The Surgeon, the Aristocrat,

the Industrialist, and the Bookbinder.

Portrait of Robert Burton by Gilbert Jackson, 1635

The Anatomy of Melancholy: Robert Burton 1676

"The Anatomy of Melancholy. What it is, With all the Kinds Causes, Symptomes, Prognostiks, and Severall Cures of it Three Partitions, With Their Several Sections, Members, and Subsections, Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up."

Burton's 'Ánatomy' is a massive compendium of knowledge gleaned from his comprehesive readings of classical texts and a myriad of other amusing or pertinent observations. It examines the causes, symptomes and cures for melancholy, one of the four humours of classical medicine, described as cold and dry, thick, black, and sour, a depressive condition which is associated with autumn and old age. Burton seems to have been particularly afflicted by it, but he also considered it a universal part of the human condition. In this respect his understanding is similar to the Buddha's analysis of Dukkha or 'suffering', the first of The Four Noble Truths. Although they differ considerably in culture, language and the context, both Burton and the Buddha agree that the condition is universal and also that it can be cured. Burton's obssessively edited book and the self-knowledge and understanding it engendered was his attempt at a personal çure. The book was a best seller in the 17th century and went through several printings, but fell out of favour in the 18th century before recapturing the imagination of 19th Romantic literary and enlightenment figures like John Keats and Samuel Johnson. In the 20th century it is seen by some historians an early precurser to modern clinical psychology.

I aquired this particular copy of the 1676 edition from a rare books dealer in USA. I was particularly interested in the armorial bookplate and inscriptions on the title page below with their reference to Ashton-under-Lyne, near Manchester. The physical book's journey across over 300 years transcends the lives of those individuals who have owned, handled, and read it and reflected on its content. Lifting the cover and turning the pages one opens a small door into the past, briefly illuminating a view of four characters in a landscape, caught up at different moments in a matrix óf meaningful connections linked by their reading of Burton's great work. What did it signify to them, and how did they relate their own lives and experience to what he describes?

The history of ownership of this copy of the last 17th century edition of Burton's 'Anatomy' from when it was printed in 1676 until 1800, when it is signed and dated by Samuel Cock, and from the dispersal of Thomas Lowe's estate in 1829 until it appeared in a US antiquarian book dealers inventory in 2026 remains unknown. Unravelling the mystery of the inscriptions and establishing a verifiable provenence for the book, at least for part of it's history in the first quarter of the 19th century, opened up a small 25 year glimpse into the past in which four distinct characters emerge in a rapidly changing early industrial landscape; a surgeon, an aristocrat, an industrialist, and a bookbinder. Their connection to this book and its relationship to each of them through time and space reflects something of their individual lives and characters and their possible motivations as both readers and collectors of Burton's book and its comprehensive analysis of the different manifestations of the universal condition of 'melancholy' and its various cures. Piecing together the various fragments of an incomplete jugsaw pussel with verifiable facts a picture emerges which is full of lacunas but which tantalizingly suggests various imaginative narrative interpretations.

The Surgeon

The most interesting character for me is Samuel Cock. He signs his name 'Samuel Cock Ashton-under-Lyne, 1800' and then dedicates this book 'to his friend Fr. D. Astley Esq. Feb. 4. 1807. '

I was able to find documentary evidence online of a surgeon by that name in Ashton-under-Lyne, whose dates fitted with the dates of the book.

I even located a case history of rabies documented in a published letter from him dated 'Ashton-under Lyne, July 4th 1807' (the same year he presented his copy of the Anatomy of Melancholy to his friend Fr. D Astley) on page 312 of the1816 edition of

MEDICAL HISTORIES AND REFLECTIONS.

BY JOHN FERRIAR, M. D.

SENIOR PHYSICIAN TO THE MANCHESTER INFIRMARY,

DISPENSARY, LUNATIC HOSPITAL AND ASYLUM

(The first edition of the first volume was published in Warrington, Eng. in 1792. Vols. 2 and 3 appeared in 1795 and 1798 in Manchester. The Philadelphia edition is apparently based on the altered and enlarged second London edition of 1810-13 in four volumes)

https://archive.org/details/2554012R.nlm.nih.gov/page/n313/mode/2up

The extract below provides a sharp insight into the condition of the working class in the rapidly changing industrial landscape of Ashton under Lyne.

John Ferriar M D writes 'sent me by Mr. Cock, surgeon, of Ashton under-Lyne. Mr. Cock's narrative was accurately drawn up, from notes which he took during the period of his attendance.'

