Sir Francis Leicester's ‘Good Library’ at Nether Tabley

ABSTRACT

This article examines the book collection of Sir Francis Leicester (1674–1742) of Nether Tabley Hall, Cheshire. It charts the genesis of his collection; from an initial collection inherited from his grandfather Sir Peter Leicester to one directed by the interests of Sir Francis Leicester himself. The kind of collection Sir Francis assembled and whether it had a particular kind of identity is examined. The connections between this collection and those owned by other members of the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century elite are considered. Whether national and local scholars knew about his books and were granted access is explored. Evidence is provided for access having been granted by Sir Francis to non-elite readers from a variety of professional backgrounds. These potential readers are identified.

KEYWORDS:

• Sir Francis Leicester
• Sir Peter Leicester
• Nether Tabley Hall
• Tabley Old Hall
• Tabley House
• Cheshire
• book collection

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my co-author Professor Peter Reid for his advice and support throughout the research and writing of this article. The two anonymous reviewers were generous in providing pertinent comments on the manuscript. I would like to thank Mrs. Clare Pye, Chairwoman of the Tabley House Collection, who kindly gave permission for this research, and Mr. Donald McLeod, the former Chairman of the Collection. The Tabley House administrative team and the staff at the Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, Chester, were wonderful in producing documents and helping with queries. The Friends of Tabley have been supportive over many years and have given me many opportunities to speak and write about Sir Francis and Tabley. The volunteers at Tabley are delightful, and thank you for many conversations and questions about this research. Ed Potten generously provided copies of his articles about National Trust libraries in Cheshire. Staff at the National Trust's Cheshire Consultancy Hub provided other articles that proved difficult to find.

Notes

1. For Dunham Massey, see E. Potten, ‘The Bookplates of the Grey and Booth families of Dunham Massey and Enville Hall’, Bookplate Journal, 2 (2) (2004), 100–14; E. Potten, ‘“A great number of useful books”: The Hidden Library of Henry Booth, 1st Earl of Warrington (1652–1691)’, Library & Information History, 25 (1) (2009), 33–49; J. Rothwell, ‘Dedicated to Books’, in National Trust Historic Houses & Collections Annual (London, England: Apollo, 2010), pp. 56–61; M. Willes, Reading Matters: Five Centuries of Discovering Books (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010). For Lyme, see E. Potten, and J. Rothwell, ‘William Caxton's 1487 Missale ad Usum Sarum: The “ewe-lamb” of Lyme Park Library’, in National Trust Historic Houses & Collections Annual, edited by D. Adshead (London, England: Apollo, 2009), pp. 42–47; For Tatton, see E. Potten, ‘The Bookplates of the Egerton and Tatton Families of Tatton Park and Wythenshawe Hall’, Bookplate Journal, 3 (2) (2005), 75–95; E. Potten, ‘“Bound in vellum and lettered”: The Tatton Park Library’, in National Trust Historic Houses and Collections Annual, edited by D. Adshead (London, England: Apollo, 2013), pp. 4–11. All three libraries are considered in M. Purcell, The Country House Library (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017).

2. For a history of Nether Tabley Hall see S. Webb, ‘“A noble specimen of architecture”: A History of Tabley Old Hall’, Cheshire History, 52 (2012–13), 45–73.

3. On the death of Lt. Col. John Leicester Warren in 1975, the house and estate were bequeathed to the National Trust. The bequest was reluctantly refused, and his executors were empowered to offer the gift to an educational charity. They chose the University of Manchester, which paid the taxes due on the Tabley estate. A boys’ boarding school then occupied the house but closed in the mid-1980s. Cygnet Health Care was granted a lease of Tabley House in 1988 and opened a nursing home; the public rooms on the first floor were opened as a museum run by the Tabley House Collection Trust in 1990. See P. Cannon-Brookes, Paintings from Tabley: An Exhibition of Paintings from Tabley House (London, England: Heim Gallery, 1989) and P. Cannon-Brookes, Tabley House, rev. ed. (Nantwich, England: Tabley House Collection Trust, 2006).

