LY O N & T U R N B U L L Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps and Photographs
A selection from lot 177
177 FG732/1 Liveing, Edward H. - Scientific and Mining Papers 13 autograph notebooks, in pencil and black ink, containing detailed notes on laboratory experiments on various subjects including metallurgy, speculative ideas for further research, work on his Patent Gas Indicator (1870s), notes on the Lewis Thompson Calorimeter, reports and results of mining assays, mostly relating to coal deposits in South Wales and Queensland, and engineering notes relating to Siddeley and Wolseley motorcars, including many diagrams and sketches, 12mo, most with labels on spines; together with more than 100 leaves of further loose notes and letters, including letters received (some carbon copies), drafts of letters sent, and other papers, relating to subjects including his patented inventions and his involvement in various mining projects such as gold mining in Kalgoori, Western Australia, Southern Australia, and Transylvania, a small quantity of family correspondence, and notes from printed sources; also with 10 printed items including pamphlets by Liveing; c.1874-1923, nicks and tears, some dust staining Note: A significant archive relating to science, engineering, and mining technologies in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. Edward Henry Liveing was closely involved in the mining industry, both in technological developments within the industry (for example in his Patent Gas Indicator), and also in searching out new mineral deposits in Western Australia and elsewhere. His interests were much wider, however, and of particular interest are a group of papers relating to the contested invention of the electric light bulb. One of his notebooks includes “my Idea of a perfect Electric light (Feb/79)”, and in the early 1880s Liveing got drawn into the patent dispute between Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan. The papers
include a letter from Swan’s lawyers explaining their defence against Edison (2 pages, 4to, 14 June 1883), and Liveing’s draft reply outlining his involvement in and knowledge of the crucial technological innovation of a “fine Carbon Thread lamp of high resistance” that Swan had developed by early 1879, independently of Edison. £1,000-1,500 178 FG726/1 Medical Case Books - Berkshire Asylum / Moulsford Asylum Two manuscript medical case books from the Berkshire Asylum, detailing the cases of mentally ill patients: Private Patients Males, c.1891-1916, c.200 manuscript pages of patient notes and pasteddown statements of death, plus an index, including 5 copies of letters sent by one patient to his parents, another from a patient to a member of the Church Army Corps and newspaper clipping relating to individual cases; Private Patients, volume 3, c.1917-1924, c.190 manuscript pages of patient notes and pasted-down statements of death, plus an index; both original half vellum gilt, rubbed and worn, writing clear and often legible (2) Note: Asylum names taken from statements of death and ephemera. These medical case books appear to relate to the ‘County Lunatic Asylum for Berkshire’, which closed its doors in 2003 under the name of Fair Mile Hospital. The asylum was opened in 1870 and was conceived as having male and female blocks, blocks for more dangerous patients and a block for convalescent patients. The case books offer a valuable insight into the ways in which the mentally ill were treated at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. £700-1,000
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