This volume catalogues British Library (formerly British Museum) documents
Add. MS 6302; Egerton MS 2412; Egerton 2413; Harley 3405; Add. MS 40072 (Redgrave swan-roll) and provides a name index at the end (the names of swan mark owners).
Under preliminary notes to Add. MS 6302, Ticehurst transcribes inserted MS Preface by Sir Joseph Banks, PRS (referring to Archaeologia, XVI, p. 153). Includes Banks’s account of the physical process of beak marking;
‘In the autumn of 1820 Mr Chapman of Marshchapel informed me that in his youth about 40 years ago the custom of marking swans was still kept in the Marsh Towns in his neighbourhood and that he had attended when the persons employed by the owners met together and marked the birds.
He shewed me the manner of marking which he did by cutting with a sharp Penknife a double line through the skin that covers the beak and stripping off the skin between.’
Banks believed book was begun 1529-38, but Ticehurst says between 1580 and 1603.
Re Egerton MS 2412, the book (paper leaves) covering the Fen district, made after 1622, contains errors in owners’ names, indicating that the copyist who made the first entries was a poor reader of earlier handwriting.
Egerton MS 2413 a book (vellum/ parchment leaves) virtually a duplicate of 2412
Harley MS 3405, a book of parchment/ vellum leaves, a duplicate of Add. MS 6301, both perhaps copied from the same original source by the same scribe, compiled or copied after 1620. Notes that Brom[e]head, Marriott, Burghley and Harley 3405 form part of ‘well defined group’.
Redgrave Roll, Add. MS 40072, a roll of 19 membranes, 5 ½ ins wide, making total length of 38 feet, ½ inch, Fenland and Broadland areas, first half of 17th century.
A name index at end, covering all 5 MSS.
Illustrations include:
Numerous drawings including ‘sketch-facsimile’ drawings of pages from all 5 BL manuscripts (for example, 39 drawings for Add. MS 6302)