4. Sir Peter's collection has been considered by E. M. Halcrow, Charges to the Grand Jury at Quarter Sessions, 1660–1667 (Manchester, England: printed for the Chetham Society, 1953).

5. E. Cruickshanks, ‘Leicester, Sir Francis, 3rd Bt. (1674–1742), of Tabley, Cheshire’, in R. Sedgwick, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1715–1754 (London, England: published for the History of Parliament Trust by HMSO) http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/leicester-sir-francis-1674-1742 [accessed 25 May 2015]

6. Details of his Grand Tour can be found in E. Leighton, the Hon. Lady Leighton Warren, Tabley Miscellany (Knutsford, Cheshire, England: privately printed, 1903), section entitled ‘Sir Francis Leicester’, p. 10. She includes a transcription of what must have been a communal estate diary kept by his steward Thomas Jackson and then continued by his servant Hugh Lawton.

7. Leighton, section entitled ‘Sir Francis Leicester’, p. 26.

8. Cruickshanks, in R. Sedgwick, The History of Parliament.

9. E. C. Legh, Baroness Newton, Lyme Letters 1660–1760 (London, England: William Heinemann, 1925), p. 232.

10. E. M. Halcrow, Charges to the Grand Jury at Quarter Sessions, 1660–1667 (Manchester, England: printed for the Chetham Society, 1953), p. xx.

11. R. Holme, The Academy of Armory, or, A Storehouse of Armory and Blazon (Chester, England: printed by the author, 1688), p. 677.

12. The Tabley copy has a spine tooled in gold and internally, it contains a note, possibly in Sir Francis Leicester's hand, about the type of leather to be used to bind the book.

13. H. Booth, Earl of Warrington, The Works of the Right Honourable Henry Late L. Delamer, and Earl of Warrington: Containing his Lordships Advice to his Children, Several Speeches in Parliament, &c. (London, England: printed for John Lawrence at the Angel, and John Dunton at the Raven in the Poultrey, 1694), pp. 17–20.

14. Among other early books could be The True Conduct of Persons of Quality Translated out of French (London, 1694) given to Sir Francis as ‘The gift of Mrs Jane Harrison’. Mrs. Harrison lived at Tabley according to 1666 poll tax information, but she was not a servant. This book contained bite-sized pieces of advice on polite behaviour for busy men. Sir Francis acquired a copy (when is uncertain) of The Dublin Scuffle being a Challenge Sent by John Dunton, Citizen of London, to Patrick Campbel, Bookseller in Dublin (London, 1699), revealing an interest in booksellers and the bookselling business.

15. William Stukeley, Itinerarium curiosum. Or, an Account of the Antiquitys and Remarkable Curiositys in Nature or Art, Observ'd in Travels thro' Great Brittan (London, England: printed for the author, 1724), p. 54.

16. Sir Peter Leicester's seventeenth-century book catalogue can be found in the Leicester Warren Family of Tabley Records, Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, Chester, DLT/B92. This is bound in one volume with Sir Francis Leicester's earliest surviving book catalogue (thus with the same reference number). This was an incomplete subject catalogue handwritten by Sir Francis probably about 1720. His final catalogue DLT/B91 was begun in either 1734 or 1735 and was added to over the rest of his life with a last entry date of 1742. Given the uncertainty over the date of its commencement, it is referred to throughout this research as Sir Francis Leicester's final book catalogue. All subsequent materials cited with ‘DLT’ references are located in the Leicester Warren Family of Tabley Records, Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, Chester.

17. M. R. M. Towsey, Reading the Scottish Enlightenment: Books and their Readers in Provincial Scotland, 1750–1820 (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2010), p. 31.

