the Phillips sale; for Lafayette see also 18 below; 1781, n.d.

3. ff. 3v-4r. Benjamin Franklin: Print and caption, together with a coloured illustration of a Franklin miniature, with printed caption with manuscript additions; dated 1906. The manuscript was sold at the Phillips sale, lot 222; 1785.

4. ff. 4v-6r. Guiseppe Garibaldi: Card addressed to Katherine Lyell, at the request of her friend Therese Pulszky, wife of F. A. Pulszky (see below); Italian; Caprera, 16 June 1861.

5. ff. 6v-10r. Lajos Kossuth: Print, with MS signature. Letter to his friend, Ferencz Aurel Pulszky; Hungarian; 24 March[?] 1851; and letter in English to Miss Susan Horner; the latter was the author of a memoir of Kossuth; 15 May 1855.

6. ff. 10v-11r, f. 11r now being blank. Daniel Webster: Print only. The manuscript preserved here, a letter to Sir Charles Lyell’s friend George Ticknor, was sold at Phillips, lot. 221 (part).

7. ff. 11v-18r. George Canning: Two prints, one tipped in. Speech in Canning’s hand, numbered 2, on a new writ being moved after Horner’s death; 3 March 1817; together with three other sheets of speeches, numbered 3, 5 and 6. According to a note by Leonard Horner, these are in the hands of Manners-Sutton, William Elliot and Lord Lascelles respectively; in fact 3 seems to be in Canning’s hand, and 2 is probably the work of a secretary; printed with others in Memoirs and Correspondence, vol. 2, pp. 446 et seq.; 1817.

8. ff. 18v-23r. George Tierney: Print. Two letters to Francis Horner; together with a presscutting relating to Tierney’s death [1830]; the second letter is endorsed by F. Horner in Jan. 1817, shortly before his death; not published in the Memoirs and Correspondence; 29 March, 20 Nov. 1816.

9. ff. 23v-31r. Sir Samuel Romilly: Print. Four letters to F. Horner; only one letter, 18 Oct. 1812, seems to have been printed, in Memoirs and Correspondence, pp. 117-118; 1809-1817.

10. ff. 31v-37r. Lord John Russell, later Earl Russell: Print. Three letters, two to F. Horner; one letter of 21 Feb. 1817, delivered after Horner’s death on 8 Feb., contains observations on the state of parties, and on articles in the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews, including one by Walter Scott on Byron; Russell adds his own opinion of Byron. A third letter to L. Horner of 17 Feb. 1842 refers to a letter of Francis Horner, recently read by Russell; not published; 1814, 1817, 1842.

11. ff. 37v-50r. Henry, 3rd Lord Lansdowne: Print and photograph. Four letters, political and private, to F. Horner; apparently unpublished; 1805-1816.

12. ff. 50v-66r. Francis Horner: Print, with anon. pencil sketch of the Westminster Abbey monument to the latter, and a print of his monument at Leghorn. The same print appears as the frontispiece to Memoirs and Correspondence. Seven letters, including four letters to Leonard and Anne Horner, 1812-1815, and letters to Murray and Jeffrey, Aug. 1813, 8 Dec., n.y. Also included are a letter to Professor John Playfair, 30 Aug. 1815, with references to J. Wishaw, Some Account of the late Smithson Tennant, (1815), and the cover of a letter from Horner to William H. Lloyd, of New Ormonde Street, 9 Sept. 1816; the letter to Leonard of 25 July 1812, and to his sister-in-law Anne, 8 Aug. 1812, have been published in Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 103-105, 108-109; F. Horner to Anne Horner, 29 Oct. 1815, is partly printed in L. Horner, Memoirs, pp. 79-80; the rest seem to be unpublished; 1812-1816.

13. ff. 66v-76r. Francis, Lord Jeffrey: Print. Three letters to F. Horner. One letter, 19 Nov. 1804, refers to S. T Coleridge in Malta. Also included is a letter to L. Horner, 25 Dec. 1842, apparently referring to the latter’s memoir of Francis Horner; the letter of 19 Nov. 1804 is published in Memoirs, vol. 1, pp. 296-298, but without the Coleridge reference; the rest appear to be unpublished; 1803-1808.

14. ff. 76v-79r. Samuel Whitbread M.P.: Print. Letter to F. Horner, 11 March 1807, referring to the Lancaster/Bell education dispute; notes by F. Horner on the back; together with a contemporary anon. note, giving Horner’s opinion of Whitbread, in a letter of 7 July 1815; both apparently unpublished; 1807, [aft. 7 July 1815].

15. ff. 80v-81r. Thomas, 1st Lord Erskine: Print. Letter to F. Horner relating to America; apparently unpublished; 18 Oct. 1809.

