Digital Mitford: Letter View

Letter to Mary WebbMary Elizabeth Webb | Born: 1796-04-15 in Wokingham, Berkshire, England. Died: .
Close friend and frequent correspondent of Mary Russell Mitford. Mary Webb was the daughter of James Webb. and Jane Elizabeth Ogbourn. Baptized on April 15, 1796 in Wokingham, Berkshire. Sister of Elizabeth (called Eliza) and Jane Eleanor Webb and niece of the elder Mary Webb, Aunt Mary. In Needham’s papers, he notes from the Berkshire Directorythat she lived on Broad street, presumably in Wokingham, Berkshire. She was the wife of Thomas Hawkins as she is referred to thus in probate papers of 1858 regarding the wills of her sister Eliza Webb Walter and her husband Henry Walter. Date of death unknown. Dates unknown.—scw, lmw, August 2, 1819

Edited by Lisa M. WilsonLisa M. Wilson, Managing Editor, Bibliography and Correspondence, Founding Editor, State University of New York at Potsdam
Lisa M. Wilson is Professor in the Department of English at SUNY Potsdam, where she has taught since 2005. Her areas of interest include transatlantic Romantic and Victorian era literature, particularly women’s writing and popular forms such as the Gothic novel and the literary ballad. She is also interested in book history and bibliographical studies, particularly in the study of authorship in the long nineteenth century (1780-1900). She has published in European Romantic Review, Romanticism on the Net (now RaVon), Romantic Circles, Romantic Textualities, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a monograph on Romantic-period authorship and literary celebrity. Her work on Digital Mitford thus far includes editing and coding Mitford’s Introduction to her collected Dramatic Works (1854), a critical memoir that recounts the author’s influences and experiences at Covent Garden and Drury Lane in the 1820s and 30s. It also includes researching Mitford’s publication history for the site’s working bibliography, particularly tracking the migration of Mitford’s stories from their first publication to their later reappearances in collections and periodicals. A Founding Editor of Digital Mitford, she and her teams of student research assistants have been at work since 2013 on transcribing, coding, and researching Mitford’s letters from 1817 to the early 1820s and on Mitford’s early poems, including her 22 sonnets and her long poems, Weston Grove and Antigone: A Portrait in Verse. She is currently teaching a course on digital textual editing for junior and senior undergraduates and directing undergraduate student internships for Digital Mitford. .

Sponsored by:

Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project

Penn State Erie, The Behrend College

First digital edition in TEI, date: 2018 August 2. P5.Edition made with help from photos taken by Digital Mitford editors. Digital Mitford photo files: DSCF8969.jpg, DSCF8970.jpg , .

Digital Mitford Letters: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive

Repository: Reading Central Library. Shelf mark: qB/TU/MIT Vol. 4 Horizon No.: No. 1361552

Hands other than Mitford's noted on this manuscript:

Someone, apparently other than Mitford, perhaps cataloging letters and describing them, who left grey pencil marks and numbered her letters now in the Reading Central Library's collection. This letter labelled "[2 Aug. 1819]" in the top center of the first leaf, next to Mitford's date, given as "Monday."

Our default is the Diplomatic view.
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Maintained by: Elisa E. Beshero-Bondar (eeb4 at psu.edu)

