Extracts and Notes of William Smith Hesleden

Extracts in prose and verse, and genealogical and topographical notes mainly relating to Lincolnshire and surrounding districts, by William Smith Hesleden. Pages 22-54 comprise a travel journal, with descriptions of Ghent, Bruges, Brussels, Frankfurt, Augsburg, Trent, Alexandria, Zea, Abyssinia and Gondar in Ethiopia. The volume also contains sealing-wax impressions of Roman coins and signet seals, sketches of monuments, and notes and sketches on the training of fruit trees.

See also English MS 221 below for further papers of W.S. Hesleden.

William Smith Hesleden (1774-1853) of Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, gentleman, archaeologist and antiquary, was the author of two works relating to Barton-upon-Humber: A digest of the several charities in Barton-Upon-Humber, in the County of Lincoln (Barton: printed by A. Squire, [1823]); and The social history and antiquities of Barton-upon-Humber (Barton-upon-Humber: printed by M. Ball, 1856). He also wrote a treatise on windmills, A sketch of the properties and advantages of Sutton's patent gravitated sails for windmills (London: 1807).

Lincolnshire Archives holds the following material relating to William Smith Hesleden:

• five manuscript volumes, mainly in the hand of Hesleden, containing abstracts from title deeds relating to purchases of estates in Lincolnshire by the Pelham family (ref.: YARB 3/3/2/2);
• a volume in the hand of Hesleden, containing transcripts and abstracts from family settlements and from other documents relating to the evolution of the Yarborough estates, c.1565-1854 (ref.: YARB 3/3/2/3);
• accounts of Hesleden (ref.: YARB 3/3/3/2/5);
• legal and antiquarian papers (ref.: 2 BINNALL);
• genealogical correspondence with Felix Laurent, 1852-4 (ref.: AS9/5/15).

Duke University, Durham, NC, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library holds an unpublished manuscript memoir of Hesleden, describing life in Lincolnshire in the late 18th century: see The Special Collections Library Broadside newsletter, no. 6, Fall/Winter 1997.