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Corporation of Newcastle.
Conservatorship of the Tyne: The Plea and Defence of the Mayor and Burgesses of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, As Conservators of the Port Thereof, Against the Malevolent Accusations of Gardiner and his Adherents...
Publisher: M. A. Richardson; J. Russell Smith, Newcastle and London;
Date of Publication: 1849
Stock Code: 12076
Small quarto, pp., [ix], 10-108, paginated to include the original bound in paper wraps. Fold-out Gardiner pedigree. Later purple half calf by Waters of Newcastle, with gilt titles to spine, gilt fillets and embellishments in blind to calf and pebbled cloth-covered boards; all edges sprinkled red. Lengthy note in pencil to first blank referring to Alderman Hornby’s manuscript, and small marginal note in pencil to p. 69; original wraps lightly soiled; scattered light foxing, almost exclusively to endpapers. Spine sunned otherwise a very clean copy. The defence of the Corporation of Newcastle in reply to charges brought against them by Ralph Gardiner in 1653, transcribed from a manuscript in the possession of Alderman Hugh Hornby but previously unpublished. Gardiner’s diatribe against the draconian control of the coal trade on the River Tyne was full of accusations of the misuse of the Royal Charter and corruption, and the publication of the Conservatorship manuscript enabled readers to view both sides of the heated argument. This is the very last of Richardson’s tracts; rare, the title-page states that only 150 copies were printed. Jisc locates just one institutional copy at the University of Leicester. £95.00