Letters and Papers of Thomas Pennant

Scope and Content

Letters and papers of Thomas Pennant, naturalist, traveller and writer. Pennant undertook several tours of the British Isles and Continental Europe, and travelled with John Lloyd. As well as his travel writings he published The British zoology (1769), A synopsis of quadrupeds (1771) and Arctic zoology (1784-7). Pennant was a firm friend of HLP; the two were distantly related through the maternal line, and his interest in natural history was first aroused by her father (E.A. and L.D. Bloom, vol. 2, p. 80, nn. 1-2).

The volume contains the following:

  • numbers 1(?), 3, 4(?), 7-8 are to Thomas Lloyd, mercer, Denbigh;
  • numbers 2, 9-20, 22-24 are letters to HLP;
  • numbers 5, 6 and 21 are notes to Gabriel Piozzi and HLP;
  • number 25 is a 4-page manuscript about Vasco da Gama and Alphonso Albuquerque endorsed A manuscript of the famous Mr Pennant the naturalist.
 Some of letters to HLP are concerned with negotiations over the sale, lease or exchange of lands in Tremeirchion parish that were needed for the building and maintenance of Brynbella (E.A. and L.D. Bloom, loc. cit.).