Original woodblock for the Rev. the Hon. Stephen Willoughby Lawley's bookplate, dated 1861

ARMORIAL BOOKPLATE. -  [19th-century English School, engraver]

Original woodblock for the Rev. the Hon. Stephen Willoughby Lawley's bookplate, dated 1861. [United Kingdom]: 1861 [or earlier]. Woodblock, in two parts held together with screws (overall 4 3/8 x 3 1/4 x 7/8in; 110 x 83 x 23mm). Condition: excellent.

An attractive neo-Gothic armorial bookplate: the Rev. Lawley was quite a distinguished antiquarian (see below), a member of the Arundel Society, and a correspondant with other distinguished bibliophiles. The way the lower section (containing the date) is secured to the main block by screws may indicate that this block created earlier, perhaps with an earlier date (Lawley was rector from 1848 onwards) and then 'updated' in 1862? 

Rev. the Hon. Stephen Willoughby Lawley (1823 – c. 1901) was the third son of Paul Beilby Lawley Thompson, 1st Baron Wenlock (1 July 1784 – 9 May 1852). The family estate was Escrick Hall in Yorkshire. Stephen W. Lawley matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1841 (B.A., 1845; M.A., 1853), and then served as the Rector at Escrick between 1848 and 1868. From 1852 to 1862 he was also the sub-dean of York Minster. An antiquarian of note, he was responsible for the Arundel Society publication on the York Breviary ("Breviarium ad usum insignis Ecclesie Eboracensis", Publications of the Surtees Society, vol.LXXVI, edited by Lawley, and published in 1880). A Christies picture sale in 1906 mentions that fact that some of his pictures were included.

N.b. the images include a digitally reversed image - this is a computer-generated positive image included to show what a print taken from the block might look like. An actual ‘pull’ (a print on paper) is also included.