BLACKSMITH

[Elihu Burritt, ‘The Learned Blacksmith’, American abolitionist, Abraham Lincoln's consul to Birmingham, England.] Autograph Letter Signed, agreeing to give a lecture in Shrewsbury, while urging that it be delivered in a ‘neutral place’.

Author: 
Elihu Burritt (1810-1879), ‘The Learned Blacksmith’, American abolitionist and temperance campaigner, appointed consul to Birmingham, England, by Abraham Lincoln
Publication details: 
‘35 Exchange / Birmingham [England] March 22 / 1857’.
£150.00

See Merle Curti’s 1937 edition of Burritt’s letters and journals, titled ‘The Learned Blacksmith’. He was in England from 1846 to 1853. 2pp, 12mo. On a bifolium. 33 lines of text. In fair condition, lightly worn and spotted, with minor traces of mount at one edge. Folded once for postage. The recipient is not named, and the letter is signed ‘Elihu Burritt’. He has mislaid the letter the recipient sent a few days before, inviting him to deliver a lecture, ‘in behalf of your cause, sometime in the beginning of May, I think’.

[Gretna Green and ‘runaway marriages’.] Autograph Signature of ‘R B Mackinnon. / Last Blacksmith / “Priest” / Gretna Green’.

Author: 
Gretna Green and ‘runaway marriages’; R. B. Mackinnon (fl. 1941), blacksmith, last of the ‘anvil priests’
Gretna
Publication details: 
2 September 1941. Gretna Green [Scotland].
£56.00
Gretna

The author of the present item is the last in a line that stretched for around two hundred years. After the passing in 1754 of Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act, which prevented minors from marrying without their parents’ consent, English couples would take advantage of laxer Scottish laws. As one of the nearest parishes to England, Gretna Green became the destination of choice, and the marriage was usually conducted before two witnesses by a village blacksmith, who became known as an ‘anvil priest’.

Autograph Note Signed "The Blacksmith of Gretna Green" to unnamed correspondent.

Author: 
"The Blacksmith of Gretna Green".
Autograph Note Signed "The Blacksmith of Gretna Green"
Publication details: 
"Gretna Hall | April 10th 1852".
£56.00
Autograph Note Signed "The Blacksmith of Gretna Green"

Two pages, 12mo, some creasing and staining, and a few wards faded, but text readable and complete. A letter or spoof letter from (or purportedly from) "The Blacksmith of Gretna Green", with newspaper clipping attached giving the text of this letter and commenting on it.

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