LIBRARY CATALOGUE INDEXED BY A SLAVE-OWNER
Catalogue of books in Stirling's Public Library.
Glasgow.
Printed by William Reid and Co, 1805.
Third edition.
8vo.
[94]ff (of [97]ff), [pi]1, A1-4 (-A2-3), B-Z4 2A4( -2A4). With six additional leaves, completed in manuscript, forming a subject index of the library's contents. Lacking A2-3, and without the terminal leaf Aa4, which follows the printer's imprint and was thus presumably a blank. Contemporary gilt-tooled red roan, contrasting lettering-piece, marbled boards. Heavily rubbed and marked, with some loss to spine. Browning and spotting to preliminaries, and occasionally throughout. From the library of James Ewing, recently dispersed as part of the Crum- Ewing/Hamilton estate at Lowood House, inscribed 'J. Ewing' to head of title, text ruled in red, each item in the catalogue classified with a subject in manuscript, and then referred back to in the manuscript index added at front.
The second edition, slightly defective but also extensively indexed by the Scottish merchant, plantation owner, slave-holder and sometime politician James Ewing of Strathleven (1775- 1853), of a significant Glasgow library catalogue.
Named somewhat ambiguously - after the prosperous merchant Walter Stirling (c.1710- 1791), who bequeathed his house on Miller Street, Glasgow, and library, to the City - rather than the Scottish city of the same name, Stirling Public Library was formed in 1791, and opened as a lending library to subscribers soon after; some 14 years before Glasgow's civic Public Library was opened. The first catalogue of the Stirling library - listing the 804 titles left by Stirling - was, by repute, printed in 1792 in small quarto format. No copies of that edition, however, are recorded in the usual databases. The earliest edition that we could locate - listing 3705 books and occupying 164 pages - was printed in 1795, as is this apparent third edition, by William Reid of Glasgow. Thomas Mason in his Public and Private Libraries of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1885) notes that by 1805, the growth of the collection resulted in it being 'found necessary to issue a new general catalogue' of which 1000 copies were printed, further noting 'not one of which now remains'.
The annotator of this copy, James Ewing, was one of Glasgow's most successful businessmen, sometime MP (1832-5) and Lord Provost (1832-3) for the city, and kept significant holdings of land and enslaved Africans in Jamaica. An influential plantation owners was instrumental in the establishment of the anti-abolition lobbying group Glasgow West India Association. His education in the classics and philosophy at what later became Glasgow University began at the age of just 11, and the extensive indexing undertaken in manuscript suggests not only that he was a frequent visitor to the Stirling library, but also that his interests were wide. The books are indexed into 53 headings (including a handful of sub-headings), from 'Agriculture' to 'Voyages', by way of - inter alia - 'Commerce & Trade', 'Politics', 'Police', 'Political Economy' and 'Statistics', of which all would surely have been useful to this influential man of Scottish and Jamaican politics and business. Interestingly, whilst the library contained works of then relatively progressive philosophy, such as Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women (London, 1792), there is an apparent dearth of works relating to abolitionism. Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson's names do not grace the library catalogue's pages; meanwhile Henry Brougham Jnr's inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Nations (London, 1802) is classed by Ewing as 'Political Economy', and Benezet's Account of Guinea, with its 'inquiry into the rise and progress of the slave-trade' is consigned to 'Topography'!
Rare; OCLC and COPAC locate just four copies worldwide (Cambridge, Glasgow, Grolier Club and NLS).
£ 1,250.00
Antiquates Ref: 24782
Named somewhat ambiguously - after the prosperous merchant Walter Stirling (c.1710- 1791), who bequeathed his house on Miller Street, Glasgow, and library, to the City - rather than the Scottish city of the same name, Stirling Public Library was formed in 1791, and opened as a lending library to subscribers soon after; some 14 years before Glasgow's civic Public Library was opened. The first catalogue of the Stirling library - listing the 804 titles left by Stirling - was, by repute, printed in 1792 in small quarto format. No copies of that edition, however, are recorded in the usual databases. The earliest edition that we could locate - listing 3705 books and occupying 164 pages - was printed in 1795, as is this apparent third edition, by William Reid of Glasgow. Thomas Mason in his Public and Private Libraries of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1885) notes that by 1805, the growth of the collection resulted in it being 'found necessary to issue a new general catalogue' of which 1000 copies were printed, further noting 'not one of which now remains'.
The annotator of this copy, James Ewing, was one of Glasgow's most successful businessmen, sometime MP (1832-5) and Lord Provost (1832-3) for the city, and kept significant holdings of land and enslaved Africans in Jamaica. An influential plantation owners was instrumental in the establishment of the anti-abolition lobbying group Glasgow West India Association. His education in the classics and philosophy at what later became Glasgow University began at the age of just 11, and the extensive indexing undertaken in manuscript suggests not only that he was a frequent visitor to the Stirling library, but also that his interests were wide. The books are indexed into 53 headings (including a handful of sub-headings), from 'Agriculture' to 'Voyages', by way of - inter alia - 'Commerce & Trade', 'Politics', 'Police', 'Political Economy' and 'Statistics', of which all would surely have been useful to this influential man of Scottish and Jamaican politics and business. Interestingly, whilst the library contained works of then relatively progressive philosophy, such as Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women (London, 1792), there is an apparent dearth of works relating to abolitionism. Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson's names do not grace the library catalogue's pages; meanwhile Henry Brougham Jnr's inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Nations (London, 1802) is classed by Ewing as 'Political Economy', and Benezet's Account of Guinea, with its 'inquiry into the rise and progress of the slave-trade' is consigned to 'Topography'!
Rare; OCLC and COPAC locate just four copies worldwide (Cambridge, Glasgow, Grolier Club and NLS).
