Owned and elaborately annotated by a mid 19th century Knaresborough local - ’R Lofthouse’ - with corrections and enlargements to the printed text.
Small octavo bound in publisher’s brown cloth, marked and stained; outer hinge splitting between upper board and backstrip; binding remains robust. The book is complete as issued but extensively improved - twice over.
The first owner was ‘R Lofthouse’, probably father of Richard Chapman Lofthouse, Deputy Surgeon General of the British army (1831-1907) who lived in nearby Harrogate. Lofthouse who has signed many of his c100 annotations adds most interestingly to the text as well as inserting additional engravings. To the section on Knaresborough Spa he adds a note about one of the town’s bookseller’s holding informal book fairs for spa-goers: ‘The late Mr Ely Hargrove [1741-1818] Printer and Bookseller of Knaresbro’ who also publish’d a Hist.y of the Town in his early Years attended those Spaws with Books & general Stationary which he had on a Stall. I have heard him state this R.L.’ Lofthouse makes a point of expressing his thanks to Knaresborough’s vicar Andrew Cheap who is mentioned in the text and ‘With whom I have had the honor of intimate acquaintance and fellowship for more than 40 yrs and from whom I have derived much direction in my pathway this life.’ Lofthouse has inserted 2 leaves of notes on Cromwell’s misdeeds in the area, details of the foundation of the National School as well as extra illustrations of portraits and topography together with detailed note on local developments in the area as at the Mill at Goldsbrough (p24): ‘The Prop.[ert]y of the Earl of Harewood and has with a farm been occupied by Santon’s fam.y for a longcourse of years.’
The 20th century annotator, J D Greaves, whose niece he reveals was a beneficiary of Richard Chapman Lofthouse’s will, has made fewer insertions but contributes to bring the little book’s account of Knaresborough up to date.
