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Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

"The Book of Joy". An elaborately bound scrapbook celebrating the charmed youth of a member of "one of Britain's most prominent Quaker industrial and political dynasties" (ODNB). It charts the childhood of Joy Frances Pease (1906-81), her travels in Europe and Britain, and her early married life in upper class society.The first 36 pages consist of photographs of Joy with her family, friends, and pets from birth until 1917. The manuscript captions note that many of the photographs were taken at home in Mowden Hall, Darlington, the family home designed by the great Gothic Revival architect Alfred Waterhouse. Many of the succeeding leaves are full of postcards from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Cambridge, Oxford, and Exeter. In 1929 Joy married the businessman Eric Malcolm Fraser (1897-1960). The couple's invitation to Buckingham Palace, alongside theatre programmes and leaflets for the Chelsea Parliamentary Election, suggests their active social life in the capital and in local political circles. Although there are no notices of her own wedding, as a proud sister Joy has pasted in many newspaper clippings of the marriage of her sister Elinor to John Kemp, 1st Viscount Rochdale.

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