| Description | A collection of several hundred Victorian and pre-Victorian signatures, letters, poetry and verse, religious and other texts, quotations and other pieces, many written specially for the owner of the album, Hannah Maria Philip. The album also includes drawings, sketches and paintings.
Several members of the Philip family are represented in the collection and items include letters from William Wordsworth and his wife to Rev Robert Philip. The album includes original poetry of a number of writers, including Thomas Campbell, Mary Howitt, Bernard Barton and Mary Russell Mitford and there are also numerous embossed cards bearing brief messages and signatures from Maria Edgeworth, Agnes Strickland, Joanna Baillie, Charles Dickens and many others. There are contributions on a religious theme from prominent local clergy and missionaries associated with the London Missionary Society.
In addition to poetry and verse, the volume also contains items of prose, one example being a report by William Lassell, Hannah Maria Philip's uncle, who became President of the Royal Astronomical Society, of an eclipse of the sun as seen at Liverpool on 15 May 1836. The earliest item is a page of a journal ascribed to George Whitefield, the Calvinistic Methodist.
The album was apparently begun in 1833 but its contents, where dated, range from 1734 up to 1883; many of the items are dated to the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s. There is an index of most, but not all, of the named signatories and page reference numbers included at the front of the album. In some cases this index has been used to identify the contributors to the album. The index indicates that in some cases certain autographs have been grouped together such as those of peers and Members of Parliament (HMP/160-166, 172) civic autographs (HMP/177-179), judges (HMP/158-159), physicians (HMP/220-224) and members of the Anti Corn Law League (HMP/230-233).
Loose papers accompanying the album include a newspaper cutting from the Sunday Times of Malta, 11 November 1962 relating to William Lassell and lists, probably compiled by Lucy Hood Phillips, of autographs in the album. |
| Administrative History | This album contains items of and relating to various members of the Philip family, to whom the depositor was related. Lucy, wife of Professor Owen Hood Phillips, was the daughter of Arnold Philip. Hannah Maria Philip, creator of the album, was her aunt; and the album includes items of Lucy's grandfather, Rev Robert Philip, Hannah Maria's father. |