Spencer Lucas and Co. Letters to Sir Joseph Banks regarding a New Zealand native Ma Tanai, son of Tippahee, 1807

Component identifier:

Item 139 _ 139d

Content Summary:

Letters from Spencer Lucas and Co., Great Marlborough Street, dated 11th May 1807, 1st June [1807] and 5th June 1807 offering advice on the care of the New Zealand boy and enclosing accounts for expenses. The documents also include a bill for clothes for "New Zealand lad" and a bill for lodging and washing, and an undated draft by Banks describing "The New Zealand boy".

Immediate source of acquisition:

In a codicil to his will, dated 7th March 1820, Sir Joseph Banks left the care of his papers to Sir Edward Knatchbull, the nephew of Lady Banks. In 1828 Knatchbull passed over to the British Museum the bound volumes of foreign correspondence, but he retained the rest of the papers in the expectation that an official biography would be written. He died in 1849 and, following the death of Lady Knatchbull in 1882, the ownership of the papers passed to their son Edward Knatchbull Hugesson, 1st Baron Brabourne. In 1884 Lord Brabourne offered the papers for sale to the British Museum but, when no agreement could be reached on a price, he sold many of the Australian papers to the New South Wales Government. They are now held in the Mitchell Library at the State Library of New South Wales. Most of the remaining Banks Papers were sold on behalf of Lord Brabourne by Sotheby's on 11 March and 14 April 1886. One of the successful bidders at the sale on 14 April was E.A. Petherick, the London agent of the Melbourne bookseller George Robertson. He bought 20 lots, including a number of drafts of Banks' letters, his thoughts on the manners of the women of Otaheite, the hints of the Earl of Morton, and the catalogue of drawings and portraits by John Webber. It was unfortunate that Banks' correspondence was divided into several lots on an alphabetical basis. Petherick bought the four lots comprising letters of writers whose names started with C, F, K and P. In 1909 Petherick returned to Australia and later in the year he transferred title in his large collection of books, maps, manuscripts and pictures to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library. Most of the Banks Papers held in the National Library at MS 9 were originally in the Petherick Collection. Banks was a prolific correspondent and throughout the twentieth century letters that he had written or received were sold at auctions in London and elsewhere or appeared in dealers' catalogues. The Library has bought a number of letters at different sales and assigned them distinct manuscript numbers. The collector Sir Rex Nan Kivell also bought several letters of Banks at London sales and gave them his own NK numbers. His collection was purchased by the Library in 1959. At a later date all the manuscripts in his collection were given manuscript numbers, as well as numbers within the MS 9 sequence. For instance, the letter of Mungo Park can be cited as MS 9/117 or MS 4004, while its original Nan Kivell number was NK 5837 On 23 July 1985 Sotheby's in London sold many of the papers of Banks' friend John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. Sandwich was First Lord of the Admiralty in 1771-82 and was closely associated with the second and third voyages of Cook. The National Library bought three lots at the sale and the collection was given the number MS 7218. It includes nine letters written by Banks to Sandwich in 1782-84.

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