It is a mystery. A hardbound notebook, 204 x 160mm, many of its 160 pages featuring content ranging from watercolour paintings to Victorian cards to dried and mounted seaweeds and ferns. Poems original and copied also figure, along with verses from the scriptures and religious homilies. Reproductions of famous paintings (Raphael, Landseer) and tourist views of Britain and Europe are interspersed with original landscape sketches from Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Bristol, Oxfordshire and Hampshire. There are initials, names and dates throughout but only indirect evidence of who made this carefully assembled scrapbook in its plain blue covers.
It came to light in 2024 as Harris descendants Goff and Judith Briant unearthed family material ahead of their relocation to a new home in Palmerston North. Nobody is sure how or when the scrapbook arrived in New Zealand and though it is clearly English in origin, family memory holds no clues to its passage to the Rangitīkei. Perhaps Goff’s grandmother Gretchen Briant collected the scrapbook on her 1939 visit to England. Or perhaps a family member sent it to New Zealand as early as the 1860s or 1870s.
What we know about the history of the scrapbook starts with its association with Miss Emma Jane Hill of Plymouth, Hinckley and Liskeard, who lived between 1802 and 1866. Emma was a school mistress and the beloved older sister of Sarah Harris, who taught her daughters Emily, Kate, Frances, Mary, Augusta and Ellen to revere their English aunt. Emily Harris’s letters include references to Emma’s mentoring and her kindness in sending her nieces little gifts in the letters she sent them from 1841 until the mid-1860s. Emma was a role model for Emily Harris: a woman of independent means with a vocation who cared deeply about the connections between herself and the distant family in New Zealand. For over 20 years she collected their letters, some of which survive as copies and one in its original handwriting.
And now we can say that Emma Hill was also a scrapbooker. Although Goff and Judith’s notebook has no flyleaf inscription or title page, a short verse in its opening pages indicates who is embarking on the project and why:
Your aid dear friend I supplicate
To fill my numerous leaves,
And humbly I anticipate
To bind up many sheaves
Whatever be the grain you sow
along this furrowed way,
oh let it liberally flow
the gleaners to repay
The poem, signed ‘E.J.H. July 27 1833,’ is the first of several compositions written or copied by Emma Hill that occur in the scrapbook. Emma places her verses among paintings of flowers, butterflies, a few pressed ferns and 19 pieces of dried seaweed, most of them with handwritten labels. A commercially printed poem appears opposite a page of artfully arranged seaweed, extolling the scientific and aesthetic qualities of the marine plant Victorian women collected from the coastlines and souvenir shops of Devon from the 1830s onward. The anonymous poem begins:
‘Call this a weed? Is such the aptest name
Man’s ready tongue for this fair work can frame —
Emma has also pasted in a full-length profile of herself, made by well-known silhouette artist Samuel Metford (1810-1896). The silhouette is likely to be the portrait Sarah Harris refers to in her letter of 1853: ‘Your black likeness as you call it brings you very often to our remembrances.’ From Sarah’s comment we can infer that Emma sent her a copy of the silhouette, and that Emily Harris grew up with this striking memento of her aunt’s appearance.
Metford has added gold highlights to the black figure and given it his trademark painted shadow. Emma holds a pen, emblematic of her position as head teacher in the boarding school for young ladies in Liskeard, Cornwall, and the straight line below lenses perched on the bridge of her nose suggests the cord of a pince-nez.
Some components of the scrapbook challenge our assumption that Emma Hill is its sole compiler. A later hand must be responsible for the transcript of an article from the Illustrated London News of 29 May 1880 about Stuart Rendel, one of Emily Harris’s wealthy English cousins. And a printed poem inscribed ‘Composed by dear Emma’ may have received its handwritten superscript from Sarah Harris, who often referred to her sister in this manner. Most intriguing of all is an exquisite watercolour with faintly pencilled initials below the inscription: ‘Butterflies painted from collection in Wellington Museum.’ Which Wellington Museum? There are at least two such institutions in England as well as the Colonial Museum in Wellington, New Zealand, established by James Hector in 1865. The butterflies in the painting are exotic, a blue morpho and a birdwing, but even in its early days the Colonial Museum traded indigenous specimens for international additions to its collection.
These and other anomalies serve to make us cautious about asserting more than the bare outlines of the scrapbook’s provenance. A book may move about between family members and locations and its very nature, an assemblage of many parts, may invite further contributions or alterations by its custodians. Many pages show signs of cards or other materials that have been removed from their original mountings. Traces of paste or remnants of threads that once secured the corners of a vanished card are scattered throughout the scrapbook. Perhaps most interesting of all are those places where Emma has made precise slits in a page to hold the corners of what she is preserving, an early version of the photo corners to be found in modern albums.
