Chief of the Drummonds in 1822

[figheadair]

Understood and thank you Rex .

Just to satisfy my own curiosity , should we assume the label was written by the person who received and sealed the specimen or by Drummond himself ?

That's a really good point and looking at the card again it looks pretty clear to me that the majority of the text is in the same hand as the date, 1822 but that the signiture appears to be a different hand. Unfortunately the HSL records of the period are woefully incomplete and it's not clear who sent the specimen but we may assume that it was the chief Peter Robert Drummond-Burrell, 2nd Baron Gwydyr, 22nd Baron Willoughby de Eresby (succeeded 1820). I can't make out the details on the seal but would assume that it was his.



It may be that the name is not in fact a signature but an descriptor added, possibly by the HSL Secretary who would have received the sample, to identify the sender, and that he got the initials wrong and used a colloquial reference rather than the full name.