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Document number: 614
Date: 21 Sep 1814
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: FEILDING Elisabeth Theresa, née Fox Strangways
Collection: Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Chippenham
Collection number: Lacock Abbey Deposit WRO 2664
Last updated: 16th January 2011

Sprotborough <1>
21st. September 1814

My Dear Henry

Would it not be singular if I were to become a botanist through affection? Whenever I see a plant that seems to me either rare or curious, it immediately brings you to my Mind, & I now for your sake take an interest in every plant Herb that grows, from the Cedar of Lebanon to the Hyssop on the wall: There is a most beautiful flower in bloom here in the hot house, they call it the Tyger Lily, but its more like an Iris. It is a bright scarlet & speckled like a Tyger, and remains in blow only three hours, but a fresh blossom comes out almost every day. Do you know it? - Mr Feilding <2> & Sir Joseph <3> & the two little Girls <4> went last Thursday to Pomfret<5> to see the Balloon go up, but as I have seen Mr Sadler <6> go up three times this year already, I did not go, but was satisfied with my recollections. Mr F. is gone to Burley <7> to take leave of Lord Winchilsea <8> before he goes to Marseilles where he is to spend the Winter. Lady Cecil <9> & Sir Joseph are going to Tours in Touraine. Pray tell me how Harrow <10> agrees with you & whether you remember your Aunt Mary's <11> advice about eating Meat & drinking Porter or Strong Beer, if you can get it.

I pity Christopher <12> very much, is he tolerably reconciled? Had you any adventures in the Coach between Bristol & Salisbury, or any entertaining companions? Who did you see during the Short time you were in Sackville Street? I like the Circæa lutetiana for the sake of a pretty name, Enchanter's Nightshade.

Every affyyours
Theresa <13>

Is Jane <14> as fond of Seals & Franks as ever?

W H F Talbot Esqr
Revd Dr Butler's <15>
Harrow
Middlesex
21 Sept. 1814.


Notes:

1. Sprotborough Hall, Doncaster, home of Captain Sir Joseph Copley, 3rd Baronet (1769-1838), with whom the Feildings were staying.

2. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780-1837), Royal Navy; WHFT's step-father.

3. Captain Sir Joseph Copley, 3rd Baronet (1769-1838).

4. The wording is ambiguous here; presumably she means her own daughters, Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808-1881) and Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810-1851), WHFT's half-sisters. It is possible she was refering to Elizabeth Mary and Maria, daughters of Captain Sir Joseph Copley (1769-1838), the 3rd Earl.

5. Pomfret was the Norman name for Pontefract Castle, in the Borough of Wakefield, Yorkshire, near Castleford.

6. James Sadler (1753-1828), a pioneering English balloonist, followed by his two sons; confusingly, these were both referred to in contemporary accounts as 'Sadler, jun.' On 1 August 1814, his older son, John Sadler (b. 1796), an engineer, made an ascent from St James Park, London, as part of the Grand Jubilee celebrating Nelson's victory on the Nile. In Pontefract, he took his ballon up accompanied by a Miss Thompson and rose to a height of two miles to travel fourteen miles to a landing near Tadcaster. Miss Thompson had ballooned before over Dublin with the father and also with John. She was elsewhere described as 'renowned in the Dramatic Corps' and as 'very interesting in appearance, and genteel in manner.' It was the younger son, William Windham Sadler (1796-1824), a gas engineer who most carried on the family tradition, but he was killed in a balloon accident near Blackburn on 29 September 1824. The only extensive account of this remarkable family is a chapter in John Edmund Hodgson, The History of Aeronautics in Great Britain, from the Earliest Times to the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924).

7. Burley, Stamford.

8. George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea and 4th Earl of Nottingham (1752-1826).

9. Lady Cecil Copley.

10. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811-1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.

11. Lady Mary Lucy Cole, née Strangways, first m. Talbot (1776-1855), WHFT's aunt.

12. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803-1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT's Welsh cousin.

13. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773-1846), WHFT's mother.

14. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796-1874).

15. Rev George Butler (1774-1853), Headmaster at Harrow.

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