Memoir of Robert Bloomfield

A prose memoir by Walter Bloomfield of Robert Bloomfield (1766-1823). The main text is in the hand of a scribe and has occasional corrections apparently in Walter Bloomfield's hand, and occupies pages numbered 1-45. It is preceded by a presentation inscription of the manuscript to Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, dated 22 June 1891; a sonnet by Walter Bloomfield, "He worshipped Nature in her mildest forms,..."; a title page with the address '12, Earlham Gove, Wood Green, London, N', dated 1891; and a pedigree of Robert Bloomfield. With a bookplate of Duleep Singh; an ownership inscription of P. J. Croft, 1974; a note concerning the binding of the manuscript, possibly in the hand of Duleep Singh; a book-plate of Robert Bloomfield, 1815, engraved by William Jackson, Gutter Lane, Cheapside, bearing a jocular coat of arms with the motto 'Friends in need, and a fig for the heralds'; and a letter from Walter Bloomfield to Duleep Singh, Wood Green, London, 22 June 1891 (tipped in). No published version of the memoir has been traced. In his letter to Duleep Singh, Bloomfield wrote of it that 'the major portion of it contains information which must be new to everybody unconnected with my family.'

Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).

Purchased from Adam Mills (bookseller, Cottenham, Cambridgeshire), 18 July 1985.

A catalogue of the collection can be found on ArchiveSearch.

Letters from Robert Bloomfield and an autograph manuscript of his poem 'The Fakenham Ghost' are at MS Add. 8812/37-40; and letters from him are at Rare Books class CCC.34.253. Correspondence, a diary, papers and poems by Robert Bloomfield are in the British Library, Add. MSS 28265-68, 29896 and 30809. Further Robert Bloomfield manuscripts are listed in David C. Sutton, editor, 'Location register of English literary manuscripts and letters: eighteenth and nineteenth centuries', London: The British Library, 1995. A volume of copies of letters of and verses by Robert Bloomfield's brother George, with a letter by George Bloomfield with autobiographical and family detail, are in Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch, ref. 317/3, 406/2 (NRA 3517 Suffolk misc (Bury)).