We can identify a probable date of manufacture for the notebook itself, based on the watermark ‘G Wilmot / 1827’ stamped into its pages (see page 134). George Wilmot was a well-known paper-manufacturer whose family operated paper mills for over 200 years at Shoreham and Sundridge, on the Darent River in Kent. The Mills produced high quality Writing and Drawing Papers and supplied government departments with handmade paper for ledgers.
Wilmot paper turns up in the collections of the famous and the not-so-famous. Charles Darwin’s geological notes from King George Sound, Western Australia, were written in a notebook watermarked ‘G Wilmot / 1834’ after HMS Beagle returned from her second scientific voyage in 1835. Currently for sale in Ontario, Canada, is another notebook with 1834 Wilmot watermarks whose anonymously compiled content is not dissimilar to that of Emma Hill:
On offer is an exceptional 1830s-1840s manuscript album of memories, stories and poetry. Stunning well kept cover, burgundy leather with embossed classical harp/lyre design with gilt edges, silk moiré endpapers, a strong gilt spine treatment makes for a beautifully well preserved relic of early/mid 19th century poetic, literary and religious thought. Originally found in Kitchener-Waterloo/London Ontario area estate there are no clues to location or authorship save for G. Wilmot 1834 watermark on the multi-colored papers. Every entry is in lovely calligraphy with what appears to be one main unidentified hand but a few others writing entries. Titles include: ‘The Suffering and Example of Christ’, ‘O Childhood is a Holy Thing’, ‘The Thrush’, ‘The Evening Star’ with authors credited: Wordsworth, Richardson’s Geology, W.C. Bennett, Gerald Griffin, Lockhart, Richard Lovelace, Motherwell, Tennyson +++. There are also about a half dozen lovely plates being tipped in and hand drawn prints: Napoleon’s Tomb, an English manor, some florals etc. Over one hundred pages, perhaps two-thirds full. Save for the odd blemish mostly in the inside front cover this book would be Fine. Size: 8vo – over 7¾” – 9¾” tall.
Like the Ontario album, though not so lavishly bound, Emma Hill’s notebook is a deluxe commodity. Blue, green, yellow, peach and cream papers offer a range of backgrounds on which to draw, paint, paste or write contributions. Eight pages of pre-printed staves also invite a contributor to add a favourite musical score.
How typical is Emma’s scrapbook of the period its contributions cover? A quick survey of nineteenth-century scrapbooks now in public collections reveals that its female authorship and the mix of original and printed materials is common to almost all surviving examples. The prevalence of pages featuring dried specimens of seaweed marks it out as the work of a compiler interested in more than the common occupation of pressing ferns and flowers. Mounting the delicate marine specimens, even those purchased rather than personally collected, required greater skill on the part of the compiler. Emma’s meticulous labelling of her seaweeds prefigures Emily’s botanically accurate representations of the indigenous flora of Aotearoa that became her lifework. Did aunt and niece discuss their mutual interest in natural history? We would like to think so.
One other feature of Emma Hill’s scrapbook sets it apart from its contemporaries. Many scrapbooks were arranged chronologically as their compilers acquired the materials they wished to preserve. Date ordering resulted in an almost diary-like account of the compiler’s interests and connections, a kind of material autobiography clear to its compiler but accessible to others only if she provided names, places and dates. Emma’s attributions are often present but they are not chronological, implying that she wished to present an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of materials collected over a long period. Her primary objective is scope and variety rather than time-stamped record. Thus the epigraph poem is dated 1833, when she was already teaching in Liskeard, but the earliest contributions date from her time as a pupil teacher in Hinckley, Leicestershire, in the 1820s. As readers we are asked to appreciate the pieces of a carefully arranged puzzle. As its author, Emma Hill traces her own interests by setting otherwise ephemeral material in solid book form that has survived the passage of time to the present day.
One of these ephemeral moments is preserved near the end of the scrapbook. On a page with a Wilmot watermark we found a pencilled note that may once have held a memento of Emma’s European travels. It is dated and signed and is perhaps a record of her visit to Paris during the much-celebrated Exposition Universelle of May-November 1855:
from the gardens at Versailles July 1855. E.J. Hill.
We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of Goff and Judith Briant in making their scrapbook available and giving permission for the uploading of its contents. Thanks also to Emeritus Professor Joanne Wilkes and the networked Victorian specialists who responded to her call for information about seaweed poems and albums.
Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson
December 2024
Sources
‘1830s – 1840s Original handwritten book of memories, sentiments, essays, poetry, hymns, riddles and classical literature in a stunning burgundy leather fine binding.’ Seller Inventory # 0001231. Katz Fine Manuscripts Inc.