Ashton-under-Lyne, July 24, 1807

...........1805, April 7. I was called to see Thomas Parker, aged sixty-two years, who had been bitten by the same dog, and at the same time as Hodson had. He said he had been ill three or four days, had been thirsty, and his head had ached all that time, but had followed his work till yesterday. He now complained of pain in his forehead, was very hot, tremulous, could not well bear to be exposed to the fresh air, and could not swallow liquids but with great difficulty. Three drachms of laudanum mixed with the yolk of an e^g f was rubbed into his breast and the pit of his stomach; in about three hours afterwards, four drachms of laudanum with the yolk of an egg, was used in the same way; and he was' directed to take a large dose of Aq. Ammon. Pur. and Tinct. Opii every hour.starting of the tendons at the wrist, and had a peculiar suspicious and timid appearance. He was ordered to continue the use of the Aq. Ammon. Pur. and T. Opii? About four o'clock P. M. as he was standing on the chamber floor, talking with his daughter, he fe}l down and died without a struggle...........

I am your's, sincerely,

SAMUEL COCK.

In the 1811 Census for Ashton Town, a man named Samuel Cock is officially recorded living at Scotland Brook, Ashton-under-Lyne, with his occupation explicitly listed as surgeon.

https://tamesidefamilyhistory.co.uk/1811censusashton.htm

He is also listed in the Ashton Trade Directory of 1814 as one of five other surgeons in the area.

https://tamesidefamilyhistory.co.uk/ashtontd1814.htm

The core town layout at that time famously consisted of little more than a market cross surrounded by four main narrow streets: Scotland Street, Old Street, Crickets Lane, and Albion Street. The name "Scotland Brook" was used both to describe the natural watercourse flowing through that area and the surrounding residential dwellings. Early census data (such as the 1811 census) and parish registers lists families living at the "Scotland Brook" address, with many residents working as early textile manufacturing operatives or laborers. Today, the original character of this specific area has drastically changed due to centuries of redevelopment. Scotland Street historically led toward St. Michael and All Angels’ Church, but parts of the original street layout and its historic inns were cleared in the mid-20th century to make way for modern town infrastructure, specifically around where the large BT roundabout and inner ring-road system were built.

The red pointer in the map below indicates the position of St. Michael and All Angels’ Church.

A comparison of the map above and the one below reveals both the historical plan of Dukinfield Lodge when it was still standing in the late 19th century and its former location to the right of Crescent road and below Park Road after it was demolished in 1948.

Dukinfield Lodge Cheshire III, 1882 © Ordnance Survey

The Aristocrat.

Dukinfield Lodge, was the residence of the friend to whom Samuel Cock presented this copy of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy on february 4th in 1807. It was on the Cheshire side of the River Tame, less than a mile from the Scotland Brook residence of the surgeon in the centre of Ashton-under-Lyne on the Lancashire side of the river.

View of Dukinfield Lodge (1795), engraved by William Ellis after a painting by Edward Dayes

February 4th 1807.

I cannot establish with any certaintly the age of Samuel Cock the surgeon when he inscribed and presented Burton's 'Ánatomy' 'to his friend Fr. D. Astley Esq. Feb. 4. 1807'. He could have been anywhere between his late 20s to his 50s

https://gorse-hall.co.uk/hunters-tower/

This was a particularly successful year, however, for the 26 year old Francis Dukinfield Astley. He commissioned the construction of Hunters' Tower, a lodge and stables dedicated to "festive enjoyment," to provide a home for the county's various hunting clubs.Astley wrote "A Hunting Song for a Snowy Day" to commemorate its opening on 27 February 1807, just a few weeks after the book was inscribed and presented. It seems an unlikely gift to have been connected with an event of this nature.

Detail from engraved copy of
Francis Dukinfield Astley and his Harriers (1809)

Francis Dukinfield Astley in Procession as High Sheriff (c.1806/07), unknown artist

Francis Dukinfield Astley comes across as a romantic character, artistic, attractive and well respected local landowner. His father John Astley, 'Beau' on account of his reputation for 'womanising', was a painter who married three times and completed Dukinfield Lodge in 1775, filling it with his collection of paintings.

Astley, Francis Dukinfield (1781-1825) was the Elder son of John Astley (1724-87) and his third wife, Mary, daughter of William Wagstaffe of Manchester, surgeon, baptised at Ashton-under-Lyne (Lancs), 22 August 1781. Educated at Rugby School. Captain of Dukinfield Independent Rifle Company, 1804; High Sheriff of Cheshire, 1807 (the procession at his installation was " attended by such a retinue of friends and tenants as was probably never equalled in Cheshire, and with a profuse splendour which is yet remembered as a notable event in the county, and especially in the city of Chester" and was recorded in a painting); JP for Cheshire, 1813; Provincial Grand Master of Free Masons for Lancashire, 1814-25.

