A pleasing association copy of Laetitia Ford’s “much enlarged” third edition of her hand-coloured manual for lay butterfly collectors, affectionately inscribed to her friend, the physician and naturalist, co-founder and first curator of Ipswich Museum, William Barnard Clarke.
It seems likely that Laetitia Jermyn (1788–1848; Ford from 1830), the British entomologist and author-illustrator, met William Barnard Clarke (1807–1894) via Ipswich natural history circles, and perhaps, even more particularly, through her mentor and Vade Mecum’s dedicatee, Reverend William Kirby, “the father of modern entomology”. Kirby was the first President of Ipswich Museum (built just over a decade after this publication and gift inscription) and Clarke its first curator.
An apt twinning of book and inscribee, with both seeking to engage wider publics in their work: Ford sought to “blend amusement with scientific instruction” to reach lay audiences, while Ipswich Museum’s founding mission was the scientific education of working class peoples.