1830s – 1840s ORIGINAL HANDWRITTEN BOOK OF MEMORIES, SENTIMENTS, ESSAYS, POETRY, HYMNS, RIDDLES AND CLASSICAL LITERATURE IN A STUNNING BURGUNDY LEATHER FINE BINDING
Alexis Easley, ‘Scrapbooks and Women’s Leisure Reading Practices, 1825–60.’ Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 15.2 (Summer 2019)
https://www.ncgsjournal.com/issue152/easley.html
Charles Darwin, ‘3.1836. Geological diary: King George’s Sound, CUL-DAR38.858-863.’ Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online)
https://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/manuscripts/Darwin_C_R_Geological_diary_CUL-DAR38.858-863.html
Sarah Harris to sister Emma Jane Hill, Woodville, New Plymouth, 1853. Puke Ariki, ARC2019-112. (‘Family songbook’ 31)
https://emilycummingharris.blogs.auckland.ac.nz/artandwriting/the-family-songbook/letter-31/
Laura Massey, ‘Nature Domesticated: A Victorian Seaweed Scrapbook.’ Peter Harrington Gallery Blog, 17 August 2013.
https://victorianweb.org/science/biology/carrington.html
‘Metford, Samuel (McKechnie Section 1).’ Profiles of the Past.
https://www.profilesofthepast.org.uk/mckechnie/metford-samuel-mckechnie-section-1
‘The Paper Mill.’ Shoreham Kent History.
https://shorehamkenthistory.weebly.com/the-paper-mill.html
Page 1: blank page of blue-coloured paper.
Page 2: pencil sketch of woman with two pails balanced over her shoulders. Sketch is on cream-coloured card that has been attached to the scrapbook as an additional page.
Page 3: the reverse side of the milkmaid image.
Page 4: a piece of cream-coloured paper that has been pasted in, that contains a handwritten verse with its corners clipped off.
Page 5: another version of the handwritten verse on the other side of the hinged insert of paper. This version is signed ‘E.J.H. July 27 1833’ and reads:
Your aid dear friend I supplicate
To fill my numerous leaves,
And humbly I anticipate
To bind up many sheaves
Whatever be the grain you sow
along this furrowed way,
oh let it liberally flow
the gleaners to repay
Page 6: thread corners on an empty blue page, that possibly once held a piece of card or paper.
Page 7: blue page. The other side of the threaded corners, tied in a bow at top.
Page 8: blue page. Remnants of tape and pencil numbers. Faint pencil numberings spread around the centre, whole numbers and fractions.
Page 9: pressed specimen of Maidenhair fern. Handwritten label: ‘From Pendennis Castle’ [in Cornwall]. Blue verso that has faded to green in places.
Page 10: remnants of pasted corners visible. Blank cream recto.
Page 11: blank cream verso.
Page 12: pencil sketch titled: ‘Bickleigh Bridge / Devonshire’. Cream card glued on blue recto, stuck down at left and right edges
Page 13: blank blue verso.
Page 14: blank cream recto.
Page 15: two dried specimens of seaweed: pink and yellow. Unlabelled. The top specimen is pasted directly on the page. The lower specimen has its corners cut. Cream verso.
Page 16: butterfly painted directly on a blue page. Butterfly is a Red Underwing Catocala nupta, which is found in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
Page 17: commercial engraving of castle ruins pasted on a blue page. Not a postcard, has been cut out of a book or similar and pasted in on vertical. Etching of ruined buildings in top half. In middle two cows and at very foreground a man and woman pointing to cows and sheep.
Page 18: Blank peach recto.
Page 19: thick card with embossed frame pasted onto page, with watercolour of blue and yellow butterfly in the middle. No initials. Peach verso.
Page 20: watercolour/ink sketch of a morning glory plant in flower, painted straight onto page. Green beetle above has been cut and pasted in. Not signed. Cream recto.
Page 21: blank cream verso.
Page 22: blank blue recto.
Page 23: blank blue verso.
Page 24: watercolour sketch of small plant with white flowers painted directly on the page. A yellow butterfly ‘cut out’ has been pasted on one flower, and a green hummingbird ‘cut out’ pasted on the other. Cream recto.
Page 25: blank cream verso.
Page 26: commercial engraving pasted on the page, titled Royal Albert Bridge across the Tamar. Signed: ‘Pub by W Wood, Devonport’ and ‘Sketched by W Hake’. Green recto.
Page 27: blank green verso.
Page 28: an uncoloured pencil sketch of posy of pansies, with butterfly on the left, drawn directly onto page. Not signed or initialled. Cream recto.
