York: N.p., 1816-31

Small 4to, manuscript c.180pp., bound in contemporary vellum. Marbled edges. Occasional light spotting or staining, slightly browned, vellum lightly soiled. In all, extremely well preserved.

MANUSCRIPT ACCOUNT AND COMMONPLACE BOOK OF SURVEYOR JAMES TINDALL OF YORK, 160pp. APPROX., DATING FROM 1816 TO 1831, WITH A SIGNATURE OF EARLIER (1770s) MATERIAL TIPPED IN.

The text includes a 17pp. stocktaking valuation begun on 3 January 1815, arriving at a total figure of £432 6s 6 1/2d, as well as notes of rental incomes, land taxes, journeys to America by local families, harvest and farm records, servants' wages, and land surveys. A whipmaker as well as surveyor, the volume also records costs, wholesale prices and profits from the sale of various whips, crops and thongs. And the volume opens with a recipe: 'Ingredients for Dying Wood' -- in this case, 'For dark purple'.

The stocktaking details are followed by a 7pp. list of possible journeys between local towns and villages, with details of mileage; instructions for the making of birdlime and whips of varying lengths; mathematical calculations relating to surveying; a list of land measurements made in the local area; a 4pp. list of lay definitions of medical terminology; 8pp. surveying accounts; 9pp. disquisition on the terms of a will; 6pp. surveying notes from 1824-31; 2pp. wording of an 1829 'Form of a Bond'; another 8pp. surveying accounts, followed by a 2pp. account of the departures of local familes to America between 1825 and 1829 ('1825. May 29. Adam Atkins left for America with his wife and his son Adam, his eldest son, Thomas, went to America about two years before the above date...').

Three more pages of accounting then give way to matters of the heart. A mournful three stanzas entitled Lines on Death close: 'May we from Him that one thing [illegible] learn | To make our deathly soul our first concern | To live like christians whilst we here remain | That death may prove our everlasting gain.' And beneath: 'The above lines were written on the paper that contained the funeral biscuits of my dear cousin, Sarah Fallowfield, who departed this life, September 23 1829. J. Tindall'. There follow thoughts on the rainy seasons of 1830; verse quotations from Walter Scott and the eighteenth century playwright and politician Miles Peter Andrews, as well as 13pp. of unidentified verse, unsigned but possibly original.

Then follows 64pp. relating to the enactment of the enclosure of land in the parish of Drax according to Parliamentary statute, and incorporating earlier, late eighteenth century material for reference, on different paper stock and in another hand.

The volume concludes with a further 10pp. of accounts, and a recipe for making blacking.

A beautiful survivor, and very well preserved.