18. D. Lundberg and H. F. May, ‘The Enlightened Reader in America’, American Quarterly, 28 (2) (1976), 264.

19. A Mr. Booth wrote in about 1774 to Catherine, Lady Leicester, the widow of Sir Peter Byrne Leicester (1732–1770), the grandson of Sir Francis. Mr. Booth assured her that he would ‘take care to look up all the Books he has belonging to Tabley […] It is so long since he had them’. This letter is preserved in Catherine, Lady Leicester's Private Accounts, 1768 (Tabley House Collection, 120.13 B099 S103). In DLT/D461/5, Lady Leighton Warren noted that Sir Peter Leicester's copy of Daniel King's The Vale-Royall of England (London, 1656) had been given by Sir John Fleming Leicester to Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758–1838) of Stourhead and it had been later sold from Stourhead.

20. R. Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History, (1990), quoted in Towsey, p. 24.

21. Purcell, The Country House Library, p. 226.

22. Towsey, p. 24.

23. F. Heal and C. Holmes, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500–1700 (Basingstoke, England: Macmillan, 1994), p. 280.

24. Sir Peter Leicester's 1667 will, quoted in Leighton, section ‘About Sir Peter Leicester Being Taken Prisoner’, p. 30.

25. S. West, ‘An Architectural Typology for the Early Modern Country house Library, 1660–1720’, The Library, 14 (4) (2013), p. 460.

26. E. Forness, A Sermon Preached at the Funeral of the Honorable Sir Robert Leicester of Tabley, Bar’. At Great Budworth in the County Palatine of Chester, July 11. 1684 (London, England: printed for Peter Swinton, 1684), p. iii.

27. It was perhaps this Meriel who signed one of the back pages of Robert Sanderson's Episcopacy … Not Prejudicial to Regal Power (London, 1673) with ‘Meriel Leycester hir Booke 1682’. What was important about this particular copy was Sir Francis Leicester's response. A note, possibly in his hand, recorded inside, ‘There is another of this got up in E num 18’, and this referred Sir Peter's copy. The signature does not match any surviving examples of Lady Leicester's signature but these all date from much later in her life. A Bible survives at Tabley probably associated with Meriel, Lady Leicester. In itself, it is a rare survival as it is bound in green velvet with silver clasps and a central cartouche. Sir Francis recorded its presence in his final book catalogue (DLT/B91, p. 19v) as 'A great Bible bound in Velvet, covered with wrought Silver plate, in a bag it lyes amongst the MSS, 4°’.

28. Leighton, section ‘Stray Notes’, p. 13. Lady Leighton Warren called the transcription ‘Memoriall. From Steward Jackson (a stray leaf).’

29. Collier (1650–1726) was a Nonjuring bishop in the Church of England, and his Dictionary was a translation from Louis Moréri's 1674 Grand dictionnaire historique but also contained new material on English church history. See E. Salmon, ‘Collier, Jeremy (1650–1726), Anti-Theatrical Polemicist and Bishop of the Nonjuring Church of England’, in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed. May 2006) (hereafter ODNB) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5917 [accessed 30 May 2017].

30. M. Purcell, ‘The Country House Library Reassess'd: or, Did the “Country House Library” Ever Really Exist?’, Library History, 18 (3) (2002), 160. Unlike other owners, Sir Francis kept his inherited books overwhelmingly in their original bindings, eschewing the desire to rebind. Although reasons of economy probably played a part, his conservation of old-fashioned bindings ensured that his grandfather's books, at least, were (and are) easily discernible on the shelves with their dark calf bindings.

31. DLT/B91, Sir Francis Leicester's book catalogue.

32. For his involvement in county politics, see S. W. Baskerville, P. Adman, and K. F. Beedham, ‘“Prefering a Whigg to a whimsical”: The Cheshire Election of 1715 Reconsidered', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 74.3 (1992), 139–68.

33. A. Manguel, A History of Reading (London, England: Flamingo, 1997), p. 49. Manguel was paraphrasing St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) on the relationship between readers and authors. Sir Francis added books his grandfather would have approved as Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford, continued the library he inherited from his father the first Earl. See D. Stoker, ‘Harley, Edward, Second Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1689–1741)’, ODNB http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12337 [accessed 29 May 2017].

