In July 1801, Richard Corbett joined the East India Company as a labourer in the London warehouses at the age of 31.  He gave his previous occupation as servant.  In May 1808 he became a baronet on the death of his father Charles, but he did not inherit any lands or wealth and continued working in the warehouses as Sir Richard.

One of the East India Company London warehouses at Jewry Street – British Library IOR/H/763

Corbett was related to the branch of the family based at Longnor in Shropshire.  His father Charles, a London bookseller, was set to inherit the baronetcy and estates under the terms of a will written in November 1764 by his kinsman Sir Richard Corbett of Longnor.  However Charles fell into debt and on 9 June 1771 Sir Richard added a codicil to his will, stating Charles ‘has absented himself from his Business and is become Insolvent and is much distressed in his situation and Circumstances and his Creditors might have great benefit of the Devise to him and his Heirs Male in and by my said Will’.  Sir Richard decided to pass the land to another kinsman, Robert Flint, leaving Charles and his heirs with just an annuity of £100 per annum and the right to use the title ‘Sir’.  When Sir Richard died in September 1774, Robert Flint inherited, having obeyed instructions to change his name to Corbett.

The Daily Advertiser, Oracle and True Briton 14 June 1809 British Newspaper Archive

After his father’s death, Sir Richard Corbett took steps to try to reclaim the estates granted to the Flint branch of the family.  It was claimed that Sir Richard of Longnor had been unfairly influenced to change his will.  On 14 June 1809 an advertisement appeared in The Daily Advertiser, Oracle and True Briton asking for subscriptions ‘for the daughter of an English Baronet’ in a ‘singularly unfortunate situation’.  This was Sir Richard’s sister Elizabeth who received £20 per annum from the Shropshire estate.

Stamford Mercury 29 October 1813 British Newspaper Archive

Elizabeth married Reverend Charles Rogers Bond in May 1809, and he became Sir Richard’s agent in the legal action taken against the current holders of the Shropshire lands.  Bond placed more advertisements in newspapers to raise money, and in 1810 and 1813 he wrote to the East India Company asking for financial assistance, but nothing appears to have been forthcoming.

Minutes of East India Company Court of Directors 17 February 1813 - British Library IOR/B/156 p.1336

There was a Chancery case, but the matter was finally resolved at the Shrewsbury Spring Assizes in 1813.  The Court ruled that Sir Richard Corbett of Longnor had been perfectly competent when he wrote the codicil, and a verdict was given against the current Sir Richard.

The will of Sir Richard Corbett of St Ann Limehouse was written on 19 February 1814 when he was ‘very sick and weak in body’.  He left one shilling to his wife Elizabeth as a proof of his ‘disapprobation of her improper conduct’.  All his household goods and clothing were bequeathed to Elizabeth Harris otherwise Corbett.  She lived with him and they had two children: Ann Thomas Harris or Corbett (born January 1810), and Richard Charles Harris or Corbett (born April 1813).  The residue of Sir Richard’s estate was left to his sister Elizabeth and her husband.

Sir Richard Corbett’s death on 4 November 1814 was reported in The Gentleman’s Magazine.  He was described as ‘many years reduced to an inferior station in the employ of the Hon. East India Company’.  The baronetcy expired as there was no surviving legitimate male heir.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive.
Minutes of the East India Company Court of Directors - British Library, IOR/B.
Register of East India Company warehouse labourers appointed 1801-1832 - British Library, IOR/L/AG/30/5.
PCC wills at The National Archives – Sir Richard Corbett of Longnor, probate 1774, PROB 11/1002/280: Sir Richard Corbett of St Anne Limehouse, probate 1815, PROB 11/1565/40.
The Gentleman’s Magazine July-December 1814 p.509.

Whilst working through some Lord Clive Fund Pension records, the application for a pension from Mrs Maria Johnston, widow of Captain Leathes Johnston, caught my eye because the wording of her husband’s rank and title were not written in the usual manner.

The records of the Committee for the Management and Application of the Military (Lord Clive) Fund discuss the application of Mrs Maria Johnston and describe her as the ‘Widow of Mr Leathes Johnston, who died a Captain the Company’s Service at Bombay’.

Record of the admission of Mrs Maria Johnston to a pension from the Lord Clive Fund, 11 August 1773 - IOR/L/AG/23/2/3, p.68 

The wording for Leathes Johnston suggested he had not been in the Company’s employ for very long, so I decided to see what had brought him to Bombay at that time.

Leathes Johnston was born in County Antrim in about 1727 and was the only son of William Johnston and Jane Leathes.  Jane was the daughter of John Mussenden and his wife Jane, née Leathes, but following the death of her maternal uncle William Leathes, the family name was changed from Mussenden to Leathes to maintain the family title and inheritance.

Together with his cousin John, Leathes Johnston was educated at the Royal School in Armagh before going to live with his uncle Carteret Leathes, MP for Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.  Carteret secured commissions in the Army for his nephews and Leathes was appointed a Lieutenant in the 14th Regiment of Foot on 31 October 1751.  In April 1755 the Admiralty decided that 50 new companies of marines needed to be raised, and appointed Leathes as one of the new Captains in command of them.  The 50 companies were divided into 3 divisions, and Leathes was assigned to the division based at Chatham in Kent.

Appointment of Leathes Johnston as Captain to a Company of Marines  -  The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, Volume 25, April 1755

Alongside his army commission, Leathes also served as a Gentleman Usher Quarterly Waiter to King George II, being appointed on 21 November 1753.

According to the memoirs of his nephew John Johnston ‘Leathes married Mary, the daughter of the late Sir Benjamin Bloomfield’ and the couple had at least six children before Mary died in around 1768/9.