Page 29: blank cream verso.
Page 30: small commercial engraving titled ‘View in the Environs of Segovia’ pasted on the page. This engraving is also known as: Segovia, La Recreation du soir aux environs de Segovie, lithograph around 1820 by Godefroy Engelmann (1788-1839). Cream recto.
Page 31: blank cream verso.
Page 32: tiny ink sketch direct on page initialled ‘S. C. Dobson del’. Little landscape subject showing gothic-style church with tall turret. Green recto.
Page 33: blank page. Verso green faded to blue at edges.
Page 34: pencil sketch drawn directly on cream-coloured page, titled ‘Tiverton Bridge’. Initialled ‘JH’.
Page 35: blank cream verso.
Page 36: pencil sketch pasted on blue page. Sketch depicts large cottage surrounded by trees. Titled ‘A cottage in Blaise Hamlet near Bristol’. Initials at lower right.
Page 37: commercial artwork pasted on blue page. Has a floral embossed border surrounding the oval image. Based on the painting Dignity and Impudence, 1839, by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, featuring a bloodhound and cairn terrier.
Page 38: painting direct on cream-coloured page, of a spray of leaves and flowers, possibly fuchsia. No initials.
Page 39: blank cream verso.
Page 40: blank peach recto.
Page 41: blank peach verso.
Page 42: page of music titled ‘A favourite Waltz’. Paper pre-printed with staves; musical notation inked in. Initials at bottom: ‘CAS or CAL’
Page 43: more pre-printed music paper, otherwise blank.
Page 44: card has been secured at each corner by a slit cut into the yellow page. Landscape-oriented commercial engraved image, titled ‘Exhibition of Industry of All Nations. Hyde Park 1851’. Image shows Crystal Palace.
Page 45: four slits cut in yellow page, corners of 1851 card poking through.
Page 46: blank cream recto.
Page 47: blank cream verso.
Page 48: tiny ink sketch of some buildings, drawn directly onto cream-coloured page, initialled ‘G C Dobson’ at lower left. Headstone with cross in foreground. Large hill with turret in background.
Page 49: blank cream verso.
Page 50: small pencil sketch with two children, directly on cream-coloured page. Background is uncoloured pencil. Children are coloured in.
Page 51: blank cream verso.
Page 52: tiny pencil sketch of a house surrounded by trees, on an eight-sided perforated paper doily. Attached to blue page of scrapbook by green thread, threaded through holes of doily.
Page 53: blue verso, threads from previous page, knotted or tied at top.
Page 54: tiny pencil sketch of landscape image, drawn directly on cream-coloured page. Initials ‘EMS’ at lower right.
Page 55: Blank cream verso.
Page 56: little pencil sketch of a young woman holding a dove, gazing at viewer over her shoulder. Drawn directly on cream-coloured page. Initials on sketch might say ‘MAS’. Handwritten verse underneath reads:
If liberal aid you supplicate
This grain is freely given
And may it be the gleaners fate
To bind up sheaves from Heaven
[See pages 4 and 5 for the sheaves / gleaners poem to which these lines appear to be responding.]
Page 57: Commercially printed verse pasted on cream-coloured page. Border of green flowers and leaves, like William Morris-type pattern. Corners have been cut. Text itself is red ink and reads:
ON A BEAUTIFUL SPECIMEN OF DRIED SEA WEED
Call this a weed? Is such the aptest name
Man’s ready tongue for this fair work can frame –
This web so softly dyed, so richly wrought,
So mark’d with skill divine and heavenly thought?
Weeds, truly, are the gaudy works of man;
but here the microscope may closely scan,
Nor spy, with strongest magnifying rays,
Ought but new themes for wonder and for praise.
Thou silky texture exquisitely fine,
Woven beneath the ever-rolling brine,
Weed must I term thee? Nay, thou art a flower
Pluck’d from thy birth-place near some coral bower.
And thou reveal’st that Beauty’s gentle reign
Invades e’en Ocean’s deep and wide domain,
Strewing with rosy flowers his awful bed,
Where undisturb’d repose the ship-wreck’d dead.
No eyes to view thee have that countless host
In wat’ry depths to friends and country lost!
And yet thy loveliness on that drear ground
Shed, like a lamp, a ray of hope around.
Pledge that the Power, whose skill thus decks their graves
A thousand fathoms underneath the waves,
Both can, and will, those sleepers bid arise
When resurrection’s trump shall rend the skies.
Page 58: blue page of scrapbook. Two dried specimens of pink seaweed. Hand labelled ‘Calithmanion corymbosum’ and ‘Plocamium coccineum’.
Page 59: blank blue verso. Remnants of slits at each corner.
