In October 2024, an ambitious project to catalogue the Maggs Bros. Ltd. archive began. Funded as part of the Unlocking Hidden Collections initiative, the goal is to re-house and catalogue the archive to file level for the first time.

This archive contains the business records of Maggs Bros. Ltd., an antiquarian bookseller founded in the 1850s.  The contents of the collection span over half a century from 1914 to 1979.  The extensive correspondence is a time capsule into the past offering a glimpse into the inner workings of rare books and manuscript sellers.

Letters from Maggs' Continental Correspondence files for 1921

Still operating today from locations in central London, Maggs’ business stretches globally, having built close relationships with other prominent antique booksellers and collectors over many years.  Highlights of the correspondence include letters detailing Maggs’ negotiation on behalf of the British Museum with the Russian government to purchase the Codex Sinaiticus.  The Sinaiticus is one of the earliest Bible manuscripts in the world dated from 350 AD.  The British Museum paid £100,000 for the manuscript in 1932, half of which was funded by public donations.  Arriving in London in 1933, it held the record for the most expensive book sale in recorded history, costing an equivalent of £6,000,000 in 2024.  A digitised version of the Codex Sinaiticus manuscript can be seen here.

The Maggs archive was originally organised into four distinct categories and is catalogued to reflect and preserve this order.

• Correspondence (subdivided into English, American, Continental correspondence, carbon copies of outgoing letters and Correspondence 1932-1978)
• Financial Papers
• Paris House (relating to the business of Maggs Bros. branch in Paris, France)
• Miscellanea

Cash book for 1937, part of the Financial Papers

The correspondence series reveals the loyal customer base of private collectors and public institutions that conducted business with Maggs Bros.  Maggs held the Royal warrant of King George V, King Edward VIII, and King Alfonso XIII of Spain.  They also provided books, autographs and manuscripts to several other royal households, developing a particularly close relationship with King Manuel II of Portugal (1889-1932), whom Maggs aided in publishing a book written by the King about the various rare manuscripts and books that Maggs helped him collect.  King Manuel II’s collection is now held at the Ducal Palace Library at Fundação da Casa de Bragança.

The Ducal Palace Library at Fundação da Casa de Bragança. Livros antigos portuguezes 1489-1600 da bibliotheca de Sua Majestade Fidelissima / descriptos por S.M. el-rei D. Manuel. p.42 Source: Wellcome Collection. 

Other notable past clients encountered in the correspondence series are automobile magnate Henry Ford (1863-1947), escapologist and illusionist Harry Houdini (1874-1926), English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) and historian and former chief spy for British Army Intelligence C.R. Boxer (1904-2000).  The correspondence series also contains many letters to and from the forger and book collector and T.J. Wise (1859-1937), owner of the Ashley Library, whose books and manuscripts are now held at the British Library.

This blog post marks the project’s halfway point and the completion of cataloguing of the Continental Correspondence (1914-1832) and Carbon Copies files (1924-1932).  Cataloguing of the correspondence for the period 1932-1978, of the financial papers, Paris house files and miscellanea remains ongoing.

Nathan Silver
Modern Archives and Manuscript Cataloguer

Further reading:
A catalogue of Maggs catalogues 1918-1968 (London: Maggs, 1969). [BL, 3079.400000]
Clara Macedo Cabral, The last King of Portugal and Maggs : an Anglo-Portuguese alliance (Caredigon: The Gormer Press, 2015). [BL, YC.2017.b.349]
Benjamin F. Maggs, The delinquent bibliophile. Thomas James Wise and the foundation of the Ashley Library (London: 1965). [BL, 2718.cc.62]

In August 1907 an Industrial Conference was held in the United Provinces over concerns that technical education in India had been neglected, resulting in Indian industries being hampered.

One of the topics discussed at the conference was hand-loom cotton weaving, and suggestions were made for ways of improving it.  The conference concluded that they needed to support and improve the existing cottage-industry of hand-loom weaving and explore the possibility of factory production.

In support of the cottage industries, three small demonstration schools were established at Tanda, Moradabad and Saharanpur, which would demonstrate the use of the fly-shuttle weaving loom and teach simpler improved methods of warping.  It was hoped that these would increase production and reduce the intense labour required.

To explore the factory proposal, an ‘Experimental Station or School’ was to be established at Benares.  The station would teach cotton weaving, silk weaving and hosiery making; and the institution would be under the management of a cotton expert appointed as its Principal.

Advertisement for a cotton expert, placed by the India Office in 1911 – IOR/L/PJ/6/1087, file 1694

An advertisement was circulated for the appointment of a cotton expert in which candidates were required to know the latest weaving appliances, and the series of improvements which had marked the progress of hand weaving from old looms to the latest pattern looms.  They were also required to have experience in teaching weaving, spinning and design.

