Rottingdean. <1>
August 29th 1809.
My Dear Mr Feilding,
When my Sister <2> is christened she must be called Emma. Is mamma <3> well? this a view of the church to amuse her, with references
[illustration]
1. The Church
2. the windmill on the road to Lewes.
3 a hay stack half cut
4 Mr Ingrams barn
555 the Garden wall
6 ditto
7 the stables. 8 the mulberry tree
There are raspberry bushes, strawberries, apple trees, & all sorts of other things in the Garden but I have left them out. Tell Mamma that we have a french master & as I was sure that she would like me to learn I did not ask her. Good bye. give part of my love to Mamma & Caro <4> & little No-name & Betty <5> & take the rest yourself.
I am votre tres affectionats fils <6>
W. H. F. Talbot
A N
Notes:
1. Rottingdean, East Sussex, 4 mi SE of Brighton: WHFT attended school there from 1808–1811.
2. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
3. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.
4. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
5. Elizabeth Vickery ‘Betty’, WHFT’s governess. When she died in autumn 1835, WHFT paid to have a gravestone placed at Cutcombe, Somerset, inscribed: 'Erected to the Memory of Elizbth Vickery his kind & faithful nurse by Henry Fox Talbot of Lacock Abbey in the country of Wilts Esqre'; the stone's inscription is still readable - See Doc. No: 03205.
6. Your very affectionate son.