Page 60: sketch titled ‘LA PROMENADE’ and signed ‘E HARRIS’. Painted directly on cream-coloured paper.
Page 61: blank cream verso.
Page 62: blank cream recto.
Page 63: blank cream verso.
Page 64: coloured sketch of a green plant with pink buds, possibly a rose, painted directly on cream-coloured page. Initials at extreme bottom right: AEL? And date: June 1844.
Page 65: blank cream verso.
Page 66: blank yellow recto.
Page 67: blank yellow verso.
Page 68: painted directly on a cream-coloured piece of heavy card that has been taped into the scrapbook. Full-sized page contains coloured botanical sketch of plant with unusual red berries. Not initialled. Looks like Berberis vulgaris, also known as common barberry and European barberry.
Page 69: cream verso, heavy card.
Page 70: pre-printed musical staves on cream paper. No musical notation. This is the other half of the folio with ‘A favourite Waltz,’ page 42.
Page 71: pre-printed musical staves on cream paper. No musical notation.
Page 72: card inserted into slits at corners on blue page. Landscape image surrounded by gold embossed border. “Castle of Heidelberg, Rhine. This was used as an illustration to Peacock, Mansfield & Sons’ pocket-book The New Forget-me-not or Ladies’ Fashionable Remembrancer for 1852.”
This publication is an late example of a form that was much in vogue in the 1820s and 1830s – the commercially-published album. There was one actually called the Forget-Me-Not. They were mainly compilations of engravings, often sentimental. Their cultural capital was increased by the recruitment of ‘name’ poets who provided verses to go with the pictures: usually not their best work, but very well-paid for poetry. Less prestigious poets also wrote for them. (Joanne Wilkes, 8 Jan 2025)
Page 73: Four engravings pasted on blue page of scrapbook. Handwriting underneath each says: ‘Maternal Advice’, ‘The Peat Digger’, ‘The Greek Mother’, and ‘The Tartar Maid’. [The engraving of figure on horseback is: ‘A Tartar Horsewoman Using Bow’]
Page 74: transcription of a headstone, titled ‘From a stone in a church yard in Oxfordshire’ pasted onto cream-coloured page. Lots of missing letters in transcription.
Page 75: card with calligraphic writing that says ‘Epitaph’ amidst some swirls. Pasted onto cream-coloured page.
Page 76: handwriting on cream paper, pasted onto blue page, that says: ‘The Illustrated London News May 29 1880 / Members of the New House of Commons’. Handwriting says:
‘Mr Stuart Rendel Montgomeryshire / Third son of late eminent engineer. Mr James Meddows Rendel. F.R.S. born in 1831. Educated at Eton & Oxford: called to the Bar but never practiced, becoming member of Sir William Armstrong’s firm, and managing director in London. Married daughter of Mr Egerton Hubbard of Horsham.’
Page 77: dried specimen of light-reddish-brown coloured seaweed on paper, which has been pasted onto blue page. Handwriting at top: Polysophonia byssoides.
Page 78: commercial rectangular card in colour pasted onto cream-coloured page. Underneath is printed ‘From’ and in handwriting is written ‘Emma for Aunt’
Page 79: blank cream verso.
Page 80: blank peach recto; small slits in corners.
Page 81: blank peach verso; small slits in corners.
Page 82: tiny b/w ink sketch initialled ‘S C Dobson’, drawn directly on cream-coloured page. Figure wearing wide-brimmed hat standing under trees on edge of water, mountain scape in background. Small slits in corners.
Page 83: blank cream verso; small slits in corners.
Page 84: blank cream recto; small slits in corners.
Page 85: commercial engraving pasted onto cream-coloured page, titled ‘Remains of Cerne Abbey / Dorsetshire’. Artist: Upham J W. Engraver: Smith J. Publisher: Vernor, Hood & Sharpe, Poultry. Date: 1803
Page 86: peach-coloured page of scrapbook. Two dried seaweed specimens, one above the other, each pasted onto paper that has corners diagonally clipped off. Top one is pink and feathery, with label: ‘Bonnemaisonia asparagoides’. Lower specimen is four fanned out brown pieces, with handwritten label: ‘Padina parvonia’.
Page 87: unsigned tiny pencil sketch of bust of a man on cream card, heavily embossed with decorative patterns on borders. Pasted on peach-coloured page.
Page 88: blank cream-coloured page. Faint diagonal slits in corners.
Page 89: blank cream-coloured page. Faint diagonal slits in corners.
Page 90: blue page of scrapbook. Pasted on the page is a sketch on paper. It depicts Attacus atlas, the Atlas moth: red, brown, yellow, black. Was originally on a rectangular piece of paper, lower half has been cut as a rough semi-circle.
