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Letter to Sir William ElfordWilliam Elford, Sir, baronet
, Recorder for Plymouth, Recorder for Totnes,
Member of Parliament for Plymouth
,
Member of Parliament for Rye,
Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS),
Fellow of the Linnaean Society (FLS) | Born: 1749-08 in Kingsbridge, Devon, England. Died: 1837-11-30 in Totnes, Devon, England.
According to L’Estrange, Sir William was first a friend of
Mitford’s father, and
Mitford met him for the first time in the
spring of 1810 when he was a widower nearing the
age of 64. They carried on a lively correspondence until his death
in 1837.
Elford worked as a banker at Plymouth Bank (Elford, Tingcombe and Purchase)
in Plymouth, Devon, from its
founding in 1782. He was elected a member of
Parliament for Plymouth as a
supporter of the government and Tory William
Pitt, and served from 1796 to 1806. After his election defeat
in Plymouth in 1806, he was elected member of Parliament for Rye and served
from July 1807 until his resignation in July 1808. For his service in
Parliament as a supporter of Pitt, he was made a baronet in 1800. After his
son Jonathan came of age, he tried to
secure a stable government post for him but never succeeded. Mayor of
Plymouth in 1796 and Recorder for Plymouth from 1797 to 1833, he was also
Recorder for Totnes from 1832 to 1834. Sir William served as an officer in
the South Devon militia from 1788, eventually attaining the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel; the unit saw active service in Ireland during the Peninsular Wars. Sir
William was a talented amateur painter in oils and watercolors
who exhibited at the Royal Society from 1774 to 1837; he
exhibited still lifes and portraits but preferred landscapes. He was elected
to the Royal Society Academy in 1790. He was also a
talented amateur naturalist and was elected to the Royal Linnaean
Society in 1790; late in life, he published his findings on an
alternative to yeast.
He
married his first wife, Mary Davies
of Plympton, on January 20, 1776 and they had
one son, Jonathan, and two daughters,
Grace Chard and Elizabeth. After the death of his
first wife, he married Elizabeth Hall
Walrond, widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Maine Swete
Walrond of the Coldstream Guards.
His
only son Jonathan died in 1823, leaving him without an heir.
--#ebb #lmw, April 25, 1823.
Edited by Elizabeth RaisanenMelissa Klamer.
Sponsored by:- Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project
- University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg
First digital edition in TEI, date: 11 August 2014. P5. . IMG_0196.JPG, IMG_0195.JPG, IMG_0194.JPG, IMG_0199.JPG, IMG_0198.JPG, IMG_0197.JPG, IMG_0193.JPG, IMG_0192.JPG, IMG_0191.JPG, IMG_0190.JPG, IMG_0189.JPG, IMG_0188.JPG, IMG_0187.JPG, IMG_0186.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford7c#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford7b#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford6c#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford7a#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford6a#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford6b#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford4c#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford4b#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford4a#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford3a#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford2b#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford2a#.JPG, 25April1823SirWilliamElford1a#.JPG, .
Published by: Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive, Greensburg, PA, USA: 2014.
Reproduced by courtesy of the The Reading Central Library.Digital Mitford Letters: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive
Repository: The Reading Central Library. Shelf mark: qB/TU/MIT Vol. 4, Horizon No.: 1361550 ff. 469
One quarto sheet of paper folded in half to form two octavo pages, which comprise pages 1-4 of the letter. The fifth page bears the end of the letter on one side, and (after being folded into four panels) exposes the address portion of the leaf on the other side. The address side of the leaf seems to have been matted, though the reverse side is fully visible in the Reading Central Library bound portolio. Address leaf lacking postmarks, bears the date "April twenty six 1823" in Mitford's hand, with "J. B. Monck Plymouth" at the bottom indicating that Monck franked this letter on Mitford's behalf. The last sheet of the letter is torn suggesting a missing round seal.Hands other than Mitford's noted on this manuscript:
- Someone, apparently other than Mitford (perhaps cataloging the letters and describing them, or marking them up while creating an earlier edition of Mitford’s letters), left grey pencil marks and numbered her letters now in the Reading Central Library's collection. The date "April 26th 1823" is written in this hand on the top left of the last leaf of the letter.