He was esteemed by contemporaries as a poet and published several volumes of serio-comic verse (one of which, Varnishando, reflects his own experience as the dupe of unscrupulous picture-forgers); a manuscript volume of his poems is now in the John Rylands University Library in Manchester. In 1802 he was awarded the Silver Medal of the Society for the Improvement of Agriculture for planting 40,000 trees, and he later published Hints to planters, 1807 and The planter's guide, 1814. He was also a keen horse-racing enthusiast and hunter, keeping his own pack of hounds at Fell Foot and building 'the Hunter's Tower' at Dukinfield.

ASTLEY, Francis Dukinfield (1781-1825). Hints to Planters;
Collected from various authors of esteemed authority, and from actual observation.
Manchester, R. & W. Dean, 1807.

He invested unwisely in building an ironworks on his estate which failed, and is said also to have lost large sums 'by his benevolent efforts to mitigate the distress caused in the district at the time of the war with France'. These factors may explain why he was declared bankrupt in May 1817 and in December 1817 proposed selling the Fell Foot estate; by February 1818 his brother-in-law, Thomas Gisborne of Horwich, had been appointed as his assignee in bankruptcy; his debts were finally cleared in November 1819, and the discovery of large deposits of coal on his estate subsequently restored his fortunes.

Astley as one of the wealthiest men in the region was a patron of the arts and supported young artists, writers, and musicians. He was one of the first and most generous patrons of what would become the Royal Manchester Institution, donating £42 in 1823 towards the purchase of a plot of land on Mosley Street in Manchester for its headquarters

Astley married Susan Fyshe Palmer, from Ickwell in Bedfordshire, in 1812. Together they had two sons: their first, John Dukinfield Astley, accidentally fell out of a window and died in 1813, aged only 16 weeks; their second son,Francis Dukinfield Palmer Astley, was born on 24 April 1825, only a few months before his father's death.

He also allegedly had an illegitimate son, William Astley, with Jenny Lightfoot, a local woman in Ashton-under-Lyne; William was born in 1803 and baptised at Dukinfield Old Chapel, with Astley recorded as his father, but he is reported to have struggled with insanity his entire life before dying in Lymm in 1843.

He died unexpectedly in the night on 29 July 1825 at the house of Thomas Gisborne and there were public accusations at his funeral at Dukinfield Old Chapel (where he is commemorated by a tomb designed by John Palmer) that he had been poisoned by Gisborne. Although there was no Coroner's inquest, Gisborne arranged for local doctors and magistrates to enquire into the circumstances of the death with a view to clearing his name. The enquiry concluded that the death was natural, but the press reports avoid much detail and it seems unlikely that the body was exhumed and a post mortem held. Thomas Gisborne subsequently married Astley's widow, who was the sister of his deceased wife Elizabeth (1789-1823), on 25 September 1826 at Newchurch.

https://landedfamilies.blogspot.com/2016/05/218-astley-of-dukinfield-lodge.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Dukinfield_Astley

The vast majority of Astley's personal belongings at Dukinfield Lodge—including the art collection started by his father—were put up for auction in August 1817 at Winstanley & Sons in Manchester by his creditors to settle his debts.

The highlight of the collection was a verified original "masterpiece" by Titian,'The Woman taken in Adultery,' which only received a maximum bid of 1,450 guineas—less than half its reserve price of 3,000 guineas—and remained in Astley's possession; it was eventually sold by the family several years later, and is now in the collection of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.

Astley's library of rare books from the 16th century—including a complete collection of the works of Piranesi —was also offered at the auction......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Dukinfield_Astley

Astley seems to have encountered more than his fair share of loss and gain, riches and bankcrupcy, madness and finally possibly murder. In the course of his dramatic life one wonders if ever found time to glean any insights in his darker moments from his reading of Burton's 'Anatomy'.

A Landscape in transition..............

There is a further inscription added in what looks like the same hand, that of the Samuel Cock. It reads:

Impelled by sympathy I love to tread

O'er wrecks of broken boughs, and branches dead .

Flown are the hours of joy, and mirth and folly;

To thee I yield myself, sweet melancholy!