Page 91: blue page of scrapbook, partly faded to green in places. Pasted on the page is a round commercial engraving of 19th century painting by Raphael: Madonna della Sedia (or Seggiola) which translates as Madonna of the Armchair. Image has been handcut as a circle.
Page 92: Two dried seaweed specimens pasted directly on the blue page. Bible verse handwritten underneath:
‘Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. Job 14th chapt 1-2 verses’
Page 93: blank blue page.
Page 94: page pre-printed with musical staves. No content.
Page 95: page pre-printed with musical staves. No content.
Page 96: coloured commercial engraving of two children with goat behind them. Inserted horizontally, with top of card at gutter edge. Held down by blue and white ribbon across upper edge of card, through holes in the blue page. Faint pencil initials (possibly) on reverse.
Page 97: commercial engraving on card: landscape scene of Venice with Bridge of Sighs. Partly coloured. Held by blue and white ribbon across corners along gutter edge of blue page.
Page 98: dried pink leaves of seaweed specimen, attached directly to cream-coloured page. Handwriting says: ‘Deleseria sanguinea’ [sic]
Page 99: Sketch of Eddystone Lighthouse on heavy card, pasted onto page.
Page 100: Faded green page. Two dried plant specimens on the page. Upper specimen is pasted directly onto page with handwritten label that says ‘Lycopodium?’ with a question mark after the title. The second is pasted onto a rectangular piece of white paper with its corners clipped off, and labelled ‘Polysiphonia [higuseens?]’
Page 101: orange seaweed specimen mounted on white card, which is attached to blue piece of paper. This is pasted onto green page of scrapbook. Handwritten label says ‘Laurencia obtusa’. Slits visible in corners of page.
Page 102: Sketch titled Netley Abbey drawn directly onto cream-coloured page. Signed ‘E Harris’. Coloured landscape image of ruin.
Page 103: Dried seaweed specimen, darker green, attached directly to cream-coloured page. Handwriting underneath says ‘Bryopsis plumosa’.
Page 104: Commercial engraving attached to yellow page of scrapbook. Corners of engraving have been clipped off. Image is: Anne Page (Anna Page) (The Merry Wives of Windsor) in “Shakespeare Women’s Gallery, collection of forty-five serious portraits by early London artists, enriched with critical and literary notices” ca. 1838.
Page 105: yellow verso, blank.
Page 106: pencil sketch, directly on cream-coloured page, titled ‘St Germans Hut’. Title originally in pencil; over-written in blue ink. Initials at bottom right: ‘JH’. See: https://www.francisfrith.com/downderry/downderry-st-germans-hut-1890_23753
Page 107: cream verso, blank.
Page 108: cream recto, blank.
Page 109: cream verso, blank.
Page 110: horizontal sketch titled ‘The Breakwater from the ruins at Mt Edgecumbe.’ Pencil sketch attached to yellow page of scrapbook by blue and white ribbon. Title in pencil on sketch, repeated in ink on the page. Also on sketch in pencil: ‘1843’ (possibly) at bottom right; indistinct word at left; initials — ‘? AS’ at extreme bottom left of sketch.
Page 111: yellow page of scrapbook. Vertical coloured sketch of child in prayer, kneeling on cushion. Held in by blue and white ribbon at corners. Pencil initials at bottom left.
Page 112: two commercial engravings pasted on cream-coloured page: upper image is titled: St Mawes Castle, Falmouth. The lower image is untitled, but is ‘Wild Horses in New Forest’, from The Rural Life of England, Author: William Howitt. Illustrator: Thomas Bewick, Samuel Williams, 1840.
Both men were prominent. Howitt was an extremely prolific writer on many topics (including rural life), while Bewick was known for his revival of wood-engraving. (Joanne Wilkes, 8 Jan 2025)
Page 113: unlabelled specimen of dark red seaweed, attached directly to cream-coloured page.
Page 114: commercial engraving titled ‘Dartmouth’, pasted onto green page. Steel engraving drawn by G Townsend showing a view of ships in the estuary between Dartmouth and Kingsbridge, 1859.
Page 115: blank. Green verso.
Page 116: two dried fern specimens, side-by-side, pasted directly on cream-coloured page. Hand-written label in pencil says ‘Adiantum pubescens’. Label is pasted down, two slits in label and stalk of one of the specimens is threaded through the slits.
Page 117: blank page, cream verso.
Page 118: sketch on cream paper centred in middle of blue page, and attached to page by brown ribbons across the corners. Handwriting at top of the sketch says: ‘C Taylor Hinkley Leicestershire’. Sketch depicts a landscape scene in pencil with low scrubby plants and two partridges sitting on top. The birds are coloured brown.
