WILLIAMSON, George. Memorials of the Lineage, Early Life, Education, and Development of the Genius of James Watt. Printed for the Watt Club by Thomas Constable, Printer to Her Majesty. Edinburgh, 1856.
First edition. Quarto. x, [1], xi, [1], [15]–262 pp., extensively illustrated with portraits, maps, engineering plans, folding plates and finely executed facsimiles of original documents.
A particularly evocative association copy of this major nineteenth-century memorial to James Watt, belonging to Alexander McKenzie Ross (1805–1862), Chief Engineer of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada and one of the engineers responsible for the design of Montreal’s Victoria Bridge. Ross worked closely with Robert Stephenson and was in Montreal during precisely the period in which this book was published and bound. Contemporary sources identify Ross as Chief Engineer of the Grand Trunk and credit Ross and Stephenson with the design of the great tubular Victoria Bridge across the St Lawrence, constructed between 1854 and 1859.
The provenance is unusually well evidenced. The front pastedown bears an engraved armorial bookplate reading “Alexander Mackenzie Ross”, while a preliminary blank is inscribed “A. M. Ross — Montreal.” The volume was bound locally by Campbell Bryson of 24 St François Xavier Street, Montreal, whose printed binder’s ticket remains on the front pastedown. Bryson is independently recorded at this address as a Montreal bookseller, stationer and binder during the period.
The association is especially appropriate. Williamson’s work is far more than a conventional Victorian biography: it is an unusually rich documentary and engineering memorial to Watt and the technological world that followed him. Alongside portraits and biographical material are folding maps, technical drawings, ship plans, surveys and highly accomplished lithographic facsimiles of original correspondence and engineering documents. These facsimiles reproduce not merely the handwriting but also endorsements, annotations and even coloured documentary stamps with striking fidelity.
Among the illustrative material are portraits of James Watt and Denis Papin; the large folding map relating to the Clyde; facsimiles of Watt correspondence and calculations; engineering and surveying material; plans of the Royal Mail steamship Atrato; a large lithographic view of the Atrato at sea; and the proposed elevation for the Cemetery Hill Watt testimonial.
The connection between book and owner is therefore unusually resonant: a contemporary documentary history of Watt, steam power and engineering owned in Montreal by one of the principal railway and bridge engineers of the age, while the Victoria Bridge project was under construction.
Williamson’s Memorials was issued by the Watt Club of Greenock and was intended to preserve documentary evidence relating to Watt’s ancestry, education and early development while such evidence could still be recovered.
Provenance
Alexander McKenzie Ross (1805–1862) — engraved bookplate to front pastedown and contemporary ownership inscription “A. M. Ross — Montreal” to preliminary blank. Ross was appointed Chief Engineer of the Grand Trunk Railway in 1853 and was closely associated with Robert Stephenson in the engineering of the Victoria Bridge at Montreal, the vast tubular railway bridge across the St Lawrence, constructed 1854–1859.
Campbell Bryson, Montreal — binder’s ticket: “Campbell Bryson, Bookseller, Stationer, Blank Book Manufacturer, General Binder, &c., No. 24 Saint François Xavier-Street, Montreal.”
Collation
Complete in text. The extensive suite of portraits, maps, facsimiles, plans and folding illustrations is present with the sole exception of the plate depicting Stephenson’s Rocket, which is absent.
Condition
A handsome and historically compelling copy with significant but stable condition issues. The volume has suffered historic damp exposure, affecting the endleaves, preliminary and terminal leaves, and portions of the plate stock, resulting in areas of brown staining, tide marks, cockling, scattered foxing and areas of old mould staining. The mould is historic, dry and inactive.
Contemporary burgundy full leather binding by Campbell Bryson, Montreal, with his printed ticket to the front pastedown. Boards with gilt double-rule borders and extensive blind-tooled panel decoration; spine divided into gilt-decorated compartments, lettered MEMORIALS OF WATT, with ornamental gilt tooling. Marbled endpapers. The binding is significantly rubbed and scuffed, particularly to the boards, but remains attractive and structurally sound, with the gilt spine retaining considerable presence.
Despite its condition, the volume remains an unusually appealing object: the richly gilt Montreal binding, Ross provenance and remarkable array of engineering plates and facsimiles give it substantially greater historical interest than an ordinary copy.