The successful candidate was John Marsden Cook, a cotton weaver from Lancashire who had started working in the cotton mills aged just ten.  Cook had attended technical schools in Darwen, Bury and Manchester earning 1st Class Honours and City & Guilds recognition in Cotton Manufacturing, and Cotton, Silk and Jute Weaving.  As well as working as a weaver at various mills across Lancashire, he had also taught spinning, weaving and design at various technical schools in the region from 1891-1900.

He had previously been employed by the Anglo-Egyptian Supply and Weaving Company in Alexandria as a weaving master and instructor, before moving to the same role with the Egyptian Cotton Mills Company in Cairo.  In 1906 he had moved to Madras as a weaving master for the Anglo-French Textile Company at Pondicherry.

Letter from the Board of Education to the India Office, 11 May 1911, discussing the technical instruction Mr Cook would require prior to his departure for Benares - IOR/L/PJ/6/1087, file 1694

Cook was appointed in May 1911 and was to depart for Benares in September.  First there was specialised training which the India Office felt he required: ball sizing, dressing sizing, and basic Hindustani.

The India Office hired Mr Blumhardt to provide Hindustani language teaching, and it was decided that Cook should have a month’s intensive teaching first, so that he could have time to practise before departing.

For ball sizing he was sent to the Dacca Twist Company Ltd in Swinton, Lancashire, and for dressing sizing to Messrs John Hall Ltd, Hargreaves, Lancashire.

Uncovenanted service death report for John Marsden Cook – IOR/L/AG/34/14A/9, f.445

Sadly John Marsden Cook passed away in Benares in November 1913 having spent just over two years in the role.  As the experimental weaving station was only intended to be a temporary one, it appears to have come to an end on Cook’s death.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further reading:
IOR/L/PJ/6/1087, file 1694 – Appointment of Mr J.M. Cook as Cotton Expert, Experimental Weaving Station, Benares 1911.
IOR/L/AG/34/14A/9, f.445 – Uncovenanted Service Deaths – John Marsden Cook.

 

On 25 July 1823, East India Company warehouse labourer Charles Richards was brought into the Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors in London to receive his discharge from debtors’ prison.  However he was opposed by Mary Ann Richards, widow of his brother Benjamin.  She challenged the schedule of debts.

Morning Herald 26 July 1823 British Newspaper Archive

Benjamin Richards had been the cook on board East Indiaman Marquis of Camden on a voyage to Bombay and China.  The ship’s captain Thomas Larkins told the Court that Benjamin had been ‘deranged’ during the voyage and unable to do his duty.  When the ship arrived back in the Thames, Benjamin had jumped or fallen overboard and drowned.  He was buried on 14 May 1823 at Milton near Gravesend in Kent, aged 38.

Before the ship entered the docks in London, Charles Richards went on board and asked for the slush and fat which was the perquisite of the ship’s cook.  Slush was the floating grease skimmed off boiled meat which could be sold to tallow merchants.  There were fifteen casks worth about £60 or £70 and they were given to Charles on the understanding that he was receiving it for the benefit of Benjamin’s widow Mary Ann.  He sold the slush to Mr Rottenbury of Gravesend.

The Court was told that Mary Ann was in great distress.  She stated that she had married Benjamin seven months before he left on his last voyage.  Her husband had left £10 with Charles who was to give her money as needed.  She had received £3 from Charles in the two years that Benjamin had been absent.  Charles claimed that his brother had owed him £40.

The Court heard evidence of Charles’s financial situation and property.  He earned 18s a week from the East India Company, and let out rooms as lodgings in his house in St George in the East.  Charles and his wife both owned watches and she had five shawls, three from India.

Mr Heath addressed the Court, claiming that Charles had endeavoured, by misrepresentation and fraud, to obtain the perquisites of a poor widow.  He drew attention to the income Charles derived from his position as warehouse labourer, the profits from his lodgers, and other sources of emolument.  Charles should be obliged to pay the debt due to Mary Ann.

The Chief Commissioner ruled that this was a case of persecution, where there ought to have been protection, and of fraud where there should have been pity.  Charles’s villainy ‘was too glaring to be doubted for a moment’.  It was hard to conceive of a case of greater hardship than that of this poor widow.  The Court granted the application made on behalf of Mary Ann that the schedule of debts should be dismissed.  Charles was remanded and he returned to prison.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading;
The British Newspaper Archive has several articles on the Court proceedings of 25 July 1823, with variations to the story e.g.
Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser 26 July 1823
British Press 26 July 1823
Morning Herald 26 July 1823
Morning Chronicle 26 July 1823