ARITHMETIC SCHOOL BOOK.

4to, [23 x 19 cm], pp. [128]; original half calf over marbled boards.


William Skinner was the only son of a prosperous tea dealer and grocer, William Skinner of Long Row, a group of buildings on the north side of the Market Square in Nottingham. It was therefore expected that William junior would in time become part of the family business and so an aptitude for arithmetic was probably something of a compulsory subject for the boy. The manuscript contains chiefly short and long division, multiplication, fractions, computations with money and weights, together with exercises in calculating areas, all of which has been penned with a careful, neat and steady hand.

Born in 1844 at Rochdale, his father having soon moved his family and business to Nottingham, with William sent to a local school, the most likely candidate appearing to be the Free Grammar school in Stoney Street, just five minutes walk from Long Row. Equidistant in the other direction was the stationer George Batters, who supplied his school book and also penned for him the calligraphic title, replete with swans, doves and quills, to give some distinction to the efforts that William was to add.

All this effort, however, was for naught: William died before adulthood, the business having to pass into the partnership of Skinner & Rook to continue. Rook seems to have added the sale of wine to the business, which then continued into the twentieth century.