Scope and Content
Mix of mostly manuscript notes (chiefly quotes and extracts) and newspaper cuttings, with some engraved portraits extracted from other published sources, postcards and memorial cards. Wide variety of topics included, from medical matters to international affairs (e.g., Afghanistan, South Africa, India), national and foreign events, many religious themes (hymns, verse, events, preachers, devotional and doctrinal articles), notes on the English language, poems, riddles, mottoes, aphorisms, etc. There is a prescription (from J.L. Anthony, pharmaceutical chemist at 48 High Street, Bedford) involving cocaine and white vaseline ‘for cancer’. Amongst items of local interest is a manuscript note of the names of ‘Persons who have lived in Barham House, Harrold, during the past 70 to 80 years-- May 1884’. Near the end of the volume is a knitting pattern copied in manuscript (2 pages) for a ‘Helmet for Deep Sea Fisherman’.
First item in book is a memorial card for Hugh Le Fevre, The Green, Harrold, died 26 April 1903. Other miscellaneous printed items include the ‘Hymn of Thanksgiving for the relief of Kimberley, February 16th, and Ladysmith, March 1st, 1900’, and ‘Rest in the Lord’ [the hymn known often by its first line, ‘Be still, my soul’] written by Dr. George Le Fevre ‘at the beginning of his last illness’, and printed in memoriam.
Topics of newspaper cuttings include: colour photography (’Is it achieved at last?’); ‘English Pitfalls: How to Pronounce Family Names’; ‘The National Debts of the World’ (pasted on the same page with an article promoting the ‘Economy of Condensed Milk’); ‘Losing the Art of Hand-writing’; ‘Mr. Pasteur on Hydrophobia’; ‘Denver and Colorado As Emigration Fields’ (same page as ‘Pronunciation of Aristocratic Names’); various articles relating to Manchester (Susannah Goff came from there); a comment on the protest of Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett in the New York Critic ‘against the manufacture of frivolous and untruthful gossip about persons in whom the public are supposed to take an interest’.
Most cuttings’ sources and dates are not identified, though they appear to include local and regional newspapers as well as ‘The Revival Times’ and others.
Numerous obituaries and descriptions of funerals of the great and good, statesmen, clergymen-- particularly figures in the Congregational church, including the Rev. William Jones of Harrold, d. 25 Feb. 1886, aged 45. Three pages of cuttings on the death and funeral of her husband, Mr. John Goff of Harrold, ‘one of the oldest and most respected inhabitants of that parish’ (including comment on recent death of his great friend, Mr. Lovell; both men were members of the Board of Guardians of the Bedford Union), February 1887. Further on in the book is a manuscript transcription of John Goff’s memorial erected by the congregation and friends.
Reports of other personal occasions include Bedford Board of Guardians meeting on death of its Chairman, Mr. C. L. Higgins; the marriage of Miss Butterfield to Mr. Webb (1887), which includes a list of some of the presents received; article on royal characters (and current political questions) in advance of the 13 March 1879 wedding of HRH The Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught (third son of Queen Victoria) and HRH Princess Louise of Prussia at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor [n.d., Feb. 1879]; and the renowned preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s fiftieth birthday celebration at the Metropolitan Temple [Tabernacle] in London.
List of images in order of appearance (pages are not numbered):
--On same page: Cracken Hill, Harrold (tinted postcard) and colour postcard of painting of Lord Strathcona’s Mansion House, Glencoe;
-- Odell Village (tinted postcard);
-- engraved portrait of D.L. Moody (‘Chicago, USA’);
--printed photograph of Charles Howard, Biddenham, Bedfordshire (from Mark Lane Express Illustrated Supplement. - No. 15. reproduced for Mark Lane Express; original has ‘Hare’s [illeg.]’ signed);
-- Harrold Bridge (tinted postcard);
-- published drawing (cut from a charitable organisation’s circular?) with a wretched-looking woman in rags and leaning on a crutch selling flowers, on the left, and the same woman neatly dressed and seated, working industriously at a table, on the right; caption in ribbon underneath ‘From flower selling to flower making’;
-- engraved portrait (labelled in manuscript underneath) of the Rev. James A. Spurgeon, Baptist Church-- Croydon; cut from a newspaper. Engraving ‘from photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry);
--two posed pictures: a ragged boy and girl outside, girl crying, boy holding out his hand to beg, captioned ‘The Dark Side’; a boy between two girls, all three holding hands and smiling, indoors, clean and neatly dressed, captioned ‘The Bright Side’.
Annotated to the side in manuscript: ‘Miss Pettiward The Orphanage of Mercy-- Randolph Gardens, London, N.W. [c. 1900; Bertha Caroline Pettiward?];
-- engraved portrait of ‘The late Mrs. Booth’ (from newspaper);
-- two photographs in newspaper article headed ‘The New Missionary Bishops’: one, ‘The Rev. Henry Evington, the new Bishop in Kinshin, Japan. (Photographed by Barry, Hull)’, and ‘The Rev. Herbert Tugwell, the new Bishop in Western Equatorial Africa. (Photographed by Salmon, Winchester)’;
-- page with items cut from a magazine or booklet: one of drawing of the Cornelius Winter Memorial Chapel, Painswick, and (in lozenges) of engraving of the Rev. Cornelius Winter and photograph of the Rev. Samuel Thomas (minister there from 1885). (These captions all manuscript, with other information recorded about the Chapel [on Gloucester Street, Painswick, Gloucestershire] and its ministers.);
-- engraving of view of Woburn Church, a carriage and a cart in the foreground ‘published by Dodd & Peeling’;
--page from book with two images captioned ‘Miss Charlotte Elliott’, and ‘Interview with Dr. Caesar Malan’. On foot of page ‘Women Worth Emulating. Crown 8vo, cloth boards, price 2s.’ [Charlotte Elliott, 1789-1871, hymnwriter, of which of her work one is ‘Just as I Am, [without one plea]’; Dr. Malan of Geneva was instrumental in her spiritual development];
-- ‘The Green, Harrold’ (tinted postcard);
-- printed photograph of the Burns Mausoleum, Dumfries (‘W P & S Reliable Series’);
-- drawing of ‘Deeside Hydropathic’ ‘Telegraphic Address: "Hydro, Murtle" ’ (black-and-white copy looks taken from a water-colour drawing, and likely cut from stationery);
-- printed photograph of Mr. T.A. Edision ‘who has decided to devote his life to scientific electrical research’ (newspaper);
-- published engraving of Batheaston Congregational Church [Batheaston, Somerset].