Page 119: card with sketch attached to blue scrapbook page by green ribbons. Sketch titled in handwriting, ‘The Breakwater from the ruins at Mt Edgecumbe’. Faint pencil inscription on reverse: “Miss Hill with the love of her affectionate pupil Mary [Muller?]’
Page 120: handwritten sheet of music on pre-printed staves, titled ‘A Snuff Box Waltz’. Has signature, possibly ‘GEM?’
Page 121: pre-printed music staves, otherwise blank.
Page 122: card pasted to cream-coloured page, showing pencil sketch of house. Titled ‘One of the [illegible] Cottages near Bristol’ signed ‘S Tickell 1839’.
Page 123: commercial engraving pasted on cream-coloured page titled ‘Priory of Pluscarden’ [Scotland]. Handwriting added that says: ‘7 miles from Elgin’
Page 124: blank. Cream recto.
Page 125: blank. Cream verso.
Page 126: elaborate perforated paper doily pattern, glued onto blue page. At the centre in an oval frame is a coloured sketch of pink flowers and green leaves. Faint pencil signature at bottom: ‘[A?] Harris’.
Page 127: blank. Blue verso.
Page 128: sketch that has been pasted onto entire page, shows a Blue Morpho and Birdwing butterfly. Pencil writing underneath says: ‘Butterflies painted from collection in Wellington Museum’. Sketch is initialled, possibly says ‘ECH’ or ‘EBH’.
Page 129: card pasted onto cream-coloured page. Blue, yellow, black and red butterfly sketch on card, surrounded by a frame of embossing or letterpress design.
Page 130: thin card pasted onto blue page. Beautiful brown butterfly sketch perched on forget-me-not stem of flowers. Writing is in Danish:
‘Fravarende, kiare Veninde! vil denne litle blomst gientage et Hjertets Onsree? Jra Deres meget hengiune’
Lower left writing says: Plymouth the 25th March 1826
Signed: J N Didrichsen
[Google translated as: Absent, dear friend! will this little flower fulfill a heart’s desire? Yours very affectionately’]
Page 131: blank. Blue verso.
Page 132: blank. Blue recto.
Page 133: blank. Blue verso.
Page 134: blank. Cream recto. Full watermark on page that says: G Wilmot / 1827
Page 135: blank. Cream verso.
Page 136: Botanical sketch pasted onto blue page, of unknown plant with tubular-like red flowers. Signed in pencil, over-written in ink, but can’t make out signature. Also has ‘Hinkley 1829’ written underneath signature.
Page 137: blank. Blue verso
Page 138: Piece of red paper that has been cut out and attached to cream page. It has embossed gold decorative border and embossed gold verse printed on it:
THE ANGEL AND THE CHILD
An angel form, with brow of light,
Watched o’er a sleeping infant’s dream
And gazed as though his visage bright,
He there beheld as in a stream.
“Fair child, whose face is like to mine.
Oh come, “ he said, “and fly with me,
Come forth to happiness divine,
For earth is all unworthy thee.”
Page 139: two dried specimens of pink seaweed. Both attached to card which is then pasted onto cream-coloured page. Both have corners clipped. Handwritten labels read: ‘Ptilota plumara’ and ‘Ceramium rubrum’
Page 140: blue page of scrapbook. White doily pasted on page. Two dried specimens of seaweed are pasted on the doily: coral colour and yellow. Unlabelled.
Page 141: pencil sketch, on card, pasted onto blue page, with a small baby asleep wrapped in a blanket amongst shrubbery. Child is coloured in: lying on a blue blanket, red sash around waist, wears smock with vertical yellow stripes. In the background is a woman with a pink skirt holding her arm out. Rest of the sketch is in uncoloured pencil.
Page 142: blank cream page, apart from two small blue corners of card which appear to be remnants of something that has been torn away.
Page 143: two commercial engravings, pasted onto cream-coloured page. Top image is titled ‘St Leonards on the Sea (East Boundary)’ and shows men and women promenading along a beach front, dated Sept 20th 1849. Hock & Co. London No 1221.
Lower image is titled ‘A Skall – Sweden’ and shows a landscape scene with water, people in rowboats and a man standing in one pointing a rifle. Some fir trees on the left-hand side.
Page 144: ink sketch on card, pasted onto cream-coloured page, landscape with river, small stone bridge and houses. Not signed.
Page 145: blank. Cream verso.
