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Document number: 12
Date: Tue 14 Dec 1841
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: TALBOT Constance, née Mundy
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 12th December 2017

Weymouth
Tuesday Decr. 14th

My dear Henry

Your letter this morning has quite decided me that it is best to go home as we had at first settled. – I have been turning it over & over in my mind, till I am perfectly satisfied that this is best – and I have just been announcing to both Bennett & Price <1> that they must prepare for an early removal to Lacock – Will you therefore be so good as to give the order for my new grate? – The very thought of this new grate fills my mind with ideas of comfort. – What shall we do about Melbury? <2> – Will you like to go there, & if so will you or shall I write to know whether they can receive us or not? – So near Christmas it may perhaps be inconvenient, but it would be very pleasant I think to be included in the Christmas party – Lady Mary & Lady Elisabeth being there –<3>

Thanks for the little book contained in your other letter.

What a stormy county meeting they seem to have had in Wiltshire! Are you not very thankful that you escaped everything of the kind! – I mean last year when you were Sheriff - <4> I am going to dine today with Col & Mrs Howard – to meet only 2 other ladies – They would take no refusal on account of want of dress &c &c –

I can make an excellent report of the children today – though Matilda complained sadly of the cold during this morning’s walk –<5> I was out with them myself & did indeed find the wind very cold, though the Sun shone brightly – Do you think you will do wisely to travel down in the night, if the cold weather lasts?

I hope you will recollect to prepare the checques [sic] by dating them in London, as I suggested. –

Your affectionate
Constance –

I write to Lady Elisabeth by this post to announce our approaching return to Lacock –

Notes:

1. Bennett, nurse and governess to WHFT’s family and Mrs Sarah Henneman, first m Price ( ca.1811–1848), housemaid at Lacock Abbey.

2. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.

3. Lady Mary Lucy Cole, née Strangways, first m. Talbot (1776–1855), WHFT’s aunt and Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.

4. WHFT was the High Sherif of Wiltshire in 1840. [See Doc. No: 04045]. At an 8 December meeting in Devizes, 200 people debated the urgent distress in Bradford (Wilts), mostly caused by the Corn Laws – there were “loud cheers and a few hisses.” In the nearby manufacturing town of Bradford, nearly half the population of 10,000 had become unemployed since the last census, and almost nobody had full employment.

5. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter; Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter and Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter.