JAMES RAINE
Bedford Mansions have been built on the site. Kemble lived in the house from 1787 (when he married) to 1799, when he removed to a larger house in Great Russell Street.”
A good plate is the ex libris of Robert Surtees of Mainsforth, the well-known antiquary and topographer. It was drawn by himself, and engraved by Samuel John Neele, who was born in 1758 and died in 1824. Surtees was born in the South Bailey of the ancient city of Durham in 1779. On 28th October, 1796, he matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, and took his M.A. in 1803. His father had just died, so he now settled at Mainsforth, the family home. As an undergraduate at Oxford he was already planning to record the history of his native shire.
Settled at Mainsforth, he used to drive about the county with a groom; and his friend and kindred spirit, James Raine, whose plate I give from a book kindly lent me by the Rev. Prebendary Deedes, has recorded the groom’s testimony that it was “weary work, for Master always stopped the gig, and we never could get past an auld beelding.” Surtees suffered from constant ill-health, but his house was always open to scholars and antiquaries. He died at Mainsforth on February 11th, 1834.
This plate is in a volume of two tracts—one about Marston Moor, 1650. On the inside of the end cover is a plate in the Bewick style: “T. Bell, 1797,” and the autograph facsimile “Thomas Bell.” This is no doubt the bookplate of Thomas Bell, the antiquary, born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1785. He died in his native place in 1860, and his library, rich in antiquarian lore, printed and in manuscript, was sold there after his death.
An armorial plate of the palm-branch manner is that of “Thomas Langton” in a book of sermons by Richard Hurd, D.D., 1788. As given by Burke, the crest is an eagle displayed with two heads, vert, charged on the breast with a trefoil, or. The motto is “Loyal au mort.”