Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/220

 180

NOTES AND QUERIES. [is. vi. MAY i, 1920.

'.2,678 publications, many of which went through several editions, issued between the years 1650 to 1708. Later in the eighteenth century there is the =record of a great number of publications in foreign languages, French, German, Danish, Dutch.Spanish,

-and Greek.

Much care was given by the Printing Committee who issued explicit directions to the printers

'regarding ink, paper and the number of words per Jine.

For the best part of a century it appears a great

-.part of Quaker printing was carried out by Andrew Sowle and his successors, though there seem to 'have been qualms at times about the prices charged,

.as once or twice recommendations regarding the advisability of a Friend printing Quaker books is

qualified by the sentence "provided they be as well done and as reasonably " as by a " firm of the world." Sowle was succeeded by his daughter with the quaint name, reminiscent of Puritan times,

of Tace (Be Silent) Sowle, who was praised by the bookseller Punton as "A good compositor," "Sowle himself was many times prosecuted for issuing books unlicensed by authority, but like .present-day Friends during the war refused to be

r oound by a State Censorship.

The nucleus of the present Devonshire House library was housed for many years at the Friends'

r Recording Clerk's Office in White Hart Court,

'Gracechurch Street, and in 1721 money was granted

for the provision of bags for the removal of books in case of fire. No such misfortune overtook them,

^however, and they were eventually removed to the Devonshire House premises which date from the

-end of that century.

The great work of cataloguing Friends' Books was done by Edward Marsh and Joseph Smith, the latter at one time "a watchmaker and dealer in umbrellas." The famous Joseph Smith catalogue appeared in two volumes in 1857 which were described by Dr. Garnett of the British Museum as models of painstaking and valuable research. They <Jealt with no fewer than 16.000 publications and 2,000 authors. Joseph Smith was paid at the rate of 1*.

./an hour, but it was pointed out that he worked when he pleased and in a fitful manner. He con- tinued his labours up till 1892. A tribute was


 * given to the work of Isaac Sharp who for many

years continued the joint office of Recording Clerk a,nd Librarian.

The latter, however, was made a separate post with the appointment to it of Norman Penney in 1901, a post which he still occupies. The library, which is accessible to all who are

v Interested, contains, besides a practically complete set of Quaker and anti-Quaker literature (much of

' the latter in the form of satirical verse and drama), many historical treasures of interest to many out- side Friends. There is, of course, the original Fox's ' Journal ' in two volumes, Yearly Meeting minutes from 1672 to the present day, 44 volumes

of 'The Sufferings of Friends from 1750 to 1856,' the Swarthmoor Hall Account Book (which is shortly being published by the Cambridge Univer- sity Press) kept by Sarah Fell, Fox's step-

daughter, and many Penn documents. There are also a charter of release of 800 Friends with other Nonconformists including John Bunyan ; the chair

'used by saintly John Woolman just before his death at York ; hundreds of prints and cuttings,
 * and an exhibition of Quaker costumes.

H. W. PEET.

bitnsnr.

CHARLES WILLIAM SUTTON.

WE regret to record the death of Mr. C. W. Sutton which took place at Manchester on April 24. He was born in that city on April 14, 1848, and was twice married, leaving issue five sons. He entered the Libraries Department in 1865, and has been Chief Librarian since 1879, succeeding Dr. Andrea Crestadoro. He was connected officially with most of the Literary and Antiquarian Associations of the City, and will be greatly missed by book-lovers and the public generally, to whom he was ever ready with help from his well-stocked memory. He edited the publications of the ' Chetham Society,' and 'Literary Club,' for a long number of years, and contributed many articles to ' D N.B.' He was a vice-president of the Library Association, and hon. M.A. of Victoria University, the degree being conferred on him in 1902 ' His list of 'Lancashire Authors,' published in 1876, is a store- house from which much valuable information is constantly obtained, and the careful painstaking way in which he compiled his various publications for the press, makes them authoritative and extremely useful. He had been a contributor to ' N. & Q. ' for more than fifty years.

RESEARCHES, Proof-Reading, Indexing,

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