Jaques De Lille (1738-1813)

First published in 1780, De Lille's poem 'The Garden' and the English translation by Mrs. Montolieu from 1805 set out to condemn the formal gardens and broad promenades of an earlier time in favour of a gardening art which hides its artistry by reproducing the asymmetrical grouping of nature and careless bounty of the countryside. This view accords with the translation of Virgil's "Georgics" done by DeLille in 1769.

https://www.pirages.com/pages/books/ST21016/vellum-printing-jacques-delille/the-gardens-a-poem

The quote from this poem inscribed so prominently at the front of the book re-contextualises the earlier idea of Burton's ‘melancholy’ based on the classical four humours, into a 19th century romantic idea of nature and the sublime, reminscient of Worthworth's 'Lines composed a few miles from Tintern Abbey'. This is particularly interesting, and ironic, because urban expansion and industrialisation was transforming the rural country estates and imagined idylic pastoral landscapes into something else, literally encroaching on the halls and estates of men, like Francis Astley with his newly discovered coal wealth, and John Lowe with his cotton bleaching and printing factories, who whose wealth was derived these new industries, and technologies, and the extraction fossil fuels from the earth.

The Industrialist

John Lowe of 'John Lowe and Co' Shepley Hall was a succesful cotton calico furniture printer and a significant collector of painting and books in the early 19th century.

Designer: Stinton Bros. Manufactory: John Lowe & Co. 1831–51

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22192

The following is an extract taken from Aikin's Book "Forty Miles around Manchester", 1795

Fairfield, Shepley, Hooley Hill, Denton and Hyde 1795

The cotton manufactory forms a pricipal part of the employment of the inhabitants, including spinning, weaving etc. Tambour and fine needle-work is carried to a great pitch of perfection, and is chiefly sent to London. There are also in this settlement taylors, shoemakers, bakers, and a sale shop for most articles, as well as for the convenience of the settlement, as for the neighbourhood.

The Manchester, Ashton and Oldham canal comes close to this place, which will be of infinite advantage to it, as well for carrying the goods to and from Manchester and Ashton, as for procuring a supply of coals nearly as cheaply as at the pit.

At a short distance is Shepley-hall, pleasantly situated on the banks of the Tame, and now in the occupation of Thomas Phillips, Esq. adjoining to it are the very large cotton factories and extensive bleaching grounds of Messrs. Phillips and Lowe.

The people of Ashton and the neighbourhood about sixty years ago were mostly wholly employed in spinning cotton wefts for check-makers or twists to make fustian warps. They likewise furnished single cotton harder thrown for slight goods. Of late they have fallen more into the practice of making twists and warps for velverets, cotton thicksets etc. The inhabitants of several of the townhsips near Hooley-hill are employed in a hat manufactory set up in a new village called Quebec, on the road from Ashton to Stockport.

https://tamesidefamilyhistory.co.uk/audenshaw.htm

Whatever John Lowe's background in industry and commerce he clearly had success in amassing enough wealth to satisfy his aspirations and appetite for art, culture, learning and gentrification, as his armorial bookplate, and his remarkable collection of paintings, prints and books, which filled all the rooms at Shepley Hall, according to the descriptions of the catalogue raisonne, testify to. Cotton calico printing factories and bleaching grounds must have been a far cry from his precious art collection, but 'where there is muck, there's money' and it is tempting to imagine John Lowe as a self-made man riding the wave of new technologies and seizing opportunities to exploit expanding markets with industrialied production of his printed furniture fabrics. It's hard to imagine him ever finding time to read or reflect on Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy'.

Catalogue raisonné of the paintings belonging to John Lowe, Shepley Hall, in the county of Lancaster : with descriptive accounts of the execution, composition, and characteristic merits of the principal paintings

The Preface states ......

Every true lover of the Arts must contemplate with emotions of pleasure the present state of collections and exhibitions in England. And those Gentlemen who are blest with competence do well to follow the laudable example of our most gracious Sovereign, together with many Noblemen and others, whose names are so well known to Connoisseurs, that it is hardly necessary here to mention them. Amongst these, John Lowe, Esq. of Shepley Hall, in the county Palatine of Lancaster, stands conspicuous, he having with great Liberality, Taste, and Perseverance, formed one of the finest Collections in this country, which the following is a faint attempt at describing.

.........The classical delineation of the principal Pictures is voluntarily added by the pen of William Astley, Esq.

The William Astley Esq who voluntarily added his classical delineation of the principal pictures was the same son of Francis Dukinfield Astley born on 10 May 1803 with Jane (or Jenny) Kerfoot of Dukinfield, reported to have struggled with insanity his entire life, making him 26 years old in the year of the sale of Thomas Lowe's paintings.

