FRY (Joseph Storrs). An Essay on the Construction of Wheel-Carriages, as they affect both the Roads and the Horses; with Suggestions relating to the principles on which Tolls ought to be imposed, and a few remarks on the Formation of Roads.1820

London: Printed for J. and A. Arch, Cornhill; Baldwin and Co. Paternoster-Row, and Harding, St. James's Street; and T. J. Manchee, Bristol, First Edition, dedication within wood-engraved rural 'wreath', 2 decorative wood-engraved head-pieces, diagrams in the text, [4], [v]-viii, 137, [1] pp., contemporary calf, double gilt fillet and repeated flower-tool borders on sides, rebacked, spine gilt in compartments, morocco label with gilt lettering, marbled endpapers, with the bookplate of Esther Acklom, a nice copy. Esther Acklom married Viscount Althorpe, afterwards 3rd Earl Spencer. The romance of Althorp's life was his devotion to his wife. Esther Acklom of Wiseton Hall, North Nottinghamshire, was a stout and somewhat plain lady of considerable intelligence, who is said to have fallen in love with him when she was twenty-two and he ten years older, and to have made the fact so plain to him that, although he had not intended to marry, he proposed to her. They were married on 14 April 1814, and resided on her estate of Wiseton, consisting of some two thousand acres. While she lived he was devoted to her; and when she died in 1818 after the birth of a stillborn child, he was inconsolable, and from the time of her death he always wore black, then the evening dress only of clergymen and persons in mourning. He left no issue, and was succeeded by his brother Frederick, fourth earl Spencer. **** Fry was from the well-known family of Bristol carriage-builders and supplied useful detail on the construction of carriages, load-bearing, and weight versus load. There are chapters on stage coaches, and the suspension of carriages. Kress, C530; cf. Goldsmith, 22936 (first issue with Bristol imprint).