Recently I came across an item in an online auction, the description for which mentioned the name Harry Price. This was for a set of three books titled Church Stretton: Some Results of Local Scientific Research, edited by C W Campbell-Hyslop and E S Cobbold (1900/1904). A laudatory review of the first volume in Nature informed its readers that ‘Church Stretton is a market-town about twelve miles south by west of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, and has a population of about 2000.’
What intrigued me was that each volume
contained the bookplate of ‘a Harry Price’, as the description put it. While not about psychical research, I
wondered if the books might have come from the library of paranormal
investigator Harry Price (1881-1948) as I knew he had a Shropshire connection:
he claimed to have been born in Shrewsbury, and while this was a fabrication
(he was born and grew up in London), he did have Shropshire links via his
father. I also saw the third volume
dealt with archaeology, an early interest of Price’s.
Referring to the previous owner as ‘a
Harry Price’ suggested the vendor was not aware of the significance of the
name. While one would have expected an
antiquarian bookseller to have done some research, he is based in Telford,
Shropshire, so presumably as far as he was concerned they were merely of local
interest, and he had no reason to think they had a wider significance (or so I
hoped). Unfortunately, I could not
enquire about them as it would have alerted him to their potential value, but the
opening amount was not too high so I decided to take risk, even though Harry
Price is not a particularly rare name.
Luckily mine was the only bid, and the
next step was to establish whether it was the right Harry Price. This was extremely easy, as Trevor Hall’s Search for Harry Price has a chapter
discussing Price’s various bookplates, handily illustrating them all. Mine were identical to the example in Plate 7
(shown above). This Hall thinks was the
earliest Price used, and he characterises it as ‘the spurious crested plate.’
He implies that not many examples are extant as ‘it is still displayed in a few
items in Price’s collection.’
As to why Price chose the design, the
answer casts an illuminating light on Price’s character and social
pretensions. There is, Hall states, a Denbighshire
Price (ap Rhys) family who were created baronets in 1804. Despite them being totally unrelated to his
much more modest family background, Harry adapted their crest (‘faked’ in
Hall’s words) with some modifications for his own use, thereby suggesting a
link to a distinguished line. His
changes included the alteration of the Denbighshire Prices’ motto from ‘Vive ut
vivas’ to ‘Dum vivimus, vivamus’, the Epicureans’ maxim ‘While we live, let us
live’, which Price certainly took to heart.
I was fortunate Price bothered to include
his plate in my acquisition, as Hall was told by Alan Wesencraft, the librarian
then in charge of the Harry Price collection at Senate House, University of
London, where it is housed, that a large percentage of Price’s books lacked any
of his plates. Wesencraft added that
most of those with plates had them on the front free end paper rather than
pasted on the inside of the front cover, a habit Hall considered curious as it
risks wrinkling the paper. My examples
buck the trend by having been pasted onto the inside of the covers.
So how did the Church Stretton volumes
come to be in the possession of a Telford bookseller in 2022? Price’s library was deposited at Senate House
Library in 1936 and bequeathed to it in 1948.
A University of London/Harry Price Library bookplate
was pasted into each volume, and as these are not present in the Church
Stretton books they must have left Price's possession beforehand. Also, the title is not listed in the
University of London’s online catalogue.
It seems he was not wedded to books on particular topics and decided to
dispose of them after his need had passed.
As evidence, Hall mentions that apart from
the crested plate appearing in books held at Senate House, by chance he came
across an example much closer to home, in the Leeds Library, an institution with
which he was associated. Opening a book
on trade tokens he was surprised to see the plate in question, ‘bearing the
name of “Harry Price” on an elaborate scroll, below a crest which he had certainly
no right whatever to display.’ From the
library’s records Hall established the two-volume set was sold by Price to London
bookseller Bernard Quaritch Ltd, from whence it was acquired by the Leeds
Library in June 1913.
Price had a long-standing interest in
numismatics, hence the books on trade tokens.
He became interested in archaeology upon moving to Pulborough in Sussex
in 1908, when he tried to establish himself as an authority on the
subject. It is likely he would have been
particularly interested in the third volume of the Church Stretton set as it
deals with archaeology. Unfortunately
for him, he was caught out claiming to have been involved in excavations when
he had had no connection with them, leading him to withdraw from the field in
1910. It is likely then that the Church
Stretton set entered his library between 1908 and 1910, so presumably the
bookplate was in use by the latter date.
After that, his involvement in the subjects addressed by the volumes
having been terminated, and his interests turning to other matters, he had no
further use for them.
Price’s sale of books raises an intriguing
thought. The ‘borrowed’ lion with a rose
was succeeded by the much more elaborate ‘Abomination des Sorciers’ plate – in keeping
with the types of books for which Price’s library is now well known – no later
than 1923 As the crested plate was
certainly in use before 1913, Price was using it for over a decade, yet Hall
refers to only ‘a few items’ in the Harry Price Library with it. Perhaps Price had a clearout of items
relating to numismatics and archaeology to provide the funds and space for his
‘magical’ library. If so, it is possible
he sold additional books bearing those plates, and they are out there, sitting
on shelves of owners having no interest in psychical research, believing they
were once merely in the collection of ‘a Harry Price’ but not realising who
that singular individual was. They might
not be as rare as Hall assumed.
References
Campbell-Hyslop, C W and E S Cobbold
(eds.). Church Stretton: Some Results of
Local Scientific Research. Vol. 1 (geology, macro-lepidoptera, molluscs),
Shrewsbury: L Wilding, 1900 (reissued 1904); Vol 2 (birds, flowering plants,
mosses, parochial history), Shrewsbury: L Wilding, 1904; Vol 3 (pre-Roman,
Roman, and Saxon archaeological remains, church architecture), Shrewsbury: L
Wilding, 1904.
Hall, Trevor H. Search for Harry Price, London: Duckworth, 1978.
‘Our Book Shelf’, Nature, Vol. 62, 11 October 1900, p. 571.
