The history of the colleges of Winchester, Eton, and Westminster; with the Charter-House, the schools of St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors, Harrow and Rugby, and the free-school of Christ's Hospital.
William Combe (1742-1823).
Category
Books
Date
1816
Materials
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 3069946
Summary
Rudolph Ackermann, The History of the Colleges of Winchester, Eton and Westminster …, London: printed for and published by Rudolph Ackermann. Binding: Twentieth-century full red morocco over boards; gilt fillets and tools to form a border; gilt-panelled spine, with gilt title ‘History of the colleges. Ackermann’; gilt inner border; sewn on five raised bands; blue silk endpapers; gilt paper edges; binder’s stamp: Bound by Zaehnsdorf, London, England.
Full description
The History of the Colleges was the last of Ackermann's great series of English topographical works, also closing his trilogy on English educational institutions. In his preface, Ackermann wrote that the great public schools followed on naturally as they were: ‘... the nurseries of the Universities, and may consequently be said to be so connected with them, that the history of the former cannot be considered as altogether perfect with-out that of the latter.’ The scheme appears to have been hatched around the beginning of 1815 and originally encompassed just the four most famous of the public schools, Winchester, Eton, Westminster and Harrow. As this would have made a rather slim volume, Charterhouse was soon added, and finally Rugby, St Paul’s, Merchant Taylors’ and Christ’s Hospital, making nine in all. The complete work was to be issued in 12 parts, as opposed to the 20 parts each of ‘Oxford’ and ‘Cambridge’, each part containing four plates with accompanying letterpress. For the letterpress, Ackermann tells us that he had hoped ‘to provide an historian of each school from the scholars of it’. In the event he only managed to find old boys to write Winchester, Harrow and Rugby, and William Combe, who had originally been assigned only to his old ‘alma mater’, Eton, found himself ‘at a very late period’ having to write the remainder as well. He had wanted to write the text for Harrow, claiming surprisingly that he had been a pupil there before going to Eton. In the event it was given to Henry Drury, a master at the school, whom Combe claimed had 'persuaded A------n to let him have it to puff off the school and the inhabitants of it, so that it does not bear the least conformity to the rest'. Drury, a noted classical scholar and bibliophile, seems to have been more concerned to puff off his personal library, which he footnoted as ‘the most splendid collection at present in Harrow ... although inferior in extent to that of Dr. Heath, it is the greatest object of attraction to bibliographers visiting the place’. It was probably these problems which caused a delay in publication, the appearance of the first part being put back from 1 September 1815 to 1 January 1816. To add to the publisher's troubles, take-up of the subscription was slow – only 337 names were on the list for the usual edition of 1000, and copies remained unsold in 1830. Ever resourceful, Ackermann announced in 1817 that the text and plates of individual schools would be available separately in boards, so that those who lacked the money or inclination to acquire the complete work could purchase the history of their own school for a more modest sum. In the twentieth century the reputation of the Colleges appears to have grown; in 1906 Martin Hardie wrote that their illustration 'equals, if not surpasses, that of the ‘Oxford’ and ‘Cambridge’’ and by 1954, by which time Lord Fairhaven's own collection was well advanced, R.V. Tooley was writing that ‘Ackermann's ‘Schools’ is more popular than his ‘Oxford’ and ‘Cambridge and occurs less frequently for sale’. Text adapted from William Hale's entry in ‘Treasures from Lord Fairhaven’s Library at Anglesey Abbey’, National Trust, 2013, cat. 27, pp. 96-7.
Bibliographic description
vi, [2], 56, 72, 27, [1], 32, 34, 22, 40, 34, 43, [1] p., [48] leaves of plates : ill. (col.) ; fol. Second issue, with hatless masters in Westminster plate facing p. 24, and no washerwomen or the word “School” in Charterhouse plate facing p. 21. Pagination of preliminaries: [2], vi, [2], [vii]-viii p. On ordinary paper (cf. Tooley). Loosely inserted: typed clipping with book dealer’s description, price cut out. Provenance: Twentieth-century armorial bookplate (large variant), signed Badeley 1930: ‘Urban Huttleston Rogers Lord Fairhaven’ [i.e.: Urban Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966)]. Twentieth-century gilt leather oval book label with monogram: GRN [i.e. Nicolaus]. Binding: Twentieth-century full red morocco over boards; gilt fillets and tools to form a border; gilt-panelled spine, with gilt title ‘History of the colleges. Ackermann’; gilt inner border; sewn on five raised bands; blue silk endpapers; gilt paper edges; binder’s stamp: Bound by Zaehnsdorf, London, England.
Provenance
Bookseller's description has 'phone number 'Regent 3610'; with small leather monogrammed ownership label of G.R. N[icolaus]. Acquired by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) and then bequeathed by him to the National Trust with the house and the rest of the contents in 1966.
Makers and roles
William Combe (1742-1823)., author Rudolph Ackermann (1764 - 1834) , publisher William Henry Pyne (London 1769/70 – London 1843), author
References
Mark Purcell, William Hale and David Person, Treasures from Lord Fairhaven’s Library at Anglesey Abbey, Swindon: National Trust; London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers, 2013., pp. 96-7