Last modified: 2024-11-21T13:37:15.734885Z

I am very sorry my own dear love to write instead of coming—but PapaGeorge Mitford, Esq., or: George Midford | Born: . Died: .
Father of Mary Rusell Mitford, George Mitford was the son of Francis Midford, surgeon, and Jane Graham. The family name is sometimes recorded as Midford. Immediate family called him by nicknames including Drum, Tod, and Dodo. He was a member of a minor branch of the Mitfords of Mitford Castle in Northumberland. Although later sources would suggest that he was a graduate of the University of Edinburgh medical school, there is no evidence that he obtained a medical degree and he did not generally refer to himself as Dr. Mitford, preferring to style himself Esq.. In 1784, he is listed in a Hampshire directory as surgeon (medicine) of Alresford. His father and grandfather worked as apothecary-surgeons and it seems likely that he served a medical apprenticeship with family members.
He married Mary Russell on October 17, 1785 at New Alresford, Hampshire. On the marriage allegation papers, both gave their addresses as Old Alresford; they later came to live at Broad Street in New Alresford. Their only child to live to adulthood, Mary Russell Mitford, was born two years later on December 16, 1787 at New Alresford, Hampshire. He assisted Mitford's literary career by representing her interests in London and elsewhere with theater owners and publishers. He was active in Whig politics and later served as a local magistrate. He coursed greyhounds with his friend James Webb.
—lmw won't bring me. All this hot weather I have been discomposed. Flagging, limp, out of curl, like a soused wig or a drenched gauze bonnet—& having in the midst of the warmth contrived to catch cold am today so heated that his Worship declares a crowded Theatre would throw me into a fever. So I must submit & rely on you for an exact account of the diversion I had anticipated with so much pleasure. Come & page 2
tell me all about it—Come very soon & send me word by PapaGeorge Mitford, Esq., or: George Midford | Born: . Died: .
Father of Mary Rusell Mitford, George Mitford was the son of Francis Midford, surgeon, and Jane Graham. The family name is sometimes recorded as Midford. Immediate family called him by nicknames including Drum, Tod, and Dodo. He was a member of a minor branch of the Mitfords of Mitford Castle in Northumberland. Although later sources would suggest that he was a graduate of the University of Edinburgh medical school, there is no evidence that he obtained a medical degree and he did not generally refer to himself as Dr. Mitford, preferring to style himself Esq.. In 1784, he is listed in a Hampshire directory as surgeon (medicine) of Alresford. His father and grandfather worked as apothecary-surgeons and it seems likely that he served a medical apprenticeship with family members.
He married Mary Russell on October 17, 1785 at New Alresford, Hampshire. On the marriage allegation papers, both gave their addresses as Old Alresford; they later came to live at Broad Street in New Alresford. Their only child to live to adulthood, Mary Russell Mitford, was born two years later on December 16, 1787 at New Alresford, Hampshire. He assisted Mitford's literary career by representing her interests in London and elsewhere with theater owners and publishers. He was active in Whig politics and later served as a local magistrate. He coursed greyhounds with his friend James Webb.
—lmw when. I dare say this indisposition (is that not the lady-like word?) will have vanished by tomorrow or the next day—Do come >my dear loves very very soon. Come both of you.

The chief purport of my writing was to say from MamaMary Russell Mitford, or: Mrs. Mitford | Born: 1750 in Ashe, Hampshire, England. Died: 1830-01-02 in Three Mile Cross, parish of Shinfield, Berkshire, England.
Mary Russell was the youngest child of the Rev. Dr. Richard Russell and his second wife, Mary Dicker; she was born about 1750 in Ashe, Hampshire. (Her birth date is as yet unverified; period sources indicate that she was ten years older than her husband George, born in 1760.) Through the Russells, she was a distant relation of the Dukes of Bedford (sixth creation, 1694). She had two siblings, Charles William and Frances; both predeceased her and their parents, which resulted in Mary Russell inheriting her family’s entire estate upon her mother’s death in 1785. Her father’s rectory in Ashe was only a short distance from Steventon, and so she was acquainted with the young Jane Austen. She married George Mitford or Midford on October 17, 1785 at New Alresford, Hampshire. On the marriage allegation papers, both gave their addresses as Old Alresford. Their only daughter, Mary Russell Mitford, was born two years later on December 16, 1787 at New Alresford, Hampshire. Mary Russell died on January 2, 1830 at Three Mile Cross in the parish of Shinfield, Berkshire. Her obituary in the 1830 New Monthly Magazine gives New Year’s day as the date of her death.—ajc, lmw
& from all that the Ducks were the finest ever eaten, &, the attention prettier than anything—But you should not have done it my page 3
>dear loves. Don't we in person eat twenty Ducks a year & fifty Chickens at dear WokinghamWokingham, Berkshire, England | Wokingham | Berkshire | England | 51.410457 -0.8338610000000699 A market town in south east England in Berkshire, near Reading. The Mitfords sometimes travelled to Wokingham on their way to London, or to visit the home of their friends, the Webbs.—lmw, err? To say nothing of bacon hams & butchers meat?—If we sent you anything it should be something monstrous a [del: .]whole mammoth or a whale.