16. ff. 81v-90r. Henry, 1st Lord Brougham: Print, and photograph by Charles Reutlinger. Two letters to F. Horner, and one to L. Horner, concerning the Memoirs; apparently unpublished; 1812-1815, [1842?].

17. ff. 90v-96r. William Wyndham, Baron Grenville: Print. Three letters to F. Horner; two are apparently unpublished, for a letter of 22 Jan. 1811, in which Grenville offered Horner the post of Secretary of State in a future government, see Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 54-55; 1811-1816.

18. ff. 96v-104r. Henry, 3rd Lord Holland: Print. Letter to F. Horner, n.d.; with a letter of introduction to Lafayette for F. Horner, 17 Sept. 1814. According to a note, the letter was found still sealed at Horner’s death; together with a letter from Holland to F. Horner’s father John, 24 Oct. 1816; the two latter letters and the letter to Lafayette are printed in Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 187-189, 383; the letter to Horner’s father is also printed in Katherine M. Horner, Memoir of Leonard Horner, pp. 103-104; 1814-1816, n.y.

19. ff. 104v-111r. Charles, 2nd Earl Grey: Print. Two letters to F. Horner, and one to L. Horner; Grey in the letter to L. Horner of 25 July 1817, stated that the latter could keep Grey’s letters to his late brother, and that he – Grey – would look among his papers for F. Horner letters; apparently unpublished; for Horner’s reply to Grey’s letter of 24 March 1815 see Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 243-244; Horner Papers, p. 834; 1815-1817.

20. ff. 111v-113r. Sir John Newport, Bart.: Print. Letter to F. Horner; apparently unpublished; 30 June 1811.

21. ff. 113v-115r. Spencer Percival, Prime Minister: Print. Letter to F. Horner, concerning an Isle of Man clause in the Insolvent Debtor’s Bill; apparently unpublished; 29 June 1811.

22. ff. 115v-117r. William Windham M.P.: Print. Letter to F. Horner, offering to take him to dinner at Holland House; n.d. [3 Aug. 1805].

23. ff. 117v-120r. William Huskisson M.P.: Print. Letter to F. Horner, concerning Horner’s Bullion report; unpublished; 1 Aug. 1810.

24. ff. 120v-122r. John, Earl St. Vincent: Letter to F. Horner, stating that he was ready to see him concerning the peace establishment; 19 Feb. 1816.

25. ff. 122v-125r. R. B. Sheridan M.P.: Print. Letter to F. Horner; apparently unpublished; n.d. [bef. 7 July 1816].

26. ff. 125v-127r. William Wilberforce M.P.: Print. Letter to F. Horner, concerning a forthcoming meeting with Lord Melville; n.d. [bef. 1810] .

27. ff. 127v-131r. William Cobbett: Print. Two letters to F. Horner, both from Newgate, requesting a revised version of Horner’s speech on the Regency Question, for the Parliamentary Debates. A copy of Horner’s reply, stating that he could not revise in time, is drafted on the back of Cobbett’s first letter. Cobbett replied, allowing Horner extra time; published from these MSS in Memoirs, vol. 2., pp. 45-47; 30, 31 Dec. 1810.

28. ff. 132-136r. Mountstewart Elphinstone, formerly Governor of Bombay: No print, and loose pencil note only as caption. Two letters to Leonard and Mrs Horner; unpublished; 1837, 1844.

29. ff. 136v-143r. George, Earl of Auckland: Print. Three letters and one envelope, the first to L.Horner, 30 May [1827], and the others to Lyell, (1844); [1827] - 1844.

30. ff. 143v-146r. John, 1st Baron Lyndhurst: Print. One letter to Lyell, with envelope, thanking Lyell for a book, (possibly The Origin of Species) and commenting on the antiquity of man; Lyell was to publish a book with that title in 1863; 6 March 1859.

31. ff. 146v-152r. George, 8th Duke of Argyll, Lord Privy Seal: Print. Three letters, one to L. Horner, and the others to Lyell. The last letter to Lyell contains a few comments on the American Civil War; see L. Horner, Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 227 et seq.; 1854-1862.

32. ff. 152v-154r. Anthony, 7th Lord Shaftesbury: Large photograph. Letter to L. Horner, enclosing a paper - now missing - on the history of Luther and Melancthon; apparently unpublished; 6 Feb. 1849.

33. ff. 154v-156r. Edward, 1st Viscount Exmouth: Print. Letter to the Hon. and Rev. Edward Pellew, a close friend of the Horner family, announcing the death of Exmouth’s brother, Sir Israel Pellew; apparently unpublished; 20 July 1832.