- Red crayon or thick red pencil. Probably a different hand from Mitford's that marks many of her letters, sometimes drawing diagonal lines across pages, and sometimes writing words overtop and perpendicularly across Mitford's writing. On this letter, a red diagonal line is drawn from the top left to the bottom right of pages 2, 3, and 4 of the manuscript. The red crayon also strikes out a single word on page 4 of this letter, 9 lines from the bottom on the left margin.
- Someone, apparently other than MitfordMary Russell Mitford | Born: 1787-12-16 in New Alresford, Hampshire, England. Died: 1855-01-10 in Swallowfield, Berkshire, England.
Poet, playwright, writer of prose fiction sketches, Mary Russell Mitford is, of course, the subject of our archive. Mary Russell Mitford was born on December 16, 1787 at New Alresford, Hampshire, the only child of George Mitford (or Midford) and Mary Russell. She was baptized on February 29, 1788. Much of her writing was devoted to supporting herself and her parents. She received a civil list pension in 1837. Census records from 1841 indicate that she is living with her father George, three female servants: Kerenhappuch Taylor (Mary’s ladies maid), two maids of all work, Mary Bramley and Mary Allaway, and a manservant (probably serving also as gardener), Benjamin Embury. The 1851 census lists her occupation as "authoress," and lists her as living at Three Mile Cross with Kerenhappuch Taylor (lady’s maid), Sarah Chernk (maid-of-all-work), and Samuel Swetman (gardener), after the death of her father. Mitford’s long life and prolific career ended after injuries from a carriage accident. She died on 10 January 1855 at Swallowfield, Berkshire and she is buried in Swallowfield churchyard. The executor of her will and her literary executor was the Rev. William Harness and her lady’s maid, Kerenhappuch Taylor Sweetman, was residuary legatee of her estate. --#lmw #ebb, who occasionally left notes in a spidery thin hand to explain or document details in Mitford's letters in the margins of her pages, noted in the manuscripts held at Reading Central LibraryReading Central Library The principal archive of Mary Russell Mitford’s personal papers and related documents, holding approximately 1,000 manuscripts and a nearly comprehensive collection of her publications.
The principal archive of Mary Russell Mitford’s personal papers and related documents, holding approximately 1,000 manuscripts and a nearly comprehensive collection of her publications.--. This may be William HarnessWilliam Harness | Born: 1790-03-14 in near Wickham, Hampshire. Died: 1869-11-11 in the deanery at Battle.
A lifelong friend of Mary Russell Mitford who knew her from their childhood in the 1790s, Harness launched the first major effort to collect and edit Mitford’s letters into a series of volumes, which was completed by his assistant, Alfred Guy Kingan L’Estrange a year after Harness’s death, and published as The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, Related in a Selection from her Letters to her Friends. This collection was originally intended to be six volumes, but was cut back to three by the publishers, to Harness’s distress. Harness and Byron were also friends from their schooling at Harrow, as Byron sympathized with Harness’s experience of a disabled foot, crushed in an accident in early childhood. Byron considered dedicating the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage to Harness, but refrained so as not to taint Harness’s reputation as he was taking orders as an Anglican curate. Harness admired and encouraged Mitford’s playwrighting in particular, and she commented that he was one of the few of her friends who thought she should prioritize the drama over prose. When William Macready was attacked in an anonymous Blackwood’s Magazine piece in 1825 for his demands and rudeness to Mitford over revisions to Rienzi, Macready assumed that Harness was the author of the anonymous piece, though in 1839 after many years of distance, Harness assured Macready in person that he was not the writer, though he may have shared word of the poor treatment his friend had endured. William Harness was born on March 14, 1790 in Wickham, Berkshire to John Harness, M.D. and Sarah Dredge; he was baptized at Whitchurch, Hampshire on April 13, 1790. He received his B.A. in 1812 and his M.A. in 1816 from Christ’s College, Cambridge. He served as curate at Kelmeston, Hampshire (1812) and Dorking (1814-1816). He was preacher at Trinity Chapel, Conduit