S&SWM PR papers L2426

Post card sent to say the Genl was ill 24th Nov '99

Bartlow Station | Horseheath, | Cambridgeshire | 9.XI.1899

To Lieutenant General Pitt-Rivers F.R.S.

Dear Sir

For the last few years I have been much interested in the history of keys, & have appreciated your "Development and Distribution of Primitive Locks and Keys" to the full

Having a small collection of keys of my own, I have spent a considerable time in searching for information whereby I might classify it - now it occurs to me that the result of my efforts may be of use to others who have a similar interest in keys. Therefore I am arranging drawings of keys with authentic dates, collected from varied sources, chronologically from the Roman Period [insert] in Britain [end insert] up to the 18th century; Can you kindly give me any assistane in the way of references of keys to which an authentic date may be attached. My weakest period is, of course, from the 11th - 13th centuries, the greater part of my examples for the period have had to take from mss seals, stonework, & similar sources.

Please forgive the liberty I have taken in troubling you!

Yours very truly
(Miss) Catherine P. Parsons

Parsons' collection of keys ended up after her death at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.

Transcribed by AP for the Rethinking Pitt-Rivers project in July-August 2011