Lady Palmerston a signed presentation copy with letters bound in 1872
HAYWARD, A[braham]. Lady Palmerston. A Biographical Sketch.
A signed presentation copy, with autograph correspondence of Viscountess Palmerston and Lord Palmerston bound in.
[London], reprinted by permission from The Times of September 15, 1869; dated June 1872.
Slim 8vo, 21 pp. Contemporary full green morocco, boards with dense gilt fillet borders and elaborate gilt corner and frame tooling, upper cover lettered in gilt; spine gilt ruled. Rubbing to extremities, minor wear at corners, but a handsome and well-preserved presentation binding. Internally clean, with manuscript material neatly bound in at the front. Very good.
Presentation copy, inscribed by the author to Alfred Montgomery, with the inscription leaf bound in at the front: “Alfred Montgomery, Esq., with best regards, A.H.”
Bound in with the pamphlet are five autograph letters addressed to Alfred Montgomery: four from Emily Temple, Viscountess Palmerston, and one from Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, dated 1856 and signed “Palmerston”. The Palmerston letter was written during his first term as Prime Minister (1855–1858). The Lady Palmerston letters concern social arrangements and engagements.
The pamphlet itself was privately issued, marked “[Not for Sale]”, and printed shortly after Lady Palmerston’s death in 1869. Hayward’s sketch is one of the earliest biographical appreciations of her role within Whig political and social life.
Alfred Montgomery (1814–1896) was a senior Admiralty clerk, private secretary to Lord Wellesley, later Commissioner of Stamps and Taxes and of the Inland Revenue, and a well-known Victorian society figure. According to contemporary accounts he was a well known dandy that had 'known domestic trouble and been rewarded by non-domestic success'. He was clearly closely associated with the Palmerstons and both wrote to him personally with the letters that have been bound in.
A highly unusual Palmerston association volume most likely a commemorative memento put together by Montgomery. The result being a privately printed biographical text, authorial presentation inscription, and contemporary autograph correspondence of both Lady Palmerston and the Prime Minister himself, preserved in a presentation binding.