More than 2000 books, ephemera and advertising material from the collection of John Fraser (1836-1902), Secretary of the printing and publishing department of Cope's Tobacco Company in Liverpool.
This collection includes racial prejudices in the form of offensive language and/or illustrative depictions of people. The University of Liverpool’s Special Collections and Archives are committed to addressing the legacies of slavery and colonialism as present within the collections, and supports their ongoing contextualisation as evidence of historic inequalities and racial prejudice. Please contact scastaff@liverpool.ac.uk for more information.
The books reflect Fraser's interest in Scottish literature, positivist philosophy, phrenology, bee-keeping and, particularly, tobacco; the collection also includes examples of the advertising material produced for Cope's under Fraser's direction between 1870 and 1894, as editor of their literary review Cope's Tobacco Plant (1870-1882) and the series of Smoke Room Booklets. The work of the artist John Wallace (1841-1903) and the writers James Thomson (1834-1882) and Richard Le Gallienne (1866-1947) is strongly represented.
Notable items include a rare complete set of James Hogg's The Spy (Edinburgh, 1811) and Robert Burns's Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect (Edinburgh, 1787), Kelmscott Press ephemera and James I's A Counterblaste to Tobacco (London, 1604). An obituary notice describes Fraser as "a Socialist, a Fabian, a zealous member of the Church of Humanity" (the collection includes a ticket for the opening service of the Liverpool Church of Humanity), but notes that "these extreme opinions were always held with moderation and courtesy."
On the death of John Fraser (1836-1902), the collection passed to his son John Fraser (1866-1943), who with his brother Donald (1876-1962) produced finely-printed works for the University at the Lyceum Press. In 1957 about 1500 items from the collection, including additions by the two brothers, were presented to the University by Donald Fraser. After his death in 1962, his family presented the remainder of the collection (aboiut 900 items) to the University. From 1966, material on Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was acquired to complement the Positivist holdings in the Fraser collection.
