The History of Science and Technology
Series One:The Papers of Sir Hans Sloane, 1660-1753 from the British Library, London

Part 1: Science & Society, 1660-1773

A NOTE TO USERS

The main finding aid for using the Sloane Manuscripts at the British Library is:

E J L SCOTT. Index to the Sloane Manuscripts. London, 1904, reprinted 1971. (ISBN 0 7141 0474 4 - order from the British Library).

As the title suggests, this is an index rather than an item by item listing. Given that it includes index entries for all 4,100 Sloane manuscripts it is not easy to browse through and a search for manuscripts relating to a particular area of research (rather than to a named individual) is extremely time-consuming.

Samuel Ayscough’s two volume Catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the British Museum hitherto undescribed (London, 1782) does provide entries for the same manuscripts (and for the Additional Manuscripts - which continue numbering from the Sloane MSS) up to Add MS 5017. These are in rough subject order. However, this catalogue is long out of print, held by very few libraries, and the entries are acknowledged to be unreliable.

The Manuscript Reading Room of the British Library also possesses a multi-volume catalogue or the contents of each manuscript in numerical order. However, this has never been printed and doubts have been raised concerning the accuracy of some of its entries.

In an effort to provide significant added value to our microfilm publications we will provide details of the contents of each part of the Sloane Papers in our guides. In this guide we have provided an index to the names of all correspondents appearing in Sloane MSS 4036-4069, giving details of manuscript and folio references.

The index to correspondents is presented in two ways.

Firstly, volume by volume, with an alphabetical listing of the correspondents featured within each volume.

Secondly, in a single alphabetical sequence, enabling scholars to see at a glance how much correspondence exists in this collection relating to, say, John Ray or Johann George Steigerthal.

Further details of the status or profession of the correspondents can be found in the Scott volume mentioned above.

Readers should note that the appearance of ‘al’ between two variant surnames should be read as ‘also known as’.

Institutional correspondence relating to the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal Society or other bodies can be found under a general heading for ‘London’.

Manuscript volume references are given in the left-hand column and folio references are given in the right hand column. Where there are numerous references within a single volume (ie many letters to or from the indexed person) then these are given in sequence, each reference being separated by a point (eg 57-61b.65-71b.74.85.etc).

Where there are several lines of reference to a single person, the name of the person is not repeated (except at the top of a page) - so that the white spaces will draw the eye to substantial runs of correspondence.

It is hoped that these indices will be of use to the scholars.

"Tis strange, the Miser should his Cares employ
To gain those Riches he can ne’er enjoy:
Is it less strange, the Prodigal should wast
His wealth, to purchase what he ne’er can taste?
Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats;
Artists must chuse his Pictures, Music, Meats:
He buys for Topham, Drawings and Designs,
For Pembroke Statues, dirty Gods, and Coins;
Rare monkish Manuscripts for Hearne alone,
And Books for Mead, and Butterflies for Sloane.”

POPE, Moral Essays, Epistle IV

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