Occult--Rainsford, General Charles.

comprising 58 manuscript copies of works on esoteric subjects including alchemy, chiromancy, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, Kabbalah, Angelic lore, ritual magic and conjurations, Paracelsianism, Tarot, somnambulism, astrology, and natural science, in English, Latin, Italian, French, and German, including 28 manuscripts in Charles Rainsford’s autograph (chiefly English translations), as well as manuscripts purchased by him and commissioned by him, including one in the hand of Dr Ebenezer Sibly, many items illustrated with pentacles, sigils, alchemical furnaces, and diagrams, many also with annotations, indexes, or inserted notes by Rainsford, the great majority dating from the late 18th century but a few earlier items, various sizes and bindings, most items boxed, some with Rainsford’s ownership stamp and most with a Northumberland bookplate, significant damp damage to 15 volumes

General Charles Rainsford (1728-1809); Hugh, Second Duke of Northumberland (1742-1817); thence by descent

The substantial and wide-ranging working manuscript library of General Charles Rainsford, a key figure in the study of the occult in late-eighteenth-century England. The collection includes works that explain how to turn base metals into gold; that reveal how to read the future from the stars or your palm; that instruct how to conjure devils; that contain the wisdom of angels, Jews, Phoenicians, Rosicrucians and Swedenborgians; that tell the history of the Druze and the Gypsies; as well as works of more conventional natural philosophy and prosaic advice (how to kill rats and make varnish). There are copies of well-known works of ritual magic such as the Clavicula Salomonis Regis, the Liber Picatrix, and the works of Albertus Parvus Lucius, as well as experiments and invocations that Rainsford believed derived from celebrated alchemists such as John Dee, Richard Napier, the Second Duke of Buckingham, and William Bryan. In some cases he records the origin of his manuscript: several items were acquired from the library of the Jesuit College at Naples after its suppression, for example, whilst a few were transcribed from printed texts. The numerous unpublished English translations by Rainsford himself are of particular significance (his source manuscripts are also often found in the collection). He translated, for example, a four-volume “Enquiry into the Origin of the Game of Tharot” from a work attributed to Court de Gébelin, the kabbalistic grimoire the Sepher Raziel, Robert Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi Historia, alchemical works by authors ranging from Nicholas Flamel to Georg von Welling, and (in four folio volumes) the “Naturalist’s Manual” by Comte de Buffon. Many of the manuscript volumes in Gainsford’s hand are compilations, such as his “Collection of Extracts relative to the Fraternity of the R[osy] C[ross]”, a two-volume “Mytho-Hermetic Dictionary”, and collections on Hermeticism (“...a most select collection of Experiments from the most established Authors … if there is any Truth in Hermetic Philosophy it is to be found here…”) and astrology.  

General Charles Rainsford (1728-1809) was the “commander-in-chief of occult Masonry in late eighteenth-century England” (P.K. Monod, Solomon's Secret Arts: The Occult in the Age of Enlightenment (New Haven, 2013), p.290). Rainsford was a highly successful professional soldier. Early in his career he saw action during the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 and in the War of the Austrian Succession, whilst in later years he played a key role in the suppression of the Gordon Riots and was responsible for the movement of German troops through the Dutch Republic for service in the American War of Independence. He went on to become the governor of Chester Castle and later of Tynemouth, commander of the garrison at Gibraltar, and deputy lieutenant of the Tower of London. Rainsford had no great fortune but his social connections were impeccable: he was equerry to the Duke of Gloucester, King George III's brother (one volume in the collection has a royal binding that presumably derives from Gloucester), and was a close friend of Hugh Percy, Second Duke of Northumberland. He served as an MP for constituencies in the gift of Gloucester and Northumberland but was not active in the Commons, however he was avidly reading, collecting, and writing on esoteric subjects throughout the latter part of his military career. It seems, from dates and notes in the manuscripts, that the period of his service in Gibraltar (1793-95) was particularly fruitful, perhaps because it gave him easy access to Continental markets during the tumultuous years after the French Revolution.

Rainsford was a committed student of the esoteric tradition and his membership of numerous societies ensured that he was firmly embedded within contemporary networks of occult studies. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries, various philanthropic and charitable groups, was a very high-ranking Mason and member of a wide range of Masonic societies including the Rosy Crucians, the Grant Orient at Paris, the Order of Illuminati of Avignon, and the Grand Lodge of England, as well as the Swedenborgian Exegetical Society of Stockholm. He took a syncretic approach to his esoteric learning, absorbing himself in a wide range of traditions and searching for connections and underlying truths, but he was not a naïve or uncritical believer, as his occasionally sceptical tone in his prefaces make clear.

Rainsford’s interest in occult learning was shared by the Second Duke of Northumberland, who, for example, conducted alchemical experiments at Alnwick (Monod, p.294). The depth of this connection is clear from Rainsford’s will (The National Archives, PROB 11/1499/222), which contains a number of bequests relating to books – suggesting that Rainsford had a substantial library – including the bequest of “all my Philosophical and Chymical Manuscripts to His Grace the Duke of Northumberland and in Case of his decease to his Heir the Earl Percy”, as well as a related clause in which “the Printed Books upon Philosophical Subjects I bequeath to my good Friend Sir Joseph Banks if he Choses to accept them”.

Much of Joseph Banks’s library (including, presumably, books inherited from Rainsford) is now housed at the British Library, and that institution also holds a substantial body of Rainsford’s manuscripts, although mostly on military and historical subjects (Add. MSS 23644–23680). A small group of Rainsford’s alchemical papers are found in the Wellcome Library (MSS.4032-4039), but the current collection comprises the vast bulk of Rainsford’s working manuscript library.