PDMHS have just purchased an account book covering the years 1783 to 1802 belonging to William Wyatt, the grandfather of the similarly named 19th century mining agent, from an antiquarian bookseller in York. This book contains information relating to Watergrove and Chapeldale mines; it was noticed being offered for sale on Ebay by John Hunter and after a flurry of discussion by email the decision was taken to secure this item so it could be deposited with the other Wyatt papers in the Derbyshire Record Office rather than risk it passing into a private collection where it would not be available for study.

Richard Shaw offered to arrange purchase of the item as his wife was visiting York the next day; thanks must go to Fran Shaw for negotiating a sale price below that initially asked! Several members of the society have offered to make donations towards the purchase price, which has the added benefit to the society of attracting gift aid on the donated sums from HMRC. Of course, any further donations would be welcome, given that if you've signed up for gift aid, George Osborne chips in too!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1783-WYATT-William-Derbyshire-Lead-Mining-owner-and-agent-account-book-/111971964822?hash=item1a120c9796:g:T2UAAOSwubRXE4ly 

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Splendid find. Its amazing what turns up

In 2011 a Bristol antiquarian book dealer offered for sale several volumes of bound, hand written mine reports for mines on the Bedford Estate (i.e. Tamar Valley). We managed to persuade the Devon Record Office to purchase them and they are now available for public study. An incredible resource which could so easily have disappeared into a private collection.

I wonder what else is out there?

In the present financial climate, record offices don't generally have acquisition budgets so it does need the help of us enthusiasts to get things like these to public archives. We have wondered how the dealer came by this particular volume but I doubt he'd reveal his source.

The documents I'd give my eye teeth to see reappear are three local mine maps I know exist because they were part of a set of four - the other one (John Wheatcroft's Hubberdale plan), now in the DRO) was bought from someone in Sheffield in the 1930s so are the others still sat in an attic somewhere in the steel city? I live in hope....

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We were lucky- we were on good terms with the chief archivist who was retiring and wanted to go out on a high note. That said we had a plan B in place i.e. buy the documents ourselves and loan them to the record office.