A small book has made an unexpected overseas journey and returned to its original purchaser’s family in Castlemaine more than a century later.
It is believed a member of the Tingay family, who lived in Castlemaine at the time, purchased The Illuminated Scripture Text-Book For Every Day from a book store in Victoria in 1881. The book came into the possession of an Englishwoman, Jean Lewin, who now lives in Spain, when she inherited it from her father.
As she is in her 80s and has no one to leave it to, she sent it, via the Genealogical Society of Victoria, to Clare Claydon who lives in Glenhope, and who was not previously known to Jean.
Jean and Clare have not ascertained a link between their two branches of the Claydon family. Jean asked Clare to find an appropriate person to gift the book to.
The Illuminated Scripture Text-Book with interleaved diary for memoranda was printed by Edmund Evans (1826-1905) who was a wood-engraver and colour printer during the Victorian era, in England, who also published some of Beatrix Potter’s early books.
It was likely printed in Bedford Street, London, a street that runs from the Strand towards Covent Garden and was a prominent hub for book production at the time.
The book was published by Frederick Warne and Co. The Preface, of April 1873, claims that 50,000 copies of the first edition sold within months of publication – hence this second “improved” edition.
This copy of the book was sold by W H Cooper, Bookseller and Stationer in a ‘specialised niche shop’ in Royal Arcade, Melbourne.
Inside the front cover, an inscription reads “To Aunt Polly. A present from Australia. Castlemaine, April 18th, 1881.”
The book is tiny and could fit in a pocket or handbag. It has a black hard-back cover and the pages are gilded. It has a biblical text with a coloured illustration for every day of the year and a blank space – for the ‘memoranda’ opposite.
In these spaces, throughout the book, dates and names of Tingay family members have been entered in a spidery handwriting, in faded sepia ink.
For instance, the first entry, on January 12 reads “Thomas Tingay”, presumably his birthday. Some have a date after the name, for instance, “James Edwin Tingay, 1876”, which presumably records the date of death of a family member who had passed away. Perhaps with a touch of humour by the book’s designer, for the very last entry, on December 31, the text is “The Time is Short” as a quotation from 1 Corinthians, 7.29.
Clare contacted Robert Tingay of Castlemaine to give him the book.
