WITH LISTS OF DONATIONS TO THE LIBRARY
An alphabetical list of the members, with the rules and regulations of The United Service Club.
London.
Printed by Thomas & Sons, 20, Cornhill, 1840.
12mo in 6s.
92pp, [36]. Original publisher's black roan-backed pink printer paper boards. A little rubbed to spine and extremities, some marking to boards. J.H. Seale's copy, with his ink inscription to FEP, and manuscript addition of his name to the list of members (dated 1841); occasional further contemporary manuscript corrections/additions to text.
An entirely unrecorded edition - with only one earlier example known - of a comprehensive list of members of the United Service Club, alongside the prevailing rules and other related matters.
Founded in 1815 as a gentlemen's club for veterans of the senior ranks of the Royal Navy and British Army - the ranks of which had both swelled to unprecedented levels during the Napoleonic Wars - the USC was the most prestigious of London's Military clubs in Regency London. The list of members is headed by the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge, and includes amongst it's extensive ranks Lord Wellington, Admiral Codrington and 'Sir John Franklin, Captain, R.N.'.
Perhaps of most interest, at least bibliographically, is the fifteen-page list of Donations to the Library 'Since January 1, 1834', in which 'Those Works which have been given by their respective Authors, are distinguished by an Asterisk'. Of the latter, titles too numerous to mention include Captain Ross' Appendix to the Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North- West Passage. 1 Vol. 4to.', Thomas Fowell Buxton's 'The African Slave Trade. 1 Vol, 8vo.' and Captain Charmier's edition of 'James's Naval History of Great Britain... 6 Vols. 8vo', alongside fully four of the same author's sea-faring novels. This is followed by a six-page list of pictures, maps and busts 'presented to the club', with their respective donors.
The only earlier example of any list of members of the United Service Club which we could locate is that printed in 1823 (at the British Library), the text of which occupies just 112 pages in total.
Provenance: Sir John Henry Seale, Bart., M.P. for Dartmouth, and Lieut.-Colonel of the South Devon Militia, the family library recently dispersed in the Westcountry.
£ 750.00
Antiquates Ref: 34606
Founded in 1815 as a gentlemen's club for veterans of the senior ranks of the Royal Navy and British Army - the ranks of which had both swelled to unprecedented levels during the Napoleonic Wars - the USC was the most prestigious of London's Military clubs in Regency London. The list of members is headed by the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge, and includes amongst it's extensive ranks Lord Wellington, Admiral Codrington and 'Sir John Franklin, Captain, R.N.'.
Perhaps of most interest, at least bibliographically, is the fifteen-page list of Donations to the Library 'Since January 1, 1834', in which 'Those Works which have been given by their respective Authors, are distinguished by an Asterisk'. Of the latter, titles too numerous to mention include Captain Ross' Appendix to the Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North- West Passage. 1 Vol. 4to.', Thomas Fowell Buxton's 'The African Slave Trade. 1 Vol, 8vo.' and Captain Charmier's edition of 'James's Naval History of Great Britain... 6 Vols. 8vo', alongside fully four of the same author's sea-faring novels. This is followed by a six-page list of pictures, maps and busts 'presented to the club', with their respective donors.
The only earlier example of any list of members of the United Service Club which we could locate is that printed in 1823 (at the British Library), the text of which occupies just 112 pages in total.
Provenance: Sir John Henry Seale, Bart., M.P. for Dartmouth, and Lieut.-Colonel of the South Devon Militia, the family library recently dispersed in the Westcountry.
