OF FRANCIS PLACE 1771-1854 BY GRAHAM WALLAS, M.A. LECTURER AT THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1898 All rights reserved PREFACE THE main sources of this biography are the well-known Place manuscripts in the British Museum, referred to by their number in the catalogue, and the autobiography and letter-books lately in the possession of Francis Place's descendants, to whom, and especially to Mr. Francis C. Miers, I have to express my sincere thanks. I am glad to say that by Mr. Miers' generosity the autobiography and letter-books have now been deposited in the Museum with the other manuscripts. My own work has, of course, by no means exhausted the interest of these documents. I have confined myself to writing Place's life, and have made no attempt to deal with the materials which he collected for the general history of his time. Within these limits I have tried to make my book useful to any future historian who may deal with the period, by giving references to the original sources for all statements of fact. For the punctuation of quotations from Place's manuscript I am responsible. Place punctuated extremely badly, and his printed works were apparently repunctuated by the printer's reader. He spelt pretty accurately, but made occasional mistakes, which I have not reproduced. I have further, in one or two instances, corrected little grammatical slips where the insertion of a footnote seemed to be pedantic. It is an important question for the historical student how far Place's evidence should be accepted on points as to which (as in the case of some incidents in the Reform struggle) he is the only witness. My own opinion, formed after consulting independent evidence in newspapers and elsewhere for a very large number of Place's statements, is, that his accuracy on all questions of fact was most remarkable. His memory seems to have been excellent, and his description of events after 1820 was written within a few years or months of their occurrence, and was checked by the use of a mass of printed documents and original letters. Finally, I have to record my gratitude to Mr. F. W. Galton and Mrs. McKillop for their skilled assistance, and to many other friends for exhortation and reproof. GRAHAM WALLAS. 17 JOHN STREET, BEDFORD ROW, LONDON, W.C., December 1897. |