Rare naval documents could make more than £6,000 at auction in new year
Six rare maritime manuscripts are expected to fetch more than £6,000 when they go under the hammer at a rare books auction early in the new year.
The manuscripts have been entered into an auction at Halls in Shrewsbury on January 20 by a Shropshire person whose family bought them from Bonhams Auctioneers at Par, Cornwall in the mid-1970s.
Part of a collection of books in the auction valued at around £10,000 is from the same vendor, the manuscripts' value is enhanced because they contain watercolours and drawings.
Potentially the most valuable of the collection, at between £1,500 ad £2,000, is a manuscript account of a voyage to the East Indies on the ship Duke of Grafton in 1779.
The manuscript, which contains 116 pages with seven drawings and runs to about 25,000 words, is bound in coarse cloth and, according to a note dated 1931 on the front pastedown, the log may have been kept by Richard Pierce.
The login begins: "The Duke of Grafton, East Indiaman, Captain Samuel Bull Commander, left Portsmouth on Sunday the 7th of March 1779 with twelve other Indiamen under the convoy of Sir Edward Hughes Kt. in the Superbe 74 Gunship & eight Men of War and Sloops, Transports & other vessels to the number of Forty five or upwards."
One of the most interesting manuscripts, valued at up to £800, is a journal of Midshipman Halton Stirling Lecky, officer on board ships HMS Bonaventure, HMS Victorious and HMS Volage from February 15, 1897 to August 14, 1898.
The manuscript contains 158 pages of notes, 19 plans and track charts and 13 watercolours.
Lecky was a lieutenant in the Navy, who in 1901 was awarded the Albert Medal, the silver medal of the Royal Humane Society and the Lloyds Silver Medal, all for bravery during the Boer War for singlehandedly rescuing two colleagues from a capsized vessel.
During the First World War, he created the Auxiliary Patrol Service of 3000 vessels against enemy submarines from 1914 to 1916. He was Assistant Naval Secretary to First Lord of the Admiralty from 1917 to 1918.
Also valued at up to £1,500 is a manuscript log book kept by L. S. Agassiz, fifth officer on board the East India Company's ship, Thames from January 26, 1831 to March 13, 1832, together with a log of the Brig 'Langley' in 1832.
