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Document number: 7300
Date: Fri 08 Oct 1858
Dating: Donati's comet / 07717 / 07719 / 07720 [HW date likely wrong]
Harold White: 9 Oct 1856
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: LLEWELYN Emma Thomasina, née Talbot
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number: envelope 20645
Collection number historic: LA56-34
Last updated: 12th January 2011

Penllergare
Friday evening

My dear Henry

I have written to Mrs Talbot <1> to tell her how very much I wish You would all come and spend a month among our colony in Glamorganshire – a fortnight with us <2> and the rest between Margam & Penrice <3> could be very happily spent I am bold to say! and You would find November pass like a sunny month! I hear you are busy experimenting <4> so I offer you a laboratory to yourself! where you might mix your bromides and iodides & nitrates & all the rest of those horrid compounds at your leisure, and when sick of them you should join Mrs Talbot & your girls, <5> who would meanwhile have been sketching with my Emma; <6> or gardening or rambling about among our nice bogs! or you should drive down with us to Caswell Bay, & see my snug “little Abbotsbury <7>” – or poke about the experiments of heating grape houses, and melon frames with waste steam, with Mr Llewelyn, <8> who is always trying to turn the waste steam to account – or you should amuse yrself at night with our great telescope with which we have been admiring the marvels of this Grand Comet! <9> then when tired of us, you should go off to see dear Penrice! and show its manifold charms to your wife & daughters! –

We are just now, going to London – that is, we go, this day week, for a fortnight, to dear Thereza <10> – should you be running up, during our stay, I do hope you would look in, at, No 112 Gloucester Terrace Hyde Park <11> or else ask at the Gt Western hotel for us – We shall not stay more than a fortnight – but and should be quite ready for you by the beginning of November – or if it should suit you better to come at Christmas time we should be very happy to receive you then, especially if you also would bring Charles <12> to make acquaintance with his cousins, who will be at Oxford, during the month of November – and you will equally find Christopher <13> in the county I believe. – Jane <14> has not yet been able to shake off the lawyers business <15> & is still in London – I fear she will have to return to Italy without coming down here.

Believe me yr ever affte
E. Llewelyn

[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esq.
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham


Notes:

1. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.

2. Penllergaer, Glamorgan, 5 mi E of Loughor: home of the Llewelyn family.

3. Margam Park, Glamorgan: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot, and Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.

4. Possibly on the process of photoglyphic engraving.

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.

6. Emma Charlotte Llewelyn (1837–1929), daughter of Emma Llewelyn and John Dillwyn Llewelyn.

7. As opposed to Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.

8. John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810–1882), Welsh photographer, JP & High Sheriff.

9. Donati’s comet was first observed 2 June 1858 by Giovanni Battista Donati (1826–1873), Italian astronomer. It is said that this comet was the first comet ever to be photographed.

10. Thereza Mary Maskelyne, née Llewelyn (1834–1926), daughter of Emma and John Dillwyn Llewelyn, m 29 June 1858, Nevil Story-Maskelyne (1823–1911), photographer, politician & scientist.

11. Not in the 1851 Postal Directory, listed as the home of Mrs George Smith in the 1856 Postal Directory.

12. Charles Henry Talbot (1842–1916), antiquary & WHFT’s only son.

13. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.

14. Jane Harriet Nicholl, née Mansel Talbot (1796–1874), WHFT’s cousin.

15. Possibly business relating to the death of her mother Lady Mary Lucy Cole, née Strangways, first m. Talbot (1776–1855), WHFT’s aunt.

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