James Bonwick, colonial historian and archivist : cut signature, with a brief inscription.

A$100 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

[undated, but after 1865]. Autograph signature in ink, on piece (42 x 180 mm): Yours truly, James Bonwick ; cut from the foot of a letter, the last part of which reads: Secretary Assistant Secretary for the honour conf[erred] .. , and with a postscript which reads: In my little leisure, I am working up a subject of early Colonial History ; laid down on section cut from a nineteenth-century album page, inscribed by the album s compiler in pencil: James Bonwick FRGS ; toned. Provenance: Autograph album compiled by Jane Emma Murphy (Balcombe) (1854-1924), The Briars, Mornington, Victoria (Australia); à Beckett family, Melbourne (by descent). From the ADB: James Bonwick (1817-1906), teacher, author, historian and archivist, was born on 8 July 1817 at Lingfield, Surrey, England, eldest son of James Bonwick, carpenter, and his second wife Mary, née Preston. Soon after James s birth the family moved to Southwark, London, where he was educated at the Borough Road School in 1823-32. He began his teaching career in 1833 and had charge of several primary schools. While at Liverpool in 1837 he was influenced by a Baptist clergyman who converted Bonwick to Nonconformity and pledged him to the temperance cause. He returned to schools in London in 1838 and in May 1841 he and his wife were selected to manage the proposed normal school in Hobart Town, the chief school of Sir John Franklin s new Board of Education. Bonwick arrived in Hobart on 10 October 1841 and took charge of the school next

• Binding: Hardcover

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