Stree, London and minister and lecturer at St. Anne’s in Soho. He was Boyle lecturer in London (1822) and was curate at Hampstead from 1828 to 1844. In 1825, he published an eight-volume edition of Shakespeare, including a biography; his friends would later endow a prize in his name at Cambridge for the study of Shakespearean literature. He also authored numerous essays and reviews, some for the Quarterly Review. From 1844 to 1847 he was minister of Brompton Chapel in London. He undertook to raise the funds to build the church of All Saints, Knightsbridge, in the parish of St. Margaret’s Westminster, which opened in 1849, and became perpetual curate of that congregation. At the 1851 and 1861 censuses, he lived at 3 Hyde Park Terrace, Westminster St. Margaret, Middlesex, with his sister Mary Harness and his first cousin Jemima Harness, daughter of his uncle William. He died on November 11, 1869 while on a visit to one of his former curates in Battle, Sussex. At the time of his death he living at the same address at 3 Hyde Park Terrace; he is buried in Bath. [Sources: Duncan-Jones, Miss Mitford and Mr. Harness (1955). Lord Byron and His Times: ] --#ebb #lmw or A. G. L'EstrangeAlfred Guy Kingan L’Estrange | Born: 1832. Died: 1915.
L’Estrange was a curate working for William Harness, and assisted him with the first edition of Mary Russell Mitford’s letters until Harness’s death, at which point L’Estrange took over the editing and produced the collection of letters as the three-volume The Life of Mary Russell Mitford under his own name. [Sources: Frances Needham’s notes on Mitford’s papers and the Harness/L’Estrange edition. VIAF ] --#ebb. This annotator indicates the recipient as "Sir W. Elford" on the first page and has left a note at the bottom of page 3 that continues up the right margin. The note documents information about the proceeds Mitford received from Covent Garden TheatreTheatre Royal, Covent Garden, London, England | Covent Garden Theatre | Covent Garden | Westminster | London | England | 51.5129211 -0.12219759999993585 | A West End theater located in Covent Garden in the London borough of Westminster. One of the royal "patent theaters." The first theater on this site was opened in 1732 by John Rich, renovated by architect Henry Holland in 1792, and destroyed by fire on 20 Sept. 1808. The second theater, designed by Robert Smirke, opened on 18 Sept. 1809 and was managed by John Phillip Kemble. Because of rent increases by the Duke of Bedford, the landowner, J.P. Kemble increased ticket prices. This led to the "old price (or O.P.) riots" and the eventual lowering of ticket prices, although the proprietors proved they would lose money at those prices. The second theater was destroyed by fire on 5 March 1856. The third theater, designed by Edward Middleton Barry, opened in 1858 and remains at the center of today’s theater complex. The theater became the Royal Opera House in 1892 and the building was renovated and expanded in the 1980s and 1990s. --#lmw51.5129211 -0.12219759999993585 for her play, Julian.
I am but just returned from TownLondon_city
Capital city of England and the United Kingdom; one the oldest
cities in Western Europe. Major seaport and global trading center at the mouth
of the Thames. From 1831 to 1925, the
largest city in the world.--#lmw, whither I have been led by one of the evil consequences of dramatic Authorship--that is to say a false report--& lose not a moment in writing to you to thank you for your Zealous kindness, & to say how heartily we sympathisesympathize in all your feelings.--I have no time to tell you the story of the strange mistake which led me to LondonLondon, England | London | England |
51.5073509 -0.12775829999998223
| Capital city of England and the United Kingdom; one the oldest
cities in Western Europe. Major seaport and global trading center at the mouth
of the Thames. From 1831 to 1925, the
largest city in the world.--#lmw51.5073509 -0.12775829999998223--no heart to talk to you of plays & theatres--for my very soul is sick of them all--they mean to be kind I believe all of them--but between the lies & the quarrels & thepage 2
envy that attends [suc[Gap: 1 chars, reason: inkblot.]cess] I have fairly wished a thousand times that the Play had failed. Do not tell this--But really my soul sickens within me when I think of the turmoil & tumult which I have undergone--& am to undergo--for Charles KembleCharles Kemble will not suffer me to withdraw my Tragedy of the FoscariFoscari: A Tragedy. Mary Russell Mitford.