34. For Sir Peter's comment on Milton's work, see E. M. Halcrow, Charges to the Grand Jury at Quarter Sessions, 1660–1667 (Manchester, England: printed for the Chetham Society, 1953), p. 120.

35. This work was printed for Robert Clavell, and besides ‘the character of that blessed martyr’, it also contained ‘the death-bed repentance of Mr. Lenthal, Speaker of the Long-Parliament’. Clavell had printed Sir Peter Leicester's Historical Antiquities in 1673.

36. For example, Form of Prayer with Fasting (London, 1685) issued by James VII and II ‘to be us'd yearly upon the 30th of January, being the day of the martyrdom of the blessed King Charles the First’ (bound pamphlets stamped 12 in bookcase C2, on shelf 1 in the picture gallery at Tabley House). There are similar sermons for the same occasion from 1712, preached before Queen Anne, and 1719 preached before the House of Commons (bound pamphlets stamped I, spine label 66 in bookcase C2 shelf 2 in the picture gallery at Tabley House).

37. J. Raymond, ‘Rushworth, John (c.1612–1690), historian and politician’, ODNB http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/24288 [accessed 25 May 2017].

38. P. Spedding, ‘Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots’ http://patrickspedding.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/mary-stuart-queen-of-scots.html [accessed 20 May 2017].

39. C. S. Clegg, ‘Holinshed, Raphael (c.1525–1580?), Historian’, ODNB http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/13505 [accessed 25 May 2017].

40. His Historical Antiquities (1673), according to the title page, had ‘annexed a transcript of Doomsday-book, so far as it concerneth Cheshire, taken out of the original record’.

41. DLT 4996/32/38, Osborne's receipt for books, 7 April 1736.

42. Through Amicia's father Hugh of Cyfeiliog, fifth Earl Chester (1147–1181), the Leicesters and Mainwarings could claim royal descent from an illegitimate son of Henry I, Robert, Earl of Gloucester. See T. F. Tout, ‘Hugh [Hugh of Cyfeiliog], Fifth Earl of Chester (1147–1181), Magnate’, ODNB http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14059 [accessed 25 May 2017].

43. DLT/D461/4, copy of a letter from Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, to Sir Francis Leicester, 22 August 1738.

44. DLT/D461/4, copy of a letter from Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, to Sir Francis Leicester, 19 October 1738. The item given away by Sir Francis was possibly listed in vol. ii of R. Nares, A Catalogue of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, in the British Museum (London, 1808). Manuscript 2060 was described as ‘A Book in folio wherein are contained very ample Collections chiefly relating to the History & Antiquities of Chester and Cheshire written perhaps by the Hand or Order of Peter Leicester Esq’ (vol. ii, 426).

45. Interestingly, they occasionally subscribed to the same publications. They both subscribed to the smaller version of Bishop Burnet's History of his Own Time (London, 1724–34), printed for Thomas Ward.

46. E. C. Legh, Baroness Newton recorded in The House of Lyme: From its Foundation to the End of the Eighteenth Century (London: William Heinemann, 1917), p. 377, that ‘[s]eldom did a week go by without some communication passing between Lyme and Tabley. Messengers were constantly sent from one house to the other with a “how do” and a haunch of venison or other token of goodwill, although the distance between the two places is fully twenty-five miles by road.’

47. The books of Frances Legh of Bruch (1670–1728), Mrs. Peter Legh XII, can be found in the COPAC catalogue records of the Lyme library, see http://copac.jisc.ac.uk/about/libraries/national-trust.html [accessed 6 November 2017].

48. DLT C35/73, Peter Legh to Sir Francis Leicester, July (?) 1729.

49. Potten and Rothwell, pp. 42–47. Sir Francis had inherited family copies of Caxton's The Mirror of the World (1480), Polycronicon (1480), and Aesop's Fables (1482). To these he added, presumably through purchase although there is no indication in the archive of how he acquired it, Caxton's Morte d'Arthur (1485). He also owned a 1515 copy of Wynkyn de Worde's The Chronicles of England. The Mirror of the World was still at Tabley in about 1861–63, when the Caxton bibliographer William Blades (1824–1890) examined it. When Seymour de Ricci compiled A Census of Caxtons (Oxford, England: printed for the Bibliographical Society at the Oxford University Press, 1909), there was no mention of any Tabley Caxtons.

