Newcastle Upon Tyne--History.

Folio, approximately 540 pages plus blanks, paginated, being a collection of historical notes, copies of charters, decrees, grants, inquisitions, warrants, and transcripts from the Rolls and other records, relating to the civic government and administration of the City of Newcastle Upon Tyne from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries, Latin and English, the arms of Newcastle in pen and ink, pp. 1-298 in five seventeenth-century hands with some engrossed initials, with later additions and annotations, the remainder of the text in a single eighteenth-century hand, with some further leaves containing related material tipped in including an autograph letter signed by the Newcastle antiquary John Brand concerning the manuscript, 8 May 1786, with three autograph letters signed by the Newcastle bookseller Robert Robinson to J.W. Pease, 1896, loosely inserted, in nineteenth century gilt tooled vellum on boards, the upper board with an elaborate panel made up of floral rolls, double fillet, fleur-de-lis, oval and circular tools, and large cornerpiece tool, central area with lettering and tooling, the lower board dominated by an elaborate curving geometrical shape composed of strawberry plant and floral rolls, tools, and fillets, with large cornerpieces, spine with six compartments, three gilt tooled, three with morocco labels and lettering in gilt, gilt edges, inside dentelles, light soiling

William Alvery Darwin; James Murray (d. 1779); G. Parker; Jn. Bell, purchased 1807; Bigge family of Benton, Newcastle; presented to Robert Robinson, bookseller in Newcastle, 1885; sold to John William Pease, 1896; Wardington bookplate

John Brand, The History and Antiquities of ... Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2 vols (London, 1789)

a significant source for the history of newcastle, lost to scholarship since the eighteenth century. The first 300 pages of this manuscript, written in the first half of the seventeenth century by professional scribes, comprises, firstly, copies of Newcastle charters and grants of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, followed by earlier material from the Rolls, and a series of medieval legal judgements relating to the city. Many of the texts seem to have been taken from the papers of the Council for the North (the scribes transcribed attestations from the original documents, several of which match the secretariat of the Council), and they include decrees establishing the form of election for the Mayor and other offices, medieval legal cases involving the Borough, inquisitions into the liberties and privileges of the city, and other such material, altogether providing numerous sources for a detailed history of the city, primarily from a legal standpoint.

It has been claimed (Brand, Preface, p. v) that the collection belonged to the Recorder of Newcastle, Sir Robert Shaftoe (d. 1705), but this cannot be confirmed. It was, however, used by John Brand in The History and Antiquities of ... Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1789), who named it the 'Murray Manuscript' (after an earlier owner) in his Preface (p. v), quoted extensively from the manuscript, and made many notes in the manuscript itself. A substantial body of material was added to the manuscript in the last twenty years of the eighteenth century by its then owner, George Parker. These additions include transcriptions and translations of texts found in the earlier part of the manuscript, as well as further antiquarian material relating to Newcastle, such as "Duties and Samples that have time out of mind been had and taken for Goods imported into the River Tyne" (pp. 332-5), and a summary list of Charters issued to the city (pp. 497-522).