London
:
G. B. Whittaker
. 1826. , & threatens me with a lawsuit if I do. In the meantime I am tossed about between him & MacreadyWilliam Macready
English actor (1793-1873) Born London, died Cheltenham. Appeared at Covent
Garden and Drury Lane. Appeared in Sheridan Knowles’s William Tell (1825)
and Bulwer-Lytton’s Money (1840)
--#lmw like a cricket ball--affronting both parties, & suspected by both because I will not come to a deadly rupture with either. Only imagine what a state this is for one who values peace & quietness beyond every other blessing of life!--In the meantime they have stoptstopped JulianJulian; a Tragedy in Five Acts. Mary Russell Mitford.
London
New York:
G. B. Whittaker
W. B. Gilley
. 1823. the Play at the end of the eighth night though it was page 3
going brilliantly to brilliant houses--& [1] Miss Mitford received £ 200 for Julian from Covent Garden £ 100 cash on the 9 of May & £ 100 by bill payable on the 12 of October—#penAnnot_RCL (but this is quite between ourselves) not paid me for the third & sixth nights--To be sure I have Charles KembleCharles Kemble's personal word--& I believe him to be an honest man--but to undergo all this misery & not get my money would be terrible indeed! To crown all, Mr. HamiltonSamuel Hamilton, or:
Publisher and editor of the Lady’s
Magazine. He took over the publishing business of his father and
grandfather, both named Archibald, alongside his brother, also named Archibald.
He first appeared as the printer of the magazine in August
1799. Mitford had contributed articles to the magazine, for which
Hamilton may have neglected to pay her the total amount due, sometime in
1823.
--#bas of our Magazine has absconded above forty pounds in my debt--Oh who would be an Authoress!--The only comfort is that the Magazine can't go on without me, & that the very fuss they make ^in quarrelling over me at the Theatre proves my importance there--& so that if I survive these vexations, I may in time make something of my poor poor brains.--but I would rather serve in a shop--rather [scrub] scrub floors--rather nursepage 4
children than undergo these tremendous & interminable disputes & this unwomanly publicity.--
Well I will talk of this no more & I have nothing else to talk of--for though I have been in TownLondon_city
Capital city of England and the United Kingdom; one the oldest
cities in Western Europe. Major seaport and global trading center at the mouth
of the Thames. From 1831 to 1925, the
largest city in the world.--#lmw I have been so engrossed & absorbed by these distracting concerns that I have lost all consciousness of any thing better--I shall have something to send you in a month or two for I have been sitting for my portrait to be engraved at the desire of my Bookseller--I hope & [Gap: 1 word, reason: .][trust][2] This word is smudged, and also struck through by a later annotator in red crayon, the same hand that drew diagonal lines across many of Mitford's manuscript pages in the Reading Central LibraryReading Central Library The principal archive of Mary
Russell Mitford’s personal papers and related documents, holding
approximately 1,000 manuscripts and a nearly comprehensive collection of her
publications.
The principal archive of Mary
Russell Mitford’s personal papers and related documents, holding
approximately 1,000 manuscripts and a nearly comprehensive collection of her
publications.-- collection.—#mjk #ebb that you are all as well as you can be--say every thing to yourself & your brother & Miss ElfordGrace Chard Elford, or: Miss Elford | Born: in Plympton, Devon, England. Died: 1856-02-24 in St. Thomas, Devon, England.
Elder daughter of Sir William
Elford and Mary Davies
Elford; she was baptised at Plympton, Devon on November 11, 1781.
