About this Item
Ms. titlepage. Contemp. half calf, marbled paper boards, raised bands, compartments ruled horizontally in gilt, black morocco title label 'A. T. Miscellanea'; sl. rubbed. Armorial bookplate of Alexander Thomson, later inscription on leading f.e.p.: 'Sir David Stewart with Miss Farn's (?) kind regards, 1901'. v.g. A sammelband of pamphlets belonging to, and by, Alexander Thomson, a 'quiet country gentleman' of Banchory, a Burgh in Aberdeenshire. His memoirs, edited by the Reverend George Smeaton in 1869, are 'the biography of a country gentleman who acted through life as a steward. And it will show what can be done by a country gentleman, apart from the arena of parliamentary life, when he is fully educated, and turns all his accomplishments to good account'. In May 1869, a year after his death in May 1868, an article in The Spectator records that 'Alexander Thomson was a simple country gentleman, living the greater part of his life at his own place at Banchory, neither seeking celebrity nor attaining it, but in bequeathing, as he has done, to the Free Church College of Aberdeen a most valuable museum and noble library, besides the bequest of some £30,000 to the Free Church Divinity Hall, which he helped so materially to establish, he has conferred a sufficiently great national obligation upon Scotland to have his name enrolled among the many sons whom she delights to honour'. His great work in addressing poverty and progressing reform in education and prisons is evident by the pamphlets he wrote and the institutions with which he worked. 'The subject of instructing and training the most neglected parts of our population, has at last attracted public attention. Its importance can scarcely be over-estimated: and when we think of the utter neglect to which, hitherto, the children of the poorest and most depraved have, with few exceptions, been consigned, especially in our large towns, the wonder is, not that we find so bad a class of people, among us now, but that the moral contagion has not already spread to every class and rank of society'. The volume was presented in 1901 to Sir David Stewart who was the Lord Provost of Aberdeen between 1889 and 1894. A full list of all 20 pamphlets is available on request. All pamphlets are by Alexander Thomson and published by George Davison unless otherwise stated. 1. Industrial Schools; their origin, rise, and progress, in Aberdeen. Aberdeen: Geo. Davidson. 1847. 42pp. 2. Outlines of a Scheme for the Union of King's and Marischal Colleges Into One University. Aberdeen: George Davidson. 1850. 18pp. 3. Facts from Rome: or, Popery at head-quarters. Aberdeen: George Davidson. 1851. Folding plate. 156pp. The plate is entitled 'Rules for the Historical Game of the Old Testament. To be played with two dice'. 4. Draft Report by the Sub-Committee of Committee of Rural Police of County of Aberdeen, on the causes of the recent increase of vagrancy and crime in the county, to be considered at a meeting of the Rural Police Committee, on Monday, 4th October. [n.p.] 1852. [ii], 24pp. Aberdeen, Edinburgh, & NLS only on Copac. 5. Report from Rural Police Committee to the Commissioners of Supply of the County of Aberdeen, at their annual meeting, 30th April, 1853. [n.p.] 1853. 6pp. Aberdeen & NLS only on Copac. 6. Letter to M. D. Hill, Esq., recorder of Birmingham, on juvenile ragged industrial feeding schools. [n.p.] [1853] 9pp. 7. Report by Committee of Prisons' Board of the County of Aberdeen to the Board, on the causes of the remarkable increase of juvenile delinquency in the county of Aberdeen. [n.p.] [1855] Four folding plates. 24pp. Aberdeen only on Copac. 8. Report by Prisons' Board of the County of Aberdeen, on the causes of the remarkable increase of juvenile delinquency in the county of Aberdeen. [n.p.] [1856] four folding plates. 22pp. Aberdeen (3 copies) & NLS only on Copac. 9. Remarks on the Lord Advocate's Education Bill. Addressed to a meeting of commissioners of supply and justices of the p. Seller Inventory # 84433
Contact seller
Report this item
