British Library, Add. MSS. 65381

A quarto memorandum book bound in full parchment containing 70 leaves (202 x 166 x 18 mm.) plus six loose pieces of paper. Written and corrected throughout in a variety of black-brown iron-gall inks. Two of the six loose pieces of paper are notes by R. W. Chapman (fols. iii-iv) written in blue ink and pencil on grey wove machine-made paper with a Basildon Bond watermark. The remaining four are in the hand of Jane Anna Elizabeth Lefroy (fols. 66-69) and are written in black-brown iron-gall ink on a blue-grey wove machine-made paper without a watermark.

Pasted to the head edge of the left board sheet are the torn remains of grey-blue wove machine-made paper label (14 x 57 mm.). The adhered edge of the label appears to have been moved and an adhesive residue below its current position, which has offset on fol. 1, indicates its original position. A rectangular patch on the upper cover which is slightly cleaner than the surrounding area indicates that the label may once have folded over the board edge and been displayed on the upper cover. A British Library label is pasted to the right board sheet (fol. v).

The memorandum book comprises five quires of a single paper stock, a warm cream handmade laid writing paper formed on a single faced mould with a Britannia watermark and a countermark of the royal cipher ‘GR’ surmounted by a crown¹. The watermark and the countermark are each centred on opposing halves of the sheet and both were designed to read from the felt side of the sheet. The text-block comprises five regular quires folded from 37 half sheets of paper with the chain lines running horizontally across each leaf (leaf size 196 x 161 mm.). The trimmed size of the half sheet is 322 x 196 mm. which allowing for a modest trim implies a sheet size of approximately 412 x 332 mm. or foolscap². The orientation and position of both the watermark and countermark are consistent throughout the manuscript. The watermark lies across the spinefold with the top of the watermark appearing on the leaves after the centre of the quire. The countermark lies across the spinefold with the top of the countermark appearing on the leaves before the centre of the quire. The quires were formed by folding a pile of eight sheets of paper parallel to their long edge³. This folded pile was then cut in two (parallel to the short edge) to form two separate quires. Thus each quire contains eight half-sheets, from eight separate sheets of paper, without their matching halves. The quires were folded from a pile of paper in which all of the watermarks were aligned, and where all sheets were piled mould side uppermost. Each quire therefore contains only watermarks or only countermarks. Quires 4 & 5 contain watermarks (total 13 half sheets), and quires 1-3 contain countermarks (total 24 half sheets). These five folded quires provided 74 leaves, the first two leaves from the first quire and final two leaves from the fifth quire were used as pastedowns within the binding leaving a text-block of 70 leaves.

The memorandum book was bound in full parchment over millboard. The text-block is sewn on two wide parchment tapes, and the edges of the text-block have been cut and decorated with a sprinkled red colour which is now worn. The volume was covered in full sheep parchment with the sewing support extensions slit after sewing to provide a narrow slip which was laced through the covering parchment at the joint. Each board has a blind-tooled double fillet border frame, which crosses at the corners.
The method of folding the paper, which differs from the binding of printed books, and the disposition of watermarks both indicate that this was a professionally produced memorandum book, probably made as a stock item for a stationer. Although this memorandum book appears to match Volume the Second minor differences in the forwarding techniques indicate that it was produced by a different bookbinder.
The edges of fols. 66-69 have been repaired with a light Japanese paper by the British Library and the manuscript, with a separate folder that contains the loose notes (fols. iii-iv, 66-69), is housed in a blue cloth box made by the British Library.