John Borham (1 results)

Condition: Very Good. London? 1740-1749. Tall, narrow folio (40.5x16.5cm.); full parchment retaining original brass clasps; [2],169,[2]ll. filled to completion with manuscript accounts, text ruled in red throughout. Parchment unevenly browned and a bit scuffed at extremities, a number of surface scratches, some cracking at head of a few gatherings, occasional finger soil to textblock, else a Very Good, quite legible and attractive example. Retains original pictorial engraved stationer's label on front pastedown: "John Pickard / Stationer / At the Corner of Queen Street in Thames-street near ye three Cranes London Sells all sorts of Stationery wares. Wholesale or Retale [sic], at the lowest price. NB Who makes all sorts of Merchts. & Shopkeepers Books of Accompts." Minutely-kept accounts ledger of London-area farmer John Borham Jr. The monotony of selling flour, bran, and malt to the same handful of customers is occasionally broken up by the sale of a a quarter, half, or whole "fat beast" and the occasional dead horse. Services are also (infrequently) rendered, such as the renting of a meadow or the keeping of a cow for 12 weeks. The names of the same customers crop up regularly, one of the most frequent being Lydia Borham (perhaps a close relation of farmer John's?), who over the course of nearly a decade appears in these pages several once or twice a week, cropping up thirty-eight pages of accounts. In comparison, her only other female compatriot present here, Sarah Masingame, only wracked up eight and a half pages of accounts.