50. DLT C35/67, Peter Legh to Sir Francis Leicester, 19 December 1728. Seymour Cholmley (or Cholmondeley) of Vale Royal Abbey was another Cheshire gentleman involved with Sir Francis and his books. See Mr. Bedford's receipt to Seymour Chomley for a book, March 1730/32, DLT 4996/32/29. The book purchased was Thomas Hearne's 1730 Vindiciae antiquitatis academiae Oxoniensis contra Johannen Caium Cantabrigiensem (Oxford, 1730). It cost Sir Francis one guinea.

51. DLT C35/74, Peter Legh to Sir Francis Leicester, 24 July 1729.

52. DLT C35/79, Peter Legh to Sir Francis Leicester to Sir Francis Leicester, 18 August 1730.

53. DLT C35/84, Peter Legh to Sir Francis Leicester, 26 December 1731.

54. DLT DLT/D461/4, copy of a letter from Sir Francis Leicester to Peter Legh, 19 January 1740.

55. Sir Francis appears to have been referring to matters relating to the War of Jenkins' Ear.

56. There are several versions of the inventory, DLT 4996/59/5/14, DLT 4996/59/5/15, and DLT 4996/59/5/10. Lady Leighton Warren amalgamated several of these in her printed version in the Tabley Miscellany, section titled ‘Sir Francis Leicester’, pp. 3–43.

57. DLT/D461/3, copy of a letter from Sir Francis Leicester to Peter Legh 'Tabley Friday night’, no year but before 1716.

58. S. Jervis, ‘The English Country House Library’, in Treasures from the Libraries of the National Trust Country Houses, edited by N. Barker (New York, NY: Royal Oak Foundation & The Grolier Club, 1999), p. 19.

59. C. Schofield and E. Pownall, Tatton Park (Crewe, England: Cheshire East Council, 2010), p. 44.

60. This meeting must have taken place between 26 August 1715 when John Erskine, Earl of Mar, ‘raised the Jacobite standard at Braemar in the highlands’ and 13 November 1715 when ‘the crushing government victory at Preston completely extinguished any immediate hope of a rising in northern England’. See E. Gregg, ‘James Francis Edward [James Francis Edward Stuart; Styled James VIII and III; Known as Chevalier de St George, Pretender, Old Pretender] (1688–1766), Jacobite Claimant to the Thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland’, ODNB http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14594 [accessed 28 May 2017].

61. Characters of the Court of Hanover: With a Word or Two of Some Body Else, which No Body has Yet Thought On (London, England: printed for J. Baker at the Black-Boy in Pater-Noster-Row, 1714), p. 5.

62. Within a collection of early seventeenth-century papers, DLT/B56, there is a manuscript copy of a letter from Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, to Queen Anne, c. 1713 or 1714.. It is in an unknown hand and annotated by Sir Francis as ‘A letter from Lorrain about the Pretender’.

63. Sir Francis wrote and asked Peter Legh about his brother Francis Legh's welfare, as he had taken part in the battle at Preston. Sir Francis Leicester to Peter Legh, ‘Tabley Wed morning’, no year but 1715 (DLT /D461/3). Francis Legh escaped from England, was proscribed by the government, and spent the rest of his life in exile and died in 1737. See E. C. Legh, Baroness Newton's Lyme Letters 1660–1760 (London, England: William Heinemann, 1925), pp. 293–310.

64. Each member of the Cheshire Club probably owned a library. The Earl of Barrymore certainly had one by 1745 as he fled from it according to Wilbraham Egerton, Earl Egerton of Tatton, in his The Cheshire Gentry in 1715: Drawn from the Ashley Hall Portraits at Tatton (Cheshire: privately printed, 1909), p. 13. The father of Amos Meredith of Henbury left a collection of books worth £10 in 1670 (Inventory of the goods of Sir Amos Meredith of Henbury 1670, Cheshire Archives and Local Studies Service, WS 1670). Meredith directed in his own will that his books (and other goods) were to be sold to settle his debts from stock jobbing (Will of Amos Meredith of Henbury (1688–1745), 23 November 1727, Cheshire Archives and Local Studies Service, WS 1745).

