Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers Rare Books & Collectors' Sale December 9th & 10th, 2020

153 fonsiemealy.ie fm All contents and images are subject to copyright 850 A Corkman’s Voyage to NewYork in the Year of the Titanic Manuscript: A fascinating eight-page M/ss Journal of a Voyage to New York aboard the RMS Baltic from 17 to 20 September 1912. The Baltic, once the world’s largest ship, was a White Star liner that sailed the Atlantic between 1904 and 1933. she was involved in several dramatic incidents, including sending the famous iceberg warning to Titanic. The writer, who signs with his initials “B.H.” is thought to be Benjamin Haughton (1855 - 1932), a Quaker merchant of Cork who worked actively on behalf of various charitable organisations in the city; he was a member of the Senate of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1928. On the voyage he was accompanied by his daughter (?) Marjorie, whose 19th birthday was celebrated the day before their arrival. Fellow-passengers includedWilliam Redmond, the passionate Irish nationalist MP and inveterate traveller, the socialite Adele Countess of Essex, and the former Bishop of Ripon William Boyd Carpenter, who preached a lugubrious sermon after a fi reman named Doyle threw himself overboard and drowned. There are comments on fellow passengers and on the entertainments provided, which included lectures by two celebrated missionaries, Henry Hodgkin on “China” and Ralph Wardlow Thompson on “The Menace of Moslemism” As a m/ss. Rare. (1) € 225 - 350 851 Typescript of a 1752 Court Case Regarding Lands in Kerry Co. Kerry: Typescript (22 pp) of a case to be heard by the Irish House of Lords on 4 March 1752 between Francis Thomas, Earl of Kerry and Lixnaw, a minor, and John Petty, Viscount FitzMaurice. Thomas (FitzMaurice), 1 st Earl of Kerry and Lixnaw, married in 1692 Anne Petty, daughter of the celebrated Sir William Petty, economist, scientist, philosopher and land surveyor. They had two sons: William, who succeeded his father in 1742, and John, who in 1751 inherited the estates of his maternal grandfather, changed his name to Petty, and was created Viscount FitzMaurice (he became Earl of Shelburne in 1753). William, 2 nd Earl of Kerry, died in 1747 and was succeeded by his son Francis Thomas, then a young child. The law-suit is thus between a nephew and an uncle, John (the uncle) claiming money and lands under settlements made by his father the 1 st Earl. In 1750 the court upheld his claim, but the nephew (through his guardian) appealed the case to the House of Lords. In this document, John demands that the original judgement be upheld. John’s insistence was caused in part by the fact that under Earl Thomas’s management the Kerry estate had greatly increased in value, with the construction of a mansion, deer park, gardens, fruit and forest plantations, and encouragements to tenants to improve their lands (see p. 13). An important legal document illustrating the complexities of Irish land ownership, the feuds within a prominent family, and the development of a Kerry estate, in the fi rst half of the 18 th century. As a typescript. (1) € 150 - 200 852 Ffrench-Mullen, St. L. ‘ Irish Legislative Assembly.’ A collection of four manuscript sheets outlining the proposed representation of the four provinces, Munster, Leinster, Connacht and Ulster, in an Irish Legislative Assembly, 1893, with details of population etc. Each on a folded folio sheet, signed initials. As a collection. (1) * Ffrench-Mullen was a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, for whom presumably this scheme was prepared. € 120 - 160 853 Co. Cork: WorldWar One, The War: The Bantry Voluntary Aid Society, printed broadside, n.d., a detailed Report of the recent meeting of the Society,whose activities included sending food parcels to prisoners of war from Bantry, visiting their wives and children, giving snacks to soldiers passing, raising and distributing funds, etc., An interesting document detailing benevolent e ff orts in West Cork in the 19th Century. (1) € 120 - 160 854 [Co. Louth]: Boxing interest, Manuscript Devane (Rev. John P.) Two very informative and detailed A.L.s. (6pp & 4pp) written in January 1957 about Tom ‘Sailor’ Sharkey and his famous fi ghts with Je ff ries and Fitzsimmons in 1896 & 1899. * Sharkey, was born in Mill St., Dundalk in November 1873. He was a bare-knuckle fi ghter, and became one of the toughest professionals ever seen in professional boxing, and is regarded by many commentators as unfortunate not to have been world champion at some stage. (2) € 80 - 120