Page 146: thin card pasted onto cream-coloured page. Card contains a watercolour sketch of a pink rose above a handwritten verse. Verse reads:
Pleasure is a rose, near which there
ever grows the thorn of evil – It is
wisdom’s work, so carefully to
pluck the Rose, as to avoid the Thorn –
And let its sweet fragrance exhale to
heaven, in grateful adoration to Him
who gave the Rose to blow. –
E. J. [H?] Sept. 1827
The author of the verse is British intellectual and Biblical translator Elizabeth Smith (1776-1806) whose posthumous memoir was published in 1824 to much acclaim. Emma Hill may have read the verse there. It was reprinted in the Illustrated London News, 13 April 1844, p. 11.
Page 147: blank. Cream verso.
Page 148: dried yellow seaweed specimen, attached to rectangular piece of cream paper, which is then attached to blue card, then pasted onto page. Handwritten label says ‘Bryopsis hypnoides’.
Page 149: blank. Cream verso.
Page 150: blank blue page, with remnants of paste in four corners, showing something has been removed.
Page 151: commercially printed verse titled ‘The Bazaar’ on light blue paper or card, pasted onto blue page. Handwriting at top: ‘Composed by dear Emma’. The verse reads:
The Bazaar
This little Bazaar has attraction for all,
Then Ladies approach and encourage my stall;
I have works of all kinds, and of every hue,
White lilies, red roses, and baskets of blue.
‘Tis for the dear children I stand here to plead,
Let your purses be open to all who have need;
You know not the good one sovereign can do,
Then Ladies, dear ladies, I appeal first to you.
Kind Gentlemen too, your aid I implore,
Pray examine my wares, and diminish my store;
Your benevolent hearts, this day must expand
For the children whose Fathers are far from our land.
While they are enduring the cross and the fight,
To dispel heathen darkness and show the “true light;”
May their hearts be rejoiced by tidings that prove
That their old Father-land, is a land full of love.
Come Ladies, come Gentlemen, Children and all,
Once more I entreat you to examine each stall;
Be liberal, that we may not have laboured in vain,
The larger your bounty, the greater your gain.
Liskeard, April 24th, 1860.
Matthews, Printer, Etc., Liskeard.
Page 152: piece of card pasted in, fills the entire page. Black silhouette image of a woman standing in profile, wearing a layered skirt that looks like a crinoline. Her hair is tied up and she holds a pen in her hands. Some details have been added to the silhouette by hand: hair lines are drawn on, the collar and cuffs of her dress. Shadow has been painted at the bottom in a wash. At lower left is handwritten ‘Emma Hill’ and underneath is a signature ‘S Metford fecit’. Samuel Metford was a well-known silhouette artist. This silhouette is likely to be the portrait that Emily’s mother Sarah Harris refers to in her letter of 1853: ‘Your black likeness as you call it brings you very often to our remembrances.’
Page 153: sketch of rose, blue flower and forget-me-nots in centre directly on the cream-coloured page. There is a wreath of real dried fern leaves around it. Stippled writing under the flowers – not legible.
Page 154: pasted onto the cream-coloured page, commercial engraving titled ‘Penryn’ on card. Scenic view overlooking harbour. Uncoloured. G Townsend engraver. ‘Pub by H Bisley Exeter No 78’.
Page 155: blank cream page, apart from pencil writing: ‘from the gardens at Versailles July 1855: E.J. Hill’. Page also contains ‘G Wilmot’ watermark.
Page 156: pasted onto the cream page. An interior view within a church, looking towards a window with a font in front of it. A figure stands to the left of the font, with their hand on it. The word ‘Galpin’ hand written underneath. At lower left of the page is handwritten ‘Charmouth’ 1834. Next to this is an embossed seal, uncoloured, which contains the words ‘SUPERFINE’ and ‘LONDON ROAD’.
Page 157: Blue page. Pasted in commercial engraving/print titled ‘Christ’s Miracles’. Contains depicting different miracles. Central panel reads:
IHS
THE NATURAL & SPIRITUAL MAN
OUR LORD & SAVIOUR
JESUS CHRIST
And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying Drink ye aloof it For this is my blood of the new testament which is shed for many for the REMISSION OF SINS
Miracle scenes around the edge include:
Lazarus raised
Five thousand fed
The blind restor’d
Christ walketh on the sea
Miraculous draught of fishes
Jairus’ daughter
Widow’s son rais’d
Stilling the storm
Text across the bottom reads: Pub by J S? Wood 9 Cumer’s Hall Court, London Wall, London
Page 158: Pasted directly on cream page, single dried seaweed specimen. Feathery, pink and yellow in colour. Unlabelled.
Page 159: blank. Cream verso.
Page 160: blank. Dark blue recto
Page 161: blank. Dark blue verso.
Back flyleaf
