Minutely detailed manuscript record of American cotton imports arriving in Liverpool, written by the Rochdale-born banker and trader James Howarth Midgley. The manuscript contains weekly statements of the sales, imports and stocks of cotton from 1849-1854, breaking down these figures into three categories of cotton, coming from New Orleans, the Port of Mobile in Alabama and Uplands Cotton, grown inland.
Midgley records about 5000 data points over the five years of these entries. James Howarth Midgley (1822-1858) was born of a long-established Rochdale family, later moving to Saffron Walden in Suffolk which is given as his place of residence in his ownership inscription on this manuscript. The exact function of this manuscript in relation to his work isn’t known.
After his early death in his 30s the manuscript passed to his son Arthur Midgley (1852-1919) who has annotated the book and included a postscript devoted to the early life of his daughter ‘Some acts of the early ways of our little Bessie. Mary Elizabeth Midgley. born on Good Friday 11th of 4th Mo[n]th 1879’. Bessie’s mother, Arthur Midgley’s wife, was Mary Doncaster Cox (1857-1934), an Australian woman whom he met while in Australia in 1876 in Wollongong and who returned to England with him.
In the early 1850s when this manuscript was made Liverpool dominated the global raw cotton trade, handling over 1.5 million bales annually, mainly sourced from the American south and transported across the Atlantic to be spun in Lancashire’s cotton mills.
DESCRIPTION: Small octavo notebook, half green roan over marbled boards; scuffed and worn but sound. Brown coated endpapers with the bookseller’s ticket of ‘Wareing Webb Bookseller and Binder Liverpool’. Ownership inscription on the second flyleaf of ‘James H[owarth] Midgley Elm Grove S[affron] Walden’. In pencil below in the same hand: ‘For Arthur Midgley’ and in ink, presumably in Arthur Midgley’s hand: ‘From dear Papa’s Desk. See page 40 for some act of Little Bessie.’ 28 pages of closely written Prices, Sales and Stock of Cotton, 1849-1854 in James H Midgley’s hand which conclude with ‘The foregoing are My dear father’s figures’ (Arthur Midgley) followed by Bessie’s 8 page narrative.
