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Caroline Shenton

archivist, historian and writer

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Snuff’s Enough

13 January 2015 By Caroline Shenton

It had to happen.  Yes, more stuff boxes have come to light.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a growing collection of memorabilia relating to the old Palace, specifically items made from the salvaged wood and metal extracted from the smoking ruins in 1834.  And I’m always on the lookout for items other people have collected too.  Today I met with James Gray MP, author of Who takes Britain to War?, who has just acquired a snuff box of his own.  This one is, once again, carved from the wood of the Painted Chamber. image Plain on the outside, the delight of this one is the vendor’s label inside.  Manufactured and sold by John Doubleday of Little Russell Street, it includes a red wax seal with the words ‘Sigillum Johannis Doubleday’ (Seal of John Doubleday) in a faux-medieval touch.

Doubleday, you will recall, was also the manufacturer of the souvenir lead watchfob cast into the shape of the seal -allegedly – of the college of St Stephen’s.  I would be surprised if he wasn’t making a rather nice living from the fire’s aftermath, and tapping into some fairly crude Walter Scott fandom at the same time.

image

As for my own collection, above is a recent birthday present, carved from wood of the old chapel, aka the House of Commons, with a nicely hand-inked ivory label. Certainly worth a sniff of anyone’s money.  Anyone have any more out there?

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Filed Under: Old Palace of Westminster, The 1834 Fire

About Caroline Shenton

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that was a senior archivist at the National Archives. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013 and Mary Beard called it 'microhistory at its absolute best' while Dan Jones considered it 'glorious'. Its acclaimed sequel, Mr Barryís War, about the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, was a Book of the Year in 2016 for The Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine and was described by Lucy Worsley as 'a real jewel, finely wrought and beautiful'. During 2017 Caroline was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone's Library.

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About Caroline

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013. Read More…

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