Harrow <1>
Febry 27. 1812.
My dear Mamma,
I sent Betty <2> yesterday a pound note, as my present, I hope she will get it safe, and it may be of use to her. My chilblains are very sore, and bad, I am not allowed to walk about, the doctor dresses them with cerate <3> every morning, I am in hopes they will soon be better, and then I shall be able to go up to school. Tell Aunt Mary <4> that I kept some paste till it was mouldy, the result was like this [illustration] only longer, closer together, and the stalks thinner, it wants 20 days to the holidays or 480 hours, or 28,800 minutes or 1,723,000 seconds. I am trying to make a pedigree of heathen mythology, but it is so complicated that I cannot get on, for instance Jupiter marries at least 100 people, sometimes five or six generations lower down, and the mother & daughter, are very often only different names of the same person - I am reading le Siege de la Rochelle <5> which Dr Butler <6> lent me, it is very interesting - You must tell Richard <7> that I got his letter, and have settled it all right. We are tried in a week for the Shell; <8>there are 163 boys in the School, do you think it increases, or diminishes? If you like, I will send you a list, which you can compare with the one I sent you last time, and observe the difference. You would oblige me much if you could obtain for me from Lady Ilchester <9> as she sometimes lives at Windsor, a correct list of the Eton boys, for I should very much like to see in what part of the School are Lord Hervey <10> & a good many of my Rottingdean <11> schoolfellows who went there; give my love to Mr F. <12> Aunt Mary, & my Cousins,
Yr Affte Son
W.H.F. Talbot.
Rt Honble
Lady Elisabeth Feilding
Penrice Castle
Swansea
Glamorgan
Notes:
1. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811-1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.
2. 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.
3. Waxy ointment.
4. Lady Mary Lucy Cole, née Strangways, first m. Talbot (1776-1855), WHFT's aunt.
5. Probably Stéphanie Félicité Brulart de Genis, Le Siége de la Rochelle, ou le Malheur et la conscience (London: 1808).
6. Rev George Butler (1774-1853), Headmaster at Harrow.
7. Richard, a servant.
8. The Shell was the class year group at Harrow - the exam was to determine if and how quickly WHFT could move into the Shell.
9. Caroline Leonora Fox Strangways, née Murray, Countess of Ilchester (1788-1819).
10. Frederick William Hervey, 2nd Marquess of Bristol (1800-1864), MP.
11. Rottingdean, East Sussex, 4 mi SE of Brighton: WHFT attended school there from 1808-1811.
12. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780-1837), Royal Navy; WHFT's step-father.