Her middle name, "Chard," is derived from her maternal lineage; Grace’s
maternal grandmother was born Mary Chard. Grace Elford remained unmarried and
later came to reside with her sister Elizabeth Elford Adams and her family,
according to census records. She died on February 22, 1857 at St. Thomas,
Devon.--#lmw & all who are so good as to know me ^of your family that may convey [most] of gratitude sympathy[3] It is possible that the sympathy is in reference to the recent passing of his son Jonathan. However, this is difficult to definitively prove.—#bas #ebb & true good wishes--I hope Mr. Elford continues & will continue better--Adieu my dear friend--
M.R. Mitford
ReadingReading, Berkshire, England | Reading | Berkshire | England | 51.4542645 -0.9781302999999753 | County town in Berkshire, in the Thames valley at the confluence of the Thames and the River Kennet. The town developed as a river port and in Mitford’s time served as a staging point on the Bath Road and was developing into a center of manufacturing. Mitford lived here with her parents from 1791 to 1795, on Coley Avenue in the parish of St. Mary’s and attended the Abbey School. The family returned to Reading from 1797 to about 1804, after which they relocated to Bertram House. They frequently visited Reading thereafter from their homes at nearby Bertram House, Three Mile Cross and Swallowfield. Mitford later used scenes from Reading as the basis for Belford Regis; or Sketches of a Country Town.--#lmw51.4542645 -0.9781302999999753 April twenty six 1823
Sir W. ElfordWilliam Elford, Sir, baronet , Recorder for Plymouth, Recorder for Totnes, Member of Parliament for Plymouth , Member of Parliament for Rye, Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), Fellow of the Linnaean Society (FLS) | Born: 1749-08 in Kingsbridge, Devon, England. Died: 1837-11-30 in Totnes, Devon, England.
According to L’Estrange, Sir William was first a friend of Mitford’s father, and Mitford met him for the first time in the spring of 1810 when he was a widower nearing the age of 64. They carried on a lively correspondence until his death in 1837. Elford worked as a banker at Plymouth Bank (Elford, Tingcombe and Purchase) in Plymouth, Devon, from its founding in 1782. He was elected a member of Parliament for Plymouth as a supporter of the government and Tory William Pitt, and served from 1796 to 1806. After his election defeat in Plymouth in 1806, he was elected member of Parliament for Rye and served from July 1807 until his resignation in July 1808. For his service in Parliament as a supporter of Pitt, he was made a baronet in 1800. After his son Jonathan came of age, he tried to secure a stable government post for him but never succeeded. Mayor of Plymouth in 1796 and Recorder for Plymouth from 1797 to 1833, he was also Recorder for Totnes from 1832 to 1834. Sir William served as an officer in the South Devon militia from 1788, eventually attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel; the unit saw active service in Ireland during the Peninsular Wars. Sir William was a talented amateur painter in oils and watercolors who exhibited at the Royal Society from 1774 to 1837; he exhibited still lifes and portraits but preferred landscapes. He was elected to the Royal Society Academy in 1790. He was also a talented amateur naturalist and was elected to the Royal Linnaean Society in 1790; late in life, he published his findings on an alternative to yeast. He married his first wife, Mary Davies of Plympton, on January 20, 1776 and they had one son, Jonathan, and two daughters, Grace Chard and Elizabeth. After the death of his first wife, he married Elizabeth Hall Walrond, widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Maine Swete Walrond of the Coldstream Guards. His only son Jonathan died in 1823, leaving him without an heir. --#ebb #lmw
BickhamBickham, Somerset, England | Bickham | Somerset | England | 51.163534 -3.506621999999993 | Hamlet near Plymouth, and residence of Sir William Elford, who lived there until the failure of his finances in 1825 forced him eventually to sell his family’s estate. He sold his property in Bickham in 1831 and moved to The Priory, in Totnes, Devon the house of his daughter (Elizabeth) and son-in-law.--#ebb #lmw51.163534 -3.506621999999993
