PAGE, Sir Thomas Hyde.

Considerations upon the state of Dover-Harbour, with its relative consequence to the navy of Great Britain. Dedicated to the several departments of the Admiralty, Ordnance, Cinque Ports, Commissioners of Dover-Harbour, and inhabitants in general of the town and port of Dover . . . To which is prefixed, a letter addressed to the Military Association for the defence of the town and harbour of Dover.

Canterbury, printed for the author by Simmons & Kirkby, 1784. 4to (255 x 215 mm), pp. vi, 29, [1, blank]; a little browned; contemporary dark-green morocco, gilt; corners worn; rebacked. First edition. A description of Dover harbour, with extracts from such works as Camden’s Britannia, Lambard’s Survey of Kent and Harris’s History of Kent, reporting on the engineering improvements necessary to make it a useful haven for British ships. As the author states, ‘The great advantage that might arise from Dover Harbour to his Majesty’s ships employed in these seas, in times of war, and the necessity, as the forces of our enemies increase, of using every possible means on our part to augment the Navy of this country, cannot fail to interest every good subject in the success of all proper endeavours to improve a place capable of affording the greatest benefit to our Marine’ (p. v).Page, a distinguished Royal Engineer who had lost his leg at Bunker Hill (17 June 1775) where he had served as aide-de-camp to General Pigott, supervised the refurbishment of defences at Chatham, Tilbury, Gravesend, Sheerness, and Landguard Fort, as well as Dover. He was also responsible for organising, in 1780, the Dover Volunteers. Admitted as a fellow to the Royal Society as ‘a gentleman well versed in mechanics’ (Oxford DNB), ‘he was chief consulting engineer in the improvement of the port of Dublin, Wicklow harbour, of the inland navigation of Ireland, and of the Royal Shannon and Newry canals. He directed the repairing of the disastrous breach in the dock canal at Dublin in 1792, and was chief engineer for forming the new cut from Eau Brinck to King’s Lynn, a problem of navigation and drainage that had puzzled engineers since the time of Charles I’ (Oxford DNB). He died at Boulogne, to where he had retired for reasons of health, in June 1821.This copy with the bookplate and stamps of the Admiralty Harbour Department, dated 1847, and the inscription on the front fly-leaf ‘On the authority of Mr. Rennie Engineer, this was the property of William Chapman Esq, Engineer, the notes being in his handwriting. W. Chapman was a great scientific man devoting his energies to the construction of canals’. Chapman, a well known civil engineer, did much work on the steam engine, canal building and drainage. He also wrote an important book on cordage ‘which gave a good account of the early development of rope-making machinery’ (Oxford DNB). His voluminous library of books, maps and plans was sold by auction in April 1833. He and Rennie worked together on the construction of the Humber Dock at Hull.Skempton 1020.

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