Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/408

 402

NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. m. MAY 27, 1911.

in its earlier clays. That most practical and industrious sub-librarian William Upcott would have been invaluable as a collector of what were then things of little worth. His was the suggestion that a library " of all matters relating to this City, the borough of Southwark, and county of Middlesex " should be formed at the Guildhall ; and on the motion of Richard Lambert Jones, the Court of Common Council on 8 Aptil, 1824, referred it to a Special Committee. Mr. Welch (' The Guildhall Library and its Work') gives Jones the credit due to Upcott for this excellent proposal, and that evidently was the attitude of the Common Council, with disastrous results, as Upcott, having be- queathed to them his collections of tokens, medals, and some prints and drawings, revoked these clauses on 22 July, 1834, having already written : " This portion to be reconsidered, William Upcott, in conse- quence of their meanness towards me." I question the knowledge and ability of Lam- bert Jones on the evidence of some letters before me ; and his disinterested public spirit, on the evidence of an incident related by Cureton (see Roach Smith's ' Retrospec- tions,' i. 119).

The Guildhall Library soon began to form a museum of London antiquities. Amphora?, tiles, and coins from the site of St. Martin's Collegiate Church (engraved on the second plate of Kempe's ' Historical Notes,' &c.) were presented by H. Cureton, a numismatist of Aldersgate Street ; and W. L. Newman, the City Solicitor, gave a piece of the wooden pile from Canute's trench. By 1840 it possessed 40 articles, mostly relevant, but some (such as "a piece of the Royal George " and a " pair of nineteen - inch globes") beyond the intention of its best friends.

On 26 March, 1846, the Committee reported that an ante-rocan had been fitted to receive these and the first important accessions, the antiquities found in excavating the site of the new Royal Exchange in 1841. To supplement the list at the end of the 1840 printed Library Catalogue,- they had pre- pared and published in 1848 " a descriptive catalogue " of these discoveries. Although this is said to be by" William Tite, F.R.S., F.S.A.," Roach Smith claims (' Retro- spections,' i. 129) that " Russell " was responsible for their preservation and descrip- tion, Richard Thomson providing the rest of the book.

The subsequent development of the Guild- hall Museum does not call for notice now. To-day it is a useful collection, badly situ-

ated, not sufficiently restricted in purpose, and too readily a refuge for objects of little interest, simply because they are gifts. I blame the Committee, not its staff, for its faults.

As regards the library and collections on London at Spring Gardens, although they are public property, they are not, under existing legulations, for public use. ri 1 r

But if the Guildhall was the first public Museum of London Antiquities, it was not by more than a century the first collection of objects of interest on its history. " Trades- cant's Ark '' was essentially a'natural history museum. Amongst the many marvels of nature and specimens of the' ingenuity of man were (p. 38 of ' Musseum Tradescan- tianum,' 1665) " Two figures carved in Stone by Hans Holbein." Possibly these were from Whitehall, but there was nothing else in this or the collections of James Petiver and William " Charleton " (Courten) to justify their inclusion in a list of Museums of London Antiquities.

Almost contemporary was Joseph Conieis or Conyers, an apothecary at " The White Lion " in Fleet Street, " a great searcher after antiquities " (Seymour's ' Survey of London,' ii. 869), who discovered a skeleton of an elephant at Battle Bridge, and built thereon the tradition of a local battle between Boadicea and Suetonius Paulinus. He is said to have brought together most of the Roman vessels and articles of every kind which afterwards formed the extraordinary museum of Dr. John Woodward (1665-1717). Sloane MS. 958 contains an important record by Coniers, dated 20 August, 1675, of the excavations at the north-east corner of the site of St. Paul's.

To Thomas Kemp belongs the glory of being the first London antiquary to have a printed catalogue of his collection. Its title reads :

" Monumenta Vetustatis Kempiana . . . . In duas partes divisa : Quarum altera, Mumias, Simulacra, Statuas, Signa, Lares, Inscriptiones ....cum aliis veterum Reliquiis. Cura R- Ainsworth et J. Ward, London, 1720."

Of the three copies in the B.M., one- belonged to Henry, Lord Colerane, and in addition to interesting letters from the com- pilers, it contains the following note by Dr. Thos. Birch (1705-66), dated " Marrii 16, 1754" :

" The greatest part of this collection of Mr. Kemp had been made by Mr. John Gjiilhard, who had been Governor to George, the first Lord Carteret, created so 19 Oct., 1681, and [he] sold them to his Ldp. for an annuity of 20QI. After the death of the Lord, which happen 'd 22 Sept.,