65. J. Lees-Milne, Earls of Creation: Five Great Patrons of Eighteenth-Century Art (London, England: Hamilton, 1962).

66. D. Stoker, ‘Harley, Edward, Second Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1689–1741), Book Collector and Patron of the Arts’, ODNB http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12337 [accessed 1 October 2014].

67. M. Honeybone and Y. Lewis, ‘Ellys, Sir Richard, Third Baronet (1682–1742), Book Collector and Biblical Scholar’, ODNB http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8729 [accessed 3 October 2014]. See also G. Mandelbrote and Y. Lewis, Learning to Collect: The Library of Sir Richard Ellys (1682–1742) at Blickling Hall (London, England: The National Trust, 2004).

68. Purcell, ‘The Country House Library Reassess'd’, p. 161.

69. This book catalogue is bound with one of Sir Peter Leicester's catalogues, DLT/B92.

70. DLT/B91, Sir Francis Leicester's final book catalogue.

71. The most likely candidate for the amanuensis would seem to be Sir Francis Leicester's servant Hugh Lawton. Lawton had signed the appraisal of the books and inventory of the goods of Francis Pigott (DLT/D33/1), the step-grandfather of Sir Francis on his mother's side, who died in 1694. The handwriting of the catalogue of Mr. Pigott's books does not match that of Hugh Lawton although he was undoubtedly involved with it. Examples of Lawton's handwriting exist; see for example DLT 5524/38/12, notes concerning court rolls signed H. Lawton (16 October 1721), extract from the register of Bowdon church. However, Sir Francis Leicester's book catalogue is such an excellent production that the fine handwriting effectively disguises any identification of the writer.

72. For his comment on Spelman, see DLT/B91, p. 28. For comments on Geoffrey of Monmouth see DLT/B91, p. 36 verso; for William of Malmesbury, see DLT/B91, p. 35; for Dupin, see DLT/B91, p. 26; and for Thomas Hearne, see DLT/B91, p. 61.

73. Sir Francis employed some idiosyncratic pressmarks. Those books in the class ‘Lives of Particular Persons of Distinction’ had a variety of pressmarks which included letters from the English alphabet, a cross, two squares, a trident, a cross, a heart shape, and the Greek letters delta, phi, and psi. They indicated particular presses and were necessary because Sir Francis coped with two collections, his grandfather's and his own. Sir Peter had already used the English alphabet for his pressmarks. No instructions by Sir Francis on how and where a user would find a particular book have apparently survived.

74. O. Laird, ‘Wharton, Henry (1664–1695), Church of England Clergyman and Historian’, ODNB http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29167 [accessed 26 May 2017]

75. This was a clause repeated in every version of his will until his death in 1742. See draft will of Sir Francis Leicester, 25 July 1716, DLT/34/8; will of Sir Francis Leicester, 30 October 1719, DLT/D34/7; will of Sir Francis Leicester, 11 May 1724, DLT/D34/10; and a copy of Sir Francis Leicester's 1741 will, DLT/D445/13.

76. According to Sir Peter Leicester's Historical Antiquities, the patronage of St. Mary's lay with the Bishop of Chester. The living was seen as generous and Sir Peter recorded, ‘Our common proverb is, Every man is not born to be Vicar of Bowdon.’ See D. King, The History of Cheshire: Containing King's Vale-Royal Entire, Together with Considerable Extracts from Sir Peter Leycester's Antiquities of Cheshire; and the Observation of Later Writers, Particularly, Pennant, Grose &c. (Chester, England: John Poole, 1778), ii, 682

77. DLT/C5/61, letter from Thomas Carte to Sir John Byrne, December 1733. All subsequent quotations in the main text referring to Carte's request are taken from this one letter. Sir John was married to Meriel Leicester, the only daughter and heir of Sir Francis. She was the widow of Fleetwood Legh of Bank Hall, Lancashire, who died in 1726. Fleetwood Legh had been the heir of Peter Legh XII of Lyme until his early death. Although of Irish extraction, Sir John Byrne was descended from Warrens of Poynton in Cheshire.

