The petition was written by Thomas Wilson and signed by both petitioners. On the verso an endorsement of approval by 3 trustees, including Mr. Whitaker (i.e. Thomas Dunham Whitaker, 1759-1821), is dated June 24, 1790.

This manuscript receipt acknowledges payment of fees and bond and admits Thomas Starkie to the Honourable Society [of Lincoln's Inn] in London. It is signed and sealed by [T?] Penn, Steward, Lincoln's Inn, January 6, 1804.

The receipt was found pinned to page 208 of Robert Nowell Whitaker's copy of Francis Robert Raines' monograph, Miscellanies: being a selection from the poems and correspondence of the Rev. T. Wilson, with memoirs of the his life, published in the Chetham Society series, Remains, historical and literary, connected with the Palatine counties of Lancashire and Chester, Vol. 45 (1857). Whitaker had inserted the receipt in proximity to a letter from Thomas Starkie to Thomas Wilson printed on pages 208-210. A biographical footnote explains that Starkie was the elder son of the Rev. Thomas Starkie M.A. Vicar of Blackburn. He was a pupil of Thomas Wilson at Clitheroe Grammar School and went on to Cambridge University and a profession in law. He married a daughter of Thomas Dunham Whitaker, so Robert Nowell Whitaker was his brother-in-law.