J.B. MonckJohn Berkeley Monck
Member of Parliament for Reading area 1820-1830, who frequently franked Mary Russell Mitford’s letters. Mitford’s letter to Sir William Elford of 20 March 1820 about the election of Monck describes him in context with a politically active "Patriot" shoemaker, Mr. Warry, who brought him from France. Monck was the author of General Reflections on the System of the Poor Laws (1807), in which he argued for a gradual approach to abolishing the Poor Laws, and for the reform of workhouses. Francis Needham claims that it is he who is referred to in "Violeting", when the narrator thinks she sees "Mr. and Mrs. M. and dear B.". ("Dear B." would be their son, Bligh.) Dr. Webb’s research suggests that "celebrated shoemaker" is Mr. Warry, possibly Joseph Source: Francis Needham, Letter to William Roberts, 26 March 1954. Needham Papers, Reading Central Library.--#lmw #ebb #scw PlymouthPlymouth, Devonshire, England | Plymouth | Devonshire | England | 50.3754565 -4.14265649999993 | City on the coast of Devonshire. After declines in the seventeenth century, increasingly important from the late eighteenth century into the nineteenth as a seaport, site of trade and emigration to and from the Americas, and a center of shipbuilding. Birthplace of Benjamin Robert Haydon. Sir William Elford was also born nearby at Bickham. Elford worked as a banker at Plymouth Bank (Elford, Tingcombe and Purchase) in Plymouth, from its founding in 1782, and he was elected a member of Parliament for Plymouth and served from 1796 to 1806.--#ebb #lmw50.3754565 -4.14265649999993
It is very strange that I was about to request you to enclose your letter to Mr. MonckJohn Berkeley Monck
Member of Parliament for Reading area
1820-1830, who frequently franked Mary Russell Mitford’s letters. Mitford’s letter to Sir William
Elford of 20 March 1820 about the
election of Monck describes him in context with a politically active
"Patriot" shoemaker, Mr.
Warry, who brought him from France. Monck was the author of
General Reflections on the System of the Poor Laws
(1807), in which he argued for a gradual approach
to abolishing the Poor Laws, and for the reform of workhouses. Francis Needham claims that it is he who
is referred to in "Violeting", when the narrator thinks she sees "Mr. and Mrs.
M. and dear B.". ("Dear B." would be their son,
Bligh.) Dr. Webb’s research suggests that "celebrated
shoemaker" is Mr. Warry, possibly Joseph
Source:
Francis Needham, Letter to
William Roberts, 26 March 1954. Needham Papers, Reading Central
Library.--#lmw #ebb #scw who is so Kind as to give me a general permission his address is--J. B. MonckJohn Berkeley Monck
Member of Parliament for Reading area
1820-1830, who frequently franked Mary Russell Mitford’s letters. Mitford’s letter to Sir William
Elford of 20 March 1820 about the
election of Monck describes him in context with a politically active
"Patriot" shoemaker, Mr.
Warry, who brought him from France. Monck was the author of
General Reflections on the System of the Poor Laws
(1807), in which he argued for a gradual approach
to abolishing the Poor Laws, and for the reform of workhouses. Francis Needham claims that it is he who
is referred to in "Violeting", when the narrator thinks she sees "Mr. and Mrs.
M. and dear B.". ("Dear B." would be their son,
Bligh.) Dr. Webb’s research suggests that "celebrated
shoemaker" is Mr. Warry, possibly Joseph
Source:
Francis Needham, Letter to
William Roberts, 26 March 1954. Needham Papers, Reading Central
Library.--#lmw #ebb #scw Esqre M. P.
Coley Park
Reading.
Pray forgive this sad no letter! Alas the free & happy hours when I could read & think & prattle for you are past away!--Oh will they ever return! I am now chained to a desk 8, 10, 12, hours a day--at mere drudgery--all my thoughts of writing for hard money--all my correspondence on hard business--Oh pity me! Pity me! My very mind is sinking under the fatigue & the anxiety--God bless you my dear friend!--Forgive this sad letter.