PART-PRINTED SCHOOLBOOKS
OATES, Russel [or Russell].
‘Specimens of Writing by Russel Oates, at Mr Richd Kemplay’s Academy, St John’s Place, Leeds, 1825’.
Leeds, 1825.
[Offered with:]
—. ‘Specimens of Penmanship, by Russel Oates, at Mr R. Kemplay’s Academy, St John’s Place, Leeds. 1827.’ Leeds, 1827.
Two vols, 4to, each ff. [22] and each bound with an engraved view of ‘Mr Richd Kemplay’s Academy, for Young Gentlemen.’ (‘Scott Sculpt’) and a letterpress ‘Order of Merit in Orthography and Grammar’ (see below); calligraphic titles within coloured borders; in contemporary card wrappers, spines lined with yellow glazed paper and red straight-grained roan respectively, lithographic designs to wrappers (one completed ‘Russel Oates.’ in manuscript), edges gilt; a little worn with a few minor stains, bookblock of second volume loose.
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‘Specimens of Writing by Russel Oates, at Mr Richd Kemplay’s Academy, St John’s Place, Leeds, 1825’.
A pair of calligraphic dictation books from a pupil at Richard Kemplay’s Academy for Young Gentleman in Leeds, with printed class lists ranking pupils by their errors.
Each book comprises twenty-two leaves of neatly written dictations on varying subjects – from ‘affability’ and ‘amusements’ to ‘arrogance’, ‘irregularity’, ‘the little ants’, and ‘the cat and the bat’ – each signed by Russel Oates and many with calligraphic flourishes. They are, unusually, bound within a printed bifolium, with an engraved view of the Academy at the front and, at the rear, an ‘order of merit in orthography and grammar, calculated on an average of the errors committed in writing twenty dictates, for the half-year ending at Christmas, 1825 [– Midsummer, 1827]’, printed letterpress by Robinson and Hernaman, within typographic borders.
The final dictation in each volume is a reflection on the year’s studies, titled ‘The Close of the Year’ and ‘Vacation’ respectively (‘After attending another Course of regular Instruction, your Parents and Friends will anxiously look for much Improvement …’). The two volumes, fittingly, demonstrate an improvement across two years: Oates has risen from twenty-first in the class, with 460 errors, to first, with only fifty.
Richard Kemplay’s Academy, catering to both day-pupils and boarders, had relocated to its handsome premises on St John’s Place by 1799; on Kemplay’s death in 1830 it was inherited by his son Christopher, who continued the school until 1834. Our pupil is perhaps the Russell Oates who served as Assistant Overseer of the Poor in Knaresborough (Knaresborough Post, 1 January 1898 supplement), but is otherwise untraced.
