The Vesey Club in Switzerland – Some Scattered Recollections of the Vesey Club Tour in Switzerland and Italy, September 1892 – A Souvenir – Henry Sturmey, with original photographs by Sir Benjamin Stone – Privately Printed, c.1893

A highly attractive privately printed late-Victorian travel souvenir, produced for members of the Vesey Club following their tour through Switzerland and Italy in September 1892. Written by Henry Sturmey and illustrated with original tipped-in photographs by Sir Benjamin Stone, this is a notably elegant and uncommon survival of elite Victorian club culture, continental travel, amateur scholarship and early documentary photography.

The Vesey Club was founded in Sutton Coldfield in 1888 as a literary and scientific society with a deliberately selective membership. Its members included prominent civic, intellectual and scientific figures, and the Club’s activities reflected the late nineteenth-century enthusiasm for self-improvement, travel, natural history, photography, literature and public culture.

The present volume records one of the Club’s continental excursions in humorous verse, accompanied by mounted photographic illustrations. These include group portraits of the travelling party, alpine scenes, and Swiss views, including the Matterhorn. The photographs are especially important: they are original tipped-in images rather than later printed reproductions, giving the book the character of a privately produced photographic album as well as a literary souvenir.

The photographic association is a major point of interest. Sir Benjamin Stone was one of the most important British documentary photographers of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. A Birmingham industrialist, politician and antiquarian, he became celebrated for his systematic photographic recording of customs, ceremonies, architecture, portraits and public life. His work is now represented in major institutional collections and remains an important resource for the study of late Victorian Britain. Here, his photographs preserve not state occasions or formal civic ceremonies, but a more informal world of travel, sociability and cultivated leisure.

The authorship is also significant. Henry Sturmey was a pioneering figure in cycling and motoring journalism and is best remembered for his association with the Sturmey-Archer three-speed hub gear. His presence here places the book within the culture of mechanically minded, mobile, technically curious late-Victorian society — precisely the world from which modern cycling, motoring and organised leisure travel emerged.

The physical production is unusually fine for a privately circulated club souvenir. The book is bound in full red morocco, richly gilt, with ornate gilt borders to the upper board, gilt lettering, marbled endpapers and a binder’s ticket of C. Cooper & Co. Ltd., Birmingham. The binding is both handsome and locally significant, reflecting the Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield context from which the Vesey Club emerged.

Privately printed by Iliffe of Coventry, the volume was almost certainly produced in a small number for members of the tour and their immediate circle. Copies are therefore naturally scarce. The work is recorded commercially and bibliographically, but it is not a book likely to have circulated widely outside the original Club network.

A distinctive and desirable example of Victorian private printing, photographic travel literature and Birmingham-associated club culture, with notable connections to both Sir Benjamin Stone and Henry Sturmey.

Condition

Very good. Original full red morocco binding, richly gilt. Light rubbing and minor wear to extremities, but the binding remains bright, attractive and sound. Marbled endpapers clean and vivid. Contents very good, with original tipped-in photographs present and well preserved.

Author: Henry Sturmey
Photographs: Sir Benjamin Stone
Title: The Vesey Club in Switzerland
Full title: Some Scattered Recollections of the Vesey Club Tour in Switzerland and Italy, September 1892. A Souvenir.
Publisher: Privately printed by Iliffe, Coventry
Date: c.1893
Binding: Full gilt-decorated red morocco
Binder: C. Cooper & Co. Ltd., Birmingham
Size: 18.5 x 23.5 cm
Illustrations: Original tipped-in photographs
Condition: Very good

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