Harrow <1>
June 27. 1812
My dear Mamma,
I have been extremely busy lately and all my leisure time has been employed in playing at cricket or reading, so I have not yet answered your two letters - My prize was a pretty little Pindar - All the prizes I get, I will If I can, choose a classic author; - I think I shall be very happy without chemistry in the Holidays, which I long for; it only wants a month to them; Next Speechday is next Thursday July 2d - Tell me the chief things Dr Beddoes <2> warns schoolboys of. Keep the print of Laycock Abbey for me to see - Was Ld Lansdowne <3> much hurt? - At present all I can find out is that Martin and Gordon (a monitor) are going, the first to Ham Court 6 miles from Malvern<4> and the other to Worcester; they think by the coach; I will write to you my plans for going with them some other day - give the enclosed Map of Germany to Jane, <5> as a specimen of our maps at Harrow; the enclosed was done by a good map doer;*
Goodbye.
Yr Affte Son
W.H.F. Talbot
* R. Dewing: <6> between 15 and 16.
then in the under Shell <7>
Lady Elisabeth Feilding
Malvern
Worcester
Notes:
1. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811-1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.
2. Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808), Bristol physician. [See Doc. No: 00573].
3. Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780-1863), MP, WHFT's uncle.
4. Ham Court, near Upton on Severn, the residence of Rev. Joseph Martin (d. 1828); the pupil was probably his son, Joseph John Martin (d. 1873).
5. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796-1874).
6. Written in another hand.
7. The Shell was the class year group at Harrow.