78. S. Handley, ‘Carte, Thomas (bap. 1686, d. 1754), Historian’, ODNB http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4780 [accessed 27 May 2017].

79. This was perhaps the bookseller John Payne (d. 1787). See O. M. Brack, ‘Payne, John (d. 1787), Bookseller’, ODNB http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21646 [accessed 30 May 2017]

80. There are some bound volumes of pamphlets (in bookcase C.2 at Tabley House) with the signature ‘R. Whorwood’ and they all date from the 1650s. In this instance, Frith must surely have been a later owner. It is uncertain whether these are the pamphlets Carte wanted to use.

81. DLT 5524/38/5/1, Sir Francis Leicester, Notes on burial places of the Earls of Chester. As Sir Francis mentions the Cotton Library, presumably this letter predates the fire of 1731.

82. These titles were Sir Peter Leicester's Historical Antiquities (London, 1673) and either a 1598 edition (the ESTC recorded the date as 1599) or a 1724 edition of Ralph Brooke's A Discoverie of Certaine Errours Published in Print in the Much Commended Britannia, 1594. Sir Francis owned both editions according to his final catalogue.

83. Treasures from the Libraries, edited by Barker, p. 3.

84. M. Purcell and N. Thwaite, The Libraries at Calke Abbey (London, England: National Trust, 2013), p. 8.

85. S. Webb, ‘Mr Jackson's Books’, Cheshire History, 53 (2013–14), 182–89.

86. C. Foster, Seven Households: Life in Cheshire and Lancashire, 1582–1774 (Northwich, England: Arley Hall Press, 2002), p. 88.

87. Rymer had been appointed historiographer to William III, and this was a government-sponsored project to publish alliances and treaties. It was obviously a project that appealed to Sir Francis. See A. Sherbo, ‘Rymer, Thomas (1642/3–1713)’, ODNB http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/24426 [accessed 28 May 2017].

88. Massey lived in nearby Rostherne, about nine miles from Nether Tabley. Sir Francis kept a copy of Massey's 1690 diploma from Aberdeen, enabling him to practise as a doctor of physic, in his papers (now part of DLT 5524/38/12). Sir Francis had a long-standing interest in medicine, and while at Cambridge, he had apparently acquired a cadaver to dissect. Lady Leighton Warren in the Tabley Miscellany, section titled ‘Sir Francis Leicester’, p. 8, quoted his steward Thomas Jackson's diary: 'Mar. 30 [1694] 2 Men were hanged at Cambridge, one my Mr and other bought to dessect [dissect]'. Sir Francis kept medical pamphlets and at least one book bill, Fletcher Giles's receipt for books, March 1730/31 (DLT 4996/32/29) recorded his purchase of William Salmon's Collectanea medica, the Country Physician: or, A Choice Collection of Physick (London, 1703).

89. Treasures from the Libraries, edited by Barker, p. 3.

90. Heal and Holmes, p. 343.

91. Leighton, section titled ‘Sir Francis Leicester’, p. 39.

92. DLT/D34/10, will of Sir Francis Leicester, 11 May 1724. The details of all the Tabley chaplains are contained in the Tabley Chapel Book (Tabley House Collection, 95.7 B156.S045). After his startling purchase of twenty-six titles by the controversial natural philosopher and theologian William Whiston (see DLT 4996/32/29 for Fletcher Giles's receipt for books, March 1730/31) he surely needed people like the Rev. Thomas Watkis or the Rev. Peter Lancaster of Bowdon to discuss them.

