Other highlights of the autograph section of Dominic Winter's sale included a letter of 1852 (in English) sent to John Jervis, a British envoy, by the King of Siam – thanking him for the gift of a compass and arranging a meeting – which sold at £1320 to Hanson. The catalogue says that this was indeed the ‘King and I’ monarch, and the date confirms it as King Mongkut or Rama IV.
An extensive archive of documents relating to the Ledbury Turnpike, from its opening in 1784 to the demolition of the toll houses and gates in 1871, found a good home in the Herefordshire Record Office, at £780, while Quaritch, who also makes purchases on behalf of the very largest of British institutional collections, paid £800 for a remarkable manuscript ‘Inventory of the Goods of Somerset House’ that was drawn up around 1760, while Jarndyce gave £2000 for a business archive relating to the Bath Sugar Plantation of Barbados in the years 1785-89.
Revolutionary freesheets and a note from the King of Siam
UK: ONE of a group of seven newspapers, plus a printed edict, issued in March 1917, at the outbreak of the Russian revolution, which sold for £400 (Hanson). They were apparently distributed free in the streets of Petrograd and these copies were acquired by Gertrude Hitchcock, who was there working for a British engineering company at the time.
