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Document number: 03819
Date: 27 Feb 1839
Dating: 1839 confirmed by reference to photogenic drawing
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: FEILDING Elisabeth Theresa, née Fox Strangways
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA39-15
Last updated: 21st December 2010

Brighton
27 Feb.y

My Dear Henry

I am charmed to hear of my third little Grand daughter & of Constance’s <1> safety which I hope to witness soon as I shall be in town Saturday Pray come & see us that Evening. I was quite surprized at your making the secret of the Photogenic Drawing <2> known, it precludes entirely all chance of your making your fortune by selling it as M. Daguerre <3> intended or getting a patent. How mad he must be now you have made it public that he did not accept the Emperor of Russia’s <4> handsome offer?

At any rate your name will be disseminated over Europe, & M. Daguerre has done more for your ambition than your own countrymen. It has already been compared to the Young & Champollion controversy. <5>

Bimbo <6> has already found a wife husband for the jungling he says he shall marry Ela <7> & give the little one to his brother. Horatia <8> proposes her name should be Iodine in honor of your discovery, it would be pretty & might be still more softened into Ioline. Matilda <9> has taken a warm interest in your successes which shows she is more au courant <10> than I thought she was. She thinks Ela quite beautiful & only hopes she may grow up half as pretty

Affy Yrs
EF


Notes:

1. Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter, and Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.

2. See Doc. No: 03779.

3. Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851), French artist, showman & inventor.

4. Tsar Nicholas I (1796–1855), Russian Emperor (1825–1855).

5. Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832), historian, linguist, founder of scientific Egyptology and decipherer of hieroglyphics and Thomas Young (1773–1829), English physicist who attempted to decipher the Rosetta Stone. There was a early controversy about not crediting Young for his earlier discoveries: Young had established that foreign names had to be represented phonetically.

6. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’.

7. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter.

8. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.

9. Matilda Feilding (1775-1849), WHFT's 'aunt' - sister of Charles Feilding, his stepfather.

10. Up to date.