In early 1770 Leathes Johnston applied to the East India Company for a position as a Captain in their Army.  On 28 March 1770 his appointment as a Captain was announced by the Court of Directors, and on 30 March 1770 he was sworn in as a Captain of Infantry for Bombay.

Appointment of Leathes Johnston as Captain in the Bombay Army by the East India Company Court of Directors 28 March 1770 - IOR/B/85 p.494

Prior to departing for Bombay, Leathes was married for a second time on 10 May 1770 to Miss Maria Branch at St Martin in the Fields, London.

It seems that Leathes departed for Bombay without his wife, as on 5 September 1770 Maria petitioned the Company to be permitted to travel to Bombay and join her husband, which was granted (although the Company mistakenly records her name as Mrs Ann Johnston).  The couple had a son Thomas who was baptised in Darenth, Kent, in October 1770, and the birth of Leathes’ youngest son may well have been the reason Maria could not travel to Bombay with her husband and had to delay her journey until later in 1770.

Leathes Johnston died in Bombay on 20 May 1771 where as well as serving as a Captain of Infantry he was also Town Major.

His widow Maria, on returning to England in 1773, applied to the East India Company’s Lord Clive Fund for pension which she received until Christmas 1783.

Leathes’ eldest son William followed him into the King’s Army, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and serving in the West Indies; his youngest son Thomas became a priest and was Rector of Broughton in Huntingdonshire.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading:
IOR/B/85, 28 & 30 Mar 1770 – East India Company Court Minutes: Appointment of Leathes Johnston as a Captain in the East India Company’s Service.
IOR/B/86, 5 Sep 1770 – East India Company Court Minutes: application of Mrs Maria Johnston to travel to Bombay to be with her husband.
IOR/L/AG/23/2/3, p.68 – Records of the Committee for the Management and Application of the Military (Lord Clive) Fund: admission of Mrs Maria Johnston to a pension on the Lord Clive Fund, 11 Aug 1773.
250.e.1-26 The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, Volume 25, April 1755
L.R.252.b.10. The history and antiquities of the County of Suffolk, Volume 2, Alfred Ingo Suckling, London: 1846-8
Historical Collections. Collections and Researches: Vol. XXXII, 1876, via Google Books 

In October 2024, an ambitious project to catalogue the Maggs Bros. Ltd. archive began. Funded as part of the Unlocking Hidden Collections initiative, the goal is to re-house and catalogue the archive to file level for the first time.

This archive contains the business records of Maggs Bros. Ltd., an antiquarian bookseller founded in the 1850s.  The contents of the collection span over half a century from 1914 to 1979.  The extensive correspondence is a time capsule into the past offering a glimpse into the inner workings of rare books and manuscript sellers.

Letters from Maggs' Continental Correspondence files for 1921

Still operating today from locations in central London, Maggs’ business stretches globally, having built close relationships with other prominent antique booksellers and collectors over many years.  Highlights of the correspondence include letters detailing Maggs’ negotiation on behalf of the British Museum with the Russian government to purchase the Codex Sinaiticus.  The Sinaiticus is one of the earliest Bible manuscripts in the world dated from 350 AD.  The British Museum paid £100,000 for the manuscript in 1932, half of which was funded by public donations.  Arriving in London in 1933, it held the record for the most expensive book sale in recorded history, costing an equivalent of £6,000,000 in 2024.  A digitised version of the Codex Sinaiticus manuscript can be seen here.

The Maggs archive was originally organised into four distinct categories and is catalogued to reflect and preserve this order.

• Correspondence (subdivided into English, American, Continental correspondence, carbon copies of outgoing letters and Correspondence 1932-1978)
• Financial Papers
• Paris House (relating to the business of Maggs Bros. branch in Paris, France)
• Miscellanea

Cash book for 1937, part of the Financial Papers

The correspondence series reveals the loyal customer base of private collectors and public institutions that conducted business with Maggs Bros.  Maggs held the Royal warrant of King George V, King Edward VIII, and King Alfonso XIII of Spain.  They also provided books, autographs and manuscripts to several other royal households, developing a particularly close relationship with King Manuel II of Portugal (1889-1932), whom Maggs aided in publishing a book written by the King about the various rare manuscripts and books that Maggs helped him collect.  King Manuel II’s collection is now held at the Ducal Palace Library at Fundação da Casa de Bragança.

The Ducal Palace Library at Fundação da Casa de Bragança. Livros antigos portuguezes 1489-1600 da bibliotheca de Sua Majestade Fidelissima / descriptos por S.M. el-rei D. Manuel. p.42 Source: Wellcome Collection. 

Other notable past clients encountered in the correspondence series are automobile magnate Henry Ford (1863-1947), escapologist and illusionist Harry Houdini (1874-1926), English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) and historian and former chief spy for British Army Intelligence C.R. Boxer (1904-2000).  The correspondence series also contains many letters to and from the forger and book collector and T.J. Wise (1859-1937), owner of the Ashley Library, whose books and manuscripts are now held at the British Library.

This blog post marks the project’s halfway point and the completion of cataloguing of the Continental Correspondence (1914-1832) and Carbon Copies files (1924-1932).  Cataloguing of the correspondence for the period 1932-1978, of the financial papers, Paris house files and miscellanea remains ongoing.

Nathan Silver
Modern Archives and Manuscript Cataloguer

Further reading:
A catalogue of Maggs catalogues 1918-1968 (London: Maggs, 1969). [BL, 3079.400000]
Clara Macedo Cabral, The last King of Portugal and Maggs : an Anglo-Portuguese alliance (Caredigon: The Gormer Press, 2015). [BL, YC.2017.b.349]
Benjamin F. Maggs, The delinquent bibliophile. Thomas James Wise and the foundation of the Ashley Library (London: 1965). [BL, 2718.cc.62]