34. ff. 157v-162r. Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bart: Print. Three letters and an envelope, two letters being addressed to L. Horner, 7 Oct. 1829, 26 May 1845, and the other to Lyell, 4 Jan. 1845. The envelope contained a letter from Peel to Lyell, 1 July 1843; apparently unpublished; 1829-1845.

35. ff. 162v-165r. Richard L. Shiel M.P.: Print. Letter to L. Horner, apparently unpublished; Board of Trade, 28 April 1840.

36. ff. 165v-170r. Richard Cobden M.P.: Print, together with a photograph of Cobden and of his residence, Dunford House, Midhurst. Two letters and one cover: Cobden to Lyell, 4 June 1850; and Cobden to Louis Mallet of the Board of Trade, with envelope, 14 Feb. 1865; apparently unpublished; 1850, 1865.

37. ff. 170v-176r. John Bright M.P.: Photograph, no print. Two letters, to [Mrs Byrne (Fanny Horner), at Paris], Rochdale, 16 Jan. 1866; and to [his daughter Margaret Bright Lucas]; with envelope; 10 Jan. 1856; apparently unpublished; 1856, 1866.

38. ff. 176v-182r. Arthur, 1st Duke of Wellington: Two prints, one loose. Two letters: Wellington to Sir Edward Knatchbull, 30 May 1833; and Wellington to Messrs Green and Ward; with signed cover and seal; 4 June 1823; apparently unpublished; 1823, 1833.

39. ff. 182v-190r. Sir Charles Napier, a former school friend of L. Horner; (the Napiers were also related to the Bunbury family by marriage): Two prints, one loose. Two letters, with envelope, and one fragment of a letter with signature; together with envelope addressed to a Miss [Sarah?] Craig, n.d.; apparently unpublished; 4 July, 5 Aug. 1851, n.d.

40. ff. 190v-193v. General Sir George Napier: Letter to his father-in-law, John Craig; 4 Oct. 1818.

41. ff. 193v-195r. Lieut.- Gen. Sir John Moore: Print and signature of Moore; with letter to General Paoli, with MS note by a Richard Fisher, to the effect that this letter, with one from Admiral Hood to Paoli were given to Fisher, 7 March 1828, by Paoli’s nephew and A.D.C.; together with presscutting tipped in of letter from Moore to Castlereagh, 13 Jan. 1809; John Carrick Moore was Secretary of the Geological Society when L. Horner was President; n.d., but apparently 1794.

42. ff. 195v-201r. General Sir Montague Macmurdo K.C.B.: Two letters to Sir Charles and Lady Lyell; 1864, 1887.

43. f. 201v. Abraham Lincoln: Print only. The missing manuscript material was probably that sold with other letters at the Phillips sale, lot 224; 1864.

44-49. Contents removed from the album; the contents were, in numerical order: letters of Ulysses S. Grant; W. H Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State; Charles Sumner; General Sherman; C. F. Adams; and Edward Everitt. At least thirteen letters and probably some prints and/or photographs were removed. Most if not all were sold as lot 221 in the Phillips sale.

50. ff. 202-207r. Sir Edmund Walker Head, 8th Bart., Governor of New Brunswick; a friend of Sir Charles Lyell: Print probably cut out with p. 49. Two letters to Lyell from Government House, New Brunswick; 1850, 1853.

51. ff. 207v-217r. Sir George Grey, K.C.B.: Print, from photograph, of Grey in early middle-age, with a photograph of Grey in old age. Five letters, one to Lyell, and the rest to Lady and Mrs [Mary?] Lyell, later Lady Lyell; mainly personal letters, but also references to South African and New Zealand matters; for instance to some Maori stone knives dug up by Grey (letter to Lyell, 13 Nov. 1868); 1854-1894, n.d.

52. ff. 217v-219r. Giuseppe Mazzini: Two photographs, circa 1870. Letter to [?] agreeing to meet, and returning a letter from Kossuth; French; Brompton, n.d. [bef. 1872].

53. ff. 219v-226r. Sir Henry Edward Bunbury, 7th Bart.: A friend of the Lyells, and father-in-law of Frances, Lady Bunbury, née Horner. Two magazine photographs, one of Bunbury, and one of his residence, Barton Hall, Bury St. Edmunds. Three letters [to Lyell?], enclosing originally two extracts, one of a letter from Sir Charles Napier, 12 Jan. 1843, relating to sand-hills and shells in the Scinde desert; another copy of the first extract was part of Lot 750 in the Sothebys Bunbury sale, 13 May 1905; and the second from Bunbury’s son in the West Indies, concerning an earthquake there; the second extract is missing. For other Bunbury correspondence see Add. MSS. 37050-37053, 42683; 29 March 1843; 1843 - [circa 1852-1860].