93. Treasures from the Libraries, edited by Barker, p. 3.

94. There is one intriguing piece of evidence that has proved impossible so far to disentangle but it could just be one of Barker's ‘bright lads’. In his final catalogue, Sir Francis recorded in the manuscript class 'A paraphrase on the 13th part of the 119th Psalm by Tom Hulse's Grandson marble paper cover' (DLT/B91, p. 39 recto). This manuscript still survives in the Leicester Warren family records as one of the miscellaneous manuscripts in DLT/F13. It is bound in thick patterned paper. Although it has proved impossible to find a suitable candidate, it is possible that Tom Hulse was a tenant of the Nether Tabley estate or somehow distantly related to it, but it would be unwise to speculate further.

95. W. J. Harper, ‘Old Sandbach’ and Neighbourhood, with Addenda on Holmes Chapel, and Old Little Peover (Sandbach, England: W. J. Harper, 1894), p. 49, and Raymond Richards, Old Cheshire Churches: With a Supplementary Survey Relating to the Lesser Old Chapels of Cheshire, rev. and enlarged ed. (Manchester, England: E. J. Morten, 1973), p. 204.

96. The school took pupils, according to M. Cox, A History of Sir John Deane's Grammar School Northwich, 1557–1908 (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1975), p. 127, from families ‘with property of less than £10 a year or holding a farm worth less than £30 a year’.

97. Although there was no evidence that such pupils had access to the Tabley library, Sir Francis took an interest in what the pupils read. He preserved ‘A list of the charity scholars of Lower Peover school 1725 and 1726’, which detailed the books awarded to them, Bibles, Testaments, psalters, primers, and books of Common Prayer. This is contained in DLT 5524/31/2/4.

98. A few other potential readers of more ephemeral matter can be inferred from the fact that Sir Francis ordered at least several newspapers every few days, but only one copy of The Evening Post has survived at Tabley, bound in a volume of pamphlets. The absence of any other preserved newspapers could argue that they were shared with his household and other readers, who did not have their own means of acquiring newspapers. The premise that Sir Francis ordered several newspapers or news-sheets is based on the price of The Evening Post. According to copies available through the online 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection database, it was priced at 1d. in 1710 and was issued several times a week. John Cooke itemized ‘Pd [paid] for news […] 0: 0: 3’ for 19 January 1730 (DLT 4996/32/29), which would indicate more than one copy or title. This pattern was repeated in other bills by Cooke (26 February 1730, 15 March 1730 in DLT 4996/32/29), and one described as Tom's bill of April 1736 (DLT 4996/32/38). Sir Francis bought newspapers for himself and his son-in-law Sir John Byrne from a London seller called Green in the 1730s (see Nicholas Kent accounts, DLT 4996/32/26).

99. This is in Sir Francis Leicester's own handwriting and is contained within ‘Memorials—Leicester correspondence: Six separate sheets showing proposed inscriptions for the tombs of Sir Robert Peter Meriel etc., also translations and sketch designs’ (Tabley House Collection, 109.9(06)(12).TT [tin trunk].S092). The former Chairman of the Tabley House Collection Trust, Mr. Donald McLeod, generously provided a modern translation of Sir Francis Leicester's memorial.

100. Bill to Enlarge the Time Limited by the Will of Sir Francis Leicester, Baronet, dec. for sale of the real estate late of Sir John Byrne, Baronet, dec. in the Kingdom of Ireland, until 23 Jan 1755 and also to enable Sir Peter Byrne, Baronet and his issue to take and use the surname of Leicester only, pursuant to the said will, DLT 5524/33/6, p. 9.

101. The Proposals for printing by subscription a collection of the state papers of John Thurloe Esq; secretary, first, to the Council of State, and afterwards to the two Protectors, Oliver and Richard Cromwell (London, 1739), by Thomas Birch, had been issued in 1739. Sir Francis was listed in the final published work as a subscriber.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Webb

Sarah Webb is a Senior Assistant Librarian at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has been a volunteer with the Tabley House Collection since 2004. She was appointed as a trustee of the Collection in 2010.

Peter H. Reid

Professor Peter Reid is professor of librarianship at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.