THORNEYCROFT (Father and Son). The Thorneycroft's Patents & Inventions.1891

[Wolverhampton: Privately Printed], 8vo, [8], 4-98, [1], 38, [2], 39, [1], [209]-235, [1], 8pp., (with additional hand-stamped pagination throughout pp. 285), containing 122 mounted albumen prints, inserted folding leaves, samples of music, a large folding genealogical table, leaves generally a little bowed, with the Thorneycroft bookplate and compliments label, also with a label stating "For Private Circulation only amongst Relatives and Friends", original red cloth, title stamped gilt on spine and upper cover, head and foot of spine frayed, joints worn. A rare privately printed specimen book describing and illustrating curious mechanical inventions, some in use at the family home Tettenhall Towers, Wolverhampton. Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Thorneycroft, well known for his eccentric way of life, sold off the family ironworks and associated collieries and became a full-time member of the landed gentry, pursing his sporting interests and his well known eccentric inventions. Among the inventions in use at Tettenhall Towers and here described are a fireplace with water driven bellows, boot warming apparatus, a 44 foot waterfall in the theatre end of the hall which also can be illuminated and used to cool the air during a ball, also various patent carriages and reproductions of drawings. The book also contains chapters on Sports and Pastimes, etc. at Tettenhall. Provenance: Later bookplate of Camfield and Deirdge Wills.