This was the same year that saw Thomas Cunningham print the catalogue of his collection of engraving and books of prints according James Cummins Bookseller who states:

The catalogue of John Lowe’s collection of engravings and books of prints was printed by Thomas Cunningham (the binder of this volume) of Ashton-under-Lyne, in 1829. (Item 12 on page three of the pdf in the link below)

https://www.jamescumminsbookseller.com/images/upload/cat987_2.pdf

The Bookbinder

When Francis Dukinfield Astley sold part of his estate in 1817 due to money problems, or after his death in 1825 when his collection of books and paintings was dispersed it is likely that this is when Burton's Anatomy passed to the cotton calico printer and art collector John Lowe of Shepley Hall, just a couple of miles down the River Tame from Dukinfield Lodge. The number 824 on the bookplate, the marbled endpapers and armorial name plate itself were added by Thomas Cunnigham the bookbinder when the library was catalogued.

Thomas Cunningham was not, it seems, only a bookbinder, but also a printer, publisher and possibly operated a circulating lending library. By the second half of the 19th century his business had passed to his children, and 'Thomas Cunnigham Printer' had become, 'T. Cunningham and Sons, Printers.'

Mr Jackson: Respectfully Announces to the Ladies and Gentlemen of _____ and the Environs, that he proposes delivering a Course of Ten Lectures on Select Subjects in Natural Philosophy Intended to Illustrate the Present State of Science, by a Numerous Series of Modern Experiments, with an extensive Apparatus of the best construction; and a fine selection of Mineral and Geological Specimens. Published by Ashton-under-Lyne: Thomas Cunningham, printer, c. 1820 .https://www.abebooks.com/Respectfully-Announces-Ladies-Gentlemen-Environs-proposes/31895700138/bd

Half a Century of Independency In Ashton-Under-Lyne together with a Manual of Albion Independent Church. Sold in Aid of the Bazaar held in Albion New Schools, May, 1867 Publisher: Ashton-Under-Lyne, T Cunningham and Son, Printers : 1867

The geography of early 19th-century Tameside reveals that these three men lived, worked, and socialized within a tight two mile corridor along the River Tame. Their properties were so close that they could travel between them in minutes by horse, carriage, or canal boat. The geographical relationship layout is structured below, moving from west to east along the riverbank. Shepley is marked in Audenshaw in the bottom left hand corner of the map and St Micheals and All Angels church is marked by a cross just below the T in 'Ashton' on the opposite side of the river to Dukinfield Lodge, close to the dwellings of both Samuel Cock and Thomas Cunningham.

Dukinfield Bridge now known as County Bridge was built by John Astley in 1794. Prints of the time show an idyllic rural scene with anglers fishing in the Tame with the newly built Dukinfield lodge looking down from a thickly wooded hillside which stretched right down the river bank ,It was still some years before Park Road would come into existence. Next to the bridge were two impressive three storey houses,on the side of what is now Whitelands Terrace ,which John Aiken said had one of the most pleasing situations in the neighbourhood the bridge itself had a pleasant elevated vantage point over the Tame Valley. Close by was the manorial corn mill some of its weir still remains and Ashton Old Hall, Things would change very quickly even in 1794 the ancient county bridge was struggling to cope with the traffic between Dukinfield and Ashton, and between Cheshire and Lancashire as the Industrial Revolution developed within 20 years the whole area had changed 

https://www.facebook.com/john.taylor.796774/posts/dukinfield-bridge-now-known-as-county-bridge-was-built-by-john-astley-in-1794-pr/25750894311260706/

The transformation of this area from rural landed country estates to urbanisation with factories and mills in the early 19th century is of great interest. This copy of Burton's Melancholy has a verifiable documentary connection to at least four very interesting characters in the same area just a few miles from each other whose lives reveal a cross section of society at a moment in history when the ideas, landscape and economy of England was undergoing a rapid change. It shows the human connections, society, culture, and drama of the lives of these different characters living a few miles from each other in brief window of time.

The continuity of the universal human experience of 'melancholy' however, across different times and places, which Burton's book endevours to document and understand in the hope of providing a cure, clearly resonated for them as it does still, perhaps, for us.

One mysterious inscription in what appears to be latin remains. It is difficult to both read and decipher....... I checked it using AI, but clearly cannot be sure if the translation below is credible. If it is it adds to the inscription, dedication and ownership marginalia another mystery or private meaning between two friends which we may never understand.....

"Eodem hoc vespere inebrietate valde commentus fuit —"

"On this very same evening, he was highly devised/famed for drunkenness —"
(Or idiomatically: "On this very night, he was recorded as heavily intoxicated.")

The life of this book has endured for over three centuries, far beyond the lives of it's many owners and readers who have long since disappeared into obscurity, with the exception of those characters revealed by the brief window opening a view into its early 19th century provenance. Its journey is not over yet........